A BUSKER'S RHAPSODY

A PROMO FOR MY LATEST BOOK (TO ORDER: CLICK ON MARGIN TO THE RIGHT)

From my guitar-slinger perspective, nobody looked better on stage with a guitar than Kris Kristofferson, especially when he strummed along with Johnny and Waylon and Willie of The Highwaymen. Kris exuded cool.

Factoid: My busking style is fashioned after the Kristofferson attire of a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots.  Kris had the look and that look was cool.  Whenever I go busking, I model my look after Kris.  But to look as cool as Kris takes considerable labour.  To look cool ain’t easy!

First, to start I kinda look the part.  My 6’1” body type is somewhere between ectomorph and mesomorph. But to keep this look takes a strict adherence to diet and exercise.  Early every morning I weigh myself.  Saying this is not to brag -- this is psychological issue with which I am seemingly cursed.  But I digress.  When I hit the scale and it shows above 167 pounds, I freak out.  Over course of the day (pun intended), I eat nothing.  And I continue to eat nothing until my weight is at 167 or less.  This is a fool's effort, but it works.  It works to keep me as an ectomorph.

Moving purposely toward mesomorphism, I adhere to weight training on my daily regimen.  In the summertime busking season, for me it has got to be “sun’s out, guns out.”  Ever narcissistic, my physical look is very, very necessary for looking good.  This may sound shallow, but I base my obsession on a debatable fact of the human condition.

KRIS IN CONCERT

MY KRIS-COPY SELF IN CONCERT

Being an existentialist, I believe that our only purpose for being is to procreate and continue the species.  And being narcissistic, I blame my thinking on evolutionary psychology.  To continue the species, we biologically need to mate, and to attract a mate, it helps to look good.  I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily for improvement of my physical health.  I go to the gym five times a week and lift weights not necessarily because I believe I need to be fit.  I go to the gym fives times a week and lift weights for the principal purpose of looking good. Even though I know this sounds socially shallow, this is selfishly true.  (I must stress to anyone reading this that I do not apply any form of inductive reasoning to assume my reasons for going to the gym are for those same reasons as others’.  My reason belongs only to me, me, me, and I attribute this reason to no one other than me, me, me.)

Second, I choose my costume according to what I believe are the accoutrements to my looking good.  Cap-a-pie I am usually hatless, but wear the shades and a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar if the sky is without clouds and the sun is shiny, shiny, and hot and if it is noonish between eleven o’clock and one o’clock.

(Since my bout with skin cancer a decade ago, I never overexpose my skin to the sun – I have become the shadow man over the noon hour.  When I was younger, I always worked on road crews or pipelines and in summer was always shirtless.  As a young adult I taught swimming for close to 20 years, most of the time at outdoor pools.  Teaching swimming, I was both shirtless and trouserless, garbed in just  swimming trunks and having a beach towel for a body wrap.)

Before and after those noon hours, early mornings, or early evenings, I doff the long sleeve and don a tight white T-shirt. For pants I prefer Levi 501 jeans (size 32-32), and for footwear, black or brown leather work boots.

Third, I need the skill sets for playing and presenting.  I need the technical skill set to play my guitar with enough proficiency to busk, and I need social skill set to present to potential consumers that I am a chatty and sociable kind of guy.

Strumming and singing with a guitar on a downtown public sidewalk or on a speaker’s corner in a public park takes practice, practice, practice.  And to thrum those guitar strings whilst blowing a blues harp takes even more practice.

Fortunately, I am a wordsmith and I have had the good fortune, too, of sharing many a stage with a huge assortment of fellow singer-songwriters.  Having a resume of over a hundred bar gigs, I can self-reflect upon my performance ability.  I know that my cowboy-chord guitar skills fall somewhere between that of a virtuoso and a tyro, but more towards tyro to be truthful. And as an extrovert, I know that my modus operandi has always been the ability to engage in phatic chat with anyone at anytime, extemporaneous verbal exchanges especially with those within my buskspot proximity.  Factoid:  Thus, my finger and mouth motor skills are a gift for my busker guitar strumming and gabbing. 

Busking with my twelve-string throughout redbrick communities in western Canada continues to be the nidus for my love of busking. And over the years I have also plied my art of busking outside of Canada, namely at The Dam in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), on the streets of Limerick (Ireland), in the Temple Bar in Dublin (Ireland), and also on the Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakech (Morocco). Proclaiming these faraway busking adventures with éclat, I fancy myself as really being a planetary busker!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are my memories of fellow buskers, Devon and Christian, and my favorite bag lady, Angelina, all of whom being familiar strangers back in my busking days one summer on the streets of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  

Here is the song that I wrote about my memories of these folk during that wonderful, wonderful summer!  ENJOY!

