BOO! SCARY BUSKING!

Busking is scary.  Not scary, scary, but scary as in intimidating, unnerving, sort of creepy, sometimes hairy, and for a beginner busker, having tyro feelings filled with fear or dread.

A REGULAR HALLOWE'EN WORKDAY

While busking in the middle of a grocery store parking lot, Extra Foods, an older gentleman, after distributing his groceries into the back seat of his car, huffing and puffing, hobbled over to me pushing his shopping cart aiming it right at me.  “Plug this in and get the quarter back,” he said as he left the cart an inch away from my mid-section.

Then there was this other guy, in the same parking lot on the same day, who got into my face and stated I should mow his lawn for a couple bucks.  In one of my songs I have written about a bag lady in Victoria, British Columbia, who always would come up close and talk with her beer breath right into my nostrils.  This guy’s breath was way worse than hers.  “No thanks,” I replied, “I don’t do lawns.” He grimaced, shook his head, and walked away. 

While busking at Shoppers-On-Broad one sunny afternoon a panner stormed passed me and started banging on the store front window.  (A panner is street argot for a person who pans people for coin.)  When a couple of staff members came running out to make sense of the commotion, the panner pointed to me and yelled to them, “Why is he allowed here and I’m not!”

An early morning busk at Shoppers-On-Broad, another panner arrived and sat right next to my guitar case, which I always leave open on the ground behind me.  Rather than just keep an eye out because I judged him ready to steal my busk money, I packed up and left.  A potential for fisticuffs for sure if I stayed.  (Yes, I can be that shallow and territorial at times.)

One afternoon another time guitar-busking at Shoppers-On-Broad, this scruffy twenty-something man, started screaming in my face about why I was there begging busy people for money.  He kept this up until the manager came out and rescued me.

Another time in front of Shoppers-On-Broad this chic girl of emergent adulthood age, drives up onto the wide storefront patio where I am standing, revving the engine in her bigger than big half-ton truck.  First, she smiled and then she yelled.  “If any of my brothers brought their guitars here and played like you, they’d be put in jail,” she said. What?  Yikes?  Hmmm. (And she looked soooo sweet.)

I was busking in Victoria Park, central to downtown Regina, when this elder lady who was dressed to the nines asked me, “What right do you have to be allowed here.  Who gave you permission?”

Years ago, at the Regina Farmers’ Market this guy stations himself right beside me and starts shredding his guitar, which is, of course, plugged into his high-volume amp.

“Really?” I turned and said directly to his face.

“Well where should I go then?” he asked with a smirk on his face.

“Anywhere but here,” I replied.  Strangely, he immediately packed up and left.

Once there was this four-member band who set up next to me at the same Farmers’ Market.  As I glared by design at the closest member, their fiddle player, the manager of the market came over and sternly addressed them, threatening to charge a fee for each band member.  They left.

My friend, Trent, and I were busking with our banjos down in the Scarth Street Plaza when a bespectacled middle-aged chubby man dressed in a too-tight soiled suit, started pounding on his amplified Moog synthesizer within 40 feet of us, drowning out our banjos.  Trent and I changed locations.

I was busking at Value Village when this panner plunked himself down right beside me.  Within seconds the mall manager came out and gave him the boot.  “Why not him?” he asks while gesturing toward me.  “Because he was here first and he’s not just sitting and begging for money,” the manager retorted.

Shortly after this exchange, it got worse.  A guy pulls up in a van, a friend of this panner who just got booted.  This friend of his parks right beside me and cranks up the radio tunes.  Again, the manager comes out, this time his mouth fully loaded as he laced profanity toward guy in the van with the turned-up tunes.  The manager’s tirade lasted a few minutes, ending only when he threatened to call the police.

One time there was a guy who grabbed the set of bongos I had set in the grass beside me.  “I bought these as a gift to my brother,” he lied.  “I’m calling the cops right now,” I replied.  I was not lying.

A couple of guys in an American lux car roared up beside me while I was busking at a shopping mall parking lot.  It was one of those cars so big it could have had either an inboard or an outboard for a motor.  The passenger jumped out.  With his fists clenched he ran at me, and took a swing at my head.  I ducked. He missed.  I remember thinking to myself, the next swing he takes I’m gonna clock him with my guitar.  He didn’t attempt a second swing.  Instead he jumped back into the car.  And then they just drove away.

There is certainly a tinge of humor when reflecting on these scary busking moments.  Introspectively, this last anecdote I shall deliver is the funniest of all. 

