Once again, it is Saturday night, 12:19 AM (so Sunday), and I am exhausted but I have sooooo much to blog about! Five pages of notes. Going to write a post. Not necessarily complete sentences. 100% chance of typos, grammatical errors (me!?!?) and just completely wrong words being typed. Like "the" instead of "and" (caught that mistake a few times in my last post, which I edited for a change). In fact, this post will just be a slightly more detailed version of my notes. There's a lot, I'll try to get back in the habit (always makes me think of Sister Act 2) of putting the best anecdotes in bold.
Saturday, 17 March 2012: ST. PATRICK'S DAY.
Today was St. Patrick's Day! Beauuutiful sunny day! Never before have I put in so little planning. Last year I practiced Irish songs and bought tacky green plastic light-up shamrock earrings at Walgreens. The year before I wasn't a busker, but rather a student. I brought knock-off Baileys to a cappella rehearsal. The year before that I was in Spain, and complained about the drunk Americans being drunken fools. Even that takes planning. This year, I did no prep because I've been prepping for the big party tomorrow! I could have gone to my old flat last night to borrow green clothes, but opted instead to stay in and practice practice practice my new songs. The only thing I did was arrange my many sweaters so the green one was on top, rather than the purple to match Flaca. There is one (two) Irish song (s) in my regular repertoire: a medley of the obscure "Eleanor Neary's/The Miller of Drohan." In the section of my set list that is songs that aren't in the starting rotation but I sometimes play when I'm super sick of the other songs, there's "Tabhair Dom Do Lamh," "The Lowlands of Holland," "The Wild Rover," and "The Leaving of Liverpool." I played all of them today, plus "The Spanish Lady," the one that's called either "Miss Molly Malone," "In Dublin's Fair City," or "Cockles and Mussels," and of course "Whiskey in the Jar." Most of this was in vain. Early in the day, I was surprised by the lack of celebrators. I thought everyone would wear green! Over the course of the day, I some some classy green: hats, scarves, green patent leather doc martens. One girl really nailed it down: emerald skinny jeans, white blouse with green flowers. Chic, right shades, not in your face. This was in contrast with the obnoxious stuff, on the mild end green t-shirts that read things like "Kiss me, my friends are Irish!" to the full out huge green leprechaun hats, shamrock tattoos, fake orange beards on women, tiny green skirts, green garter belts, huge green sunglasses, etc. Not warm enough for these outfits, people! So glad we get a break from the holidays that are just around for drinking!
I just made two big discoveries. One is that you can change the color of text!! Maybe I'll start using a classification system; pink for things about kids, blue for drunk people, orange whenever someone recognized Twin Peaks, etc. The other big discovery is the "Compose" tab. The other option, and default, is "Edit Html" where you type, but I hate the font. All this time, I could have put it in "Compose" mode and have a beautiful font and actually see the bold rather than seeing the html coding for bold! Hallelujah!
Now that I've lost your attention, we'll start the many, many numbered items that this post has to offer.
Part I: Farmer's Market, 11:00-1:30.Got an "early start" today, which just means getting there before noon. I meant to get there by ten to maximize my children time! My special porridge takes a while in the mornings, though, so I must get up earlier. When I arrived at the market, I saw a long table fully set with linens and wine glasses where I usually set up. It turns out Falko, the Konditormeister next to my old flat, was doing a brunch thing. Hmm. Better not be a regular thing! Had a nice chat with the Big Issue lady, whose name is Kat. She's so nice, I really wish I could understand a word she says!! I picked up that there was a band at the other end, but I went to check anyway in case she had actually said, "My fluffy kitty had a horrible hairball this morning" or something. 'Twer no other bands! Not in the middle, not at the other end. Set up at the far end, which is actually better than my normal end. No wonder more people set up there, accordion to George the venizon vendor. (Okay, accidentally typing "accordion" instead of "according" is okay, but turning "venison" into "Verizon" is NOT.) This end stayed sunny longer. It's directly in front of the castle, so you have an amazing backdrop. It's next to the tables, so you get eaters listening. It's going to be tough moving back, but I promised George I wouldn't leave that end! Heeeeeere's what happened:
1. A young woman came over and turned her wallet upside above my box, thus dumping all of the coins in! She had obviously gone through and left just what she planned to donate, but it was still pretty epic.
