Lacey leaping through her hoop for a doggie biscuit
The Godzilla of guffaws, the legendary Carl Reiner passes over to the other side where he’ll be opening for George Burns and Gracie Allen playing to the better angels in the longest running show … eternity.
I’ve had a good 46-year run. Remaining in show business is a basic genetic drive. Doing whatever it takes is in the tissue. You will gladly live out of a suitcase, sleep on a park bench, and travel constantly forsaking family and friends for one more crack at that audience waiting to see the act.
Sabbaticals are custom made for pandemics. Now is an especially good moment to put the act down.
Writing a new bit, rehearsals, practicing your moves, perfecting a new stunt is all well and good but show people count on the juice an audience gives them. We are adrenaline junkies. We live for the buzz. If you can tolerate deprivation you too can hitch your wagon to the dream.
Here on the wayback machine in the video below are several routines. my idea of comedy is well, more or less just my idea and to some hardly the stuff of paying the bills even if as it happens it did.
I know your time is valuable, skip ahead if you must, but do yourself a favor and enjoy my work with a live chicken. You’ll enjoy. As I said so many times, “we’re just a couple of old clucks looking for a couple of young chics…”
“Try not to applaud when I make a mistake, you’re only reinforcing bad habits.”
Jefferson Street 1980
One of the grittiest hand to mouth hustles ever invented in this world of hard knocks is busking. No contracts, no off site gigs— just pure hat and more hat shows. “Hat” is street pidgin for money. Conjuring up legal tender from out of the thin blue is the real magic. Motivating citizens to open their wallet pluck out a bill and voluntarily hand it over never ceases to be anything less than the biggest cardiopulmonary event this side of weeping at the sight of Michelangelo’s frescos on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . Busking is a spine tingling page turner with the best ending you’ve ever experienced. A reliable pitch works from here to eternity any time, any day, all year long— she’s always there for you. Playing the king’s fool in the public square is life emancipating.
This lightning bolt street performing epiphany hijacked my not yet completed journey to adulthood. Somehow I had come to believe the world I wanted to live in was about running wild and being free. Anxious family and friends thought I was headed toward a cobblestone catastrophe. Destitution and insolvency were bookended plotting points. There is no getting off the road, no lucky breaks, no easy streets on this obstacle strewn unpaid parking ticketed path. You can’t undo what you’ve bet your last glimmer of hope on. An emergent busker is a go it alone type drowning in a world insisting on orthodoxy. There has to be no other way out— this is your fated Tombstone. Conformity is a stinking stalemate. Faith in the kindness of strangers is your North Star. You set out to do so many shows, as far as an eye can see, until you’re at risk of being buried in a sea of nickels, dimes and quarters.
Stalling is what you do when the famous ego induced death spiral—fear of rejection—has you cornered and on the ropes. I’d put off trying my luck on the sidewalks of San Francisco so long that the present moment was now a fresh unused January 1980. Waking pensive with a stomach tied in knots I drove into Fisherman’s Wharf. What I can remember was a crazy early morning— the sky a muted overcast blotted daybreak— a bustling midday Jefferson Street at this hour waited empty— but for the mournful seagulls, barking sea lions, and this one tentative performer preparing to place his great expectations on the line.
Making it to the tippy top of the small time sidewalk show I’d need to find a way of delivering my best razor sharp fifteen minutes. Running too long was too much and too short added up to too little. All in, from start to finale, was not one second more than one quarter of one hour’s journey to glorious acclaim or crushing defeat.
I jiggered the running order, discarded one routine added another. I invented jokes there and then, whipped up wisecracks on the fly. This is throwing it down. Street performing is about owning every inch of the self-claimed constitutionally guaranteed concrete stage. This is the pedestrian’s coliseum. You are an entertainment gladiator.
Raspy voiced, drained— the grinding first day exacted the last bead of sweat. Sidewalk shows are a monument to repetition. Over and over the same routine altered on the whim and the will was retried and refined. Improvement inched uphill— grudgingly.