SONG A BUSKER’S RHAPSODY

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS      C   Am   F   G … (X3)                    C

VERSE 1             C  Em  F  G        C

Up the street is Devon

Who thinks he’s Bobby Dylan

Noodling on his guitar

While blowing out his blues harp

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 2             C Em F G            C

Down the street is Christian

Who thinks he’s Ravi Shankar

Chain-smoking on the corner

Plucking on his sitar

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 3             C Em F G            C

Here comes Angelina

Who thinks she’s Ginger Rogers

Dancing ‘round her Safeway cart

Her beer breath on my folk art

Um hummm

[INSTRUMENTAL CHORUS]

VERSE 4             C Em F G            C

Devon and Christian and Angelina

These folks are to me … my busker’s rhapsody (X2)

Um hummm

 

 

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH: TINTINNABULATION!

TINTINNABULATION!  Because in my world the bells are ringing!  Starting September 10^th in this very year, my novella for adolescents, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, has been a-go-go on the market!  And before I write on, my first order of business is a BIG THANK-YOU TO 

JEANNE MARTINSON OF WOOD DRAGON BOOKS!

*(For more information on access and price, just click on 

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH pictured in the side-bar to the right of this blog entry.)

Here is a thumbnail sketch of QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH:

It is the year 2113 and a series of brightblasts has resulted in four remnant groups vying for survival: the robotia, the roktillia, the pterosauria, and the humanoids.

The robotia represent what is left of the mechanical world. These robots have an incredibly high artificial intelligence and adhere to the codes of conduct as designed in their individual and collective programming. The roktillia are a mutated blend of mammal and reptile, with unique traits to help them survive both on land and in water. The pterosauria are large featherless creatures that can fly. Most of the humanoids have established themselves in close communities along the waterways. Other humanoids have become alienated and are ruthless hunters and scavengers.

Two young sailors, Kllay and Buzz, rowing an old wooden boat, The Snail, along a creek to the sea sanctuary of Black Beach. Along with their companion, Westminster, a member of the robotia, they battle against hostile humanoids, roktillia, pterosauria, and other robotia on their quest to reach Black Beach and reunite with their family.

I love this story, and even more so now as a published book!

I suppose an early cheesy marketing strategy would be for me to solicit my family and my friends and my colleagues for praise and profit. However, this is more of a strategy to dampen friends and damage the respect of colleagues. Such a strategy encourages only sycophant praise with nickel-and-penny profit.  Despite this truth, this has been my tactic to date.  (Really, I should be letting my publisher take the reins on all of this --- but I so want others within and without to recognize how literary I am, damnit! For whatever shallow reasons I suffer psychologically, I seem to crave the celebrity.)  Currently, I am creating my claque for this soon-to-be, hope-to-be money maker!  For my QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH to be a BESTSELLER, the book must have olla podrida appeal.  Hmmm … a hodgepodge readership of a million teenagers would do it! 

Ah, of course in my dreams now ... 

I see myself cavorting along the Mediterranean beaches on sunny days, 

and toiling with tireless pen in a garret, cold and dark and drear, 

in moonlit evenings.  Thank you, Robert Service, 

for this Unforgotten inspirational line!

QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH is not my first book to be published. In 1985, while in graduate studies, I wrote A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY. Back then, 38 years ago, I got my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of basking in a delusional fame when my WISHBONE was distributed to every member of the CANADIAN GUIDANCE COUNSELLORS ASSOCIATION. But that was then, this is now. Alas, all those past WISHBONE readers are either retired or dead, none of whom being potential QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH consumers.  For another 15 minutes of fame, I really do need that hodgepodge of a million teenagers mentioned above.

ONE OF MY FEW COPIES LEFT

Publisher: Guidance Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto (1985)

FACTOID:  I began writing QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH immediately after A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY was published.  QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH has been on my brain for a long, long time.

More FACTOIDS: Thirty-eight years from A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY I am still hale and hardy.  Since the time of that publication, I have kept writing mostly for fun and sometimes for profit.  For profit, I have written book reviews for the local newspaper; for profit, I have written a few magazine articles (I especially loved “VALLEY OF GHOSTS” – a scuba expedition a friend and I took); for fun and profit, I have written close to a hundred songs (I am a singer-songwriter for bar gigs and busking); and for fun I have written more than a couple hundred blog entries, the one you are reading right now being the latest sample.

MY ONLY COPY

Anyway, I have lasted this long as a writer and now at long last I am again, a contemporary published author.  And I shall resume my novel writing (for profit) with chutzpah!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

BUSKING AT THE CONEXUS ARTS CENTRE

BARON AND SELF BUSKING AT THE QUEEN CITY MARATHON

 

SETO'S CAFE: WELCOME TO THE WONDER YEARS OF MUDVILLE, SASKATCHEWAN

 

A YOUNG GUY SETO ON A TYPICAL VANGUARD DAY CIRCA 1965

WELCOME TO MUDVILLE.

In antediluvian times, forty years prior to the nationally famous flood of July 3^rd, 2000, where 14 inches of rain fell upon the village of Vanguard, the sign “WELCOME TO MUDVILLE” (in reference to "Casey At The Bat") was the greeting.  It was hand-written in mud o’er top the original sign, “WELCOME TO THE VILLAGE OF VANGUARD, the mudified magnus opus by the larrikins, Butch Stokes, Glenn Heebner, and Randy Cochrane.  At least that was the rumor.

In the years before the pavement, after even a regular rain pour, the village became so muddy that people, literally, could not drive their cars on the streets.  WELCOME TO MUDVILLE was apt.

Mingling and then seated, and then more mingling at the GUY SETO MEMORIAL in Vanguard this past summer, my mind was filled with Vanguard memories, most of which hazed, I know, by romantic nostalgia, and all of which offering sempiternal youth for all in attendance.

There were memories of life in Vanguard before GUY SETO came to town. There was JIM MINIFIE’S POOL HALL, where the cigarettes squashed in a jar on the counter sold two for a nickel.  And in the corner by the main street window, Wally the Barber would be cutting hair, bowl cuts, brush cuts, or college cuts, for $2.50

Before Guy came to Vanguard the café was owned and operated by Charlie and Sam.  Charlie was always chuckling at the front counter and silent Sam, forever cooking in the back kitchen.

Those were the days when a small bag of chips cost 5 cents, a large bag 10 cents.  Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola and Kik Cola small pops sold for 8 cents to drink in, 10 cents to take out. The large pops sold for 10 cents drink in, 12 cents to take out, and plugs of black licorice cost 2 cents apiece.

When a young Guy Seto took over the café, his first order of business was to install a counter and stools, which happened to begin 50 years of Guy Seto-Vanguard history.  Those stools!  Every day after school and all day long on weekends those stools were crowded with kids, some of their nicknames being Pretty Boy (Jimmy Burns), Smitty (Brian Smith), Hooker (Wayne Graham), Foot (Brent Hopfner), Race Car (Ross Heebner), Skin (Dennis Dyck), Shane (Dwayne Finlay), O’Toole (Mike O’Neil), and me, Wiggy Baiter Ink.  And while we were all at school, the stools were occupied by the locals, such as the tailor, the town clerk, the banker, and the farmer who happened to be in town.

GUY'S STOOLS BEING AUCTIONED

Sharon Seto was always at the front counter running the till, while her mother, May, was always quietly working in the back.  Her brother, Jimmy, too was always in the back, prepping for meals and cleaning in the kitchen.  I remember the tykes, Paul and Charlie Bay chatting it up with the customers, and I remember Julie toddling around the stools as best she could. Kris was still a baby when I left town.

From outward appearances, judging by the bicycles piled along the sidewalk and in the dirt on the north side of the building, SETO’S CAFÉ  could have been a bicycle repair shop. Later on, as my peer group aged, the cafe could have been perceived as a motorcycle gang hangout, Brent’s 40 cc Suzuki, Kim’s 50 cc Honda, three identical candy red 80 cc Suzukis, belonging to Dennis and Clark and me, and Dale’s 150 cc Honda, parked in front.  And frequently in the summer, SETO’S CAFÉ could have been perceived as a cowboy saloon, when David rode his Clydesdale horse and tethered it next to the café.

When we were not on those counter stools smoking our cigarettes, we were crammed into one or more of the wooden booths, pouring Lik-M-Aids into our 7-ups or Coca Colas, then shaking them up to the climactic releasing of the thumb and spraying the ceiling.

SETO’S CAFÉ was an all-season destination. Summertime, autumn, wintertime, and springtime, sunny days or rainy days or snowy days or stormy days, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ. For the town teenagers, SETO’S CAFÉ was the hangout.  SETO’S CAFÉ was the place to gather in our plans to go elsewhere, and the place to gather after being elsewhere.  Before we ventured to any out-of-town base-ball tournaments, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ.  After a day of swimming down at the creek, we would gather at SETO’S CAFÉ.

Not-so-strangely, reminiscent of Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day, recurring actions in the café come always to mind. Whenever I think of SETO’S CAFÉ I think of Jimmy Burns purchasing a Coca-Cola and Caramilk bar, and then punching out the song, Nashville Cats, on the jukebox. And I think of farmer, Fred, buying a round of pop for all the teenagers in the house.  I could go on and on and on.

To close, I must state that our town had always a few good citizens.  Always, there were responsible adults who were committed to enhance our community.  When I think of these good citizens, I think mostly of coaches and managers of sports teams.  I think of Emil Hopfner managing our hockey teams.  I think of Hughie Lee, Pete Heinrichs, and Billy Kehoe coaching our hockey teams.  I think of Wally (the barber) Graham coaching our baseball team.  Of all these good citizens, the legacy of GUY SETO’S fifty years of contributing to the good of the community has stood the test of time.  

Before we left Vanguard on that day of the GUY SETO memorial celebration, Brent Hopfner and I drove over to SETO FIELD, our baseball diamond, rightfully and deservedly named in his honor.

On the day of Guy's passing ... THERE WAS NO JOY IN MUDVILLE.

YOU GAVE US A WONDERFUL TEENAGE LIFE, GUY!  REST IN PEACE.

GUY'S LAST STAND

 

 

---

 

NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS: NOT FOR ME -- I'M A QUITTER

"CAPTURED" AT THE CURE (A BAR IN DOWNTOWN REGINA SK)

 NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS.  NEVER GIVE UP NEVER SURRENDER.  Hmmm.  Not for me.  I admit it. I AM A QUITTER. 

I quit scuba; I quit swimming; I quit running; I quit playing hockey; I quit playing in a band; I quit guitar busking. I gave up on all these activities.   General speaking, these statements are true, specifically speaking, these statements are lies.  I shall explain.

Generally speaking, “Some said things are true; specifically speaking these same said things can be lies” was one of my favorite lines that I often delivered to students when I was a Psychology professor at the University of Regina.

To translate this line, I will present some examples:  Most people believe that lifelong tobacco and alcohol addictions to be life shortening. Generally, this statement is true.  Smoking cigarettes and cigars have debilitating consequences, compromising both good health and longevity. Specifically, for some people, this statement is an outright lie because … everyone seems to know someone, an aunt or uncle or somebody, who drank a bottle of whiskey and smoked cigars every single day of that someone’s life.

Another example:  A regimen of physical exercise enhances one’s life.  Generally, this statement too, is true.  And this statement for some is an outright lie.  I mean, really, everyone knows someone who had a heart attack and died while running, or someone who got cancer and died even though that deceased person went to the gym for a workout every single day.

Following this same logic, all my “I quit” opening statements are both truths and lies.

I did quit scuba.  But I quit only because I came to love snorkeling better than scuba.  For those not-in-the-know, to become a certified scuba diver, one needs to become very proficient in snorkeling first.  Snorkeling is underwater swimming with a mask and fins, but no air tank attached.  To be a decent scuba diver, one needs to be technically very mentally fit, but only moderately physically fit.  To be a good snorkeler, one needs to be extremely physically fit.  And because I am always striving for fitness, I ditched the scuba tank and became a full-time snorkeler instead.  I also quit scuba to be a swimming instructor.

I did quit swimming.  As a kid I swam all summer, sometimes in nearby Lac Pelletier, oftentimes in Notekeu Creek situated a quarter mile from our town, Vanguard, Saskatchewan.  As a university undergrad I swam a mile every morning before classes (individual medley during the seven o’clock a.m. lane swim). And for just one year during my undergrad studies, I joined the university dive team.  For over a decade I was a swimming and snorkeling and spring-board diving instructor with the Regina YMCA.  I quit swimming and began long-distance running.

Running long-distance was my daily passion for years and years and years.  Rain or shine, 30 degrees below or 30 degrees above, I ran to work each weekday, and every Sunday ran 10 miles with my friend, Burt.  For 13 years straight Burt and I competed in the half-marathon at the Echo Lake Road Race.  And my very first sanctioned Saskatchewan Marathon (26 miles), I ran with Burt in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  (Burt was a very seasoned marathoner, running the Saskatchewan Marathon, the Manitoba Marathon, and the Honolulu Marathon each year.)  I even wrote my master’s thesis on long-distance running, “ONE HUNDRED DAYS AT THE HOUSE OF CONCORD: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF YOUNG OFFENDERS IN AN EXERCISE PROGRAMME.  Since Burt’s passing, gradually over the years I have become very much a fair-weather runner.  By fair-weather I do mean fair weather, running only on occasion in fall, never in winter, some in springtime, and almost every day in the summertime.

With Burt being no longer, I jettisoned my winter running for winter pond hockey.  My hockey history I love to brag is … that I played 10 years in the NHL (the “Notekeu Hockey League”).  In “that” NHL, I played Wee-Wee, Pee-Wee, Bantam, Midget, and Senior hockey for the Vanguard Eagles.  Following my “NHL” career, I played another year of competitive senior hockey for the Swift Current Indians, followed by years of recreational hockey with a team of which I was a founding member, The Regina Icemen.  And after team hockey, I just now play pond hockey. With pond hockey I’ve no commitment to team nor time – I just play whenever and however long I want.

About the time I quit organized team hockey for good, I also quit playing in bands.  Factoid:  I used to really love playing rhythm guitar in bands and doing lots of gigs with my bandmates.  However, being a bandmate means commitment and compromise.  Being a bandmate means to commit to gigs, and considerable compromise on everyone’s part to accommodate playlists and practice times.  Being a bandmate is a big deal.  I ditched being a bandmate to become a guitar busker.

For several years I played the role of being the quintessential guitar busker.  In my Bobby Dylan alterity, I traveled far and wide and dressed the part.  In my Bobby Dylan alterity, I kept my shock of sun-bleached hair messy, donned my cool white shades, white, tight t-shirts, faded blue jeans, and leather work boots.  In such garb I headed west on buskations to Calgary, Brooks, and Taber in Alberta, and Salmon Arm, Kamloops, and Ferine in British Columbia.  Elsewhere in other countries, I have traveled on buskations to Amsterdam in The Netherlands, Limerick and Dublin in Ireland, Marrakech in Morocco.  Saying this, I would be remiss not to mention that in most of these cities where I was busking with my guitar and harpoon, I was also portrait busking with my pencil and sketchpad.  And now I am seriously considering busking mostly with my pencil and sketchpad.  Not that I would ever give up guitar busking altogether but it’s time to sharpen my pencil and transition yet again.

Some MARRAKECH MEMORIES busking with my pencil:

MOHAMED (A GUITAR BUSKER I MET IN MARRAKECH)

BUSKING WITH MOHAMED'S GUITAR IN MARRAKECH

ANOTHER SOLO SURRENDER AT THE CURE

NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS.  NEVER GIVE UP NEVER SURRENDER.  There is nothing wrong with this motto.  Non Desistas Non Exieris is rah rah macho and appealing for motivating athletes and entrepreneurs.   I know it’s a real team rouser, a very stirring coach team shoutout just before every match.  Factoid:  Even I employed a similar immature soldiering metaphor at the start of every game for every soccer team I coached.  “DOUBLE DIGITS – NO PRISONERS!” (translation:  Let’s score high numbers and be aggressively relentless on offence and defense) was our collective team-member shout out, pumping our fists in the process.

Reflecting on all this, I was aggressively pushing a “might is right” and intrepid attitude, a rather adolescent mentality.  Our pre-game raffish hurrah was loud enough to bogart the other team before the staring whistle.  Actually, I was instilling in my players that the other team was an adversary, denying myself the opportunity to promote to young minds that in any sport, losing is just as important as winning, both teams, not matter the outcome, being very necessary to promote the very essence of sport.  NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS for soldiers, I’ve no quarrel.  NON DESISTAS NON EXEIRIS as a military metaphor for entrepreneurs, I’ve no quarrel.  NON DESISTAS NON EXEIRIS for me has been displacing one behavior for another, in my ever-wanting quest to develop and move on.  And I’ve no quarrel with that either.      

Marching (and strumming) in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

SUMMER SOLSTICE GIG-MATES
AT BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB
L-R TOP: DONNY AND DEREK, BARON AND SELF
L-R BOTTOM:  CARA, OLIVIA, TRENT

CHEERS TO THE REGINA FARMERS' MARKET -- MY DEUS EX MACHINA!

WARREN AND HIS BABY GIRL

 After my last blog entry, BUSKING: IT AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE, WEDNESDAY MAY 31^ST, where I expressed how disgruntled I was with guitar busking in Regina nowadays, I packed my pencil and sketchpad and headed to the Legislative Landing in WASCANA PARK, REGINA SK where the Harley riders gather.  Among these riders was Warren, and he was with his daughter, Abby (pictured above).

HARLEY DAVIDSON MOTORCYCLES AT THE LEGISLATIVE LANDING
(photo courtesy of WARREN pictured above)

And then after that I decided to make a last-ditch busking effort with my guitar and harp at the downtown REGINA FARMERS’ MARKET.

BUSKING AT THE FARMERS' MARKET

Ne’er a dull day busking there, or anywhere actually, I’ll describe just two characters who seemed to want to join me in song at the market, though neither of whom would I ever invite to do so.

First, I’ll describe “Ron.” Ron sauntered over from the midway crowd and stood in silence only inches away from me for about a minute before he started blowing his harmonica into my songs. Cap-a-pie and frowsy, he was, from top to bottom.  On his head he wore a New York Yankees baseball cap, and over his beer paunch he stretched and pulled a long-sleeve woolen. It was plus 30 degree Celsius!  For his bottom half he had on plaid short, short pants, with his socks pulled up to his knees. As he blew, he danced about flat-footed in his hiking sandals.  While I kept strumming my 12-string and blowing my blues harp.  Saying nary a word but posturing in my rather passive-aggressive nature, Ron eventually exited my space and returned to the crowd of passers-by.

And then came “Dale.”

Dale coasted out of the crowd on his bicycle, complete with an I-Pad attached to the handlebars which was connected to a speaker strapped to his back.  His sound system was blaring.  “Can you tell it’s me singing?” he asked as he rolled up right alongside me. Ron had that ‘60s hippy vibe, the stereotypical signature long unkempt hair and wild mustache.  Wearing a wrinkled and dirty white t-shirt, cut off jean-shorts, he pedaled over with flip-flops on his feet.  Again, as with the similar discomfit of Ron, in my practiced passive-aggressive manner I gave him an I-don’t-know look, as he rode back into the throng while gesticulating a thumbs-up in the process.

Immediately upon my arrival at the Farmers’ Market I paid my ten-dollar busking fee at the Information Booth.  Before securing a buskspot, I was instructed by the market personnel to get permission from all the surrounding vendors before unslinging my guitar.  As luck would have it, I secured a space between Rod, a drummer who had been a member of several former Regina bands, and singer-songwriter guitar-slinger, Bianca, who was still currently in a band.  Seeking permission to strum between these two vendors?  NO PROBLEM.

I strummed and chatted and chatted and chatted and strummed from 11:30ish until exactly 1:00 P.M. when the market closed.

FACTOID: After my last blog entry, BUSKING: IT AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE, posted Wednesday on my birthday, MAY 31^ST, where I expressed how disgruntled I was with guitar busking in Regina nowadays, I could not have guessed that the very next blog entry (this one) could take such a pleasant turn!

CHEERS TO THE REGINA FARMERS’ MARKET -- MY DEUS EX MACHINA!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

BIANCA: MY VENDOR NEIGHBOUR AT THE MARKET

ALL MY VENDOR NEIGHBOURS AT THE MARKET

 

 

 

BUSKING: IT AIN'T LIKE IT USED TO BE!

 

A VERY LONELY BUSK LAST SUNDAY

Oftentimes this season, when I am busking at SHOPPERS, I am very soon accompanied by one of a couple of panners.  In street argot, panners is short for panhandlers. 

Factoid:  At the best of times the buskerhood etiquette in Regina is boorish.  Regina especially, of all the places I have busked, has little value, or notice for busker etiquette.  In ALL places I have busked elsewhere, there is an unwritten (and sometimes even written where the busking is regulated) that buskers perform a reasonable distance of at least one block away from other buskers.  In unregulated busking Regina though, buskers will often situate themselves within a few feet of other buskers, even at the supposedly “regulated” Farmer’s Markets.

The last couple times I have set up in front of SHOPPERS ON BROAD, to strum with my 12-string and blow my blues harp, within minutes a  panhandler from the 7-Eleven across the street, has meandered over and plunked himself within 10 feet of my playing.  When this happens, I am competing with someone who is uncouth and unkempt and unnerved; I am competing with someone who sits with outstretched hand and outstretched legs partially blocking the main customer entrance of the store, begging for money.

I should also mention, too, that these 7-Eleven panners have significantly changed their behaviors in recent years.  Only a couple of seasons ago, they stood with cap-in-hand and asked for, “Spare change?” from every passer-by.  Now it seems, at least on my watch and in my space, they just plop themselves down on their butts and utter ne’er a word.  These particular panners, with whom I am familiar, just sit puppy-eyed in their grubbiness.

I am unflattering toward these panners because I am annoyed and apoplectic as I write about them.  I shall describe, with disgust, two of these marching-in-my-parade panners, Mutt and Jeff.  Before doing so, dear readers, that I know these panners likely have issues directly related to mental health and addiction that impede them from having a regular middle-class existence, complete with middle-class behaviors and protocols.  Still, I write in anger from a personal busking perspective.

I shall begin with Mutt.  Mutt has been a regular panner who has been sitting and sitting and sitting for the past few years.  Cap-a-pie, he has a shock of unkempt thick and curly hair.  He is always unshaven, and sports a big, brush moustache. Big-bellied Mutt has a very chunky thorax and continually walks with shoulders hunched, daily from the 7-Eleven to the Tim Hortons a couple blocks down the street, and then back again to the 7-Eleven. And at each of these two vendors, both of which I am a daily consumer, he sits for hours at a time, with his legs stretched across the sidewalk entrances.  When not snoozing, he is looking puppy-eyed every passer-by.  But nowadays when I start to strum at Shoppers, and if he happens to be at the 7-Eleven, he inevitably comes over to me.  I am thinking he is not attracted to the esthetics of my musicianship, rather he is attracted by the number of consumers he imagines my musicianship may draw.

His palms-out-panner-mate, Jeff, not as adventurous as Mutt, used to park himself only at the 7-Eleven.  That is, until I start strumming at Shoppers, and then he invariably wanders over.  Like Mutt, he says ne’er a word, but unlike Mutt, he stands and leans against the front glass, mouth shut and legs crossed and and palm out.  Unlike Mutt, Jeff is scare-crow gaunt, but like Jeff, silent and grubby and very intrusive into my buskspot.  And regarding Jeff in the same way I regard Mutt, I just unsling my guitar, pack up, and leave.  I have never and nor will I ever, initiate a conversation with either of them.  I know Mutt and Jeff to be fellow terrestrials, but I welcome neither interloper when they are nearing my strumming sandbox.