2. Started "Dynamite," and a minute later I heard a loud laugh from someone who had walked by a while ago who finally recognized it. Not that interesting on paper, but amusing at the time.
3. "Women liked Flaca." Yes they did! Two middle-aged women. I think I write down stuff like this in case nothing else interesting happens so I'll have something to blog about.
4. Two young women wearing green scarves sat on a bench and listened to me for a while. They came over to talk after, and they had already heard me talking to others and placed my accent. It turns out one is from greater San Francisco and one is from greater Toronto (not Totoro, fingers!). They're here studying Outdoor Education. Nice talk about student loans and such.
6. A young woman was sitting and heard several songs. When she tipped me, she complimented my song choices. Yeah! It's rare for me to have people hear enough songs to figure out the variety of my repertoire, so it makes me happy when someone does.
7. There were a lot of people filming! I'll go out of order and write about them all now, while it's relevant.
7a. Young woman with a long fish tail. Remember those from those books of fancy hairdos we had as little girls? She was the main talker, but her friend had a camera. Her other friend had an iPhone on a special frame. They filmed Flaca and me, mostly Flaca. After a very long time, one exclaimed, "Whoa, you have matching skirts!" Duh! And sweaters and shoes and hairdos! She continued..."But you'll have to dye your hair black." Okay. "And have a red nose." Best quit while you're ahead..."And have dark skin." Oy. Orrrr I could embrace my fair Belgian heritage and Flaca could embrace her Mexican heritage? Oh, but the fish tail girl asked me to do Twin Peaks again for the camera! She's my first female TP recognizer!
7b. Two other young people were out with a fancy camera and tripod. I became aware of them while playing "Morir Soñando," clearly heard the background, and tried to subtly switch to "Flower of Scotland" to fit their theme. It turns out, they're making a video for a travel company, and ask passersby to describe Edinburgh in one word. I'm not one for stopping at one word (which is probably why you're not going to make it to the end of this post), so I told them all about how I love that I can see the lit-up castle from my bedroom window, blah blah blah. Finally settled on "Magical" then cringed at the cliché. Ah, well. They probably won't use me anyway.
7c. An older couple had a fancy camera on a tripod as well, and they set up to get a panorama of the market, the castle, and me! This time I was ready and played all my new Scottish songs. It turns out they're making a video to use to promote a vacation rental. I would DEFINITELY rent their property after seeing the cute little market, castle, and accordion player! (Why does everything sound sarcastic tonight? That was also a serious comment.)
8. An adorable little girl kept running over. Wouldn't talk to me or acknowledge Flaca or anything, but just beamed. Beamed and danced. Children smiling alone could be a kind of therapy. Extra contagious!
9. Super nice couple. The woman asked if she could get me tea or coffee. I was set up right next to this adorable red espresso box, and I had been considering buying myself a hot chocolate. Since I had my heart set on it I went for the gold and asked for hot chocolate. Ugh, beggars can't be choosers, I felt bad about that for a while. She got me a hot chocolate, which immediately brought relief when my freezing hands wrapped around it. The first sip warms your whole soul. Mmmmm. Talked to them a bit after, and they asked if I'm a puppeteer as well. I can't quite claim that title, but I told them about my plans for Flaca. The man nonchalantly mentioned the woman's accordion, so we talked about that. She has a little one too! These slow interactions are so nice. So many people say things as they pass, but I'm wrapped up in the music and can't understand them, etc., that they fulfill blog and income requirements, but not social requirements. Others go on and on. This was the perfect length.
