Labeling Your Money

(Cuz sometimes it's easier to post on Sundays...)

A woman with a child beside her approached a balloon artist on the street. It was late afternoon at the Festival of Lights, Chicago’s annual Thanksgiving parade, and the sidewalks were quickly filling up with families. After taking a look at the balloon creations that adorned a sign that the man had set up, she asked the performer how much she should “pay” him for a balloon. He responded that there is no price, that he only takes “donations.” The woman suggested, then, that what the artist wants is like “a tip,” only to have the artist repeat that any money given is “a donation.”

Mickey Mouse wants dollar bills!!!

He explained, “We don’t need any money. Give what you like.” Yet, despite this claim, a couple minutes later and in response to a man who only handed him a dollar in exchange for a gun-shaped balloon, the balloon artist directly met the man’s gaze: “I more than earned that, my friend. I more than earned what you gave me.” This man later returned to give the balloon artist an additional five dollars.

Here, then, is a “donation” – neither a “tip” nor a “payment” – that the performer does not “need” and yet “earned.” The work of balloon artists would appear to be the most straight-forward out of the different forms of performances buskers do; yet, in something as seemingly direct as a balloon in exchange for money, this particular performer refused to a payment. For this balloon artist, being paid in exchange for an object created and given implies “need.” In this view, he is not performing for money.

The “tip” has an interesting social history as something that once implied inferiority. Today, this same word has been redefined as, at times, as an entitlement (check out Viviana Zelizer's Social Meaning of Money if you're interested). But what about the term "donation"?

Tips please!

"Donation" implies charity and would therefore infer, even more than the “tip,” an unequal status relationship between the giver and the recipient. The balloon artist’s paradoxical statement that the donation is “earned,” and the giver’s subsequent acknowledgement of the performer’s self-proclaimed entitlement by returning with a five dollar bill, complicates this word choice and reveals a social struggle over the very meaning of the term “donation.”

Different street performers choose to label their money in different ways. Some ask for tips. Some insist on donations. And others even avoid labeling their money all together - these buskers are even more abstract in their word choice ("a little something") or extremely specific ("a five, ten, or twenty").

Fat hats! That's what I want... pay me in hats. Or lemons.
Though I hear lemon laws mean I get money back if you give me a lemon...

I'm going to end this week's post on that note. I'll talk a little bit more about this next week. In the meantime, if you're a performer, let me know how you label your money and why! I'm curious to learn what you think!

I'm gonna call that one 'Tip.' That one is 'Donation.' And ooh! We'll call this one 'Benjamin.''
And this one looks funky. Nice to meet you, Jar Jar Binks.

Inspirations: Getting Started in Magic

Cuz I can't write a lot every week...

Instead, I'm just going to post this little performance by Lance Burton.

This little skit here though is one of the things that got me started in magic. While some magicians love complex sleights and knuckle-breaking moves (which are definitely satisfying once I figure out how to pull them off), I love the stories they can tell. I love magic as a storytelling device.

Even now, when I know how some effects work, it's the stories that stick.

So enjoy!

On another note: I got a message from a street magician a couple of weeks ago. He told me about something that happened when he was out performing, and that gave me this idea. If you're a street performer and have an interesting anecdote to share about your work day, send me a message through Facebook or at felice123 at hotmail dot com.

Tin Man: "The job itself, it humbles me." (Part V)

Now to our grand finale! At least, the grand finale of this particular profile... If you haven't been following along, check out Parts I-IV of the profile first. You can find Part IV here.

Heeeeeeere's the Tin Man!

Getting started for the day...

The Stigma of Street Performing

In my last busker profile, I talked about Jeremy and how he views what he does as work. Me stressing this perspective of busking is itself indicative of how street performing can often be viewed as something else - something stigmatized.

