Close Encounters of the Urban Kind: My First Encounter with the Police

Anecdotes from the Streets

My First Encounter with the Police

So early on - maybe first or second time street performing in Chicago - a police officer walks up to me. He hasn't seen me around before and wanted to take down my information. This little cartoon tells the beginning of that encounter.

Here I am, trying to do some magic. I don't know what the music notes for.
I am not singing. I shall never sing.
And definitely not in public.

A police officer sees me!

I was anxious at first.

And then...

:D

Of course I gotz my license.

See? It's a nice license.
I AM PREPARED!

Form? What's this form? It's a form!
It says I encountered a police officer!
Yes I did.... Do you think he would let me take a picture of the form?

Okay, okay. Calm down. I should not be this excited to see the popo.
And ooh! Inconsistency in my Paint cartoon!
My license has magically appeared again!

Teehee! 

Research data! Imagine what I could write! I should have recorded this! No, he wouldn't have let me...
But imagine the data! And and and andandandand...

...Yeah.

Field Notes: 2/1/14 A Day in the Life of a Statue

This week's post is an excerpt from my field notes. You've already met him before. Now you shall meet him again through my eyes.

2/1/2014
1:52pm-6:00pm
30˚F, snowing

The Tin Man identifying someone in the audience who has not paid him yet.

I arrive at 1:52pm. I hear him before I see him. I slow down as I approach him from the south and watch a few other pedestrians look over in his direction. He sees me, continues to perform for a few more minutes, then hops off his box and turns off his music. He says that he has been out for about an hour already, and an hour is all he can do in this weather. He apologizes to me for needing to take a break as soon as I arrive. I tell him it’s not a problem.

He continues to pack up and tells me that normally he will take a break, drink some water or Gatorade, and take a smoke. Right now his toes are frozen. He takes all of his gear and starts walking south towards his car.

I ask him if he normally parks there. He says, no. He takes about three to four different routes to his car because he has been followed before, and he doesn’t want people to know where his money is. He gets some stares, and a few people wave. As we walk, a white 30-some year old man sees the Tin Man, and yells out, “Greetings from Earth!”

We walk to his car. He puts his stuff away, talking the whole time, and telling me how he would normally get a drink, but since he couldn’t get anyone to watch his stuff this time, he has to move everything with him. He loads his things into his car. I say we could go grab some coffee – I want to thank him for his time anyway. We go to McDonald’s, and we each get a coffee. He goes to a convenience store next to it, grabs a root beer and a cigarette.

We head back to the car. I climb into the passenger seat while he turns on the engine and cranks up the heat. We chat.

He asks me if I have ever heard of the saying, “Live by the sword, die by the sword.” People who live with guns will die by a gun, he explains. And him – he lives and works out on the street. Even in this weather, he will be out. He has to treat his work as a career if he is going to make any good money out of it. He doesn’t say it, but the implication is there: He lives by the street, and will die by the street.

Then he tells me that he has been going to open mics in Chicago, dressed up in all his silver. He’s been writing up jokes, and he thinks he’s ok. … He wants to practice stand-up comedy even though he doesn’t get paid at open mics. He says that he just turned 31 years old, and he can’t be working out on the streets when he’s old. He doesn’t want to be an old statue.

...He asks me what I plan to do after graduation. I say I’m not sure. I could end up anywhere at this point. He says that he remembers being at a crossroads. He could have continued in school and stayed in school for a long time, or he could have gone out to perform. He chose to perform. I ask him if he ever regretted making that choice. He says no.

He thinks what’s more important than just studying and finding a job that can make money for some other guy is knowing how to find money for yourself. He wants his son to learn that. Tin Man says he knows he can get money whenever he needs it, and he doesn’t need to depend on anybody else.
Then X (a musician who usually plays down the street from the Tin Man) calls Tin Man. X asks Tin Man how the weather is out there. Tin Man says it’s ok, but you won’t know until you come out. Afterwards, Tin Man tells me that since X knows that Tin Man is usually out there, X calls often to see how the weather and the crowds are.

We talk about the cold for a little bit. I mention that I met other musicians back before Christmas who were saving up to go to New Orleans. Tin Man says that X is also currently trying to raise money to go to New Orleans. It is supposedly warmer there, but we both heard that it was 30 degrees in New Orleans a couple days ago.

…We both climb out of the car and he starts packing his stuff up again. He starts playing some music in his headphones, trying to get back into the groove. When all his things are packed, he says to me, “Let’s roll!”

