Evil musician gets ejected from the 2009 Northwest Folklife Festival by four members of the Seattle Police Department for playing folk music at the folk music festival! I'm not sure exactly what happened. I'm usually pretty focused on just what I do when I perform and entertain. I don't go out of my way to tromp on anyone in particular with the messages in my songs but some of them are stronger than others and there is a point to why I sing and play them. I'm not saying that's why I was ultimately asked by the head of security to move on. He had a whole host of rules to demonize me with and reasons as to why I shouldn't be allowed to entertain folks with my hand saw and homemade guitar.

For instance, for some unknown reason, there's a rule that states that street musicians cannot perform underneath any outside structure at the Seattle Center grounds, where the festival is held, that is built to either shed rain or shade someone from the sun. I'm fairly certain that there are some real good reasons why musicial folk would prefer to stand in the blazing sun and not in the shade or the pouring rain, instead of under cover with their instruments as they entertain folks, I just can't think of any right now.

I think this whole issue is based in some kind of monetary argument. Every rule in place seems to be based in that same reasoning. The folk festival invites craft folk to bring their wares to sell and charges them a hefty fee for the opportunity. The crafters get to set up their booths underneath the covered areas of the festival grounds and after paying hundreds of dollars for the right to be there, I'm supposing that the craft folks aren't so eager to see street performers blocking any of the foot traffic along those pathways. I'm just guessing, but I think that some of the craft folks view the street performers as encroaching upon their profits by the activity of entertaining passersby and getting donations via their activities. So, I imagine, that this rule that was enacted by the folk festival folks was to keep that sort of thing from happening and thereby keeping the craft folks as happy as they can. This probably also minimizes having craft folks pointing their fingers at music folks and blaming them for their lack of sales. Security drones are dispatched to seek out and demonize any folk music performer who would think that entertaining in a location like that might be a good idea.

In fact, street entertainers do very little to inhibit sales via their activities. They actually create a festive atmosphere among those folks wandering around the grounds of the event. Even more than the events that the festival works so hard to stage, without a stage, street performers are able to connect and share their talents with festival goers more directly and only manage to reap mere donations for their talents and energies. Street performances should be viewed as a positive attribute to any musical event like this.

I was first approached by someone who mentioned that I was not to perform there and I looked around and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. I had no huge crowd blocking traffic. I pointed toward the crowded walkway nearby where vendor's booths were making the path narrow and said now there's congestion. Then I turned to the small group of fifteen or so that had gathered before me and said, "Besides these people love me." Then I added, "Even the ATM line." There was an ATM right next to where I was and the line was long. One of the folks in line there shouted back, "Yeah, we love him!"

He then left and I reasonably figured that I had made my case and that as long as I wasn't creating too huge a crowd via my activities, I was okay. I didn't see that there were two teenage security guys standing behind me the whole time who had called for backup from their head of security. I continued making smiles unaware of what was going on just behind me.

Unfortunately, power hungry folks in positions of authority are always anxious to extend their power and use it to its fullest whenever they can. They see their function as needed even when it is not and go out of their way, as this guy did, to justify their position by pushing people's buttons and pushing the envelope of their power just to make themselves seem needed. Even when their efforts are ill directed as they were in this case. I don't think that I need to cite examples here of the endless number of times that folks like him pushed their weight around for no good end.

Generally speaking, street performing is a very green and organic means of offering one's entertainment skills and talents. No PA system is required, no stage or lighting is needed. So, there's no need for electricity. It's just one person offering his or her abilities, musical or otherwise, to another who happens to be willing to view and listen. The listener or audience decides if what is being offered is worth offering anything at all in return to support it. They can walk away if they don't like what they're seeing or hearing, just like changing the channels on a tv set.

For the record, at the time that the head security guy came up to where my stuff was, I wasn't even playing. Another saw player happened to be offering a song. I was merely standing and listening and at no time did I indicate that I was even going to continue to play. I even packed up my things after talking to him and moved them out from under the over head structure that was offering me shade.

The day before, Saturday, there were two acts performing underneath the covered area, much deeper where the walkways were far too close to the craft booths. I wouldn't think of playing there. What I do as an entertainer often attracts enough listeners as to make playing in that area an instant traffic jam. Even as the security guy was talking to me, there was another solo guitar player set up just outside of the covered area playing where I was. I pointed to him and asked why I couldn't do as he was doing and setup in a similar location. I asked why he wasn't hassling him. His reply was this is about me and not him.

Then the security guy tells me that there were rules and that I couldn't offer my CDs for sale at the event without a special license. I told him that they weren't being offered for sale but merely for donations. That he seemed to be trying to find a means to get me in trouble for offering my music at this event was also upsetting.