In a scalding hot-heartbeat the first weekend flashed by. Twenty-four shows reverberated across the pavement like a trumpeting bop infused Miles Davis scorched earth- note perfect- improvised melodic soul-aching out of this world moon shot. Escape velocity sent this one and only into busking orbit. I was a man on a mission.
Gut wrenching images of audiences walking away before I could pass the hat tortured my lean confidence. Curious youngsters begging parents wanted to stay to see what happened next. Preschoolers recognized the infant mortal fragility disguised beneath my thin busking veneer pleaded whining at full lung to see what further trials this odd bit player would be forced to endure. More than a few lovely’s lingered. A beat cop standing in scuffed shoe leather ordered I watch my crowd size. Merchants stood in their doorways half curious, inconvenienced, not yet convinced— smoking cigarettes. Assorted stubborn misfits, the grizzled survivors of the sidewalk scene all too pressed by their own scramble to make ends meet had not even a spare moment to fritter away calculating the odds of my surviving. My peers didn’t need to know— they knew. Those relationships would grow if I could make my sidewalk show stick. Jefferson Street was wide open if you were foolish enough. Here was untamed frontier, civilizations westernmost outpost, an emphatic continental end of the line— the leading edge of some one of a kind infinitely-dubious vocational enterprise.
First and foremost street theater is about profitably stopping people dead in their tracks. Two becomes four, four turns into eight; eight becomes an engaged audience of fifty. Practitioner’s of this centuries old enterprise have an eye, feel the vibe— know how quick they’ll draw a crowd— how long they dare to hold them. Change the show’s length, alter the pace, adapt to live another day— execution is the whole enchilada. Wily busker’s got this one word— survival— tattooed across their chest— there is no second chance, prosper or perish, show up, play big, be present for the only moment that counts. Get real you overzealous flame throwing heartbreaker’s or sit back down— life is short.
I am no longer at the intersection wondering how much further I have to go. The cast playing the Edmonton International Street Performer’s Festival needn’t say a word. Time whispers in my ear.
Street theater is physical. The quickest wits, the sharpest reflexes, these gifts on loan from the gods are asking to be returned. Another season in our life arrives, another page to our story is written.
I have wanted to be a street performer for more years of my life than I have wanted anything. I’ve wanted to be my best version. That is enough.
The kind audiences here in Edmonton allow me to slip into my show. Gracefully I am allowed one more sip. Obey the unwritten rules. Go about the work. Be kind to the children, be comfortable in your own skin. Have an unshakable faith that what you have been put on earth to do is exactly what you are doing. You are enough. You are fulfilled.
I lean into the wind. Hold my wife’s hand. Piecing together next steps. I hear it is wise not to keep holding too tight to yesterday, to not look out too far ahead to tomorrow, to spend most of what you can on making good use of today. I’ve two shows. For today that will be enough.
Variety show preparation continues. Physical skills practice is one piece of the puzzle. Another piece is adding new material. In this instance it is woven into the opener and closer.
Most of this material is now memorized, but the jokes require context, setup and then let the line go. If the lines were merely recited things would be infinitely less difficult but they are not. A street act has to fit the line into the moment. That is the unmistakable mark of showmanship.
I’ve got several edited musical pieces to physically improvise. Being visual is street performing.
Performing at the Edmonton International Street Performers Festival is an anxiety making prelude. Surrounded by the best of the best takes some steeling of nerves. All of us want to believe we belong. Performers take their material place it into the moment and proof their blueprint by testing its merit with an audience.
Then, there is a laugh, maybe an audience applauds and all of a sudden you’re over the worst of the thing and ready.
To meet the moment there is a madcap dash backstage when then all at once you hear the stage manager make that fateful call for all of us to take our places. The stage manager under the direction of the producer signals the start by wave of hand.