It is now 2:54pm.
Tin Man tells me that it’s supposed to be 30 degrees out, but he knows what 30 degrees feels like, and this isn’t it. Especially after the cold from these past few days, 30 degrees should feel like a heat wave. On our way back to Michigan and Ontario, a kid yells out at him, “Hey Robot Man!”

 …Tin Man starts setting up in his spot. I notice a man sitting at the corner asking for money, just a little to the northwest of the tree where Tin Man performs. He gets up to leave when Tin Man’s music starts blasting.

A group of eight black teenagers stop to watch the Tin Man. One girl moves up and pats Tin Man on the arm. Two girls touch his hand, and Tin Man remains still. One of the boys asks loudly, “How do you stand like this?” The group of teenagers has now completely crossed over onto Tin Man’s “stage.” They are next to him, between the two trees, and behind his sign. One of the kids says, “Yeah, he’s real!” A boy reaches out to grab Tin Man’s right side. Tin Man suddenly reaches out at the boy, and all the kids scream and run back in front of the sign (and off the “stage”).

People are just watching. Nobody has tipped Tin Man yet. Then a man with a yellow jacket that says “Streets and Sanitation” moves up to drop a dollar into the bucket. A group of people have stopped to take pictures. Tin Man points at them. “Photos are for donations, ma’am. Thank you.” Nobody pays. After a moment, Tin Man turns off the music and hops off the box. The crowd moves on. He climbs on and starts the music again.

A white male, early 20s, has been standing to my right (by the south entrance to AT&T) watching since the music started. He is laughing. He tells me he likes to watch when people mess him [Tin Man] up. They like to mess with him, he tells me. And “He always says the same thing: Pictures are for money.” As we are chatting, two women take a photo. Tin Man notes that photos are for donations. The women leave without tipping.

…Two white women in their 30s stop in front of the Tin Man and read his sign. They make a donation then take a picture. The young man standing next to me who has been watching says, “He should just let people take pictures of him.”

Three white kids (pre-teen to early teens?) approach from the south. The two boys each have snowballs in their hands. The older boy gives a glove to the girl, reaches into his pocket, and takes out some money. He puts some money in the bucket. With the snowballs still in their hands, the boys each stand on either side of the Tin Man. The girl takes a picture of them.

Later, when I ask the Tin Man what went through his mind when he saw the boys with the snowballs, Tin Man says he wasn’t too worried. The snowballs were clean and white and big. It looked like they had been working on them for some time. They weren’t just going to waste it on him. Unlike, he notes, something that happened yesterday when a man got mad at the Tin Man for not moving after he had dropped a donation. This man picked up some snow and threw it at the Tin Man. The Tin Man looked at this man and asked him what he was doing. The man just walked away.

…A group of 5 Chinese tourists stop to take a picture. The Tin Man signals for them to give him donations. They step back for a second. As they leave, they say 要给钱才能照啊。”Must pay before we can take a picture,” they note. They all look at each other, then turn and leave.

…A white couple (mid-30s) stops for a second to watch. The man says something about giving Tin Man a couple of dollars. The woman does not seem happy. They bicker. They both go inside the AT&T store. Inside the store, I see the woman take out $2 and hand it to the guy. After a while, the man comes back out with his hands in his pockets. He walks up and watches the Tin Man.

Meanwhile, three young men (late teens?) walk past quickly. One of them turns back, looks at Tin Man, and yells out, “Ain’t you cold, brah!” He looks back at his friends. “Let’s watch him.” They don’t stop, so he turns and walks away.

After watching for a couple of seconds, the man steps up and drops the money. The woman comes back out from inside the store and stands next to him. I walk up to them and chat. They are tourists from Oklahoma. I ask, “What went into your decision to pay him?” The man points, “That guy?” Then he practically yells out, “I want to see him move!” I nod and thank them. The woman purses her lips. They leave.

A black couple stops by. The woman drops some money in. She watches Tin Man, who does not move. She says, “I wanna see him move! He won’t move! He’s trying to take my money!” Then Tin Man points to some girls who are standing in the back. The girls turn and leave.

I catch up with the girls as they wait at the crosswalk and chat with them. They tell me they are students from Loyola. When I ask what they think of the Tin Man, they say, “He’s awesome!” They like him a lot. I ask them why, then, did they decide not to tip. One of the girls say, “He only dances for people who tip him, and he asked us for money, and we don’t have money.”

