Good day friends. I got to say as I begin writing this post, I gotta say I am filled with many different feelings. I promise not to get sappy, but I imagine the flow of this post will start happy, may dip into the sad, but hopefully will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, like in Harry Potter. That happens in Harry Potter right?
Today started with the best of intentions, but soon became my first unsuccessful completion of a task. I guess I accomplished one task, but not the big one I was going for. The big one I was going for was to make $100 dollars in a day by any (legal) means necessary. I have also gotten quite a few suggestions to busk for cash around town, which can be done, but I really wanted to try and get that $100 mark. But what to do? Obviously the first things that popped into my head were to do some performing of some sort. Guitar playing, joke telling, story reading, or even walking around Times Square dressed as a mummy singing the "Monster Mash" over and over again (It's a graveyard smash). I liked this suggestion the most because a couple different people said they would throw down some dough to see this happen. It will have to wait for another day, though.
I decided to do some subway performing, and actually had Sandra, the lady who is documenting me for her film, along for the ride, which made it all the more nerve racking as I have NEVER performed in the subway, much less begged for dough. I will get back to this in a minute, though. As we headed down to the 1 train, I started getting a bit nervous and wondering, is this crazy? Yes it is, that is why I'm doing it.
The thing I have realized about subway performing is that you have to do something original to get people's attention. A generic talk or song will get you nowhere. You have to do something different and funny. A perfect example of this is the old man I used to see quite often on the 1 train when I headed home from work. He would grind on the polls in the middle and sing rap songs like "Get Low! Get Low Get Low Get Low!". In between songs he would tell veeeery off color jokes that everyone didn't want to laugh at, but did. This guy had EVERYONE'S attention, and he must have pulled in 15 bucks just in the 3 minutes he was in my train. Well done sir. My grand idea was to take a song everyone knows, change the words a bit to fit New York, and try to make people laugh a bit. I chose "The Wheels On The Bus", which became "The Train on the Tracks". It was four verses long, and made fun of some of the crazy people you see on the train. Fun right? See the video for full pleasure.
Now here is the thing about embarrassment. As much as you know its coming and will be upon you, as soon as it happens it still feels like you got hit across the face by a 2x4. Holy embarrassment city, population me. It was great to play this little ditty, but man I wish I could have taken a picture of the people's faces as I played. Some laughed, some tried to act like I just wasn't there, some felt visibly uncomfortable. These people were my favorite, because they actually GAVE me money! Probably just to try and have the situation pass as quickly as possible. For about 2 hours of riding, I made about $8.24. This is less than minimum wage friends. I was going to go for more time, but then another 2x4 hit me across the face on one of the last ones I did. As I finished my song and was shaking my cup, a guy looked me square in the eye with a pretty intense, mean look, and said forcefully "GET A JOB!". Who called the awkward turtle?
This comment kind of threw off the rest of plan because, frankly, it threw off my entire mojo. Now during the short history of this blog, I have gotten quite a few negative comments and emails (just read some of the comments from the NY Times article). But something about this guy just destroyed me a little bit inside, and made me analyze everything, and here is what I think I've come to understand. Dive into my mind with me.
The reason for starting this project was not to avoid a job (far from it actually, as I have applied to about 25 jobs in the last month and a half), or to try and be a bum. No, the reason I started it was to have fun. Now the hope was to be able to make some money off of it in the process, but wasn't the main objective. But as I was riding the subway today shaking my cup for change, I realized that I knew I wasn't begging for a living, but to anyone looking on thought I was. And maybe doing things like today's activity makes me a beggar, but I really don't want the point of this experiment to be about begging, but about fun things and adventures.
So I have come to the realization that the only way to keep this project fun and honest is to try, as best as possible, to take the money part out of it. How? My Make My Day suggestion to myself is to find myself a job. I need something, because, honestly, rent is knocking on the door. So my goal now is to not make this blog my main course, but my dessert. Much sweeter and enjoyable that way. That way I can support myself on my own, and make sure this project stays true to itself, so that the next time some dude tells me to get a job during a suggestion, I can tell him I have one, thank you very much.
Anyway, thanks for reading my long explanation of what's going on in my brain. I hope all will remain the same, just maybe different budgeting of time. Keep the suggestions coming, and vote on what I should do next week. Happy Friday everyone.
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