He directed me to go further inward toward the central area of the event to offer my music. I replied by saying that I didn't want to go to where the amplified stages were so loud to try to present what I had to offer acoustically. I am a solo acoustic performer. I was on the very outskirts of the event where there were few that folks were even wandering around and I really wasn't creating any kind of conflict whatsoever via what I was doing. I may have been acting against the letter of whatever law or ordinance that I broke but I was not doing it conscientiously or purposely to get myself into the fix that I ultimately reaped. It was actually the security head guy that pushed the situation into threats for some unknown reason.

This chief security guy stood in front of me and provoked me by threatening me with expulsion from the event if I did not comply to his will and yet I had complied by packing up my stuff and ceasing my activities just as he asked and was not even playing music at the time he called for Police backup. Nor had I said or at any time indicated that I would continue to play in the area that he had deemed a nonmusic location. Though, I did think it was unbelieveable that a folk music festival would limit folk musicians from gathering and playing folk music at such an event.

In fact, the security head came up to me while I was in the middle of a conversation with another performer. I wasn't playing a note. He interrupted my conversation by saying that he was in a hurry and his whole attitude was that he had to get in my face and lay down the law. That, more than anything, is what upset me.

That he would chose to deem me guilty of so great an infraction as to earn expulsion without ever even trying to explain any reason for such harsh threats is what's puzzling. He gave no real explanation. He just quoted the vague rules that he was supposed to uphold as part of the festival's agreement with the property manager but offered no reason why the same rules did not apply to the craft folks and apparently he saw no need to offer any answers to my questions regarding the reasons why I was being railroaded away from that location. Perhaps he didn't really have any answers, only rules to spout and defend however ridiculous they were. He simply turned to his two teenage folk music security clones and asked them if they thought I could play just out from under the overhanging shade structure and they simply nodded no.

So, what I was doing, putting smiles on people's faces at this music event, was not a priority to him but rather to find me guilty of some inane infraction was and to get me removed as a result was also. I guess the swiftness of his heartless act of cheap shots was so that he could get back to whatever he was doing before he was called away to deal with me.

It's a hard thing to change gears from holding an interesting conversation with a fellow musical saw player to dealing with the angst of this impatient security guy. It was hard for me to understand, in the moment, exactly how the issue of my presence at that particular location became so important as to overshadow what I had created via sharing my music with those who stopped to listen, smile, applaud and offer what they did in donations. My intentions were simply to entertain. To reap so harsh a reward for efforts at sharing music seems hardly justified.

Rather than viewing the talents of street performers as enhancing the festival, this folk festival somehow deems them as an evil that must be tolerated and controlled in order to placate those who have an issue with entertainment being offered in this manner. Perhaps it was a craft person who complained. Or maybe it was one of the volunteers at the nearby volunteer tent that didn't like my playing style or the fact that I had a recepticle for donations, just like the festival had for festival visitors. The festival asks that visitors donate $10. I make no such demands of those listening to me play but as I was playing near one of the entrances, perhaps the volunteers viewed my presence as some kind of competition. I know that's an absurd idea but I'm still grasping at straws as to why I was forced out of this event by the festival security.

I know that having a security staff person get in my face for playing folk music at this folk music festival is something that got me rather upset. I mumbled some kind of curse word or two after being confronted by him. I did not wish to be ejected from this event for offering my music casually as a street performer and I did not deem my actions so harsh as to see the need to be ejected from the festival grounds using four Seattle Police officers. That was a low blow by an underpaid weekend security geek.

Truthfully, until they brought it to my attention, I had forgotten about the rule about being under a shade structure while entertaining passersby. I asked him, "Why are you doing this to me?" and how long he had been doing his job as a weekend security guy. He said seven years. I told him that I had been coming to this event for 30 years. I offered that it must make him feel great pushing around folk musicians at a folk music festival.

I was only offering my music as requested by those standing in front of me listening. In this case, perhaps there might also have been those who were using the anonymity of a cell phone call to hide behind and mask their deeds while making complaint phone calls to the authority figures because they had their panties twisted in a knot for whatever reason.

I certainly have other places to offer my music as a street performer. I don't need the aggravation of having to deal with an insane bunch of micromanaging weekend security geeks. I had only gone to play at that particular shady location because it was kind of warm in the direct sunlight for my instruments.

Just before I decided to give the location a try, I had watched an entire band of about a dozen or more performers play there. They had attracted a huge crowd via their activities. It's easy to do with a group that large. Their audience, which was much larger than mine, had blocked the entire area during their performance. I didn't see any security guards show up to stop them from playing their set. Being a solo performer, maybe the security goons saw that ganging up on me would be easier to do and I guess they were right.

A friend called today to say that there is no reason or rhyme for some rules that are put into place. They are just there to be used by authority types as blanket reasons to eject undesirable types. In this case, that would be me. Such is my reward for innocently falling into the trap of believing that the power of sharing music and creating smiles is a greater good and should be supported.