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!
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| Getting started for the day... |
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:
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| 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.
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| "Pictures are for donations!" |
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