Busking at Dundas

Someone asked me, the other day, when I planned to blog some more about busking in the subway because they enjoy reading about “life down under”. So I thought today was as good a day as any. 

I went out looking for a spot after 11 this morning and was lucky to find Dundas available. I’m becoming a bit of a fixture there. I know that because of the many Hellos and waves from familiar faces. I was there for about 2 hours.

Things started out well, with the perfect balance of busy-ness (i.e. people traffic) and noise level. I don’t like it when it is too busy because I feel like I get drowned out.

About an hour into my “shift”, a maintenance guy who was pushing a big bin piled high with garbage bags parked it a few feet directly in front of me then chatted loudly with a fellow worker for about 15 minutes. “Helllllooo I’m doing something here!” Well, I said that in my head anyway.

So, after he moved on, it’s going along great and then the announcement about a “medical emergency at track level” shutting down subway service on the Bloor line, started up…every 3 or 4 minutes for almost an hour…completely drowning me out. I was annoyed but then felt a bit guilty for feeling that way because a “medical emergency at track level”, lasting that long, probably means somebody was going through something pretty terrible.

I forgot to mention that when I started out today I couldn’t find my Lucky Turkish Twonie. It is a coin that I use as “seed money” in my guitar case…you know, just so there’s a little something there when you first get started. It looks like a real Twonie but is just a tad smaller in circumference. Perhaps the missing LTT was the reason for the oddities today. I am happy to report I found it when I got home!

There were good things today too. A big group of school kids passed through and three cute little guys came right over and dropped some coins in my case. One of them looked at the US dollar bill, someone had put in earlier, and his eyes got real wide and he said “Wow, you got some real money in there.”

Another funny thing happened…a young man was walking by eating one of those yogurts they advertise with the belly dancer stomach action. Know what I mean? I think it’s called Activia. Anyway, I’m singing and he points to his yogurt, my guitar case and then to his stomach with a shaky kinda motion. Ha ha…what the heck was that all about?!

Well, there you have it…another fun day down-under!