Tin Man, for example, explains how some of his classmates at the Illinois Institute of Art (where he got his bachelor's degree last year) reacted when they heard about what he does:

"Especially during school, when people hear that I perform on the streets, a lot of them... I don't want to say... think that I'm homeless, but think that I'm close to begging. Or a beggar. Like, they don't think there's any work involved. 'Oh, you just stand still on the streets!' I get that a lot. Where people will be like, 'Oh, I heard you do the silver thing! What do you do, you make balloons? You know, you do stuff like that?'"

"I'm not expecting anybody to know because this is something, like I said, I created. But, um, I have to play the role. I guess I have to play the role like I'm a beggar or I'm homeless. Until they actually see the show, and then their eyes will be bigger than they've ever gotten before in their life. It doesn't help me to brag or boast on what it is that I do, you know? It’s a lot better for them to come out and see it."

The stigma, he says, was even worse when he first started:

If you look carefully, there's a panhandler sitting on the street corner near
the Tin Man's stuff. He's being paid a few bucks to watch the stuff
while the Tin Man takes a break. The man leaves once the Tin Man returns.

"When I first started, I think I probably lost every friend that I had. When I first started, um, every person, everybody I knew was against it. Like, 'Why are you dancing downtown in the cold for money? That’s just ridiculous! Are you out of your –' My mom, my dad, my sister was just embarrassed anytime she saw me in the silver and I was around. They were just so... Because they didn't know. Circa five, six years later, when my mom sees my first show, she becomes my biggest fan, you know! The same thing as my dad! He was, like, 'Oh, I didn't know!' Yeah. Now you know."

"But a lot of my friends, they stopped hanging out with me. I didn't get calls to hang out anymore. I mean, they kicked it on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays. And I'm downtown working on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays, so, um, it kinda separated me from my friends and family for a while when I first started, to tell you the truth. Only because it was something that they didn't understand, and that something I couldn't pull myself away from."

Why Street Perform?

If street performing carries with it this stigma, why would anyone want to do it in the first place? The Tin Man sums up his attitude pretty well:

"I set the rules, I’m the boss, I am the coordinator, I am the DJ, I am the security, I am the performer, you know? I get to be all those things out on the street. And my work day starts when I decide it starts, and it ends when I decide it ends. So the only limits that are placed upon me are the limits that I place on myself. And I think that’s the best thing about being a street performer. That’s the part that I connect to as far as street performing is concerned."

Even after he got his bachelor's and had more job opportunities, he still decided to stick with street performing. He explained:

"I just graduated, and I get a lot of questions on, um, how’s the job hunt coming? Are you, are you going to get a job now? Have you been filling out applications? What are you doing? What are you gonna do with your life? And I’m still sitting here thinking, like, okay. I make THIS amount of money per hour. How much do you make? What I’m getting at is I have a job! The last thing I want is a boss! And it’s hard for people to understand that coming out of school until they go get a job and have a boss, then they be like 'Oh, now I see what the Tin Man is talking about.' So, uh, yeah. I’m happy to be done with school. I’m not opposed to ever getting a job. Somebody could pay me more than what I could make on my own, I might be for it, you know? But I’m yet to find anywhere that is going to pay me as much as I make on my own without anybody else’s help, you know?"

On what he tells his kids

"I’ve been doing this for ten years is because it’s taught me a lot about myself. Everytime I go out there, I learn something new about me. It humbles me. So even when I go out there and I’m performing, I might get accolades, and people are like, 'You’re amazing! You’re the greatest!' and my head gets SO big I can’t even walk through the door at home. You know? But, um, the job itself, it humbles me."

"And I think… I think kids sometimes in their life need some type of humbler. Needs to be humbled sometimes, and I would like to use my profession, I guess, to humble them when needed, if possible. They do understand that I go to work, and I go downtown to make money. My son asked me the other day, 'How? How do you make money downtown?' I wanted to explain it to him, but I didn’t want to say I dance for money. Because I get the money before I dance. You know? And I didn’t want to say I just stand there, and they give me money, you know. So there’s… I guess I have to wait for them to get a little bit older. There’s a few more concepts that he has to understand before I could before I could feed him what it is that’s going on."