10. A young man asked where I'm from. I told him, and he nodded. Obviously I gave him the answer he suspected. I asked him what gave it away, and he pointed out the Let's Go Europe book upon which Flaca sits. Aha! It's the thickest book I have, which is why it comes. Hadn't even thought about the homeland expository implications of it! Excellent detective work, guy.
11. Adorable little girl peered from afar. Made unbreakable eye contact, like Snape performing the counterhex at Quirrell from the Quidditch bleachers (sorry, couldn't resist). We played some impromptu peekaboo when grown-ups stood in our line of vision. She had blonde braids and held a baby doll. She was given a coin to put in my box, and scurried over, dumped it, and scurried away. Hey! Then she was given another, and came back. As she tried to scurried away, I yelled after her that she should come meet MY baby! (Sorry Flaca, not a baby.) She came back but would not talk. I come to expect that. I pointed out that I have braids, Flaca has braids, and she has braids! Not interested. I showed her Flaca, showed her the moves she can do and asked if she wanted to try, extending the wooden frame. She extended one finger and touched the frame, then withdrew it. I did Flaca instead with my right hand, and just played chords on my left hand. Booooring. Switched hands and played just a melody on the right hand, which sounded so empty, and I was at the mercy of gravity operating the bellows. Sure enough, it lost momentum and the sound faded. I've got to get my pulleys worked out! I suggested that her baby might want to dance, so she held the baby by its collar in midair and lightly shook it. We'll work on that.
12. An older woman with purple mary-janes stopped and said she had to decide which box to put my tip in. She fairly said that she wanted to see Flaca dance before she chose. How fair!
13. A kid in all pink arrived via stroller. She held a coin in her left hand. The dad pushed the stroller so the kid's right side was lined up with my box, took the coin from her left hand, and put it in her right hand, then instructed her to drop it. They lingered for a minute and I picked up Flaca. Gave her a shake, extended her, the dad took a turn while I played. Passed her to the kid, who totally cried out and hid. Oops.
14. Met an American UMass Amherst alum who now lives in Edinburgh with her hubby and adorable son!
15. Group of like five guys with cameras stopped. Every single one wanted a picture with me. Had to stop playing for a while. Fine...if they had tipped! Argh. It seems so obvious to me how rude it is to not tip, especially when you take up that much time!
16. Grew fond from afar of this toddler in puffy blue and green checkered overalls and her mom. Not to categorize, but they're totally "Valley folk." To tip, the mom held the kid up and she dropped change from high up. "Oops, look like you got some dribble too!" Well that's a new tip!
17. Ran into Marco and his girlfriend whose name escapes me (sorry!) who I met the other night. Friends of my flatmates. Italian and French! Marco is doing his thesis on agriculture, and was at the market to interview farmers. His girlfriend wore the same awesome earrings she wore the other night, with colorful beads that remind me so much of this amazing toy that Molly Daniell had as a kid.
18. Talked to two young men, one of which I recognized from having met at the Stockbridge market. They're trying to start a market at their school, and wondered if I'd come play this week at like the big pitch/presentation day. I wondered how they were going to get away with holding a market during school hours. I pinned them at about 15. "Great, have you been in Edinburgh University?" These college kids look younger and younger!
19. My final FM "customer" was an old lady who noticed Flaca. Picked her up, but disclaimed that "I can't dance so I won't be able to make her dance well!" This woman's grandfather played the accordion. She never met him, but has an image of him playing in her head. We talked about loans, and she said that when she was my age, a long time ago, she got a grant (grrr-aunt) to study to be a teacher, and that was that. At that time, she questioned the financial logistics of all these people being educated for free or cheap, but was far ahead of her time with that preposterous idea. Whenever she mentioned it, folks ranted about how education was their right. She was not surprised when time passed and tuition grew and grew! Do they have the phrase "I told ye so" over here?
