Day 22: Protesters and hobos

Yesterday, after a disastrous audition for the Music Performance Club at school (basically, our school's unofficial rock band), I played in front of Au Bon Pain for about 2 hours. My time was cut short, however, by a group of protesters angry about the firing of a professor (I think) from Harvard. They decided to set up about 30 feet away from me. As soon as I realized this, I tried to find a police officer, because by setting up so close to me and with their absurdly huge loudspeaker setup, they were violating Cambridge street performing and noise ordinances left and right. However, as soon as they showed up, all of the Cambridge cops nearby seemed to disappear, for whatever reason. In the end, I had to crank my amp far beyond the legal limit, and so I decided to play songs to annoy the protesters. Mostly, I went for songs with lines like "Open your eyes," in the hopes that maybe they might notice my plight, but to no avail. With my voice faltering, I was left with no course but to pull out the deadliest weapon in my arsenal: The RickRoll. If you don't know what that is, you should probably go look it up for a full explanation, but basically, it consists of singing a particular Rick Astley song to unsuspecting people.

In other funny things, a possibly drunken homeless man stood next to me for most of my set, laughing every time I sung just about anything. As one might imagine, this is rather disconcerting, especially when coupled with loud chants about justice.

On the whole, the day was quite amusing, though I made nearly nothing and left feeling rather angry at the protesters, who didn't seem to notice at all that I was 30 feet away and screaming my lungs out.

Day 11: Forgotten parts and Rick Rolling

Today, I went out at about 11:45 to catch the lunch rush, which was a good idea, as I made about $35 in just over two hours. However, in my rush to leave, I forgot my demo CDs that I was planning to hand out, as well as my capo, which is essential to playing certain songs. I rearranged some of those to work without the capo, which worked on some (for example, "The Only Exception," by Paramore, which fit much better into my vocal range with my on-the-spot alterations), and less so on others (Coldplay's "Viva La Vida," which stuttered and didn't work at all).

Today, I used my platform as a busker to execute something of a prank on unsuspecting passers-by. Rick Astley's song, "Never Gonna Give You Up," has become an internet phenomenon, by way of something called "Rick Rolling." Urban Dictionary defines Rick Rolling as the following:

"A method in which a prankster makes a fake link to the music video of Rick Astley's Never going to give you up. To be rick rolled is to be the victim, rick rolling is the act of being the predator. The prank is considered funny because of the horrible dancing in this music video. Sometimes the bar tender is seen to be funnier. Over one million people have been rick rolled and counting."

I engaged in a variation of the prank, in which I sang the song (while dancing just a little). Most people seemed not to notice, but a kid my age and his girlfriend both fell off their seats at Au Bon Pain when I began singing the first verse.