"Making Scotland Look Bad"

Wow, summer has come!  It lasted one day, and actually, just maybe, exceeded 70 degrees in the sun.  Today was my last busk, most likely, before the craziness of the Fringe.  And I almost didn't play.  I had theatre rehearsal, which only ended at like 2:00.  Plenty of time left in the day, but I can think of so many excuses not to busk.  The main one was that I really need to get Flaca's dance stand up and running, so that would be a good use of my afternoon.  True, but it was a gorgeous day, and I'm taking the weekend off to go traveling with my parents.

But I got a text from Tom that contained the magic words: "No death queen."  Excellent.  So I moseyed over to the Mile, where I hadn't played (except for that lame hour last Saturday) since the amazing day on Friday the 13th.

Of course, there were so many people out.  A piper, this band that contains violin and cajon that comes out often, a jazz trio with saxophone, Elaine, and Yoda!  Yoda's reputation preceded him; my theatre director Flavia had mentioned him and shown me a picture.  He is a little Yoda who levitates.  Pretttty cool.  A cast member knew how he does it and explained it, and that secret is safe with me.  It was cool seeing him live though!  Then, there was a piper at the "fountain" across from my usual pitch.  That's what I want to call it, even though it's not a fountain.  Pipers don't belong there.  Wiped out my spot.  But it was also too close to the circle pitch, which was good for me.

Tony (?) was about to start a circle show so it was likely that the piper would be moved on. I set up in my spot,  prepared to wait as long as I had to.  One last hurrah with my old pitch.  The piper was an older, skinny, white-haired gentleman who I've seen before.  I humoured the idea for a minute that he might be that other white-haired guy who hangs around, who is often with Elaine.  He was posing for photos and dancing with people at this point, without playing, so I decided to start even though he hadn't packed up.  The airspace was unoccupied, after all.

We signed languaged across the street after a few songs, and he granted me permission to keep playing.  Totally nice guy, came over to talk and said that my sound is so mellow so it fits well with the other acts, but that he is too loud.  He said, "I've seen you" in a way that made it clear that he was not that other guy.  Oh, and he liked "Paint it Black."  And so there I was, with my pitch, sun in the sky, with no scary people around!  Life was good!

Sorry, that was an extra-long and boring intro.

Wednesday, 25 July, 2012:
1. It all started with a homeless man.  I didn't fully understand his accent, how that often goes, but he commented on my student loan sign and suggested that he sit next to me and do Flaca for a cut of the money.  He insisted that he could get us a huge crowd.  No thanks!  That sign has done me no good with the not-well-off population of Edinburgh.

2. Following this man was a determined and independent little girl in a pink and white polka-dotted dress.  She came right up and picked up Flaca, thus making her dad tip without a discussion first.  I saw her soon after getting a hair wrap done; I wondered if the father had had a similar (low) level of consent for that.  Later she came by again, saw an adult pick up one of my business cards, and picked one up herself, handing it to her dad.  Cute.

3. It was so warm and sunny that I had to put sunscreen on!  As I was making this decision I was talking to Tom and a woman who used to play accordion who had lingered.  I told Tom about the accordion tan I totally rocked last year, and the woman piped up and quite seriously said, "I never had an accordion tan."  I guess her outfit wasn't skimpy enough, then.  The application, however, led me to one of my greatest occupational hazards: sunscreen hands.  My hands get so slippery!  It's especially problematic on the left side, where I'm sliding all over the place.  In Ptown I used to wear a wrist support thing that also covered my palm just to grip the instrument in instances of sunscreen and sweat.  Today, I was unprepared.  I thought about how much I, and other musicians, would benefit from special sunscreen-removing wipes that one could bring along in zir pack.  But then I realized that would be such an unhelpful invention for the rest of the world.  Why would anyone else possibly need to remove sunscreen on the go?  If you caught me chuckling to myself halfway through a song, that is why.

4.  As I was putting the sunscreen back in the bag, a man sat on the step right next to me.  "Are you joining my act?" I playfully asked him.  "I was going to sit here, if that's okay."  "Well would you mind moving down one section?  Otherwise people might expect you to dance."  And then he got mad.  "I was born here, you don't tell me where to fucking sit." "This is my fucking city."  Etc.  He did have a point.  This older man was quite put-together; nicely dressed, freshly shaven, clean hair.  But with whisky on his breath.  And an open beer can in his fancy jacket pocket.  He had one of those faces that looks familiar, like a clown or transvestite or someone, but out of costume.  I did feel bad about it; it in fact is not my place to tell him where to sit.  Getting my pitch sends me on a power trip.  He probably would have decided pretty quickly to not keep sitting there once I was playing again.  He went off in a huff.

But then...he came back, just a minute later and APOLOGIZED.  Totally unexpected.  He said I actually could tell him where to sit, and asked where I was from.  I didn't want to tell the whole truth, because of the high annoying-level of Americans abroad; I had done something annoying, and I didn't want to help that statistic.  But I can't completely tell a lie in an English-speaking country, so I said, "I was born in the United States, but now I split my time between here and Switzerland."  First place that came to mind.  He mumbled something about having been to both of those places, and said they're not bad.  Oh shit, is he going to quiz me on Switzerland?  Instead, he took my hand and said, "I feel like a giant twat," or something.  I told him the truth: that many people are twattier than him.  Pretty sure that's the first time I've used that word in its comparative form.  He introduced himself as Andrew and went on his way once again.  Strange, but I'll take it.  I decided that I can try saying I'm from Mexico; that my parents run a school there.  Easier than explaining why I'm Swiss but don't speak German, French, or Italian.

