Straddling the street corners of quaint urban centers everywhere, there exists a street performer. Sometimes he’s doing card tricks, maybe he’s floating those glass balls around like David Bowie in “Labyrinth.” Maybe she’s dressed like the statue of liberty or a ancient Greek statue. Give em’ a buck, sometimes they’ll do something neat for you. There’s not enough room in the world for everyone to be doctors and lawyers. Sometimes you have to make ends meet in creative ways. Especially now in this dystopian post pandemic fantasy land, sometimes you’ve got to get back to your roots and really find that last dime.
My wife and I frequent a grocery store. It’s not the most high end, or a at least it doesn’t present itself as such. It’s a fairly standard few football fields of narrow parking spaces with a giant beige block of a store at the one end. Its outdated architecture and giant red block lettered sign scream things like “neighborhood",” and “working man.” The typical corporate wolf in sheep’s clothing. We go there because it’s convenient, not because it’s cheap. Through silly things like rebates and discounts on gasoline at its connected gas stations it would seem your getting a deal by shopping there. Basic math skills would prove otherwise. That five dollars you saved on a tank of fuel doesn’t go very far when the average block of cheddar is more than twice that.
The parking lot is unique in that they designed the lanes and parking spots just ever so slightly smaller than they safely should be. The reason could only be to slam in those last four or five cars at the outer edges of the lot, for busy seasons like thanksgiving or Christmas. Nothing speeds up your turkey dinner shopping like a little threat of vehicular manslaughter. You only realize it once you attempt to turn into a parking aisle, even the most understated family sedan cant make the razor sharp ninety degree turn in without scraping the front fender of an escaping car of the same size. If you happen to be a pedestrian walking to your car, you better have your head on a swivel because it’s far less than two cars and a baby carriage wide and the baby carriage is definitely the softest competitor. After the first few bouts of parking lot road rage, my wife and I have realized this and now tend to park quite a bit away from the doors to avoid the obvious clusterfuckery. Regardless of how busy the parking lot is, it’s always a seventy-five yard walk, give or take.
One summer day we arrived for our pop-tarts and baby formula to find a gentleman, with his wife and children, playing an accordion through a large speaker. The guy, thirties maybe, his wife the same, and two cute little kids just sitting on the curb, supporting their old man by situationally pleading their case. The wife has a big sandwich board she’s presenting to the passing cars. On it is written the standard pandemic story. Lost job, no money, need food, please help, thanks and god bless. Is it funny yet that I don’t need to give an exact description for you, the reader, to know exactly what I’m presenting? Think about that for a while. Hopefully after sufficient mental gymnastics you can come up with a position that doesn’t make you feel bad.
The man is playing is heart out, it seems. I’ts some synthetic keyboard background track with bass and piano, with his lead melodies floating over top. The guy doesn’t sound too bad. I am immediately sympathetic. As a mediocre musician myself, I really appreciate the guy or gal with the balls to pick up and instrument and play their version of the latest top ten for passers by. That’s basic, simple, traditional. It’s a hard fucking game, most definitely. I believe it was George Carlin who said something to tune of, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - Well… what do you think that does to their taste in music?
My sister is a musician, far better than I. She used to go out into the bohemian streets of New Orleans as a young twenty something and play guitar and sing. “Busking” is the officially licensed term for it. She told me plenty of stories about How people will walk right by a professional voice carefully caressing the notes of “Ave Maria” to throw money at someone hitting a bucket and rapping a Lil’ Wayne hook.
This guy seems to be in the middle of the pack. Not too good, not bad. Just hammering away behind a crackling outdoor speaker that’s reached its volume limit. A little sachet to the left or right now and then to get into it. He’s not in front of the building, but far off to one side in the no-mans-land of parking lot between the grocer and the neighboring big box store. I figure it’s most likely he was told politely to piss right off by someone wearing a corporate name tag. Buskers have to watch out for that. Typically the smaller the store and tighter the environment, the less and owner cares about you plying away a few feet from the door… adds to the ambiance, as long as your not being too offensive. But the big corpos though, you better watch your ass. Someone up in the chain normally thinks you and whatever cultural subset you represent is too much for their fragile image. We cant have our beloved customers panhandled to by some musical riff-raff trying to scrape a buck out of our potential profit, you know. This is private property, We can do what we will with it. Out you go. By the way would you like to donate to “a local charity” as you pay your overpriced bill? We care about human welfare… a lot.