Three white men in their 40s walk past. One of them says to the other two, “You gotta give him money, or he won’t move!” They are at the crosswalk heading east and watching from there. He says to his friends (but addressed to no one in particular), “Come on, someone give him money!” Then the pedestrian crosswalk sign changes to a GO, and he says, “Dang it!” They walk away.

…One black woman in her early 30s walks past, drops a dollar, and keeps on walking. She does not stop to watch. I catch up with her and ask her what she thinks about the Tin Man. “He’s very interesting and unique, especially to be out here in this weather.” She says that she lives in the Chicago area, but this is her first time seeing him.

This is the first time I see her too, but Tin Man later tells me that she was here a couple hours ago. She said “You’re still here?!” before dropping a donation. He says that he recognized her because of her fur coat.

…A white woman (40s?) standing in front of me tries to take a picture of the Tin Man on her cell phone. The Tin Man points to her and says, “Photos are for donations please.” The woman stops and steps back to another white female (also 40s) who had been standing next to me, and complains. “Just not worth it!” I ask her why. She says that she wanted to take a picture for her nephew. She lives in Chicago, but this is the first time that she has seen the Tin Man. She didn’t like the music. “The music is… weird… techno stuff?” The other woman who is with her is, however, smiling, and seems to enjoy the show more. “He’s really good when he does that!” She points at the Tin Man, who is in a pose with someone for a picture. Neither one of them pay though. The first woman tells me, “I just don’t get what he’s doing. Like, if he were… Donald Duck… and the music, I don’t get it.” I thank them. They stay and watch a little bit longer, then walk away.

Tin Man turns the music off and takes a break. We head into AT&T to warm up. There is a man there who Tin Man had waved to earlier, and the two of them talk. Tin Man is talking about how well he is doing right now. “They just started to drop it now!” He mentions that they must have all gone to the ATM or something. But, “My toes gone now!” “It’s just now starting to pick up.”

The time is 4:10.
He tells his friend that he is going to take a break. This time, Tin Man grabs his bucket of money and leaves everything else behind. The man I had just met stays behind in the AT&T store and watches Tin Man’s stuff.

We head back to the car to warm up. Tin Man says that he pays someone – and usually, only this guy shows up. Other people know, but no one else shows up when they say they will – to watch his stuff. He’ll pay $5 to $6 to watch his stuff for thirty minutes, and $8 to $10 to watch it for an hour.

He notes that since it is picking up, he wants to go back out and perform, even though the “nights are for weirdos.” The summer time is better to perform in. I ask, “Even though there is more competition?” Tin Man laughs and says, “Competition doesn’t exist.” He is, in his words, a “big shark in a small pond.”

He asks me if I have ever heard JZ’s quote, “A drought can define a man when the well dries up.” He says right now, in the winter, the well is dry, and he is still working out there. I nod. I say, “And X hasn’t shown up yet?” Tin Man says, “Told ya. He went to the subway, probably.”

Then he tells me about a time when AT&T asked him to leave because they wanted to film something in his spot. Tin Man says that he had as much of a right to be there as anyone else, and he isn’t going to leave as long as he’s making money. The security guard leaves and comes back with a hundred dollars and tells him he can come back in about two, two and a half hours. Tin Man says OK! and leaves. Later, another AT&T security guard who was a former police officer accuses Tin Man of bribery, and threatens to get him charged with it.

Tin Man says that 90% of the game is psychological, 10% physical. Their game (the police/security) is to make you want to quit and go home. Every year, Tin Man says he has to deal with rookie cops. “New rookie cops every year, same problems.”

Then he says, “If you are going to be doing this research out here, soon or later, you’re going to have to start writing about race.” He goes on to say, “Life would be completely different if I were a white guy in silver.” He says that once there were a group of older women watching him. When he asked for donations, one of the women dropped a note. The Tin Man read the note, and it was, he says, a racist letter. He didn’t know how she managed to write an entire racist note and drop it in his bucket. He says they were “the Klan wives or something.”

…We leave the car (5:10pm).
…We walk past the AT&T store, turn west around the corner, and each take a bathroom break at the Grand Lux. When I get back to the performance spot, Tin Man is in AT&T, speaking with his friend. An older (50s?) white man walks up and asks Tin Man how he is doing. Tin Man says he’s doing well. The man asks Tin Man if it’s cold out there, and if he’s going to be out there much longer. Tin Man says he’ll be out there as long as there’s money to be made. Out he goes. The man who had been watching Tin Man’s stuff for him leaves. As soon as we are out of the AT&T, Tin Man turns to me with a big grin on his face. That was the security guy who accused him of bribery last time, he tells me. “He’s just noseying around.”

