A City Between the Lines 3

Busking in the City of Melbourne, Australlia

Finding a decent place to play is frustrating. Given that it’s Christmas time, every busker in Melbourne seems to have converged on the city centre and consequently all the good spots are taken. I thought I was playing it safe by nominating for the City of Melbourne Christmas Busking program, in which nominees are guaranteed a designated spot at a designated time. I arrive to find my spot at the chess board near Little Collins St taken by a couple of breakdancers. I’ve had this happen once before and had to ask the double bassist who was there if he would give the spot up for me since I’d booked it. Though he complied, he wasn’t happy about having to move and though I felt like a jerk, I justified it by recalling the time he’d set up across the road from me while I’m playing and played his music loud enough to clash with mine. I’m going through the same thing with the breakdancers and they’re less complicit, however they’re prepared to relent. While I’m talking to them, the absurdity of the program dawns on me and I tell them not to worry about it.

Unless it’s the Bourke St Mall where a specific permit is needed to busk and there are weekly meetings amongst the musicians there, it’s ridiculous to expect us to govern locations which usually aren’t specifically designated for certain types of buskers. If the city council wants us to be in certain places at certain times so as to promote the city as some kind of cultural hub, they ought to pay us to be there and take measures to make sure it’s free

beyond a neat little decal on the street that helpfully proclaims ‘Hi, I’m a Christmas Festival Busker!”. Otherwise, where’s the incentive to do anything other than stick with the first in, best dressed policy which governs the streets? The end result is the buskers who aren’t aware of the program getting pissed off and buskers who are aware simultaneously disappointed and having to act like jerks. The program is a nice little idea, but it’s made completely redundant in the face of the unwritten laws of street performance.

As a result, I’m walking for a solid hour before I find a decent spot. Not only that, determining one is made all the more difficult by the threat of rain. The cool change has followed the heatwave and the skies look like they’re about to break any minute. I settle in the shelter out the front of JB HiFi on Bourke St.

I open my case. I set everything up. Wait. Something is missing.

Fuck.

I’ve… fucking… forgotten my lead.

'Scuse my French, but no other words could sum up the level of frustration I am feeling. Unfortunately, I am in a public space and I would prefer not to grace my surrounds with an operatic rendering of the profane. I pack up my gear again and nearly decide to call it quits and go home, but I figure Allans Music is up the road and the fellas there will help me out. Surely enough, they do and Dave is kind enough to give me a free lead. I promise myself on the way back that I cannot forget again. I've only done this twice and only in recent weeks. Little things like this remind me that there's probably more on my mind than what I'd care to acknowledge.

When I finally start playing, it’s a relief. Finally. While it’s not that busy, I do as well as I did in the Bourke St Mall the other day. You’d Christmas would render the streets bountiful, but I suspect the abundance of buskers attempting to cash in on Christmas mitigates what one would have normally taken. It’s particularly frustrating when I look to my left and see another busker has decided to set up not far from me. I’m especially irritating when I see he is also playing piano. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or thankful that what he is playing and singing is (in my opinion) pointless Asian-pop garbage.

Yeah, harsh words, but here’s the thing. You see another busker, you give him a few yards. Usually, you try to make sure you’re out of earshot. If you’re thinking I’m being considerate when I factor this into account, don’t. I know fully well I am less likely to make anything or advance my cause unless I make use of the space between me and the next guy. The end result is what you call ‘busker fatigue’. I’ve felt it too, when I’m not busking. Normally, I want to support as many of them as I can, but whenever there’s a big event you can’t get away from them and there’s less incentive to give any of them coin when there’s ten of them in as many seconds of each other. Thankfully, most seem to get the idea and keep their distance. Besides, the more the merrier and there’s likely to be something for everyone. However, you would have noticed that you rarely see a guy singing with a guitar within the vicinity of another one. So the whole deal with setting up a piano near me leaves me at a loss.

Anyway, I don’t think about it too much. A little boy walks past and he’s completely fixated on what I’m playing. His name is Liam and he’s two, though he’s old enough to know how to mimic putting coins into the bag. He tugs on his dad’s shirt as though he’s trying to convince him to do likewise, but with the real thing. Eventually, his dad relents and he leaves me fascinated as to how it only takes two years for some to get a conceptualisation of the value of certain things.

The warmest smile I receive during the day is from a man with Down’s Syndrome. He’s about thirty and he walks past and gives me the thumbs up just like anyone else would. There was something about his smile that stood out, and it wasn’t because of his handicap. It shouldn’t be something that’s notable, but it’s that sort of thing that reminds me that only their limitations are the only distinction between us and them. Come to think of it, that’s a stupid term, ‘us and them’. Seeing that sort of response from someone with a mental disability slowly chips away at the perceptions I’ve had ingrained in my head since I was a kid.

It gets chipped away at even more when someone I’m familiar with comes past. He’s being pushed in a wheelchair by another man and he was the first person who listened to me in the Bourke St Mall. His disabilities are far more severe, but his awkward movements are not spastic so as to impede him from clapping his hands in appreciation. He has instantly recognised me and we both acknowledge this without words. Again, greeting him and being greeted like it was anyone else is a moment where the internal difference are exposed as null.

A boy walks past and he starts screaming ‘YOU ARE FUCKING AWESOME, I WANT TO GIVE YOU ALL MY FUCKING COINS!’ He charges toward me like a rugby player on speed and can’t help but start hitting keys while I’m trying to play. Though he looked normal, it becomes immediately apparent that he’s different. Very different. He’s got a good heart though, however I’m struck by the blurring between differences and non-differences after my exchanges with him and last two. I think of the way in which the man with Down’s Syndrome and the man in the wheelchair appear so different, but internally they are not. I compare this with the way in which this boy appears normal to everyone, but is definitely a bit… ‘different’. What is similar everyone’s core is the capacity for appreciation and the ability to express it.

One man devoid of any capacity for appreciation is someone I’ve seen a few times in Bourke St. He’s half naked and covered in tattoos. I remember him from the distict ‘ELTHAM PRODUCE’ tattoo on his right arm. I’m not sure if he lost a bet, if he was drunk or desperate for money. He’s totally junked out of his mind. His jeans are falling down and showing more of him than I’d care to see. What I don’t understand is how his small, sinewy frame implies fitness where a drug addict is typically emaciated or in some other state of physical disrepair. He seems like he wants to ask people for money, but he is so scattered that he instead bumps into one person after another before he finally looks up and points to the sky and sprints down the footpath screaming. In the process, he narrowly avoids bowling over a young family with a little girl. Express whatever sympathy you may for those plagued by addiction, it’s moments like these which highlight the selfishness which is inextricably a big part of their condition.

Another unfortunately soul walks past. She’s an old girl with faded-green sailors tattoo smuged on her arm. Like the chap who just went for gold in the hundred metre sprint, she’s not of sound mind. Unlike him, she’s a benign presence and her broken ballet dancing to the beat of my music demonstrates she little more aware of her surroundings.

I’m packing up and I get talking to an old gent who’s been listening to me. He was one of the many men who would sit and watch me for a long time on the bench across from me. A lot of the men were clearly homeless or mentally ill. He was different to them in that he actually gave me a couple of coins. It turns out he lives in the same hotel as The Old Master, a friend of mine who I’m visiting later that night. He is well spoken and his voice has an English lilt, though it reminds me of the Australian accents you used to hear on old news reports from decades ago. Shaking my hand, he tells me that unlike the other pianists he’s seen in the city, I play with a lot of energy. ‘They’re a lot more melodic, a lot more gentle, but I can see this is all about energy for you. It’s energetic.’