5. In the world of people-watching: a guy walked by in a suit carrying a guitar-hero guitar.  And two pairs of young women walked by, several minutes apart, one in a fancy mask and one in a fake mustache.  Same configuration both times.  Hmm.

6. Here's the main event of the day.  Actually, probably the worst interaction I've ever had while busking.  Perfect for the section of my future book about "haters," though:

An older woman stopped to listen.  I believe I was playing "I've Just Seen a Face," but I could be wrong.  She came up and asked, "Have you had any formal training on the accordion?"
"No, I haven't."
"That's what I thought."
She was smiling and said this playfully, so there were no hard feeling yet.
"What gave me away?" I asked.
Her: "Well it's quite obvious.  Wrong notes and doing the bellows wrong."
Me: "Are you an accordion player?"
Her: "No, but my husband was."
Me: "Yes, the bellows is hard to figure out on one's own, but I have had formal training on piano which has helped make the transition."
Her: "What level?"
Me: "I had ten years of lessons."
Her: "But what grade level?"
Me: "Oh, where I come from we don't have grade levels." (All music lessons here are done by grade level.)
Her: Too bad, it's the only way to learn an instrument.

She began to leave, and I thanked her for her feedback.  But then she came back.  I don't remember the wording for the next bit, but it ended with her saying generally that I don't play well.

Me: "Well you've heard very little of my playing..."
Her: "I've heard enough."  (Or maybe "I've heard all I need to hear.")  (And I wish I had the exact wording of the next bit just for optimal emotive success.  I'll put it in bold.)
"You don't play well and it makes Scotland look bad to have you standing here playing a Scottish instrument poorly.  And it's obvious that you didn't progress very far on piano."

Ouch!  She kept going on, too.  I meekly stood up for myself just enough to squeakily say, "Okay, now that's insulting," but of course after she retreated I thought of a thousand really awesome comebacks.  Namely, that the accordion is not a Scottish instrument.  And that, um, THAT guy thinks I play okay! [The aforementioned old guy who hangs out near Elaine would have to walk by at that precise moment for that to work, though.]  Maybe I should have told her the wrong notes were a result of the sunscreen (fact).  Or maybe I should have told her this is the best I can do with my permanently disabled left wrist (not completely false) and my strange dyscalculia that makes learning music challenging (extremely false).

But anyway....what the fuck?  Who gets off on insulting poor starving musicians (just ate eighteen Digestives, don't worry)?  Did she think I'd say, "Hey!  You're right!" and pack up?  Or would she have not cared if I had a nice Scottish accent?  Hey, at least she didn't mention my terrible sense of tempo, I'll call that a victory.

7.  Luckily, right on her heels came a guy who handed me a fiver and said, "I play accordion, but not as well as you."  Wow, he must be, like, INSANELY terrible then, since we all now know how badly I play.  :)

8. On a lighter note...there was a generous scattering of croissant crumbs directly at my feet.  Unsurprisingly, a bold pigeon waddled over and went to work.  I was playing right above it, yet the sound didn't scare it away.  (It was thinking, "Well, she obviously hasn't had formal training, but I'm hungry so I'll survive.")  When it became clear that it wasn't going anywhere, I tried to think of a way to involve it in the act.  I had an uncharacteristically good idea: I could play "Feed the Birds" from "Mary Poppins."  You know, the "tuppence" one.  Everyone would get it, well at least Americans and Brits, and hopefully tip for the comedic value.  The problem, however, was that the bird was directly behind my box, so no one could see it.  It just looked like I was looking straight down while improvising a song.  Ah, well.

9. I spoke with Glasgow Jimmy again, who had just come from a matinee of "The Dark Knight Rises."  He explained that he went to see it just because his son, who works as a stuntman, appears in it.  Jimmy found it to be a bore though, and wanted to leave after the first scene, in which his son appears.  But he stayed longer in case his son came up again...he ended up walking out after 120 minutes.  "20 minutes?"  "120 minutes."  "Oh, so you stayed pretty long then."  "No, the film is two hours long."  Trying to work out what that could have meant.

10.  I saw a kid that looks so familiar.  He's about 14, and I saw him three times this week.  By the third time, today, I was convinced that I know him.  I didn't talk to him, though, and wish I had.  I must have known him as a child, so I'm thinking back to younger siblings of my classmates, even former campers, but it's a puzzle.  Now I'm thinking that it was a one-time interaction, like someone on whom I waited last summer, or the like.  Drivin' me nuts!  Unfortunately I'm going away this weekend so I won't see him any more if he is just passing through town.

11.  Lastly, I spoke to a photographer.  I believe he's the one that someone recently identified to me as the "Mad Portuguese Photographer."  I led the conversation in the direction of the weather, as people do best, and we agreed that it was a magnificent day.  "It's been raining pretty much non-stop for the last three weeks!"  No, really?  I hadn't noticed!  After six months it's getting a leeetle old when people assume I just stepped off an airplane.

So it wasn't a long day, but it wasn't an uneventful day.  I'll go away tomorrow, and when I get back the city will be unrecognizable due to the influx of performers and spectators.  Here, read all about the Fringe festival.  I have a lot to do, between preparing for my theatre show, learning my choir music, getting ready for KAIHO shows, and preparing my best possible busking act!  But it's not going to happen this weekend.  This weekend is for reverting to my childish ways to play cards with my parents out in the countryside, just the way I like it.

Till next time.