…At 5:30pm, Tin Man starts playing music and climbs onto the box.
A family – husband and wife (late 30s to early 40s) with two sons (8-12 years old) take a picture with Tin Man and drop some money. The woman tells me that they like him. “Tin Man’s been up here for years. That’s how he makes his living.” They were in Chicago and wanted to bring their kids up here to see him.

I watch three tourists enjoy the show then walk off without paying. They are from Missouri. The three white women – an older woman and her two daughters, possibly – tell me that they think the Tin Man is “cool.” When I said that I was interested in how people decided whether or not they should tip, the older of the two daughters explained that they “just didn’t want to spend the money.”
A woman who is walking south sees the Tin Man and exclaims, “Oh, so that’s where it’s [the music?] coming from!” She continues to walk by without stopping.

At 6:00pm, Tin Man stops the music. He climbs off and comments that today “they tipped more in the evening than in the morning” which, he has said before, is usually the other way around. …Now, since “the crowds are starting to thin out,” Tin Man packs up. “Now you know how I call the day,” he says.

A Series of Vignettes: How I was told to never give anything to a panhandler

Plenty of panhandlers sit and ask for money near street performers in Chicago.

There's a new girl on the streets - a young woman standing on the pavement with a teddy bear and a cardboard sign asking for money. I hadn't seen her before that day, and neither have the other street performers. One of the street performers came up to me and asked me to speak with her. He was concerned about her, wondering what she was doing here, and figured that she would be more willing to open up to me. I spoke with her briefly, was careful not to pry, and worked nearby. When she disappeared from view, the busker told me that some of the other female panhandlers - concerned about the competition - had chased her away. He returned a few minutes later with her in tow. I didn't see her again after that day.

There was a special on ABC, a busker told me, where they interviewed a panhandler, a magician, and a musician. They asked each of them how much they earned in a day. This performer pointed out how evasive the musician was in his answer. I was, instead, struck by the fact that someone had thought to compare these three.

One busker complains to me: "People think you're homeless or impoverished or have a lot of personal issues" if you are street performing. And then "you try it," and it is "nothing like that."

Another day. It's winter time, and I'm observing instead of performing. There's a man sitting on the corner. He's got a warm winter hat on and a cardboard sign. "Please help," he yells out. "Trying to get bus fare! To the homeless shelter! Peace and love! Have a beautiful day." He takes a breath and continues. "Trying to get bus fare! To the homeless shelter!" And on and on he went. When the nearby street performer's music is turned off, and the street is suddenly quiet enough for me to hear his words, I hear the same pitch repeated throughout the day. I very quickly get used to the rhythm.

When the street performer whom I am observing turns off his music for a second, I suddenly hear the familiar cadence of his voice. "Hey Bozo!" he says to this performer. "I'm gonna be across the street til you take a break!" The performer nods and tells the man that he'll be taking a break in another thirty minutes or so. Then he turns to me after that panhandler has left: another panhandler - one who stops by regularly - is supposed to be coming in a bit too. The performer shrugs. "We'll see what happens," he tells me. He normally pays a nearby panhandler to watch his stuff while he takes a break. Looks like there's going to be some competition today.

The other man never shows up. The "bus fare" panhandler gets the job. After the break, the performer pulls some cash out of his pocket and hands it to the panhandler.

I get a lecture. It's the first of many similar lectures, all by different street performers. The essence of the lecture is the same: Never give any money to panhandlers.

"Because if you do, they'll be back."

"There's no reason anybody should be out on the streets of Chicago. There's too many resources."

"They don't need money for food ... There are plenty of places in the city for food and a roof over the head head."

"It's crack money."

There's a McDonald's that I frequent when I'm street performing. There's a man nearby who always asks for a quarter - no more, no less. He doesn't seem to ever recognize me. I give him a quarter sometimes when I'm walking alone. When I walk past him with other street performers, he doesn't even ask.

A street performer has a rag nearby. He gestures towards it and tells me how he got the rag. It was a hot day. He needed a cloth of some sort and recruited a panhandler to stop by a store and get it for him while he was performing. When the man came back, the performer was told that the rag costs $3, but the performer could have it for $2. He suspected that the rag was stolen. He shrugs and laughs. He told me he didn't mind. "It was to a good cause, I guess." I hear a hint of doubt in his voice.