I remark to my wife about his predicament and how I think I should throw him a few bucks. She looks a bit blank and is gazing off into the distance in the direction of the grating speaker. All I get from her is a bit of a… “meh,” and a mumble and we continue on. At our exit from the building I’m still recovering from the wallet-raping and trying to see if I have any spare dollars. It’s the year 2021, who on earth has cash? On our exit, I ask my wife if she has a spare single or two and I can repay her if she doesn’t like the music. She, with the same blank look, replies “No. I don’t think he’s playing anyhow.”
“What do you mean? He’s playing the accordion.” I reply incredulously.
“No, I mean I think he’s just hitting the keys randomly and that’s a recording, Don’t you hear that?”
It’s at this point I should probably let the reader know after years of teaching drums to children, my hearing is not what it used to be.
“Wait… really?” I’m confused, I’ve never seen someone cheat that brazenly before.
She’s right. Very quietly, under the melodic lines floating through the parking lot is a subtle undertone of complete dissonant accordion nonsense. I guess the way he’s got himself wired up that little tell can’t be avoided. Everything else I’m hearing is most definitely a recording. Squinting down the parking lot, I can see his hands aren’t even in time. The guy is a regular parking lot Milli Vanilli. A total cheat.
I cant believe it. The audacity of it. You, some guy, you’re going to try to cheat me by playing to my sense of charity and love of accordion? What on earth has the world come to? In my disgust I send a message to my sister, surely she would joint me in moral critique. It takes a few more messages to get the point across but at least she eventually agrees. She doesn’t satisfy my need for validation and critical venom, though. She’s a very peaceful and understanding individual. My wife Brushes the situation off, she’s got more important things to think of. Calling the police seems a bit much and I am too disappointed to drive past him. We drive off. I put my window up with gusto.
Did you know Milli Vanilli was awarded a Grammy? Whoever awards those eventually took it back after the secret broke that they were a fraud. I’m quite certain they sold at least a few thousand units by that point though. There’s actually quite a lot of artists that have been caught lip-synching while doing thigs like stadium and stage performances mostly. A bit of energy before the last note finishes or a lazy roadie forgets to connect the right wire and they’re suddenly screeching out of tune over they’re own pre-recorded voice. That doesn’t look good when you’ve been belting away perfectly like a resurrected and auto-tuned Freddie Mercury for an entire three songs. Years ago Jessica Simpson’s sister was booed off the stage at a championship football game because she decided to sing over her own recording, it wasn’t very good, maybe she had a bad night. Oh there’s also Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers not even plugging his bass guitar in at the Super Bowl. Seems kind of weird he would do that considering his entire schtick is his wild and unique… live bass playing. We ignore that, I guess. Even Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman fake played to a recording of themselves at the Obama inauguration. They made all that music themselves, originally, for sure. It’s not like we can just turn on a computer program and automatically program your speaking voice into singing a whole album. Oh, we can do that, you say? Well, one can be sure they still wrote it at the very least… all on their own, most of them. If they hadn’t it would seem almost disingenuous.
Months later, I arrive alone to the same grocer. My wife and I have agreed we can shop there only for fruit and certain brand name items not carried by other stores. I park my requisite three minute walk away and leave the car to the sound of music. A lone violinist busker has wandered into the parking lot and set up a speaker. A nice subtle backing track of understated piano underscores violin melody tha-holy shit it’s the same fucking guy.
I crane my neck to see over the cars as I make my long walk. Yup… same guy. Thirties, little dance moves, he’s learned though. He’s making broad strokes on his violin which I’ll bet is harder for the casual viewer to see through. His wife is there and has an updated sandwich board. Ooh, he almost got me. Here he is cheating again. He’s back. This guy is undeterred. I wonder how many times he’s been here on days that I’ve missed. Someone passes by and holds out their hand to his wife, she smiles and thanks them while accepting a dollar or two.
The scene reminds me of a quote. “There’s a sucker born every minute.” I recite it in my mind as I make my way across the lot. I’m suddenly less disgusted. I believe that was P.T. Barnum who said it. What a guy that was. He made all his money on fraud basically. Then turned around and debunked other “tricks of the trade” hoaxers. They made a musical about that guy… with Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron.
I wonder what the difference is, this guy vs. everyone else. I guess they’re all the same. Just hoaxtsers out for a quick buck. Oh wait, the same if you forget that all those others have more money. I mean, WAY more money.
As I get to the door, It’s obvious my attention is directed down to the end of the parking lot, the young cart pusher notices. “Yep, he’s out here again.”
I turn to see him, we enter the store together and I acknowledge him with a nod and a winced face. He speaks again, “Yeah, he’s pretty good though. Have to admit that.”
I look back. It takes me a few seconds but I finally reply.
“Yeah, man. He’s pretty good.”