I was thrumming my wares in one of my usual haunts, the parking lot at Extra Foods.  A rather scruffy young man galloped past me, and in pursuit of him, a male police officer.  However, almost immediately after passing me, the police officer stops in his tracks, turns, and runs back to me.  Pointing his finger at me, he states, “You’d better have a permit to be here and I’m coming back to check.”   And then he turned and continued his chase.

Hmmm.  Of course, I never challenged him.  I did not because he was gone before I could even respond. Factoid:  In the city of Regina there is no such process for attaining a busking permit.  Busking in Regina is totally unregulated.  If that police officer had returned like he threatened he would, I would simply have informed him that I had the store manager’s permission to be there.  Enough said.

To unwrap (an apt Hallowe’en metaphor, methinks), busking, like ghosts, can affright.  This is especially true for those who are new to the trade.  For guys like me, every busk is pretty much same ol’ same ol’.  I know, though, that for me to be complacent in any busking regard, could result in deleterious effects.  I know, that when busking, my head needs always to be on a swivel stick.  Busking can be Lotus land; busking can be Hell.

BUSKING, for me, began as a TRIAL OF TRICK OR TREAT, and now has become a ...  

QUEST FOR ADVENTURE!

HAPPY HALLOWE’EN, EVERYONE!

TWINS TODAY

 

 

SO NOW I WANT TO BE A FAMOUS WRITER. REALLY.

WARNING: The contents of this blog entry may appear to be a not-so-subtle and yet subliminal advertisement for my latest book, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH.  :)

On this very crisp Autumn day it is too cold for me to go outdoors and busk.  Instead, I am going to stay indoors and write about writing.

Throughout my adolescence I wanted to be a writer.  As an emerging adult in university I still wanted to be a writer.  As a matter of fact, I fancied myself as being quite the bard when I switched from the Engineering Faculty to the English Faculty.  But those days, the writing fates were not exceedingly kind.  After a hundred poetry submissions and nary a poem ever published, upon graduating with my English degree, I did the next best thing – I taught.  

Those who can’t do, teach.  Right?  For five years I taught English in a local high school. Then, having graduated with a master’s degree in Psychology, for 23 years I taught Psychology at our local university. But alas, my teaching career is another ship to sail in another blog entry.

And now after having joined the teachers' club and bought-the-hat, I am settling in to become not just a writer, but a famous writer.  I shall explain. 

During those years when I was stacking up the poetry rejection letters, I was still being a writer.  Not a great writer, but nonetheless, I was a writer.  I am still a writer, and I have the creds to prove it.

My book, “A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY,” was published in 1985 by the University of Toronto Guidance Centre; the royalties of which long since gotten and gone.

Also, over the years, I have had several book reviews published in the local REGINA LEADER POST.  I have had a couple of magazine articles published (WESTERN SPORTSMAN, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1985, SKIER MAGAZINE, 2006 VOLUME FIVE, ISSUE ONE), and, of course, I am writing this blog (my first entry posted March 20^th, 2010).

MY BLOG POSITION IN THE GOOGLE UNIVERSE IS ALWAYS AT THE TOP 

To continue this bluster, this past month, my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH was published by Wood Dragon Books.  I will know more about the sales of this come Christmastime.

Sure, I am a writer.  But how do I become a famous writer?  To be, or not to be, that is the question.

My QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is a very quiet science fiction book for adolescents.  I say quiet because to compare the sales of some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, J.K. Rowling (over 600 million), or Stephen King (over 400 million), or J.R.R. Tolkien (over 350 million), or Anne Rice (136 million), or CS Lewis (120 million), or Edgar Rice Burroughs (over 100 million), to my sales, I am very, very, very quiet.

Factoid:  In truth, my writing ability, my book sales, whatever my fame, CANNOT be compared to any of these aforementioned authors!  I am delusional, but not that delusional! 

Factoid: There are 600,000 to one million books published every year in the United States.  The chances of becoming a bestselling writer, according to the New York Post, is one in 62,986.

The chances of winning the Powerball, playing just one set of numbers, are one in 292,201,338.  So, the skinny of this is simple: If you never buy you never win.  If you never write, you never sell.

I never buy lottery tickets so my chances of winning the lottery are zeroth. Hmmm.  I do write so my chances of producing a bestseller are but a smidge above zeroth. To become a good writer one must write, write, write, and to get published, never mind become a bestselling author, then one must write, write, write even more.

Over the years, I have read lots about the craft of writing.  Here is what I know that all good writers have in common:  They pay attention to detail, they exercise self-discipline, and they have a strong vocabulary.

• They pay attention to detail …

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass” (Anton Chekhov).

In academia, qualitative researchers are known for what is called, thick description.  Thick description refers to a focus on detail.  As a graduate student I was a qualitative researcher.  My thesis was packed with thick description. I still write thick, but not Dostoevsky thick.

