1. The week before I installed pulleys and attached thicker cable to the segments that went through the pulleys. But last Saturday the upper pulley chewed through that cable, and it would get stuck. I replaced it again with this even thicker cable which seemed to work smoothly, but in reality it was too thick so the rubber band had trouble pulling the mechanism back into place Also, it's a little bit stretchy which threw things off.
2. This one worked! I wanted a system for strapping the signs onto the trolley other than duct tape which was too harsh on the contact paper of the signs. So I installed velcro strips, and when they were too slippery to hold the signs in place, I glued on rubber bands to hold it in place. Voilá! They slid a little, but this will work.
3. I was worried about the bell which is mounted on a Popsicle stick. I had been using a screwdriver to remove the device (held in place by a thumb tack hammered in), but the stick was cracking more each time and I feared that it would soon snap. And so my dad found this little two-in metal thing which I attached under the stick to reinforce it. Unfortunately, moving the bell out an eighth of an inch meant that Flaca didn't hit it, rendering the day frustrating. I will have to just find a metal object to mount the bell on, or invest in a big bag of Popsicle sticks and have extras painted black and ready to go.
4. (Not photographed). I also replaced the elastic on my left foot's string. The right has thicker black elastic so it matches my shoe and doesn't stretch as much (due to the width). The left had thin white elastic (all I could find in the hardware store in Vienna) which stretched often and stood out against my shoe. It looked nice having them match, but the whole thing was too tight so Flaca's arm was far out to start with and didn't have smooth movement. It was really hard to get her to hit the bell. I think the thinner elastic works better in that case.
Luckily the linoleum I glued down stayed down!
These tweaks' failure to function was so annoying, and I really ought to have bailed for my own sanity and just played accordion. But people didn't know it usually works better, and they still liked it, so I kept going. It was a short day, though, and I have my work cut out for me this week. I'll have to undo/change those adjustments and learn some new songs!
The other variable is pitches. I'm really only interested in my favorite pitch, since we proved I can't play on the other side of the street due to the incline, and around the corner is less lucrative and I have to deal with Synergy. I'm glad it's Steve that gets my spot instead of the new girls, but I'd still like to just have it myself. I arrived around 11:10 and he said he'd pack up at either 12:00 or 1:45. I decided it wasn't worth setting up somewhere else for less than an hour, so I hoped the Red Sox game would lure him into taking the earlier departure, and I sat in the sun, guarding the Synergy spot in case he didn't, until he made his decision.
Luckily he did decide to go early, so I got to take over there. He was planning on coming in Sunday as well and I decided not to do the same. I had been planning to come in early and beat the Smith girls to my spot, but it would just be aggressive and rude to come in earlier than Steve. Time to leave Northampton.
And so I played, in my favorite spot, for about two and a half hours until I couldn't take it anymore. And here's what happened:
Saturday, April 6, 2013
1. Once I knew I'd be waiting for a spot, I went over to Bruegger's for a bagel. The man working, who isn't hugely chatty or warm, acknowledged me and said, "You're off to do your monkey thing?" Cool! Close enough.
2. Then, when I was sitting in the back-up pitch eating my bagel, a man stopped to comment on my box: "There seem to be dancing pigs on your box." And so I helped him see that they are a dog and cat, and he said, "Pigs would have been cool." True.
3. A man walked by between songs and sang, "Roll out the barrels..." I told him, "I've retired that song!" and he yelled back, "I don't blame you!"
4. A guy walked by and said, "She looks lethargic today." I thought it was a serious comment, and I was happy to have someone know that she wasn't her usual self, instead of having to satisfy myself by telling people "She's not really working today!" But I think it was a joke, because he continued..."All that dancing wears you out!" I chose this as the title of today's post, because it applies to me as well. Jokes aside, Flaca was just nonfunctional, not lethargic, but I was unquestionably the latter. Even though that statement wasn't directed at me, I have to remember to always look like I'm having fun even when I'm not, as was the case today.