Final Words

If it weren't for the Tin Man, my research would have gone in a completely different direction. He's a laid-back guy who has a lot of insights on what it means to be a street performer. I want to thank him for his words of wisdom, for introducing me to so many other street performers, for pushing me to put in the hours, and - ultimately - for all the good times.

If you find yourself walking down the Magnificent Mile, look out for this red-headed silver statue at the corner of Michigan and Ontario. Don't forget to donate (and get your fellow audience members to donate) if you want to see this statue move.

Or just, you know, BLINK.

"Pictures are for donations!"

Tin Man: "I'm on break!" (Part IV)

So... I failed this week.

Sorry about that! I'll make a post today, and then I'll finish up my profile on the "Original Chicago 10 Man" in lieu of my weekly Monday post! So there.

In case three days of silence on the blog-o-waves have made you forget what we were talking about this week, I have been writing about the Chicago street performer most commonly known as the Tin Man. For a quick refresher, read up on last week's post, The Rubber Band Effect.

Or watch this clip, which actually illustrates the rubber band effect that we spoke about last time:

So say hello to the Tin Man again!

Wait! Where'd he go?

The Mental Game
Last time, we talked about how passersby get stuck after donating money to the Tin Man. People are, essentially, forced to stick around to see what their money "bought." And the Tin Man waits for as long as possible as he tests his audience's patience and remains still. This game is both how he gathers a crowd and how he gets them to pay.

"99% of street performers are like the TV that’s already turned on when you’re walking past. The show is already going. Matter of fact, if you want to watch it for free, you can. And then walk off. My TV is off. You have to pay to turn my TV on, okay? If I’m moving, then my TV’s on – I’m giving out free shows. Nobody’s.. nobody cares about my dance moves. Nobody cares! Nobody cares about how amazing I look. Nobody. The only thing that’s in their head is, 'Is he real?'"

"You know, if I give that to them for free, they’ll be, like [claps twice] “Oh my god, he’s amazing!” but they’ll walk off without giving a donation. I have to get it from them first, or it’s not happening. And I gotta get it from almost everyone. I can’t just get a dollar from a whole crowd. I’m not gonna do anything. I can’t be satisfied."

"Layers" of audiences that build up around the Tin Man

"The moment I move, the money stops. The moment I move, I’m not a statue anymore, I’m real, I’m human. Everybody’s satisfied. They just want me to move. They want to see me flinch or move, you know?"

"If I don’t move, and they can’t take it no more, then they’ll finally drop it. But that’s the game, the mental game that I have to play with people, you know."

"They know that I’m human. They just have that doubt in them. They know it! They just have the doubt. So as long as I stand still, I can keep that doubt."

"I'm on break!"
So now we know how he builds an audience and starts a show, but how does he end it?

If you watch the Tin Man long enough, you're bound to hear him yell this out. He would step off his platform, break the illusion of his statue-ness, turn off his music, and directly address the audience.

"I'm on break!" he'd proclaim.
And some would raise their brows and chuckle: What? Statues need breaks?
And others would wonder why.
They would leave...

And then he'd turn the music on and hop right back on the box again.

So if it's not really a break, why does he yell out "I'm on break!"

I'm on break. My toes couldn't take it anymore! I ducked inside the
AT&T store and conducted my observations through the glass window...

He explained: "The first purpose is kind of like when you go into a restaurant, and you sit down to eat. They want to feed you, give you the check, and get you out of here so they can get some more people in those seats. They want to turn it over quick. Same thing for my show. I want to stand still, gather a group, have as much of them pay as I can, put on a show, and then get them out of there. So I get some more people in there. 'Cause people, they'll like the show, they'll enjoy it, and they'll wanna stick around. So I got people sticking around that's not paying again."

"So then I have a whole crowd of people that already paid… that just want to see more. It’s time for me to take a break and get rid of them."

