*Case Dismissed*

Last week I went in to court to finally face off with officer Liu for my puppet show arrest under time square in April:

the video of which was put to delightful narration in a recent interview:

” This is a very emotional biographical film with several key plot points, along with several key emotional performances:  The Promulgation of Rights,The Gentle Handcuffing, The Procession up the Escalator, The Stripping of the Mask, The responsibilty-beleagured role of the Officer in Charge illustrating social rank and functional power as well as governed empathy.  (It’s not the last time this will happen, but I’m thinking of the agonizingly detailed death-march of Jesus described by The Stations of the Cross, also called Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows) The police swoop in to reclaim that Priority to the space which Kalan had once claimed as a meer denizen.”

So after staying up all night frantically searching for the receipt they had given me for the time my body spent in their cage (which it turns out you don’t really need at all) and not finding it, I donned my swank brown seventies three-piece and headed into the city amidst swaths of birdsong. In the line at midtown community court for half an hour I played Woodie Guthrie’s All You Fascists Bound To Lose on my mini-speaker, and at long last past the threshold of the halls of justice, only to be told by the clerk at the desk that my case had been dismissed, and “I should get something in the mail.” My heart sank. My temples pounded. My blood curled. Even when they lose, they win, gobbling up another day of my life in bureaucratic feinting. I never got anything in the mail. I probably never will. But now, onwards and upwards, towards the consideration of civil matters. Enough is Enough.

Polite Police

Busking was funny and kind of slow this past weekend, maybe because of the rain. I spent a lot of time looking for a spot to play, and then giving up good spots to other buskers in solidarity or common courtesy. I think I also got a little bored of myself and made some rather drastic breaks from my regular routine that, while titillating, weren’t really doing me any favors in the long run… [insert clip of american orca whale train party here]
I got heckled and almost attacked by a couple of bros, but also (and probably more relevantly to this project) had to field the weird problem of the Very Polite Police Officer. Apparently, there had been a theft at the Bedford L stop and the cops were surveilling for the suspect and needed full platform visibility, and as a result this basically very sweet, respectful, seemingly understanding policeman kept asking if I could move to the other side of the bench a little further down the platform so the onlookers wouldn’t block his line of sight. I kept trying different places, but in busking, like in hitchhiking, 15 feet can make a huge different, and (besides the unfortunate faux pas of my accidentally pouring a full plate of rice into my suitcase) it really wasn’t happening. It’s hard for me to get belligerent with sweetly tempered people who aren’t being jerks. What to do in this quandary?

#etymology-of-the-void

Bottom of That Barrel

I hope it’s not an ill omen that my first blog post for buskny recounts a day of botched performances. It’s been a long hop and a skip since the last day I went to work and only actually made $1. But I’m going to count this as one of those penitential days you have to pay to get the sucking out of your system in preparation for torrential landslide success… and I do generally share the suspicion that if I go out to warm up on Thursday, even if I don’t do that well, I’ll play better on Friday.

Anyways, after a seemingly endless and fruitless search for a pitch, I set up my little box on the far end of a platform this evening wearing my regular collage of burlap and pink rags, and did a few new “puppet shows”. Excerpts from the captions scrawled on my chalkboard include “I understand everything,” “horrible ontology family tree,” and “P03xx1mM0Gft7x0LN28”. A new addition, the Gutted Dolphin Hat, happily bobbed beside my regular pacha mama tiger, and most of my onlookers seemed generally interested, but distracted. Say Lah Vee. There really is no math in this line of work.

I did however reconnect with several old friends and compatriots underground, with whom I shared information about buskny, and also landed a flier for the upcoming NYC Busker’s Ball on the 24th, which portentous happening oozed auspicious coincidence (let’s go there). Nice to meet you!

-Kalan