A thousand performers and more in the last 35 years have waited standing on their mark anticipating this Shakespearean surge of love, laughter and madcap playfulness. North America’s premier street performer’s festival comes to a roiling boil in the living, beating heart of North America’s most populous northernmost city this July as it has every July for the last 35 years.
Like the time of your life, there is no other better moment to make the most of than this one moment we have all been given.
There is talent and then there is talent. I’ll let you ponder how near or far I’ve come as you take a trip on the wings of this stunning tune… buckle up buttercup…
If I hadn’t gotten all drunk and stubborn and insisted on putting a down payment on that double wide I fell in love with there would not be that much in my life to be ashamed of.
End of my show I use some musical tracks mixed down. I do my own editing. I’ve got plenty more mixing to do. Then, there is synchronizing the musical tracks with the volunteers who’ll be caught up in the show’s ending. None of this can be rehearsed. You just go out and try it on a crowd to see how it fits.
This musical closer is pure street theater. It belongs to the street, and is a form of group improvisation perhaps singularly suited to the here and now.
I find love a particularly salient theme, but you have to
handle the conveyance of a loving theme with a certain cold disdain so as to
not overshoot your audiences appetite for such intimate insights. Sneaking up
on the powers of heart with a good laugh is close enough.
However it works in your life- in a relationship, not in a relationship, single, married, lifelong bachelor, married once but never again, never married but suddenly head over heels, these things are not choices, we are not in control, our heart sees the world through its own eyes and makes its own decisions. We are along for the ride.
Some busking types might say it is all laughs, that it’s how
much you make in the hat, how big a crowd you can draw. My goal is to touch the
four year old, the eighty-five year old and everyone in between with the notion
that our loving one another is where everything begins and ends. Imagine having
a show that works on that level every time? I’m such the romantic
When I work in Mexico there’s this guy that pushes a cart through the neighborhood selling bottled water. Well, it turns out he’s got a sister that sells hot water that a married man can never get out of.
June 10th I roll eastbound. The author of Hot Spring Honeymoon will thread his way from one geothermal wonderment to the next. Rehearsing lines, writing more material, finding a good shade tree where I can juggle will be part of each day. Making miles east will be a second duty. There is an art to being somewhere while you are trying to get to somewhere. They are one and the same. Road warriors know how to drink up every inch of the two lane highways.
Once I arrive in Ft. Collins, Colorado I’ll hustle down to
Old Town and pitch up and throw a few shows down while I am there enjoying the
guest services of my always much younger sister and brother in law.
Rules seem to be important to understand for those people
not in the serendipitous business of sidewalk entertainment. The key to a
successful career in busking is to never ask for permission and always ask for
forgiveness. When ordered to shut down best to move along so as to get along.
In a nutshell that’s the long and short to the busking game. Smile, appear to
be reasonable, act compassionately toward officials fearful of a creative
uprising breaking out upon the sidewalks of their free speech infused
constitutionally guaranteed democracy. Street is the ultimate rule of law.
North from Ft Collins we’ll next take on Thermopolis,
Wyoming and her astounding geothermally heated waters. After taming that
frontier town we’ll circle north then west for Chico Hot Springs on the
northernmost boundaries of Yellowstone before stopping in Helena, Montana where
I’ll drop my wife so she may return to California for further explorations in
all things to do with a major home remodeling project that at that date is
scheduled for completion.
For pure comedy I’ll roll north and cross into Canada and
streak north where I’ll be appearing at the 35th Edmonton
International Street Performers Festival. I first appeared at this much heralded
busking tsunami in 1987. All these decades later being invited to appear at the
event dwarfs my wildest expectations. There is not a more lucky so and so. More
to come
Ramping up for getting out on the Beggar’s Banquet-Kindness of Strangers- Why Don’t You Do it In the Road North American International Busking Tour of 2019
This is the Ft Collins, Colorado, Edmonton, Alberta to Grand Prairie long hops and short stops itinerary.