"Another reason I take a break is if I have a huge crowd, and nobody has money. We're just wasting time staring at each other! I’m on break!"

"Another reason I’ll take a break is if I see people – sometimes people pull out money, but then they just hold on to it. Like… I- I don’t know why [...], but they just hold on to it forever. I’m not gonna – no! I’ll take a break. Let’s just get this moving. We gotta keep it moving because the more control people have over my show, the less money I make."

And that is more or less how the Tin Man builds an audience, get them to pay, and move them along. Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode, where we learn that living statues are actually cylons... (Not really. Sorry... But stay tuned anyway!)

Tin Man: The Rubber Band Effect (Part III)

Welcome to Part III of my profile on the Tin Man. If you're interested in who he is or how he got to be where he is today, check out the previous post, a Game of Catch Up.

I was very very tempted to put up a picture of a ketchup bottle.
But, you know, that would be one of those jokes that just makes everyone groan collectively...
(Like that time when I had audience members tie me up with rope and, when my phone rang, I answered with a "Sorry, mom. I'll call you back. I'm a little tied up at the moment.")

So, again, this is where the Tin Man works:

Yes. I still use Paint. DEAL WITH IT.

So somehow, someway, the Tin Man just stands in costume on a street corner... and people decide to give him money for it? Is that how it works?

If you take a look at the signs that he has on display, he explains pretty clearly what exactly he "sells."

This is an older version of Tin Man's sign. He's got a new one up, but I failed to
take a picture of it..

What the Tin Man sells

Essentially, as he says:

1. Donations are for photos.

2. Donations make him move.

The first part seems relatively straightforward. You give him some money, and you can take a photo of/with him.

The second part is... a little confusing. When did movement itself become a commodity?

And what happened to his dance moves? Is it dancing that matters, or is it simply... movement?

Tin Man explained to me that, when he first started street performing, he would move as soon as a spectator dropped money in his bucket. As soon as he moved, though, he told me that his audiences used to leave pretty much immediately.

"It used to hurt my feelings when I was younger. I would do my best [dancing] moves, [and] they'd just keep moving. They don't want to see a show. They just want to see me move, is all."

"I wanna see him move!"

One man walking by the Tin Man turned to the woman with whom he was walking and asked, "Baby, do you have any cash? I wanna see him move!"

Another woman, upon seeing the Tin Man, commented, "They gonna move or what?" She followed that question by running up to drop some money in Tin Man's bucket. When the Tin Man did not immediately move in response, she was evidently frustrated: "I give you two bucks, you not moving!"

At another point, one woman turned to her two friends and explained, "He's done moving until he gets more money, I think."

And yet somehow when he's off his box and actually IS moving,
he doesn't attract as large of a crowd as when he's staying still.

The Rubber Band Effect

When I noted his audience members' frustrations when he does not respond immediately to a donation, the Tin Man told me that this happens all the time. He called it the rubber band effect: "When you tease somebody, you make them want it more..." He would wait, he said, until their patience runs out, then - with an illustrative snap of his finger - he would move right before they leave. While they wait, potential energy builds... and that energy finally gets released when he moves.

My observations have given me (very very roughly) this scenario:

I see a silver guy standing still! There's music, but he's not dancing!
Ok. Let's see what he does...
He's still not moving.
Oh! Donations make him move. I'll stop for a second and give some money.
I've donated! Let's watch him move, then we'll go!
Wait a second... why isn't he moving?
Dude! I just gave him money, and he's not moving!
I guess I have to stick around... 
Oh look! That guy paid! Is he gonna move now?
No... ok. Look! That person is paying too! And that person!
He's gotta move any second now...
Oh! He's moving! But... he's not dancing. Actually, he's pointing at that other person over there. And he's pointing at his bucket! Ha! That's funny...
Come on, dude. Pay him so that we can see the guy dance.
Yes! He's moving!
All right. Let's go.