When I packed up, I went to talk to the produce vendor nearest to me to apologize. I was playing especially badly, and I was also trying out new songs. Oh, I should mention that! I've been practicing hard all week for this party, and my 13 "official" new songs are:
-[Jazz Classics] "All Of Me," "The Way You Look Tonight," "I Love Paris"
-[Showtunes/Lighthearted Classics] "A Bushel and a Peck," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" "My Old Man's a Dustman," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow*," "If I Only Had a Brain*"
-[Traditional Scottish/UK] "Wild Mountain Thyme," "Loch Lomond," "The Skye Boat Song," "Flower of Scotland," and "O Danny Boy." Other songs I've decided to wing include "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree," "Ba Mir Bist Du Schoen," and "I Could Have Danced All Night*."
*=previously dabbled
Anyway, the first half of the FM set was pretty weak. The produce guy was super nice though, and said that he recognized some songs: Queen, Flower of Scotland, Lady Gaga. The vendor in the next stall over piped up, saying he recognized "I Could Have Danced All Night." Funny, I only played all of these once! Maybe Don't Stop Me Now twice. They insisted that I did not bother them, and that I'm welcome back at that end any time. Nice to hear.
Note: When my brother and I are together and in silly/musical moods, we work on the "Larry Musical." We've created this character Larry, the fat, drunk, smelly, adult male orphan in Annie's orphanage (that's how he came to be). He sings many songs, like "How Do You Cure a Case of Gonorrhea?" and "I Feel Shitty," but his big hit is "I Would Have Barfed All Night." It's so hard not to think of those words instead of the real ones when playing this one!! One of these days I'm going to sing along and confuse a child. "I would have spreeeeead my lips, and barfed a tonnnn of chips, I'd had the night befoooore." Anyway, moving on.
Time for break! Went to the museum where I had my packed lunch among good company. This time, three other parties had the same idea as me. One exhibited painfully bad parenting. Their poor little girl in her harness was having a bad day, and surprisingly wasn't calmed by having Pringles stuffed into her mouth. The good thing about using the Let's Go Europe book for Flaca's setup is that I can read it during my breaks! Read a lot of the UK section. I really have to start traveling. In the bathroom, a verbal toddler was lying on the changing table, conversing with his wipe-using mother. "Stop!" Mom knew what he meant: the loud hand-dryer had turned off. "Yes, dear, it has stopped!" This happened several more times. After one, the mother calmly said, in a strong Scottish accent, "It has stopped but it might start up again in a wee minute!" I loved that line, in her accent!
Brings us to...
Part II: Royal Mile, 3:30-8:30, minus 15-minute break.Did the usual stroll down the RM from Victoria St., cursing every busker who took MY pitch. No Dieter today, but there was a bagpiper. And William Wallace Caveman guy. Charlie Chaplin. Right next to CC was a duo of guitar and uke. Broke sooo many busking rules, both official and not: within 50 metres of another busker, obviously drinking beer, seated (not a real rule, but less lucrative). Todd was out with his crowd. I'm used to striking out on spots until I get to the corner of Cockburn next to Bella Italia. But today, there was a guy sitting against the wall, looking totally relaxed, with a drum sort of near him and a hat on his lap for money. Come on, THIS is why I can't use that spot? I asked him how long he was planning on using that pitch, trying to hide my undertones of superiority. He said another hour. Of course, he responded to my coolth and conceit with total friendliness, and asked what I play. "Accordion." "Oh, we could do something together!" NO THANKS. I mumbled something about "Yeah, maybe, I'm just going to take a break and then...see ya!" I really need to just learn to say, "Oh, that's so nice, but I'm a solo act! I get totally thrown off by other musicians!" Went one more block down and set up across from Niddry St. on that corner. Significantly worse. Going to hold it against that friendly drummer forEVER. Got my spot back after a break, around 5:00.