This includes stopping at Miette Hot Spring, Thermopolis, Wyoming for soaking and two days in Kootenay’s at Nakusp Hot Spring. What would you expect from the author of Hot Spring Honeymoon.
A bit of sunscreen, chapstick and we’re set. See you out there on the Street of Dreams
“Try
not to applaud when I make a mistake, you’re only reinforcing bad habits.”
Jefferson
Street 1980
Coffee and Keyboard
One of the grittiest hand to mouth hustles ever invented in this world of hard knocks is busking. No contracts, no off site gigs— just pure hat and more hat shows. “Hat” is street pidgin for money. Conjuring up legal tender from out of the thin blue is the real magic. Motivating someone you have never seen before to open their wallet pluck out a bill and voluntarily hand it over never ceases to be anything less than the biggest pop you’ll ever know. It is a spine tingling page turner with the best ending you’ve ever experienced. A reliable pitch works from here to eternity any time, any day, all year long— she’s always there for you. A sweet pitch where you may go play king’s any day you want is life emancipating.
This lightning bolt street performing
epiphany hijacked my not yet completed journey to adulthood. Somehow I had come
to believe the world I wanted to live in was about running wild and being free.
Anxious family and friends thought I was headed toward a cobblestone
catastrophe. Destitution and insolvency were bookended plotting points. There
is no getting off the road, There were no lucky breaks, no easy streets on this
obstacle strewn unpaid parking ticketed path. You can’t undo what you’ve bet
your last glimmer of hope on. An emergent busker is a go it alone type drowning
in a world insisting on orthodoxy. There has to be no other way out— this is
your fated Tombstone. Conformity is a stinking stalemate. Faith in the kindness
of strangers is your North Star. You set out to do so many shows, as far as an
eye can see, until you’re at risk of being buried in a sea of nickels, dimes
and quarters.
Stalling is what you do when the famous
ego induced death spiral—fear of rejection—has you cornered and on the
ropes. I’d put off trying my luck on the sidewalks of San Francisco so long that
the present moment was now a fresh unused January 1980. Waking frightened with
a stomach tied in knots I drove into Fisherman’s Wharf. What I can remember was
a crazy early morning— the sky a muted overcast blotted daybreak— Jefferson Street was empty— but for the
mournful seagulls, barking sea lions, and this one tentative performer
preparing to place his great expectations on the line.
Making it to the tippy top of the small
time sidewalk show I’d need to find a way of delivering my best razor sharp
fifteen minutes. Running too long was too much and too short added up to too
little. All in, from start to finale, was not one second more than one quarter
of one hour’s journey to glorious acclaim or crushing defeat.
I jiggered the running order, discarded
one routine added another. I invented jokes there and then, whipped up
wisecracks on the fly. This is throwing it down. Street performing is about
owning every inch of the self-claimed constitutionally guaranteed concrete
stage. This is the pedestrian’s coliseum. You are an entertainment gladiator.
Raspy voiced, drained— the grinding
first day exacted the last bead of sweat. Sidewalk shows are a monument to
repetition. Over and over the same routine altered on the whim and the will was
retried and refined. Improvement inched uphill— grudgingly.
In a scalding hot-heartbeat the first
weekend flashed by. Twenty-four shows reverberated across the pavement like a
trumpeting bop infused Miles Davis scorched earth- note perfect- improvised
melodic soul-aching out of this world moon shot. Escape velocity sent this one
and only into busking orbit. I was a man on a mission.
Gut wrenching images of audiences
walking away before I could pass the hat tortured my lean confidence. Curious
youngsters begging parents wanted to stay to see what happened next.