And that's how the Tin Man still manages to make money in conditions like these:

Definitely don't want to be outside right now. Nope. Not at all.

He uses one person's initial curiosity, traps them there in an uncompleted transaction (which raises interesting questions on economic exchange and gifting), and builds his audience from there. While people may be curious, people generally don't want to hang around outside for long when the temperature is in the twenties or, even, the teens.

But it's kinda weird if you pay something and you don't get anything out of it.

So even though it's really really really really cold, you're kinda stuck watching until the Tin Man finally decides to move.

And that is, in a nutshell, how the Tin Man makes a living.

I kinda failed at taking direct photos of the Tin Man.
This is one of the closest ones I got... when I was trying to be artsy and
managed to capture his reflection...

Stay tuned for Part IV... whatever that will be!

Tin Man: A Game of Catch Up (Part II)

Say hello to the Tin Man again!

He is on camera! And... the cameraman is on camera. And of course I used a camera
to take a photo of the camera filming the camera filming the Tin Man.
It's a... meta-camera?
The cameras get smaller and smaller.
And people started comparing camera sizes...
And this is an awfully long caption.

By the way, the guy with the camera in the front left of this picture is pretty awesome. He helped me capture some footage of various buskers. In this photo, we managed to stumble into WGN-TV (a local Chicago news station) doing a profile piece on the Tin Man...

Anyway! Tangent aside, I started my profile piece on the Tin Man yesterday.

Becoming a Street Performer
"In middle school, I, um, I got in trouble a lot. So I was grounded all the time. Like, throughout the school year, my whole summer break, even going into my freshman and sophomore year in high school, I was getting in trouble, you know, around the house and at school, doing stupid stuff, but I would be grounded. The only thing I had to do while grounded was.. um.. I had a clock radio and a mirror. So I just did my moves in front of my mirror for hours and hours and hours and days. And after I graduated high school and I went to college and I felt, like, you know, I was still probably gonna get in trouble, I found out a way to use what I learnt when I was grounded… to make some money from it. So I took those moves from my clock radio and my mirror days downtown."

"-and my first day was so profitable, I quit my job, I quit college, I moved out of my parents’ house. And that.. that was in ’03. 2003. So, uh, I've been performing… street performing about ten years now."

First Day Out

"When I first started, I, um, had a small lunchbox. I put it right in front of me and I was on the ground. I didn’t have any music. When I first started, it was cold, it was like 29 degrees, it was at the end of December. And I was just standing still, and if someone put something in, I would do a move. But… later on through the years, I found out different ways of entertaining people and getting a little bit more money out of them."

The Evolution of his Act

"I started off silver. The thing about it is… once I started in silver, maybe like.. six, seven months later, other people thought that they could come out in silver and do the same thing, so… it got to a point where there was about seven or eight different silver people on Michigan Avenue."

An older silver costume of the Tin Man's

"So, um, I had to go back to the lab and make a new outfit, and I came out in all black. I had an all black suit, I painted my face all black, and, um, I just did my statue thing in all black, and that was pretty cool. I was able to find the patent that Michael Jackson had – Smooth Criminal, when he did that lean? So I found the patent, purchased it, and brought it downtown in my black outfit."

The Tin Man, all in black, with MJ's patented lean.

Interestingly, Tin Man told me that he soon sold the patent to another street performer because the lean had become "like a crutch. People didn't want to see my dance moves. They didn't want to see anything except for me leaning. I became a one-trick pony. So I had to get rid of it."

It was during this stage of his evolution, he told me, where he learned his most valuable lessons - when, he said people "were scared of" him because they thought his "skin really was that dark." He explained that because people didn't want to take pictures with him in this costume (unlike when he was silver), he had to find a different way to get his audiences to donate because his "outfit wasn't selling" him and his audiences didn't "care about [his] dance moves." We'll explore these lessons another day...

