as a working often toronto busker i can't resist this one.

yeah it's sort of unfair they make us audition for subway licences, but as someone who has been inside the tent pissing out and out side the tent pissing in, i can say it's not all bad.

the strong arm tactics that regularly crop up on the bald street are eliminated and people in toronto mostly know we've passed auditions so they give a little more respect--deserved or not--that's an other issue.

the wierd thing is the main trouble for a subway busker comes from a few crazy buskers and the transit ticket takers, a few of whom have been on a vendetta for years to shut us down at every station they work at. we've lost three good downtown stations in the last four years, and one good east end one. this was due to union pressure. as a lefty i have real problem with a union putting people out of work but then unions aren't ideological any more.

in vancouver the union guys at sea bus put in regulation a fter regulation untill they chased out the full time pros, like me, and its part timers now or people topping up the welfare cheque. i have nothing against welfare but as a totally self supporting busker for years it a differnt deal than getting a welfare cheque. the poeple who busk full time are very differnt too. you do have get the strangers to like you, rather than lay on the attitude.

i've never been bugged by the cops out in the street but i only spend a few hours a week busking outside the subway, and i play harp which even cops think is cutesie. cutsie is gooc for busking by the way, grunge and capital a anarchism are not.

busker festivals are also a sore point as most of the "buskers" there only play buskers festivals. i wish they'd hire the people who really do the job.

and this summer has been awfull, i'm really getting broke as i have bought a new harp while only making ten buck a hour often. most years have benn much better, i may hit the road for survival soon.

the truth is that people who wok at straight rule book dominated occupations do often have an irrational hate of buskers because we are free of that shit. if the same people had any idea of the shit we have to deal with instead they'd cringe but they don't realize what it takes. i perfer living with the unpredicability of the "street" over a straight job, but then it's not like i really had a choice. bosses hate me! i've been the most productive worker at several jobs by any standard of measurement and the bosses always hated me, many buskers are this type of person and you get more and nmore ideosyncratic the longer you do it.but i do eny the job benifits of others. every tooth ache is a major deal for me. for many years i couldn't even get medicare as the rules to get the card cut me out--believe it or not.

so don't let them crush us out of existance! we need peple to lobby for us . not the least of which reason is that a significant number of buskers are living illegally whereever they are and so they have no legal recourse agaist the burreaucrats or cops. even me in the us, which has many good busking cities.

so some one out there form the buskers benevolent association--i may need a home when i'm seventy five!

we are often dumped on by certain "folkies" too. it doesn't make sense but then what does in this wierd world, but many amateur folkies think making money soils the tradition. i think we are the tradition. many buskers are from the ethnic backgrounds that the traditions come from. whether south american natives, nova scotian ballad and reel players or gypsie fiddlers fron hungary--all of whom i've regularly shared spots with.