Someone approaches me after a show. He thanks me with a handshake and a smile. He comes back later with a friend. I don't do a full show. I show them one trick. They leave with a smile. They don't pay, and I don't ask them for money.

After a show, two panhandlers - one after the other - approach a street performer. He reaches into his hat and pulls out some cash for each of them while they chat. I am nearby, chatting with another busker. He very loudly tells me never to give any money to panhandlers. I just nod slightly, a little embarrassed by how loudly he was speaking with all this happening next to us.

After they leave, the performer who gave them the money turns to me. He tells me these are the only two individuals that he will give money to. They are mentally ill, he says. And one of them "just makes me laugh."

A traveling magician proudly recounts how a panhandler in his audience had just emptied out his earnings for the day into his hat. The rest of the audience had burst into applause.

A busker tells me: "The panhandlers don't need a license. We do. And we're under the same first amendment right."

I see a panhandler stand up and move when a street performer approaches. I ask him why he is leaving. "I was trying to get bus fare to the homeless shelter," he tells me. But he moved because "This is his [that street performer's] corner."

----

*Panhandlers were never the focus of my research, and I represent them here only through their interactions with street performers. Writing about them in detail would be unethical (since they did not know of my role as researcher), but ignoring them completely would be a misrepresentation. These vignettes were my attempt to bring them back into the story, to show that despite how rarely I write of these individuals, panhandlers play a very real role in the landscape that they share with street performers and the shoppers in downtown Chicago.

The Right of Assembly

I have a regular blog post in the works, but it's taking me some time to write. And after a 2 hour commute in this weather, I've decided to just post this article about the right to assemble on city streets. Its title, "Why Can't We Party in the Street?" points to a question that's relevant for street performer, protesters, and party-ers alike. Enjoy!

(Thanks to researcher Vivian Doumpa from the Busking Project for the link).

Not Speaking: Learning Silence in Vietnam

When I first learned of their existence, they didn't know a word of English.

I mean, they knew a few words: "OK," "yes," "no," "hello," "how are you," and probably a whole lot more than I'm giving them credit for. It's impossible not to know some English today. That would almost be like living in Alliance-controlled territory and not knowing at least a few Chinese curse words.(Sorry. I've been lacking on geeky references lately and desperately wanted to fit one in).

The point is - these half-cousins of mine couldn't really carry a conversation with me in English.
And, though I might be able to name very specific kinds of food (like pho and fish sauce), I certainly didn't know any Vietnamese.

They showed me around the city of my mother's birth by tugging on my arm whenever it was safe to cross the street (I'm still convinced it never was). They gave me a face mask when I reached for a helmet, in preparation for a ride across town on a motorbike. Somehow (and I can't remember how), they communicated to me that face masks were a necessity on these bikes, but helmets were only for people who were legally adults. I was old enough to wear a helmet anyway, and though I was confused, it wasn't up to me to question their logic and demand that a much younger cousin wear one too.

I remember struggling to peel the shell off some local shellfish, only to have a cousin reach across, grab it from me, and strip off its exoskeleton in one smooth motion. She handed it back to me and, though embarrassed, I thanked her. Afterwards, I was careful to keep my food just out of her reach. Peeling the rest myself was a matter of pride.

Though I was older than my cousins, my unfamiliarity with the streets, the language, and even the foods infantilized me in a certain way while simultaneously reminding me of my privilege as an American citizen abroad. I recognize what international students deal with in the US, and I'm pretty sure that most don't get the kind of welcome that I was getting back then on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

The only time that we could actually speak with one another was through connections of theirs who knew Cantonese. Or through my mother, whose Vietnamese was about as good (or just a little bit better) than her English.

When we met again last night, after what's been about a ten year gap, language was no longer an issue. These half-cousins of mine speak English as well as anyone else who lives and works in the US. I was excited to see what they were like, to interact with personalities that we often assume only comes through in language.

And then... well. I don't know what exactly I was expecting before we met up, but I found out that they are pretty much the same people and personalities that I encountered so many years ago. They wanted to see some magic. They still wanted to feed me (they have been in Boston for years now, and I just moved here, so once again, I took up the part of the newcomer to a new city - a role that's comforting in its familiarity but exhausting, at times, in its frequency).

I learned that, before, though we might not have been able to speak with one another, we certainly could communicate. Communication is not and has never really been about language. All I have to do is think about all those awkward moments when what I meant was the complete opposite of what I spoke.

