ericaricardo's Open Salon Blog

New York Moment: Maria the Ice Cream Girl

Sun, 8 Aug 2010 09:08:39 -0400

My boyfriend and I take an adventure to Deepest Brooklyn, all the way south by Coney Island.

An ice cream truck near Avenue V wings around the corner and speed-stops at the red light. The driver is a woman in maybe her 30s with long bleach blond hair.

On the side of the truck is a portrait of the woman and an elderly man, encircled by the words "Thank you, Daddy!"

On the back it says "THE ICE CREAM GIRL MARIA." The truck is blasting Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Maria rests her elbow on top the open driver's side window and taps her hand to the beat, then speeds away when the light changes.

How to Make Money Playing Music in the Subway

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:08:11 -0400

Dear Open Salon: here are my best busking secrets.

To Seed Money or Not to Seed Money

Do you put a little bit of cash in your case to help seed future donations or not? Ukulele star Amanda Palmer and cohort say, "yes: wadding a few bills in your case is best" so that people feel more comfortable dropping their own dollars in.

But my experience has been the opposite: people make their decision 10 and 20 feet away from me, before they can really see what's in my case. It's a personal decision, and probably relates more to whether the person considers themselves "the kind of person who gives money to street musicians" or not.

Pop Quiz: which kind of person are you? If your answer is equivocal ("Well sometimes I ... it depends ... ") that probably means "no."

The exceptions are what I call sequels: the one's who pass me by but then come back from the platform to drop money in. Ooh! I was just that good, huh? That's the best. It makes up for the fact that the commuting public is a poor audience.

Here's Amanda Palmer and me. Note the resemblance:

[PS In that photograph, I am playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Why the intense face? Can't be known.]

[PPS Check out Amanda's new EP of Radiohead covers!]

Where to Play

A lady offered some unsolicited advice today. Unsolicited advice! That's the best kind. She said that the corridor is a bad place to play because people rush by on their way to the train. She recommended the platform instead.

"I see. But the platform is noisier than the corridor, and I also make an average of $5/hr on the platform, but $10/hr out here." I do better in small rooms, really.

"Oh!" she was suddenly impressed. "$10! That's pretty good!"

The corridor is actually brilliant for busking, because people often still have their wallets in hand from the subway turnstile and are all the more ready to drop money in. It's also far enough away from the train that the sound doesn't overwhelm.

Traffic

My biggest piece of advice (unsolicited) to every busker: make it as easy as possible for people to hear and enjoy your music and for traffic to flow past unimpeded. It's the same as with all marketing and advertising: more people laying their eyes and ears on you will translate into more "sales conversions."

And with that, I think I'll take my own advice and get ready for the busking Big Time. That's right: the tourist spots. In Manhattan. Stay tuned!

16 Pennies for My Thoughts

Mon, 2 Aug 2010 10:08:36 -0400

Busked a little earlier this morning to catch the mellower 7:45 - 8:45am crowd at Brooklyn's Boro Hall 2-3 stop. Today I found the exact perfect sweet spot in the corridor that amplifies sound all the way out to the platform. I want to mark that spot with a red "X," or maybe a red ukulele. Perhaps a secret society of musicians would leave marks all around the city at the best spots. If you want in on this secret society, send me a message.

In terms of donations, I held steady freddy with a total take of $11.16 but a very gratifying and record-breaking three sequels, including a gentleman fully wired with a Secret Service-style curly earpiece and who wore dark sunglasses underground. He made a curt nod on his way to the platform; he replaced the nod with a generous smile on the way back. One very lovely blue-eyed lady from the UK said that I sound like the North Sea Orchestra (?). At least, I think that's what she said. If so, I appreciate the comparison to the sweet voice of their lead singer, and dream of the day when I too have a horn section and full chorus in my retinue.

The $.16 came from a gentleman who dropped one thick handful of pennies into my case. That's a lot of pennies to come by these days, given that they're so often used to level wobbly tables, replace copper fuses, kai ta loipa.

Again, no one took me up on the sign offering SONG ABOUT YOU: $5. My sign might be too small. I do have extra poster paper lying around the house, but you and I both know the size of the sign isn't the problem. The problem is that people on their morning commute don't have time for it, no matter how excellent of a story they would make for this blog. I can't believe we hadn't thought of this sooner!

Next: branching out into selling CDs OR the sweet siren song of licensed merchandise ...

"Please remove the following words: fun, beautiful, lovely."

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:07:46 -0400

My editors ask that I stop using the words lovely and beautiful in my articles. Apparently, I use these words far too often.

This reminds me of the time at my old job when I was asked to remove the word fun from all website copy. Apparently, I used that word too often as well. I made the necessary changes and wrote to the client to assure him that "'Fun' will no longer appear on your website." He wrote back to thank me.

And that reminds me of the time at my old old job when we were working on a radio promotion, and the radio promoter sent a memo advising, "our strategy should be Moms and Dads," and that we should play in heavy rotation on stations with lots of "active rock for Dads."

Active rock for Dads! Moms! Dads! Brilliant strategy!

I laughed for a long time about that memo. My co-workers were not amused.

No ukulele busking stories today. All the subway traffic is over in the tourist areas and not in Brooklyn. I prefer to play for the Brooklynites on their way to work, anyway. It's a more relaxed scene than midtown Manhattan, and thus far lots of fun.

That's right! Fun! For my own website copy, the strategy is to play my beautiful lovely favorite keywords in heavy rotation.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Cranky Editors

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:07:36 -0400

Original title of this post:

Writing: A Strange Thing to Love
OR
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Cranky Editors

Lots of cranky edits from my editors to attend to this morning.

Have I used the word "cranky" enough times in this post already? Cranky cranky cranky. There. Good morning, Open Salon! [looks up from typing, waves to you]

The article service that I work for has many strict and rigorous guidelines for research, grammar, voice, and content. The rigor is refreshing. It's a pleasure to serve with the forces of light that fight against informational entropy on the internet. The service forbids Wikipedia as a research source. Same with Instructables, WiseGeek, Yahoo Answers, and About. Same with hundreds of other sites serving up Anonymously Regurgitated Information Slurry. I call it the Reconstituted Internet. You heard it here first, folks!

Some of the editors shuffle your articles right on through, and other editors hand you back a page full of cranky edits. I love the cranky editors because they make a better writer out of me, beginning with the sheer amount of attention I pay at every step of writing now.

Also, being a writer is all about revising at the scowling behest of cranky editors. Every time I chafe at their abrasive comments, there comes a pause and a smile. "Complaining about my editor ... that means I've arrived!"

But writing blogs is also wonderful (no editors!). At home, the only writing edits I get are from Jason, who offers occasional structural feedback. Like this week, for instance, "you shouldn't mix three metaphors in one sentence."

"Why not! They're not mixed, they're nested. Totally intelligible under the order of operations!"

For some reason, this argument garnered no traction. Thus, I tamed the sentence that compared music with computers, childhood, and racing a BMW through the suburb streets. Now it's just a comparison with computers. The post (about Bobby McFerrin) is much better for it. My lovely boyfriend is truly the sober yin to my raging yang.