When I write I tend to hunch over my laptop, having always to my left a cup of scalding hot chocolate, a mixture of two tablespoons of 2% partly skimmed milk, two heaping tablespoons of no name hot chocolate (“made with real cocoa”), with boiling water added and stirred with a white plastic spoon. I love sipping this writing brew even though I need to continually scrape and re-stir into the liquid mixture the sticky chocolate that gathers on the inside of my brown ceramic cup with an uppercase “N” embossed on the side (an Xmas gift from my work colleague).

And oftentimes between the written words I dally, staring outside my ground office window at the people arriving to and fro next door, a dilapidated house that has been transmogrified into a pawn shop.

• They exercise self-discipline …

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter (James Michener).

Edits and re-writes, more edits, and re-writes, and dedicate either a daily block of time or a minimum word-quota to write. Much to the chagrin of my faculty advisors after giving me the green light that my thesis was polished enough for my oral defense, I re-wrote it another twelve times!  

Factoid:  And note, dear reader, that right now you are reading the sixth edit of this blog discourse.

• They have a strong vocabulary …

One reason I encourage people to blog is that the act of doing it stretches your available vocabulary and hones a new voice (Seth Godin).

There is no argot among writers, other than all the good ones share the trait of having a strong vocabulary.  Every time I write a song, a report, a blog entry, or a book, I scan and glean from Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary to add efflorescence to any of my literary endeavors.  Neil’s Mnemonic Dictionary is my creation and name’s sake, a still book in progress, for the sole purpose of enriching my vocabulary.

Here is the sample introduction page of my NEIL'S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY:

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NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY: A THOUSAND WORDS -- 

A THOUSAND PICTURES

 INTRODUCTION

 NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY is for readers seeking to enhance their vocabulary. Most everyone believes the better the vocabulary one has, the better the impression one gives.  Whether your vocabulary interest is for personal or professional usage, I can promise you that this book will improve your life in both regards.

 And just what is a mnemonic?  

 A MNEMONIC is a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists us in remembering something.  Here are some examples:

 ‘ROY G. BIV” is a mnemonic to remember the order for the colors in order of a rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

 HOMES is a mnemonic that helps us to memorize the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). 

Another mnemonic is the poem, “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November.  All the rest have thirty-one, save for February with twenty-eight days clear and twenty-nine in each leap year.” This rhyme helps us to remember how many days there are in each month.

In my early teens I took accordion lessons, and I still remember the bass clef notations:  Good Boys Do Fine Always on the lines, and All Cows Eat Grass in the spaces.  Also, I remember the bass buttons: 

Fredrick Child Gets Drunk At Every Bar!  (I like this reference to self – my middle name is Fredrick.)

 Now here are my favorite how-to-spell-a-word examples:

 “M … I … crooked letter crooked letter I …

crooked letter crooked letter ... I … PP … I.”

This mnemonic was recited many, many times by my American grandmother when she was teaching me how to spell Mississippi.

 “Chi hoowah hoowah” is a mnemonic I heard years ago while watching The Tonight Show.  One of Johnny Carson’s guests was teaching him how to spell Chihuahua.

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I do write a lot, this blog being my most perfect example.  All told, including this one to date, I have published 399 posts.  My very first post was “TIME: AN ESSAY ON THE PERCEPTION OF TIME” published March 20^th, 2010.  It seems like just yesterday when my colleague, Rick, suggested the topic!  Time.  Yes, it flies, and yes, time is just a fillip.

Speaking more about my blog, I must mention that sometimes in emotional moments of weakness, I do use this blog as a bully pulpit.  Without even looking back, I just know, for example, that on occasion I have expressed my disdain for Trump and his Republican sycophants, and the odd other gripe I might have had.

Also, speaking of my blog, I do try to offer the reading some gnomic lines now and then.  For example, in this blog entry I have presented at least three: Those who can’t do, teach (borrowed from George Bernard Shaw), To be, or not to be, that is the question (borrowed from William Shakespeare), and my very own, If you never write, you never sell.

According to Stephen King, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot.” I do like to read a lot. Coincidentally, I have just finished “On Writing” by Stephen King.  And I do like to write a lot.  Currently, I am working on my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH (working title: QUEST FOR GHOST CANYON) and editing my soon-be-completed horror fiction novella, THE VAMPIRE CLUB.

As a foreshadowing for both my sequel to QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, and forthcoming, THE VAMPIRE CLUB, and in a corny tribute to horror-fiction writer, Stephen King, I shall close with this promo pic: