I Wish Everyone Passed The Hat For Their Pay by Kirsten Anderberg
I Wish Everyone Passed The Hat For Their Pay
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Written in 2005
Street performing (or busking) is one of the most radical economic and arts systems I
have seen. It is always walking on outlaw status, it is underground culture (you cannot
get it on TV), and honestly, it takes a very bizarre character to stick to the streets long
enough to become a professional level busker. Certainly there is no viable academic route
to actually working the streets, you cannot learn how to work a crowd via reading or study
alone. One of the most genius buskers I know, Steve Clark, has a song about being a
professional busker. He says, well, if he did not end up making any money from busking, he
at least got to play music all day! Another one of my busking mentors, P.K.Dwyer, one of
Seattle's first street performers, has a song called "Alms," about street performing. It
says, "You say, you can't accept charity, you say, you wouldn't get caught doing that,
But I wish when everybody's day of work was done, we all collected our pay by having to
pass the hat." I am with P.K. on that one. For this article, I interviewed buskers about
their lives, and what makes them do the crazy shit they do.
Artis, the Spoonman, used to do a lovely performance piece on why he is a busker. He
recited a long list of good reasons to busk versus playing inside. He listed no age
limits, no minimum drinks, no cover charge, fresh air, etc. He said you get to watch the
show first, then decide what you want to pay for it, a bold move most music venues would
never risk. Andrew Pulkrabek, a 20 year old veteran busker in Seattle, said the reason
he chose the street venue was "the street doesn't hire you, and you don't have to
publicize, or hawk fancy press kits, to market yourself to it. Street performing places
you on a neutral ground where only your show and abilities as a performer count….
Although knowledge of the joy I've brought to my audiences will last long after I stop
busking, local notoriety has been the most immediately appreciable side benefit of being
a young street performer. Nothing impresses a date more than to have a complete stranger
come up to me at a bus stop, and say, "You're the bed of nails guy, right? I love your
show, dude!"
Tom Noddy, a street performer from old, said the reason he began busking was, "I was
broke, I was on the road, living on the streets and sleeping in the bushes. I wrote my
puppet plays and was offered no other venue." (Tom later ended up on the Tonight Show,
via his humble street beginnings, and now tours internationally doing bubble magic,
making square bubbles, etc.) Tom said one of the benefits he has gotten from busking is
"friends." He also added, "They didn't come looking for me. I just happened to them when
they passed by. They went on with their lives and maybe never consciously remembered me.
But we shared something, those strangers and me."
When asked where buskers began, the answers varied from the Boulder Mall, to
Berkeley, to Los Angeles, to NYC, to Seattle. When asked what a good place to busk
represents, Tom Noddy answered, "For me "the best" meant that I would meet people.
Hitchhiking was a lonely life and when I hit a town and found a spot where I wasn't
hassled, I could pull off a show and talk to people afterwards. I never made good money
at it, but I never needed much money. I had dropped out of college and so I naturally
made my way to college towns and often performed on college campuses. I made friends,
got high, met lovers, argued politics, was invited to dinners, and places to crash.
Sometimes I found rides to my next destination."
When asked about the best street act they've seen, Andrew answered, "My favorite
Northwest performer is Leif Olson - he's hilarious, talented, and has a bag of
one-liners that has amazed me for years. The best act I've seen outside of the Northwest
was probably a French Canadian stunt cyclist in Montreal - though myself and a good part
of his audience couldn't understand a word of his show, his language-transcending
charisma and personality kept us riveted for at least half an hour." Tom Noddy said,
"Tommy Roberts. An animated old man in an overcoat and wool cap who carried puppets
around in two large grocery bags with handles. He walked into busy areas and set up his
quiet little show with no stage. He charmed and entertained people with his puppets and
poetry and asked only enough money to feed the puppets a little saw dust. Then he
wandered off looking for all the world like a wino." When asked about the worst street
acts, Tom responded, "There was a guy who sat on the sidewalks with a ventriloquist
dummy and no skill at all with the art. He barked bad jokes and insults at passersby. He
became a regular and people learned to cross the street to avoid him. I just loved that
act."
When asked if they would want their kids to be professional buskers, Andrew
responded, "I think the lessons of independence that being a street performer has taught
me are valuable enough that I would want my children to experience them too, but I would
not advocate the life of a professional street performer to them. It's a life which ages
people quickly, and I've encountered more than a few weary veterans with nothing more
tangible to show for their life's work than the school buses they live in. On the other
hand, these veteran performers love what they do and don't seem like they'd be happy
doing anything else, which gives me a high level of respect for them that I could not
concede to anyone else." Tom says, "I have no kids but sure, yeah, you bet. Reaching out
to strangers with your art is one of the higher callings. It's underappreciated in a way
that is good for the soul of the person who answers the calling. That doesn't mean its
an easy life, just the opposite." Tom added, "Let me also add that my pursuit of my
place in the grander scheme led me to a form of performance that led me off of the
streets. I love what I do and I hope that I'm as willing to follow life turns when they
present themselves in the future. I stay connected to street performing but I have not
been a regular street performer for a long time now."
When asked if he is proud of being a busker, Andrew replied, "Although I've been
purveying lowbrow humor and inflicting pain on myself for years to entertain others, I
am still proud of being a street performer. Much of this comes from the feeling that I'm
doing my part to continue our age-old tradition, but at the end of a day of performing
it comes from nothing more than knowing that somewhere I have made another person's day
just a little more fun."
Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.