Busking in Melbourne 20th March 2010

There we were making our way to Southbank on a warmish kinda night. The grass was wetter than usual, maybe because the state government had recently announced that water restrictions were being lifted from 3A to just 3, making our shoes sink as we walked through the grass towards St Kilda Road right in front of the art gallery. Unlike most other nights there were no emos sitting underneath the tree palms on the little hill, I assume emos are allergic to water and did not want to get their platform Doc Martens wet on the soggy grass.

One thing that there were plenty of, though, were yuppies coming out of the National Gallery from the latest offering from Melbourne's artistic scene. Needless to say we weren't feeling too comfortable or confident. Things looked too good to be true and it seemed we were once again at the mercy of what the City would throw up, and that meant a date with Mr Recorder.

We made our way down the stairs towards the underpass of the Swanston Bridge. As usual the Saxophonist with the backing track (cheat) was doing his usual business. We always drop a few coins in his case as Karma, like JT said "what goes around comes around".

The Southbank boardwalk was unusually busy for this time of night. We had deliberately come a little later than usual to hopefully find our spot vacant.

We knew we were in trouble when we didn't see the Recorder Guy standing in our spot.

In his place was a young Filipino guy who appeared to have Down Syndrome. He sat just outside the glass doors of the building where we usually set up. He wore a blue track suit in the manner of a gangster rapper. And although this guy looked totally pityfull he knew exactly what he was doing, even though no one could understand a word he was saying, let alone singing. He had his headphones plugged into a boom box, obviously to feed the music to his ears, and a microphone to amplify his voice...Why? I don't know...its not like he was any good, hell, he got more hecklers than fans, but they put money in his cloth like crazy. I looked at my brother and said "We can't compete with this". A security guard must have overheard me and yelled out "maybe you should make him your lead singer". Well 3 hours, 40 dollars, and floating body later I thought "maybe we should". He made $250 in the same time.

We need more cash

We need more cash, I mean how am I support my coke addiction if I can't even find 2 dollars for a hit. I seriously considered putting one on the credit card but with the way the interest is on our Mastercard, 18.99% p.a. I am looking at a 2.40 hit if I pay it right on one year. I don't pay it for 5 years that hit could cost me nearly 5 bucks...5 bucks for coke...what is this, Springvale. I remember when I was young you could buy heroine for that much...I am having hallucinations now...Coke...Coke...Coke

Last Saturday Night

...I went busking to the great busking mecca of Melbourne, Southbank, and what do you know...the guy with the recorder was standing in our spot...again.

He's not even that good!