1. As I was setting up in this inferior pitch, a man said a lot in a heavy accent! The only word I understood was "accordion." Wasn't unpacked enough for him to see it, which means he'd seen me before. Excellent. The next sentence involved the word "catch," and the following one contained "bagpipe." Oh, he was going to throw me a pound from where he was on the corner. I did not catch it. Nice way to stat a set!
2. "Nice man, sourdough" say my notes. This was a long conversation, should have noted more. Let's see if it comes back. Middle-aged man. We determined I'm from America. He's been to Boston, maybe? He's definitely been to California. Enjoyed having chowder served in bread bowls. Specifically sourdough. I told him I ate my weight in sushi and burritos in San Francisco. It turns out that was irrelevant to the conversation. "Anyway, about sourdough..." I bragged that we have chowder in bread bowls in Massachusetts too. "But is it sourdough?" "Oh, definitely!" "Are there a lot of Dutch there? They brought over the sourdough." "Yep. 100% Dutch." See, I don't back down easily. Facts shmacts. He was really nice though, and we definitely talked about loans. All these conversations run into each other, and I can't remember! Too bad.
3. Teenage girls with accents (as in not native English speakers). One said "It's very good!" But I was just unpacking after my break, and they hadn't seen me do anything!
4. As I was walking back from my break, I saw a real bride! And groom! Not stupid hen party! They walked gracefully down the Royal Mile. As soon as the packs of drunk St. Patty's day celebrators saw them, they starting cheering them, and whoops and hollers erupted from all sides of the street. I tried to run ahead of them to set up in time to play "Here Comes the Bride," but that was not possible.
5. There was a hen party later, and I played the song. It's so weird, every time I've played it here I get an adrenaline rush! Come on, nervous system, I don't need fight nor flight in this situation! Not a threat! It really messes me up for a while, I get shaky and lightheaded and unable to control my facial expressions (not in a really weird way, I'm just not able to put on a fake smile). It just looks like Sascha Baron Cohen's smile in "Hugo."
6. There was also a woman wearing a sash. Got ready to play "Here Comes the Bride" when I looked closer and saw the number 40 on it. I guessed again and played "Happy Birthday." Yep.
7. On the heels of that I had another victory: one of the birthday woman's friends asked me how to get to Whistlebinkies, the bar (also one of my favorite things to be uttered by my Spanish roommates. Try saying it in a Spanish accent!). You know you're a local when A) you can use the currency without reading it for numbers and B) you can give directions. I nailed down the currency pretty quickly, since I sort through my takings, but today was the first time I gave directions! It didn't hurt that my sucky first pitch was right across from the bar in question.
8. There were freaking Yankees hats everywhere!!! It was really outrageous how many there were. Normally I see an average of 0.41 on a given day. I saw at least a dozen today, probably more. Black on black. White on red. Classic white on blue. Blue on white. All ugly on ugly!!! I could have kissed the random foreigner who happened to be wearing a Kansas City hat instead.
9. A man walked by and did a gesture with his hand and mouth. Either he thought I should smile bigger or he plays the jaw harp.
10. Three girls walked by decked out as princesses. Headdresses, tutus, glittery tights, party shoes, the works. I asked the occasion, and it was a birthday! Played Happy Birthday for the second time that day. I miss the days of birthday parties and party dresses!
11. A college-aged young man lingered for a second organizing change. When he approached me, he lowered a small pizza box. Yesssss!!!!! Turns out, it was just a surface. He slid coins off it into my box. Come on, money when it could be pizza?
12. A guy tipped me and commented, "I have money this time!" This implies that we'd seen each other before, and he had addressed not having money the previous time. Unfortunately, "guy stopped by, didn't have money" would be a super boring blog entry, so I didn't mark it, and anything I don't mention in the blog I forget immediately. So I didn't recognize him, but we had a nice talk. Shane from Ontario. Made me realize that I'm long overdue for a Canada trip. Went when I was 5, 10, and 15. Sooo many relatives need visiting! Unforch I forget what Shane and I talked about.
