Beating the Drum for Change

So there's always a large number of panhandlers downtown playing musical instruments or, in some cases, playing other implements in a way that could be described as meeting some of the definitive characteristics of music:

Music: n. Sound that has been deliberately created and shaped for an artistic purpose, such as to create emotion, please the senses, or communicate an idea or ideal. Music typically employs such devices as rhythm, melody, and harmony to produce an aesthetic effect.

That's a pretty good definition. I like that. I'm not usually good at coming with definitions, but I like that one.

So anyway, downtown Santa Cruz. They have people there right on the sidewalk, making music or some approximation thereof. Playing the guitar, singly or in groups, singing or not singing. Playing woodwinds, sometimes. One old dude even used to play the saw! He died, and they made a statue out of him. It sits where he used to sit and play, on Pacific, near Bookshop Santa Cruz. People put flowers in the nooks of the crooks of the statue's arms and lap.

There's another beloved figure who always appears in the guise of some neon technicolor ninja mime clown alien being, moving in an elegant yet herky jerky way and playing an accordion. You can't see so much as a square inch of this person - totally covered by costume! I keep meaning to do a roving photoessay of downtown, with photos illustrated by poems. I'd certainly want to include this dude. He rules!

Other folks are more low-key about it, appearing in more or less typical human clothes, playing more or less common musical instruments. Tooting a horn, maybe (hopefully, their own horn - I'd hate to think it's stolen! And tooting a borrowed horn seems dubiously sanitary). Drums, bongos and other percussion instruments are well-represented. I've seen some beautiful violin and fiddling. And of course, you'll see ensembles of any or all of the aforementioned, all mixed up together, making a merry or other noise, and generally with some cash-ready receptacle handy (a guitar case is a popular option). Sometimes, a sign as well.

One of the things they call all that is: "busking." Some of the other things they call it, I won't repeat.

So one day, anyway, the upshot is: I want to give it a crack. I think to do it up properly I might need to apply for a beggar's permit. There might even be a special subclass of that permit: a troubadour beggar's permit. But I want to do more than just satisfy the formalities. I have a whole picture in mind of how I want to go out. I want to get a pale off-white, light, breathy, impeccably clean but semi-rumpled linen summer suit (or maybe, seersucker), with an immaculate white linen shirt, open at the neck and displaying a smooth, carved wooden medallion on a teak-beaded string. I'd also want to get a hat. Something to shade the eyes, and maybe, make me seem just that much more mysterious. Plus maybe, shades.

And in my propped-open guitar case, I'd have a couple of large unmarked 2-lb plastic bags of talcum powder. I'd dip into those a bit, if my hands got sweaty. The top one would have a diagonal switchblade slit in its surface, so I wouldn't have to undo the whole thing to get at the stuff.

And I'd play. And I'd sing. And the money would just roll in, if coin, and probably sort of flutter or drop in - if bills, depending on whether they were crumpled. In fact, I'd probably want to have a square, neatly-lettered sign propped up in the case: "CRUMPLE YOUR LARGE BILLS."

I've got it all thought out!