5. A fellow local musician stopped to talk. I had seen the middle-aged, liberal button-adorned man walk by holding his guitar before, but we had never spoken. He said he wanted to show me something, and presented a laminated paper, declaring that he had permission to play outside of one particular business whenever he wanted. He said the mayor had approved it, and it overrode the normal permit in terms of hours and rules. He could start playing at 6:00 am if he wanted! This didn't seem like good news to me. I could only see it promoting competition and tension between buskers, because that particular business is quite close to my pitch, and would wipe it out. But it turns out he was telling me about it with positive intentions, because he could get me one. He cited his background in human rights, and uses this knowledge to do such things as get his ideal busking permit. He said it's a travesty that the town charges us for permits; that they should pay US to play. I have mixed feelings about this, but I generally prefer when a city does have rules and restrictions, since I find that they're more of a boon than a bane (it's too bad my dad doesn't read my blog, since I learned the word "boon" when he played it in Scrabble yesterday). Anyway, it's nice of this man to fight for busker rights and for offering his assistance in beating the system, but this was another episode that contributed to the "time to move on" theme of the day.
6. A man said, "That was an interesting vehsion of 'Dynamite!'" in an English accent. I liked this because I already rock the irony/juxtaposition of unsophisticated Top 40 and sophisticated accordion, and the accent just added to the sophisticated side of it.
7. "Didn't the Young Rascals use one of those?" (Accordion) I don't know, did they?
8. "I love you and I love your skirt." Well, phwa, aw shucks!
9. A man stopped by and began what he was going to say to me with "I just got back from Iceland." I told him, "I could tell by your sweater" because he was totally wearing an Icelandic sweater, on which I'm an expert after agonizing over which ones to bring home for my family! Anyway, what he was saying about Iceland was that "nobody cares." I forget the relevance of this, but it must have been a busking thing. Cool story, bro.
10. I met the roommate of someone I've been hanging out with for the first time, so we agreed that we've been ships in the night since I've been over a few times when he wasn't home. He said something like "I'm always a ship in the night" except way more deep, and it struck me as the most poetic thing I'd ever heard. Too bad I didn't write it down verbatim.
As I said, I quit because I couldn't take it anymore. I decided to pack up and go right into the bank I play outside of, for the last time. I'm switching banks because my current one is a big one that supports/funds the Keystone pipeline, and local banking is good anyway. Buttttt the old one has the coin machine. I dumped my coins in for one last hurrah, and won one final prize. You see, this obnoxiously animated machine gives you the option to guess how much money you've dropped in, and if you guess within $1.99 you get a prize. I've gotten in a few times, since I'm now really good at guessing coin value based on weight, and I've won such things as chap stick, hand sanitizer, mints, etc. Today, I got a squishy baseball. Awesome.
Going to the bank also yielded a nice busker moment, since a fellow busker was waiting to use the machine after me. He's a saxophone player (the one who recently had a photo in the paper), and we haven't actually met or spoken. Ships in the night. But he looked so cool, dressed for a Saturday afternoon/evening of work, and he dumped a familiarly large pile of coins in the machine, and began to prepare his bundles of singles. Even though I was grumpy and sick of busking and in a bad bank, it was a moment of peace watching him calmly using the annoying machine to do what I had just done. We really are a big global busking family, you know?
That inspired me to exert less energy on the "time to move on" theme but rather prepare for the "summer camp" theme. By this I mean I must hone my ability to not only be fair and civil towards other buskers, but love the shit out of them. The Edinburgh Fringe was a game-changer in that regards, and I equated it with themed summer camps of my youth, and I'm going to try to bring that sentiment back even if it doesn't present itself. Buskers are so often alone, so we've got to stick together when we can.
For now, all I can do is get the act working and arrange new songs to keep my sanity the next few Saturdays. And luckily I've just gotten the wonderful news that my brother is coming up this weekend, so I have an excuse to take a weekend off! Hooray!
So, Northampton, I'll see you soon, but not for much longer. Det var det.
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