I started this post intending to write about how magic is a bridge across all countries, cultures, and languages - that, with magic, performers can still communicate astonishment, surprise, and happiness. And here I am, ending with a different conclusion: magic can certainly do all that. But magic and performing magic - a crutch often used in place of other more common kinds of social interaction, I think, for me as it was for many other beginning magicians in our formative teenage years - only manages to bridge these cultural gaps because of something even more basic than that.

Magic, as a universalish language, only makes sense because of people's capability for empathy. It's something that I think Teller, of Penn and Teller fame, understands every time he dons the role of the silent magician. As he notes in a rare moment of speech, "Not speaking is just about the most intimate thing you can do." (Thank you to fellow magicians for the article).

There's something there that aids in communication, even when words are taken out of the picture. Though I'm a little ashamed to put forth such an universalizing yet vague idea, I still put it forth because, though my cousins and I weren't really able to directly speak with one another until we met again last night in the US, we were definitely continuing a long-standing relationship - one that started with nothing more than hand motions, shrugs, and smiles.

We were speaking with each other for the first time, but we were only continuing a conversation that we had started ten years ago. Maybe that's all magic really is: communication, of a specific sort.

A Comment on Research Methods

It might be a bit late in the life of this blog to talk about my research methods - what I did, where I did it, and how I went about it. It's better late than never though! (And admittedly, sometimes it's easier to take stuff that I've already written and just tweak it for a blog post. Especially when I have about an hour before my self-imposed deadline).

So finally: Some background information on my research.

I began my fieldwork by wandering the subways and streets of downtown Chicago. I was able to find buskers on the subway platforms of Jackson Station, on State Street, and Michigan Avenue. I also observed a singer busking in Bryn Mawr (North Chicago) and several musicians at the throughway from the blue line to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport. However, given the scope of my study, I decided to focus my research primarily on the street performers on Michigan Avenue. Michigan Avenue has a higher concentration of street performers than any of the other sites and, unlike the subway platforms in which the majority of buskers are musicians, it has a wider range in terms of the different types of performances they do.

Armed with a personal history as a magician, and using my past as someone who had a few months’ worth of experience street performing in Memphis, Tennessee, I was able to go beyond my identity as “just another student researcher” and situate myself within the loose community of Chicago street performers. Two of the key participants in my study (the Chicago Tin Man and Jeremy, the Magician from Britain) took me under their wing as a young performer interested in learning the craft of busking. A friend of Jeremy’s, a performer who works as a silver statue and balloon artist, took this directive to heart: Every time I saw him, he would ask, “When are you going to start working? I want to see you making money!”

Another performer, a living statue who at the time went by the name of the Golden Lady, befriended me as one among the even smaller group of female street performers. The other performers with whom I observed, spoke, and interviewed viewed me more generally as another street performer – a shared identity that made many of them more interested in speaking with me than they otherwise would have been. There was a shift in my relationships with other street performers the weekend after my first time performing on the streets of Chicago. The Golden Lady ran into me performing the morning of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade; the next time I saw her, she walked up to give me a hug, proclaiming, “You’re one of us now. Welcome to the streets.”

In addition to a sense of shared identity, the time spent maintaining relationships mattered too. As one street performer explained after I observed a student from Northwestern quickly interviewing him with a voice recorder between shows, he gets interviewed like this “every now and again” but “no one has stuck around to research [street performers] in depth.” Here then, time spent in the field, as well as a commitment to stopping by and speaking with performers – even after my main observations of them were finished – allowed me to come to them again and again with questions and ideas as my research progressed.

Immersion (of some degree) was the hard part. Weekly observations, combined with constant informal interviews and occasional more structured interviews, made up the bulk of my data collection. With some help, I also managed to take some footage of a few buskers. In the end, though, none of my research would have been possible with the generosity and trust of the street performers who agreed to work with me. This is a trust that I hope none of them have decided was misplaced, and a trust for which I am forever indebted.

"You don't get arrested for standing still. You get arrested for standing up."

Back in July, one of my busking friends, a young black female performer known as GoldGrrl*, was arrested for “misdemeanor, resisting arrest, [and] interfering with a public officer.” She was performing in her usual spot when a police officer approached her with an official noise complaint. While it’s hard to confirm exactly what went on in that space, nearby street performers did confirm this part of the story:

This living statue, whose whole performance is to stand absolutely still, was soon surrounded by six – SIX! - police officers and hauled into the back of a police van. Maybe she was disrespectful; maybe her music was a little loud. I can’t say because I wasn’t there.