13. Oh, the sourdough guy suggested that I stop someone who walks by with Irish themed face paint and ask them to apply me some as well. Finally, a guy stopped by with Irish flags on his cheeks, I asked him if he has the actual face paint with him, and we had some communication issues. Turns out he was adorned not with two Irish flags, but with one Irish and one Italian. And he's French! Go figure.
14. Sooo excited to see that "Ragamuffin" is the next note in my post. So far, nothing has moved me enough to bold it, but this merits it. A couple of young (college aged) guys stopped by in Irish garb and face paint. The first asked if I could play a song called "[Someone that starts with an S] is a Wanker." I said I didn't know it. He offered me £5 if I could play it. Sorry, that doesn't jog my memory. ("Oh, this gate key?") The second one stepped in, and asked if I could simply repeatedly sing the word "Ragamuffin" any way I wanted. This is a great reason to drink on the job; my rendition would have been much more creative had I a whisky or two in me. I rose to the occasion anyhow, and sang a simple version of "Ragamuffin ragamuffin ragamuffin" on C, F, C, G. They cheered, tipped, and ran off, where they met up with their other friends across the street, yelling "Ragamuffin" all the while. It's things like this that I looooove about busking! Harmless, silly, and convention-challenging (spoken like a true Clarkie).
15. Switching the order of my notes, since the next thing is bold-worthy too! Can't have bold next to bold! Three women stopped, and posed for pics with me. The older one (Mom?) gave me her business card for a hotel, and pointed out where it gave the address, in Colombia. I took this as an invitation to speak Spanish, and we had a brief tertulia! I mentioned that a close, personal confidante of mine (someone I overlapped with in high school) had gone to Colombia to study accordion. I told them that my first Spanish teacher was from Colombia. True story. Tried to lighten up on my lithp picked up during my Erasmus in España.
16. Now...Two old ladies stopped. Watched, listened, didn't adopt any facial expressions. Shit, they're assuming the worst connotations of "Sophie's Smokin' Squeezebox." They slowly started walking away, but one of them stopped in her tracks, gave her friend the "just a second" index finger, and jumped into an Elvis pose and started strumming her air-guitar. Part two was more of a tap dance, with her arms in the air. Then she winked and gave me a smile and thumbs up and caught up with her friend. :)
17. "That's for Twin Peaks." Still baffled by its popularity!!
18. On Saturday nights, once it gets dark, I always see a group of men holding yellow signs that promote John 3:7. Today, another man sauntered up on his motorcycle, and one sign-holder playfully whacked the motorcyclist with it, as if to knock him off. They all guffawed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't using such a sign as a weapon, albeit playfully, totally sacrilegious?? I just Googled "John 3:7," and learned of its association with Irish sports. Rugby. So these guys are sports nuts, not religious nuts? Here's the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_3:7_%28sign%29 Huh.
19. Califlorida. A woman and her daughter stopped, and the woman read aloud "Sophie's Smokin' Squeezebox!" in an unmistakable American accent. As we conversed she picked up on mine as well. I asked where they're from, and she said they live in Florida now, but she's from Cali.....[in decisive tone, to answer my initial question] Califlorida." The daughter had just gotten into U of F, so they're here for vacation and to celebrate, I guess, for ten days.
20. I looked up mid-song and who should I see but Gabriele, my Italian flatmate, with his girlfriend (??)! Very nice to see "family." I was also glad that he saw me in action, and can picture my act now. Only one of my four previous flatmates every saw me busk. Next time I'll have to get him to sing; he gave us a beautiful shower performance last night!
21. I kept practicing my new songs, including "The Way You Look Tonight." When I was in the middle of the bridge, a middle-aged man who I guess had walked by a minute before started singing along, but totally at the wrong part of the song! I tried to pick up where he was, but I don't know it well enough yet to pull that off.