I do not engage with either of them because both guys are wild cards.  I imagine both to have the potential to be volatile and perhaps verbally and even physically abusive toward me.  I imagine this because a situation like the Mutt-Jeff situation happened to me at VALUE VILLAGE a couple years ago.  There at the main doors, I was busking with my guitar and harpoon when a very noticeable character sat right beside where I stood strumming, and put out a pail to catch consumer coins, my coins!  Not-so-strangely, Shawn, the mall manager, happened to be near, saw what happened, and asked my intrusive uninvited sidekick to leave, which he did.  As he rose to leave, he made a phone call.  Within minutes of this phone call, a couple of heavy-set buffoons pulled up in a battered van and parked right in front of me.  And then they hit the radio, blasting it as high in volume as possible.  I stopped busking.  People walked by shaking their heads, some even gesturing to me in an appeal to what was going on.  Again, the mall manager stepped in.  I am not sure what he said to them (the music was too loud) but when they did turn the noise down to respond I did hear: 

“So why are you letting him stay [pointing to me]?  You don’t like fags?” yelled the driver.  (I must mention that the panner who was sent away by Shawn, was wearing a dress, and had flowers in his dyed-pink hair.) 

“No! I just don’t like fags like you!” was Shawn’s response.  Finally, when Shawn threatened to call the police, they were gone.

Meanwhile back at the ranch and on this same ain’t-like-it-used-to-be-theme …

In my city last Saturday was the Cathedral Village Street Arts Festival.  For 10 consecutive years I joined the festival as a regulated busker, and rotated buskspots, as did every other busker, every two hours accordingly.  In the first few years I took my banjo.  The next few years I took my didgeridoo.  And in the latter years I thrummed my 12-string while blowing out songs on my harpoon.

This year, being only a consumer and not a busker, as I walked the strip, I noticed a significant difference about the behavior of the buskers now as compared to those here in years past. All the buskers, save for one, was plugged in, amped up and mic’d with the volume up, and selling CDs.  Being the ever purist and unplugged busker that I am, I was very surprised.

And the last thing I will write about continuing this ain’t-like-it-used-to-be theme, is that the consumers now seem not as generous as in years past.  Hmmm.  This could be because of the subsequent hardships because of COVID 19, but I am only hypothesizing.  All I know for sure is that my guitar case has fewer bills and coins than before, this based upon my empirical busker point of view.  Chatting with other buskers, these low takes are not unique to me.

All this complaining that I have expressed in writing means that I really must decide on the future of my busking with a guitar and harp.  Not that I would ever completely abandon this – after all, I do need to practice my songs for any upcoming gigs!

A GIG AT THE CURE

Alas, the rather hazed romantic nostalgia of busking on the street corners with my guitar and harp is rapidly waning. With happenings beyond my control, the trend to plug-in and sell CDs, combined with the generally reduced generosity of the current consumers, and the unwitting and psychological prompting of random parasitical provocateurs, namely Mutt and Jeff et al, I am seriously contemplating that instead of my usual practice of splitting my busking time 50-50 between strumming and drawing, my pencil and sketchpad are falling quite into favor.  For me to cash in the summertime, munificent busking days ahead, I need to change my ways.   

YEP. BUSKING. IT AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE. 

TIME TO PARK MY GUITAR AND SHARPEN MY PENCIL 

(BEGINNING TODAY)

MY BUDDY AND HIS BABY GIRL

 

BUSKER, KNOW THYSELF: THE EXISTENTIAL TOURIST

 

MY HARLEY BIKER FRIEND AT THE LEGISLATIVE LANDING

Know thyself.  And what of this ancient Greek aphorism?  Who, among us, know themselves?  Not-so-strangely, even though I exist as a singular being, I have been many selves so far in my life.  As a professed existentialist, believing that I was born without purpose into a world that makes no sense, along with everyone else wittingly or unwittingly, I have had to create many selves to survive. Furthermore, as an existentialist, I know that I am personally responsible for creating my own purpose in life.  I also know that my life purpose has not been assigned by my parents, has not been assigned by my teachers, has not been assigned by government, and has not be assigned by God.  Everything I do has been assigned by me, me, me, me.

Factoid:  I am not a dull wit; nor am I a blank slate. Despite my preamble, I know I was not born into a social vacuum.  I am deeply and continually influenced by social structures and norms.

Factoid:  Humans create structures and norms because we need something in our world to make sense.  The structures and norms we create provide us a sense of security and predictability, offering a delusional sense of control.

Familiarizing myself and being attracted to certain of these structures and norms, I can be whoever I want to be.  I am not stating that the extension of my potential is limitless, but I am stating that, for the most part, the only barrier to my succeeding in most things is me.  Yes, the only barrier to my success is me, myself, and I.