What I can say is that six Chicago police officers thought it worth their time to surround and arrest a street performer whose entire act is, again, to stand absolutely still – and this in the same month that Chicago made national headlines as the site of 82 shootings over Independence Day weekend.

We met up about ten days after her arrest to talk about what happened. Sometimes the raw data tells the story best, so I’ll just post the transcript here. It’s been edited for length and relevancy:

Police officers confront living statue and street performer GoldGrrl.

“[After the police officer checked my performer’s permit], he was in front of my box, just standing in front of it, and he’s trying to get me to talk to him. I’m clearly not going to talk to him, so he says, ‘Well, you’re not gonna talk to me, I’m gonna stand in front of your box and make sure that you don’t make any money today.’ And that’s what he does! Like, if people come around and try and see what I’m doing, he, like, shoos them away. And is like ‘Don’t give her any money. She doesn’t want to make any money.’ But the more that he’s saying that, the more people are like, ‘Oh, she doesn’t want any money?’ Like, it’s like, it makes my cause seem noble actually because, ‘Oh, why wouldn’t you want money?’ And, you know, he’s actively shooing people away. But he’s also making a crowd of his own. It’s like quicksand. He’s just digging himself in, and he doesn’t realize it.

So, you know, then he’s like, ‘Since you’re not talking to me, I’m gonna call another officer.’ So he walks away for a little bit. I get off my box, take a break. I take the license and put it on the back of my jacket cuz that’s where I usually put it, and then I adjust my music, whatever. I get back on my box. And I’m like, all right!

He comes back with another officer. Now there are two cops saying ‘Shoo, shoo. Nothing going on here, don’t give her any money, da da dadada.’ People are asking what I did. And now that my license is clipped to the back of my jacket, he says, ‘Oh, she doesn’t have her license.’ And since it’s like, you can’t really see it on the front of my person, they don’t bother to look. They just keep walking. They’re like, ‘Oh…” then they walk away.

So then he’s like – and in between this, he’s still trying to get me to talk to him. He’s like, ‘Please talk to me, please talk to me,’ and ‘I just want to take down your information.’ I’m like, you already have my information! I don’t get what else you need from me. And um, you know, and then he’s like, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to call a wagon over.’ All right, well. He calls the police truck. It pulls up. And as soon as that cop gets out of the car and sees him, he’s like, ‘Bro…’ You should see the look on his face. He’s, like, ‘Really? You drag me out here for this shit,’ you know?

And then I still don’t do anything. So now there are four cops out there just like… I’ve done nothing! All I’ve been doing is being a statue, you know. And so, um, I knew shit got real when they brought out the black lady cop. So, like, on top of the truck, they had to bring out another SUV. Black lady cop comes out with another officer. So now there are six police officers at the scene. And she comes over – you know, and I like, I’m just like, really? I’ve seen way too many movies. Like, I know this is like some negotiation tactic […].

The cops are talking to me, I’m being stubborn, so they send out black lady cop. You know, to try and deal with me. But at this point, I’ve already made the decision that I’m not gonna move. And I can’t, I can’t give in now […].

So she’s talking to me. Like, they had told her that I didn’t have my license. Cuz I can still hear. And it’s funny cuz the police man knows that I can hear him. So all he really had to say was, like, ‘I’ll wait for you on your break.’ Or something. Some sort of consideration. But, um, that didn’t happen.

So black lady cop talks to me and was like, ‘Why don’t you have your license? Why don’t you have your license? Are you telling me you don’t have your license?’ License, license, license. She talks to me for about five minutes and finally walks behind me and sees that it’s clipped to my jacket. You know? All you had to do was walk behind me, and you would have seen it […].

So she takes my license, takes it back to the cops – the rest of the cops. They make the decision to arrest me. So, ok, wait. X----! You have to arrest me again so Felice can see what happened. You’re gonna see it now. Cuz it’s like I didn’t resist. I just followed them. I improvised. It was like the most intense improv, dance… contact improv session ever. Improv with the cops.”

At this point, she demonstrated to me how the police arrested her. A police officer would move her arm, and she would let her arm be moved. She didn’t push back, but she didn’t go along quietly either. She essentially acted as though she were an actual non-living but moveable statue.