22. More bold! But long, so I won't bold the whole text: this may not be interesting to you, but I just loved it. Remember the strange guy from last weekend who was either mentally disabled or mega drunk? Welll he came back......completely normal and sociable! "Hi, I think I may have come by one day when I was really drunk?" I couldn't help but laugh, and confirmed this, explaining my hesitation with his diagnosis. He said that he didn't even remember, but when he walked up Cockburn and saw me at the same corner, he was struck by a fuzzy memory. Totally owned up to it, was very apologetic, and was eager to piece together our strange interaction. Our recap went on way longer than I normally strive for in interruptions, but that was the way I wanted it, this apparently trumps all other conversations I have. He remembered Flaca, and I told him what he did. Also told him that he stumbled over to some girls sitting outside Starbucks, and he looked abashed and asked if they ran away. I showed him my notes on him from the previous week, which read: "weird drunk/retarded guy! £15 for Flaca--not moving much." This time, he totally won me over. The fact that he was apologetic and embarrassed but also curious suited him well, and he was so easy to talk to! I liked this interaction so much because it set the record straight. I have sooo many weirdos accounted for in my blog, but few are recurring, and none before this guy have redeemed themselves! I learned that his name, at last, is Jamie. I say "at last" as a fan of the popular Outlander books of which I've only read the first. Do you know them? The premise is that a modern woman finds a time portal and gets whisked to the mid-18th century. She meets a tall, red-haired, fearless, sexy warrior named Jamie, and they fall madly in love. I had actually sort of forgotten about these books when I made plans to come here, but my friend Molly, who turned me onto the books when we were far too young for them (honestly, I think I still am), responded to my announcement of coming here by instructing me to say hello to Claire and Jamie from her. Oh yeah! Since that, I've been wanting to meet a Jamie. And here one is! This Jamie doesn't perfectly fit the description, but I was still happy to hear the name.
The topic of conversation changed to Flaca and my plans for her pulley system. Jamie was all for it, and told me about a guy he had seen in Inverness with a whole one-man band setup. He had configured the whole thing, and it was totally unique. Jamie revealed that he's been staying at hostels, so we commiserated over the showers at the hostel I had stayed at where you have to keep pushing the button. As soon as he arrived, he dashed off! I had so many more things I wanted to ask him! I was strangely interested in hearing his story; why he's hostel-hopping, why he was wasted in the middle of the afternoon not on St. Patty's day, etc. Maybe I'll see him next Saturday, or maybe he'll live on only in my blog.
23. My goal for the evening was to partake in a semi-rowdy sing-along of "Whiskey in the Jar." In past years, I've made my friends unenthusiastically sing verse after verse along with my one-notch-below-mediocre guitar playing, and that doesn't make the cut! Try to imagine a scowling group of dainty women monotonously singing, "I first produced my pistol. And I then produced my rapier. Said 'Stand and deliver' for he were a bold deceiver." Not right unless there's hugging, rolled Rs and whiskey breath involved. I thought my chances of a more satisfactory rendition were good this year, being closer to Ireland than ever. What I got wasn't perfect, but did the job. A small group recognized it, and the biggest guy came right next to me to sing. We did different words, which was fine, except he didn't even say "Whiskey in the Jar!" THOSE words can't be different! Started with a T. Maybe there's an alternate version?
Sorry, all that's left in my notes will be really long!! I'll try to do a couple quick ones.
24. Member of a non-English speaking group asked to pose for a picture. And he asked if he could put his arm around me for the photo. How respectful! I asked where they're from, and they said Turkey. I decided to impress them with my Turkish. "Günaydin," I attempted to exclaim. There were two problems: I have a really hard time, physically, getting that word out. At times I'm afflicted with a stutter, which comes on certain letters and when I'm anticipating what I'm going to say. The "Gy" combo has always gotten me, which is used in such words as, um, "Günaydin," and the list goes on. I finally got it out, after which we can address the second problem: it means "Good morning," at it was about 8:00 pm. I tried again, with "Iyi geceler," which does mean Good Night. Started singing "Küçük Kurbağa," the song about the little frog. (By the way, I'm googling all of these crazy spellings. Definitely don't have them memorized!) Isn't that so obnoxious when someone spits out random words, mispronounced, in your native language? Let's see how many other languages I can do it in!!! (In case you're wondering, I had Turkish campers back in my camp counselor days, so you pick up important phrases like "Good morning," "Good night," and "Little frog, little frog, where is your tail? I haven't got, I haven't got, I swim in the pond.") Also, if I recall correctly, the phonetic pronunciation for the word for "insect" sounds like "snake." Equally unpopular among campers! Oops, that was supposed to be a quick entry.