Preschoolers recognized the infant mortal fragility disguised beneath my thin
busking veneer pleaded whining at full lung to see what further trials this odd
bit player would be forced to endure. More than a few lovely’s lingered. A beat
cop standing in scuffed shoe leather
ordered I watch my crowd size. Merchants stood in their doorways half
curious, inconvenienced, not yet convinced— smoking cigarettes. Assorted
stubborn misfits, the grizzled survivors of the sidewalk scene all too pressed
by their own scramble to make ends meet had not even a spare moment to fritter
away calculating the odds of my surviving. My peers didn’t need to know— they
knew. Those relationships would grow if I could make my sidewalk show stick.
Jefferson Street was wide open if you were foolish enough. Here was untamed
frontier, civilizations western most outpost, an emphatic continental end of the
line— the leading edge of some one of a kind infinitely-dubious vocational
enterprise.
First and foremost street theater is about profitably stopping people dead in their tracks. Two becomes four, four turns into eight; eight becomes an engaged audience of fifty. Practitioner’s of this centuries old enterprise have an eye, feel the vibe— know how quick they’ll draw a crowd— how long they dare to hold them. Change the show’s length, alter the pace, adapt to live another day— execution is the whole enchilada. Wily busker’s got this one word— survival— tattooed across their chest— there is no second chance, prosper or perish, show up, play big, be present for the only moment that counts. Get real you overzealous flame throwing heartbreaker’s or sit back down— life is short.
“I know what you’re
thinking. What a horrible way for a chicken to have to make a living. Well,
there are a lot of chickens working at Safeway and they’re not having half as
much fun.”
Word Count 2208…
The Chicken on the Head Routine
Uncle Ray’s playing two trumpets simultaneously was his tour
de force sidewalk show closer. Squeezing a drum between his knees, strumming a
guitar, tapping his drum with a brush, keeping time with a tambourine taped to
his boot, wearing a vintage leather aviators helmet, goggles, playing the same
four or five songs for the simple reason that the four or five he played were
the songs that paid. The dual trumpet bit was icing on the cake, a signature bit, always the
attention grabber.
The two of us shared the same piece of sidewalk, same days
of the week and same hours of the day. As audiences go his people were my
people, and mine were his. Ray was a colleague. I knew what he knew. There was
mutual respect. Banging out three or four hours on Jefferson Street one more
day was to defy the odds.
When Uncle Ray wasn’t
working the pitch on Jefferson Street he was in a club. I never asked his age. Best
estimate he was a youthful fifty-something. Ray worked his spot, made his nut,
spent the rest of the week playing jazz around town in the clubs. The lanky
gentleman was a military veteran, served in Viet Nam. Bald, bearded, Ray as the
result of a misaligned jaw spoke with an unique palette induced effect. The
busking bugler was well loved, had a lady and a colorfully curtained Volkswagen
bus he used for winter stints in Baja. Ray and his lady-friend shared an
upscale apartment at the corner of Euclid and Masonic. This was a classy
upscale view pad. There was a balcony, parking, floor to ceiling windows. Uncle
Ray lived in style afforded to a man capable of his dual trumpet skills.
Word had come down that the San Francisco Police Department
had made a sweep of Fisherman’s Wharf. Street acts were arrested in mass. There
were no questions asked, no warning given. The police pulled up, handcuffed the
so called public nuisance, tossed the riff-raff into the paddy wagon and took
the perpetrators downtown. By chance Ray and I both had the day off. We’d missed all the fun.
Soon enough we’d got word that the orders for the sweep had
come from Central Precinct in North Beach. Most know Central Station by its
nickname: Keystone. Out on the street rumor was the Captain wanted it known that until further notice the
streets in his precinct were closed to busking. If anyone didn’t get the memo, someone
had a problem, thought this was some kind of misunderstand, then the Captain would
be more than happy to set the misinformed individual straight on who was actually
running the show.
Four of us go down to see the Captain. Took about two
seconds for the front-desk duty-officer to size up the four patsies disturbing
his peace. Annoyed, but then the Duty Officer was born annoyed, got off his
chair double clutched his scowl, then marched us down the hallway into the precinct Captain’s office.