“And then when I’m sitting down, this is when they’re putting my handcuffs. Cuz I wouldn’t walk, they literally had to pick me up and carry me into the truck. But the whole time, he was like, ‘Do not resist! Do not resist!’ […]

The thing was that they made a mistake. First of all, the whole reason I stand there is just to see if they can work as long as I can, you know? Can you stand – you want to arrest me, but can you stand as long as I can? You know? I mean, they were getting, the reason why that first cop called the second cop was that he was getting tired. And he could see that I wasn’t moving. You know? And then once they brought black lady cop over, they stopped paying attention to the audience and started looking at me. Cuz they were watching, you know, they were watching her talk to me and not respond. And they were just watching the show that was going on. As soon as they turned their back to the audience, that was when the crowd came.

And the last thing black lady cop said before she walked away was, ‘Oh no, she has a crowd.’ You know? I mean, I knew that was going to happen. But they, I don’t know.

It just boggles my mind that – some of those cops have been working on [XXX Street] for 7 years, 10 years, and they still don’t understand how street performing works or like how we make money or how or why we do what we do. You know? And they just end up causing a big ruckus. And then arrest people so that they don’t look stupid. So they have, like, they’re like rationalizing an arrest that they made up, you know, in their heads. That’s just like the same stuff that I feel like goes on… in gang enforcement, drug enforcement. Like, they don’t take the time to learn the culture and how and why it is the way it is. You just go in there and wanna arrest somebody and wanna catch somebody and wanna prove that this stuff is going on and that it’s bad. And, you know… I mean, a lot of people do end up in jail… way longer than me for probably way less stuff, you know.

[…] Anyway, they took me to the station. They made me take off my costume. It was very like, you know, superhero moment, where they catch the superhero and they’re like, ‘I wanna see his face! I wanna see his face! I wanna see what he looks like!’ So they like take off my costume. And they’re like, woah! She’s pretty fit!

They put me in the cell. […] You know, and so, I mean, I was in there for six hours. And an hour before they let me out, they handcuffed me to the wall. Like, it was like stupid. It was really stupid. You know, and I’m just like, I didn’t get a phone call. And they took my house keys. Like, I left there with nothing. They gave me back my bucket and my pedestal, but they emptied out my box. And like when I was in holding, I hear them laughing. And they were like, ‘Oh, let’s go look at her box!’ You know. So, yeah, it was just really fucking stupid. And now it’s just like they – I can’t get any of my stuff back until […] my court date. And they charged me with misdemeanor, resisting arrest, interfering with a public officer.

And, uh, you know, right now, I have a friend whose dad’s a lawyer, so I’m like talking to him. Um, Y--- says that usually these cases get thrown out, not to worry about it. Just, you know, look nice and be polite. So I just have to show up to court. But um, you know, now I have to like – if I want to go make money, I’m gonna have to put a new costume together. And, but like, I just paid rent. I’m like working on this music project. I’m pretty much broke til I go out again. Which sort of sucks, but, you know.

 […] And now it’s like, getting arrested, now I’m really feeling the consequences of it. Cuz now I’m just like, yeah, I have to get a new costume, I have to get the paint together, I have to take the time to decorate it. Um. I don’t have any music. I have to get a new inverter. You know, and all the while, I’m just like leaking money. Cuz I’m not making up anything. So… I mean, I work - during the week, I work as an aerobics instructor. But I only make like $15 an hour, you know. And I only work an hour. I teach my class and I’m done. It takes me an hour to get there. It’s like, I mean, it’s not really enough to sustain me. I’m just sort of doing it cuz it’s good to have a regular thing. And I just like the idea of having my own workout routine. I really kick ass too.

[…] And that’s the thing about getting arrested. I knew they couldn’t tackle me or, like, hit me, or anything. Cuz one, I had a crowd. And two, they just can’t! Like, legally, they can’t do that, you know? And if you know that, you’re dangerous. You know, my friends were telling me, you know, of all the people out there, shooting and looting in Chicago, you’re probably the most dangerous person on the street that day. You know, cuz, for… you know, for standing still – standing up. Yeah, you don’t get arrested for standing still. You get arrested for standing up. That’s the truth. Yes.

[…] Now they have my wig too. They took my wig, my house keys, cell phone batteries. Why you need that stuff for? They’re just giving me a hard time. It’s not even necessary.

That was the thing, the female cop too. She was like ‘I don’t even know why you had to take it this far. Good idea, great concept, great execution. But I don’t know why you had to take it this far.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know why you had to take it this far!’ Like, I can sit through anything. You made the decision to arrest me, and you had no right. I wasn’t bothering anyone.”

*My default is to maintain the anonymity of those who participated in my research. Any time that I do use a research participant's name or stage name, I have received their express permission to do so.