But the look does matter

And it is ultimately "a game of catch-up. The moment I do something, and it becomes profitable and other people see it, then they start doing it. Then I gotta change it, I gotta do something else. Um… like when I had the black outfit, there was other people coming out in blue… green… so I had to go back to silver. And, um, then it was people coming out in silver, but their outfits were spray-painted. So I went to the tuxedo store, bought a brand-new tuxedo – like, six, seven hundred bucks – and I painted it silver."

"And I went outside downtown, it just… that tuxedo looked so gorgeous silver. Aw, there was just, it was just nothing touching it. It was just nothing anybody could make, because I went and spent money on a real outfit, not something at a Salvation Army, and, uh, that look and that feel… it looks different, you know. The quality of it. So.."

"BUT of course, people felt they could spend money on suits too. So I had to go change out again. I had to go find, um, a seamstress. I had to go find material and have a suit sewn together for me. And I… nobody’s done it yet, but the moment they do, I gotta go out and do something else."

"I had to color my hair and get my glasses to match. And that gave me, you know, my own little unique look. Until somebody does that."

The Tin Man today

Stay tuned for more tomorrow! More on what the Tin Man actually does...

Busker Profile: Kenneth, the "Chicago 10 Man"

Meet the "Chicago 10 Man."

Or, rather, just the Tin Man. Cuz that's how he referred to himself when I first met him.
And then, you know, he tried to trademark the Tin Man.
And found out that the "Tin Man" has already been trademarked.

What, you asked?
How could Tin Man possibly be trademarked? (Believe it or not, I actually asked that question.)
Well... because of this guy:

The guy in the middle. In case you're confused over who I actually mean.

So officially, he is the "10 Man."

That said, out of habit, I'm just going to refer to him as the Tin Man for now.
And the Tin Man is pretty important in terms of my research because he is the first street performer I met on the streets of Chicago. That means I have quoted him a lot and will be quoting him a lot, so I thought I should properly introduce him.

The Tin Man is an entrepreneurial guy. And in case you haven't noticed, he's a statue.
Or not really. Cuz he moves and all.
He's what other street performers call a living statue.

Oh no! Don't blink!

Except, you know.

Not that scary.

Like the weeping angels, living statues generally don't move when you first see them.

And then you blink!

Or, rather, you do something... and that something triggers movement. In the case of these fictional angels, you blink. In the case of most living statues, a spectator gives money to the statue, and the statue moves.

Or, even, a spectator walks just close enough for one of these living statues when BAM! The performer reaches out and shocks the passerby with their movement.

I'm guessing that each living statue does it just a little bit differently... and this week, I'll try and tell you a little about what this specific living statue does.

So here we go...

The Snapshot

Performer: "The Chicago 10 Man"

Started busking: 2003

Location in Chicago: Michigan and Ontario, right in front of the AT&T store

His act: living statue/mime

How I met him

The first time that I saw him, I had just moved to Chicago. I was driving through to pick up the keys to my apartment downtown when I saw this silver guy with bright red hair crossing the street in late September of 2013.

The second time, I saw him performing sometime in October and shook his hand (or rather, we fistbumped! Cuz apparently shaking a silver guy's hand would be like touching King Midas. My hand would turn silver, and then it'd fall, and then I would have to become a pirate.) He gave me his contact number for my research.

The third time, I finally showed up to formally observe him. That would be December 14, 2013. Through the winter that sucked Chicago into a polar vortex, I observed his performances for a couple hours every weekend. But hey! At least I got to move.

This guy spent those hours standing, for the most part, absolutely still:

The Tin Man, working. In costume. In winter. In Chicago.

When and where to find the 10 Man:

You'll find him at Michigan and Ontario when he's working, right in front of the AT&T there.

And he'll probably be there everyday when the weather is nice. In December, January, and February - when it's much colder - he should be there most weekends.

Stay tuned...

For what? I don't know yet. Stay tuned for... a tornado? A... vortex? Maybe we'll leave Kansas.

Let's be honest. I'm making this up as I go along.