Seated at his desk with his lieutenant standing at his side
the precinct Captain gave the appearance of being absolutely in charge of every
square block under his command.
Our Captain was
Italian, suave and groomed to code. Sizing us up wasn’t even tic-tac-toe, the
former beat cop had us pegged. We were maybe a troupe of Boy Scouts out on their
first field trip. None of the four of us had an prior’s mostly on account of
dumb luck. We had not heard gun shots, been in a fist fights or had any
experience trying to make nice while cuffing a man twice our size. Our precinct
Captain was concerned about pimps, muggers and burglars. Our coming to protest our
busking associates being arrested was quaint. All we were doing was wasting his
time, he wouldn’t say as much, but all there was for us to do was wait for the
Captain’s final decision to penetrate our
thick skulls. We were the piece of his official duties that fell under the
heading of community relations. This was the first time for us to try playing
the change the Captain’s mind game whereas the Captain hoped it would be his
last. The learning curve was steep. He had an edge. He was paid to wait.
Part of the Captain’s job was every now and then while
waiting for a group aggrieved citizens to see the light, well he’d have to take
a brief moment out of his busy schedule for the purpose of explaining the facts
of life in the event certain present individuals in his company might well still
be confused about who was actually in charge of the City’s sidewalks. He’d had
it much tougher. We were almost fun.
Our Captain had worked his way up the ranks. Starts out in
traffic, domestic violence, vagrancy that sort of thing. Later he’s in homicide,
sex crimes unit, tactical squad, undercover narcotics investigators—the
Captain is busy fighting crime and keeping the peace. The thing to know is that
it was an embarrassment for a San Francisco Police Officer to have to go to
Fisherman’s wharf and have to crack down on the street performers. Putting a tear
eyed street performer in the slammer put the jinx on a cops career. Police work
entailed fighting up to no good paroled felons. Sensitive street performers
weren’t even clowns.
The precinct Captain gestures with the wave of his hand, “Take
a seat.” He closes a file on his desk. “You want a glass of water?” None of us
are thirsty. “Coffee?”
The Captain pushes
his chair back. On the wall behind him are photographs of the many very
important people he has posed with over the course of his years of service. There
are pictures with Willie Brown, Herb Caen, Joe Alioto, Tony Bennett, Turk
Murphy and Vince Guaraldi. All the famous fat cats were mounted behind the
precinct Captain in neat black and white eight by tens.
Smiling with an ever so slight brooding undercurrent he attempts
to explain the situation. “My Lieutenant here, I had asked if he would take me
for a drive through Fisherman’s Wharf.” The Captains cadence had a slight lilt,
a bit of a rhythmic hop, skip and a jump. He continued, “Merchants had come to
us with concerns, they had some complaints about street performers. Merchants
said things were getting out of hand, that the police were going to have to do
what they have to do to take back control of our public thoroughfares.” Our
Captain smiling and seeming relaxed looked sympathetically toward his assembled
quorum. “I told my Lieutenant I wanted to see the situation for myself- with my
own eyes. I mean I like street performers—who doesn’t like street performers?
Everybody likes to see street performers. And so with an open mind my
Lieutenant and I, the two of us, we go for a drive in my precinct. Get it? My
precinct. I got the wharf, North Beach, Chinatown and a piece of the Financial
District under my watch. I’d rather be sitting on Telegraph Hill drinking
scotch and watching sunset, buy even a Captain can’t always get what he wants. You
see, this is a part of the City I have been put in charge of, it falls on me to
do what I have to do to protect and defend this part of town. Day and night,
three hundred and sixty five days of the year— what happens out there on my
streets is on me. Isn’t that right Lieutenant?”
The Lieutenant nods his head affirmatively having not heard
truer words or a more coherent explanation of how the world works according to
the San Francisco Police Department.
