"If I was 100 years younger I'd make a pass at you!": New Year's Eve 2011

Alas, my 2011 Northampton busking permit is now expired, but not before one more action-packed night of playing. Well it wasn't actually action-packed, but the hours flew by! I went into Northampton with high expectations, because I did very well last year. It would have made a great blog post, but I didn't keep the blog yet and I can't seem to find any mention of things that happened that night. I didn't do as well this year as I did last year, which I attribute to the following things:

1. I had competition. The Coyote Choir was out all night as was Jesse the harp player. I'm sure Downtown Dan was playing his guitar, and someone mentioned hearing a saxophone playing "Isn't She Lovely?" on repeat. Last year I don't remember anyone else being out, so I had the crowd to myself.

2. Some locals recognize me, so the novelty of my act has worn off.

3. I didn't run into too many people I know, who tend to drop the big bills.

**Interjection: I'm super super tired (last night was New Year's Eve, after all), and I'm already doing weird typos. I'm probably not going to catch them all, so if some things don't make sense, sorry!**

However, this year I looked pretty awesome. I found a blue beaded dress with silver trip at Ultra Gal. It was baggy enough on top to fit a few layers underneath! I used the pre-existing velcro on my accordion to hold on a layer of silver fabric so it would match better. My brother helped me construct silver crown for accordion and me alike with "2012" in blue pipe cleaner, and I wore silver star earrings. At Ultra Gal I also eyed some elbow-length silver gloves, although rather than covering your fingers they just formed a triangle on the back of the user's hand and hooked over the middle finger. They looked easy enough to construct, so I made a pair with silver fabric. I made them baggy, however, to fit shirts, but they ended up looking really bad (choose your favorite: chain mail or space-age alien). I did not end up wearing them. Here's our whole getup:



I arrived in town and walked by the empty Faces pitch to do an errand, and when I came back Jesse had set up. Argh! I turned the corner at set up by Starbucks, later moving to the actual corner of Main and Masonic in front of the Fresh Pasta Co. to be in the light. This was around 3:30.

It was a generally fun night; it was great to be playing my old songs again (and I love playing Auld Lang Syne), people were in a festive mood, and, best of all, children thought I was a queen! But, I was cold. Very. When my parents showed up I had them assist me in un-safety pinning my dress so I could add one more layer. I used Toas-T-Toes for the first time. My folks also brought me cardboard to stand on. Brrr!

Saturday, December 31, 2011:
I. Children

1. A dad gave his little girl in a stroller a dollar to put in my box and wheeled her close. She dropped it, but it missed. She reached down to pick it up, reaching farther and farther until she eventually tumbled out of the stroller. Now that's a devoted fan!

2. Some preteen boys walked by. One saw my hat and commented, "Actually, it's 2013." I imagine this had been a joke previously that evening.

3. I was playing Beer Barrel Polka and these three teenage boys, at their parents' request, starting "dancing." Their move was a simple bobbing up and down. Pretty silly.

4. A kid asked for Dynamite, which I obliged!

5. A very adorable little girl was hanging around, and she was given a dollar to put in my box. She had a very hard time getting it in, and it took at least six tries. Pretty amusing for those of us looking on.

6. When that same little girl walked over with her mother, I heard the mother say, "Why don't you ask her." The girl asked me if I was a queen. Funny, even wearing a crowd I wasn't expecting that!

7. I had a strange conversation with a teenage boy. He just wouldn't accept that I'm choosing to do this. He called it "kind of sad" that I went to college and couldn't get a job, so I had to resort to this. Actually, young man, that's not it at all. He just wouldn't be swayed though, giving me all kinds of pity. Weird.

8. I took my dinner break at Sam's Pizza, as usual, which was super crowded. I sat at a table that is easily visible when you come in. These two little girls came in, and just walked right over to me. One started playing with my box, and the other stroked my dress. I loved this, I explained everything I was doing to them. On my agenda for the dinner break was to insert some toe warmers. They were fascinated, and helped me choose the right spot on my foot for them based on the picture on the wrapper. Super cute.

9. When the fireworks started, a parent asked her small child, "Is this better than in the summer?" Sounds like someone had a traumatic 4th of July.

II. Not kids

1. A man showed me the logo on the back of his Marines jacket and asked if I could play the Marines song. Luckily I practiced all these for the 4th of July, so I did pretty well! He told several passersby what I had done. Of course, I'm wary of people not catching on that I'm playing for one person and thinking that I always play patriotic songs. Same when a kid asked me to play Jingle Bells.

2. A man sat down in the outdoor seating area of Fresh Pasta Company and fed a bottle to a baby. I played Twin Peaks then, and he totally recognized it! Awesome.

3. A lot of people were asking for Beer Barrel Polka last night! I played it at least three times, and this guy sang and actually knew a lot of the words.

4. A lady who was chaperoning lots of kids asked for Auld Lang Syne, and she sang along. That was nice.

5. I saw a guy in a Giants hat! Go San Francisco!

6. Last year I got on TV. Not this year :(

Now, a more serious section. I don't often spill my deep feelings in the blog, but tonight I will address one of my FAQs: "Don't you ever get lonely?"

Yes, oh yes, I do. And I certainly did last night.