25. Man stopped. Picked up Flaca. Asked for a wee polka. There was one he wanted, black something, but I told him I could only do Beer Barrel. Then also made lame excuses in advance about the fact that I was wearing gloves. I played, Flaca danced. After, he dropped a pound in the box and explained "A pound for the polka..." and dropped another: "And a pound for the gloves!" Oh, awesome. Davey told me that he has an accordion in the cupboard. It's too hard to learn, he says. It's a diatonic button accordion so he's right: it is too hard.
26. Met Scott from Arizona. He wore a U. of Arizona sweatshirt, and was easily recognizable as an American! Nice guy, we talked a bunch. He worked in casinos, but was fired for missing too much work when he had four surgeries in three months. He decided to go back to school, and now he's here on spring break. We talked about school and loans and CATS! Prompted by Ruby painted on my box. He had a cat that had to start taking thyroid medication, then died of cancer. Just like my Gracie, except that was kidney failure. I'll spare you the details. We also talked a bit about ancestry, since Scott is from the east coast. He thought he was always from Philly, but tracked back many generations and found that he had an aunt (?) who was hanged in the Salem Witch Trials! Eeeee! Also, way way back he's the descendent of a King of Scotland. Good choice of vacation spot, then.
27. Last one. I don't dare admit what time it is here. Verrry unlike me to be up this late anymore, but I really wanted to get this post done, and they really take forever!! Not sure if it's going to show you the posting time in local time or GMT, but I wish I had turned off the clock feature hours ago so I don't have to know. Doing this for art, right? I could write about this last person for 2874182 hours, but I'll try to keep it succinct. Also have to be aware of confidentiality. Anyway, met a man at a café. Also American, born in Edinburgh, bred in Arizona, settled in Portland, Oregon. I'm not sure exactly what I'm permitted to say, but he's affiliated with Wikileaks. He does a lot of media stuff for the Occupy movement. He wanted to film me for a project as an example of one of the 99%. Playing back student loans. He came out tonight and filmed a bunch, which I'm looking forward to putting on my Youtube channel, since my current videos are just at home and boooooring. No passersby. You can see for yourself my inability to say "thank you" while playing. Actually, I can't bear to type more tonight, so I'll quit there.
28. Oh, but one more latenight, tired observation: coins are so nice! To count, I put them in rows of £5, mixing up the values at random. When it's all done, you have a nice grid of stacks of coins of varying heights. It's sort of artistic in a way, like a topographic map showing elevation. Stacks contain either 1 coin (£1 or £2), two coins (50p), five coins (20p), ten coins (10p), 20 coins (5p), or a million coins (2p and 1p). It's nice to squint and admire the mess of medal. Especially nice if there are no light bulbs in the living room so you're sorting by candle light :)
One more thing about nice coins: it's so satisfying depositing a whole stack of coins into a little bag. Especially the stacks of ten 10p coins, they're such a nice size. You really hear the whirr of each coin hitting the previous one, and it sounds EXACTLY like when you earn lots of coins in Super Mario World 2 (oh yeah, we had a Gameboy. With TWO games!). You know, when you earn a bunch of coins and it shows them going into your head and it makes that nice clinky whirring sound? Well I totally recreated that tonight.
Bedtime. Hopefully I haven't sacrificed my ability to play at the party tomorrow by staying up this late. The birds are already chirping...
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