One of the delights of visiting Santa Cruz is the number of street performers on “The Mall” (our main downtown shopping street). Some are good, some are…well…interesting. On any given day, you may run across a harpist on one corner, a string quartet across the street, a blues guitarist down the block…then there’s the guy who will write you a “poem” for a buck, the fellow who dresses in a clown suit and makes balloon animals for tips, the fellow with the didgeridoo who hangs out near the Palomar, etc (whistlers occasionally, but surprisingly rarely). You never know quite what you’re going to see or hear…that’s Santa Cruz.
Last night, however, I think I saw the ultimate in laziness…the “boom box busker.” No, I don’t mean someone who was dancing or doing some other performance accompanied by a boom box, I mean a guy sitting on a bench with a boom box blaring and a hat out. I stood there for quite a while, expecting him to do SOMETHING, but he just sat there and grinned and occasionally fiddled with the tuner. Weird! I think this may fall into the “Only in Santa Cruz” department. I imagine the police eventually shut him down, as amplified music without a permit isn’t allowed on the Mall.
The really amazing thing is, there was quite a bit of money in the hat! I’m a pretty generous tipper where buskers are concerned, but even I won’t drop a dollar in a hat for the privilege of listening to a local radio station!
Just thought y’all might get a chuckle out of this, as there are some here who have done street performing.
Redwolf