I think one of us tried mustering the courage to get a word
in edgewise. The Captain raised his hand, “hold your horses,” he said, “wait just a
minute, you’ll get your turn.” The Captain would let us speak just as soon as
he has had time to complete his thought.
Our dapper Captain his shirt pressed, badge polished, possessed
a swarthy olive complexion that displayed patches of enthusiastic fits of red
as his circulation increased. Nobody could not notice pitch black hair and the touch
of grey at his temples. “It is a beautiful day. Fisherman’s Wharf is packed.
People visiting the City, pedestrians are trying to walk down the sidewalk.
Now, first thing I notice is this musician. He’s got a guitar, guitar case in
front of him, someone is going to break their neck tripping over the thing but
never mind our musician is playing music. I like music, my lieutenant likes
music— everybody loves music, who doesn’t love music?” He wasn’t asking a
question. “But, the musician is playing music in a doorway, and this is a
doorway to the entrance of a business, a business I might add that pays business
taxes for the pleasure of being engaged in commerce here in this great city.
Now, this musician he’s blocking the door and people cannot get in and cannot
get out of this establishment on account of the musician and his crowd blocking
the doorway because of his playing music. You get the picture? This is
something I do not like to see, even
though I love music as much as anyone, who doesn’t love music?” He plays cool
again and wants to make another point. “So, we continue driving down the
street. I’m a little upset, you’d be upset, but you’re not me, thank god for
that, so I tell my lieutenant that let’s continue, let’s continue to keep an
open mind, let’s go down the street and take a look at any further situations.
Me and my lieutenant, we want the big picture, we want to know what’s going on.
I mean the point I’m trying to make is that I have an open mind, maybe I do not
understand, maybe there might be a simple explanation for the circumstances of
the musician having to locate in a doorway. I don’t know. So far nobody has
been able to explain these things to me. Let’s keep going, let’s find out what
else there is to see. So, we drive a little further and we see a mime. OK? He
is miming. I ask the Lieutenant to stop so we may enjoy his show. I don’t know.
He thinks he’s funny, the mime is miming as I said and I guess, best anyone can
tell, his act is supposed to mock people walking by while he is standing still.
Then, when someone walks by he starts moving and he starts imitating people
that are trying to walk by, to me it was more like he was mocking the
pedestrians trying to pass by, he was making fun of the visitors that have come
to our city, in my opinion he is insulting these people. I’d go so far as to
say he was victimizing these innocent. He was not my idea of funny. Nothing
about his act appealed to me. All I can tell you is that I am disheartened by
what I see. Isn’t that right Lieutenant?”
The Lieutenant rubber faced, also Italian frowns in
agreement with his precinct Captain.
“I ask my Lieutenant to go ahead, let’s keep going, let’s
see what else we can see. We drive a little further until I see this crowd of
pedestrians, and they are spilling out off the sidewalk onto the roadway, as
they cannot get around, their egress is completely impeded. There was an unsafe
situation right there before my very eyes. Someone could get hurt. Pedestrians
belong on sidewalks not spilling out on the street. I ask the Lieutenant to stop.
We are discussing the unsafe situation we are witnessing. I don’t even know
what this street performer is even supposed to be doing. This entertainer he’s
saying something to the crowd. We cannot make out what he has on his mind, it
is impossible for us to see there are so many people between us and this street
performer.” The Captain’s voice rises. “Then, next thing I know this street
performer, he is up in the air balancing on some kind of gizmo he lights up
some torches, we got an open fire on my sidewalks, we got a violation right there,
and then this street performer I don’t know where it even came from but he puts
a live chicken on top of his head and then so help me God this completely out
of control individual starts fire juggling for the crowd.”
The Captain looking down mindlessly thumbing the file on his desk lost in thought. It was a moment before he could find the words. “One thing I will never allow is for anyone to come into my neighborhood and think for one second they can get away with lighting three fire torches and then juggle those torches while balancing a chicken on his head.”