A couple of disclaimers are appropriate.  Firstly, I am 6’1” tall.  I was never destined to play in the NBA.  No matter how strong my passion for doing so, the odds of me being drafted into the NBA are zero.  Secondly, truly I am of above average intelligence.  Even so, I was never destined to be a nuclear scientist.  I have never had a passion for numbers; in academia, I have had only passions for English literature or Psychology.  There was never a moment when I imagined myself as a nuclear scientist.  My odds of being a professional in any numerical regard, including even a mathematics teacher, is the same as those for me being drafted into the NBA – zero.  These are rather simple examples that disproves that I can be anything I set my mind to.  Life choices have limits, sometimes due to physicality, sometimes due to mental ability, but always due to desirability.

As I stated a couple paragraphs ago, my potential is certainly not limitless.  But nothing so far has stopped me from being a busker.  For this I have the wherewithal.  For my physical presence, I can stand on a street corner and play guitar while blowing a harmonica.  In doing so, I project that I am tall, silver, Hollywood handsome, and in my cap-a-pie costume of messy shock of hair, white and tight-fitted t-shirts, faded jeans, and shiny black work boots.  For my psycho-social presence, along with my musicianship .. I can sit on a park bench or in some booth at a farmer’s market with my pencil and sketchpad and draw striking likeness to any person’s face.  Both making music and drawing faces are mercenary adventures with predictably lucrative returns. Having an extroverted and witty conversationalist (phatic chat being my raison d’etre), I have and continue to succeed as a busker.

Know thyself. In this blog entry I shall express to the reader that my current self is that of a busker, and how being in this role relates to existentialism.  In cheeseparing fashion, I shall parse the three fundamental tenets of existentialism, Phenomenology, Freedom, and Authenticity, connecting them to my guitar busking on the street or my pencil busking in the park.

PHENOMENOLOGY means to me, the ability to make sense of coincidence, by describing coincidence from a personal perspective.  I just happened to be hiking around Nelson, British Columbia when I noticed for the first time, guitar and accordion buskers performing on Baker Street.  After that ah hah moment, watching and listening to these performers, I knew I had the musical skills, too, to be a guitar busker.  And traveling Europe one summer, I took quite an interest in the street portrait artists, who were all in a line, drawing the tourists of Amsterdam.  In this eureka moment, I realized that any portraits I drew could easily compare with those of these Netherlands street artists.   

FREEDOM is just another word for nothing left to lose, according to singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson. Maybe this is true.  As I age with certain regrets, I am more and more realizing I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with consequence, but not necessarily regret.  Being a busker with my guitar and harpoon or with my pencil and sketchpad is the perfect example of me doing what I want.

AUTHENTICITY is to blend one’s personal narrative into behaving according to one’s imagined sense of freedom.  Authenticity is the knowing who we or who we want to be in any given moment.  Such awareness is Zen-like.  I love to tell stories.  Anyone who knows me and especially those who have ever taken one of my Psychology classes at the university (over the last 23 years) will vouch for me on this. And I love to write.  Anyone who has followed this blog over the last 20 years, I am sure, will vouch for me on this.

A person who lives only in a personal world is insane.  You know the people I am referring to.  Just yesterday walking home from work I could not help but notice a craggy and hirsute individual sitting cross-legged on the curb yelling to himself while waving his trigger finger in his own face.  He was certainly living for those moments in his personal world, and during those moments I would certainly dub him to be insane. The more people who inhabit a collectively created world, the saner it seems and the saner one becomes.  Now had there been a few more people sitting alongside him doing the same thing, I probably would have thought something else, something a little more normal to be happening.  

We attempt to make sense in response to the social reality we inhabit.  For example,  I know what it is like to live in the suburbs where the white picket fences all kind of look the same, the backyard trampolines all kind of look the same, and even the parents and kids in the neighborhood kind of all look the same.  When I lived in the suburbs, I was living in accordance to most of my middle-class ilk at the time, during that time in my life when our kids were young and in school and in sports and in … and in … and in …

But now I inhabit a world of local buskers and even more so, congregate in a world of local singer-songwriters.  Granted, I am likely double the age of most members in this strummer-thrummer world, and as delusional as this may seem, I consider myself to be a popular member.  Socially, I imagine myself to be very close to these couple dozen guitar-slingers, who not by happenchance, are oftentimes, gig-mates of mine at THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB and THE CURE, both bars situated right downtown in Regina.

Yes. I am the kinetic protagonist of my own story.  In the moments where I am actually out there on the street as a busker, projecting to my consumers and others, I am this authentic and free spirit, cap-a-pie costumed in whatever I want, drifting hither and thither to wherever I want for as long as I want.    

I KNOW I AM NOT PERFECT --

BUT IN THESE BUSKING MOMENTS I AM CREATING THE PERFECT ME!