Chapter 1: General Loneliness
I am now aware that if I am going to continue being a gypsy, I sacrifice certain things, specifically developing a sense of community in one place and creating routines that involve friends, be them new or old. A few times in the past 18 months of my gypsydom I have gone to an established household of young people for events or to stay, and it is just so goddamn cozy and nice. These people have other young people around to talk to, they can host posh dinner parties, get a cat, etc. The other sacrifices I make are as a workaholic, if a busker can hold that term. When the playing is good, I want to play all the time. Sometimes that means that it's a great night in Provincetown, and rather than attending a party I was invited to where I could potentially make friends, I keep playing. Last year I was thinking about going to Worcester for a New Year's Party with lots of friends, but I decided to stay and play, and ended up making good money. The experience (and income) of playing makes it worth it to skip these events. Then there are the bigger sacrifices of moving across the country, where even if I was going to see my friends in Massachusetts, it obviously wouldn't be happening for many months. I got super lucky in San Francisco that a college friend just handed me her friends when I got there and I had a great group. I'm confident that one way or another I'll make friends where I go, but I have this lingering feeling that everyone can sense my desperation.


Chapter 2: Not caring
In recent months, I've started caring way less about my social life. I'm focusing more on my act, which thrills me so much. I feel like I'm finally developing good skills as an accordion player, and that my career is at my fingertips right now, whether I follow the tourists and busk hardcore, start a band, or try to publish my book. I've started going to bed super early which makes it easy to forget about all the young people out at bars who I should be hanging out with. If I busk enough, then I talk to enough people in a day to satisfy an imaginary "socializing" quota within all of us. I use these examples to justify not really having a social life, and sometimes I actually buy it. But...

Chapter 3: Last night
Last night, I didn't buy it. I packed up my accordion at nine and thought about what to do for one of the biggest party nights of the year. Last year I hung out with my old friend Molly and had a grand old time, but she was working. She's pretty much the only friend I have left in the area, since my other high school friends had gone back to their cities and social lives. I frantically tried to find someone to go out with, even putting a thinly-veiled desperate plea on facebook. An old friend said he'd be out, but then decided to go to New York, so I was completely alone. I went into justification-mode and reminded myself that I could have gone to Boston or New York and seen friends, but instead I decided to make a buttload* of money. I still stand behind that decision. Last year I made my sacrifice, expecting that I gave up on a fun night by playing, but then I actually had a really fun night afterwards. This gave me expectations, which mess everything up. Anyway, the brief hint of loneliness I felt got worse when I joined up with the Coyote Choir. Here I had fabricated this equation that street musicians are martyrs to fun, since it was the only solution to my pity party, but it is clearly not the case. What I'm trying to say is that there is no apparent loneliness in the Coyote Choir. The two men have each other, first of all, so they can check in about songs and breaks and comment on weirdos together. Secondly, they've been playing in Northampton for a long time and they have a following. People stop and listen. They get recognized all the time. They have no trouble finding stuff to do on New Year's Eve. I also admittedly resented them a little last night for taking the best spot and staying there all day, and also plugging a space heater into the Thornes Christmas Light outlet while the rest of us suffered in the cold. Additionally, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'm envious of what they have. I would love having someone to share my experiences, to have a gig-worthy band to find gigs with, and of course do matching outfits (not that the CC does). What it comes down to is that I'm stingy. I want to keep all my earnings, and I want my stories to be mine exclusively. It's also easier to couch surf and make single serving friends on one's own. In the very small chance that the CC ever reads this: I love you guys. Your music is amazing, you busk well, and it was really nice of you to let me hang out with you last night!

*I recently heard a teenage interviewee use the word "buttload" on NPR (probably for the first time ever) and it reminded me how satisfying that measurement is. I'm trying to use it as much as possible.

I'm sorry, I have no idea what I'm rambling about. Haven't had a good sleep in a while. I'll wrap this up quickly and probably edit/delete all of it in the morning.

Chapter 5: Happy ending
Last night was okay. Some nights haven't ended happily, but fundamentally my New Year's Eve ended up being the best it could be, under the circumstances. I found another lonesome gypsy. After several walked laps around town reciprocating high fives and shouted greetings and grimacing at everyone sucking face on the sidewalk, I ended up outside the Dirty Truth, where someone recognized me and stopped to talk. This other guy who was outside smoking recognized me as well and confided that he was inside drinking alone. I joined him, and we agreed that this happenstance saved both of our evenings. He's a different kind of gypsy: he in fact has a "real" job, but he moves around all the time and thus suffers the same feelings of loneliness, alienation, and insignificance that I do. His job puts him up in hotels for months at a time, which makes it difficult to get to know local young people. He gets to go to really cool places, though: he just got back from a year in Manchester, UK and is headed off soon to Luxembourg. He enjoys the places but avoids getting too settled in since he'll be leaving before too long. He's back home in Vermont for the holidays, and came to Northampton with some friends to see a show. He bailed on the show and set out for a solitary NYE. We talked about places in Europe, and it became clear to me that I should expedite my Edinburgh plan. I had planned to stay near the Northeast this summer so I could attend my family reunion, my college a cappella group's 20th reunion, and my cousin's wedding. Montreal seemed to be a good choice. Talking to Drew made me realize that what I really want to do is go to Edinburgh ASAP, even if it means skipping these fun things.

Another thing I realized is that I need to hone my gimmicks. There are so many street musicians, and accordions are coming back in fashion. If I'm going to keep doing well I need a theme or something. The Elf costume was great, for example. Kids are drawn to me so my mom thinks I should focus on being a children's entertainer. Whatever happens, I'm at a stage now that I need to really know what I'm doing and do it all the time.

That is all. Sorry for getting weepy, I usually use the blog just for fun stuff and maintain my confident composure, but it slips sometimes. It's not like anyone reads this anyway!! Happy New Year!