Busking in Nanaimo

[queen of the waterfront]

That poor man's name is Gary.Once upon a time he had a real job but his illness cost him that , and his girlfriend and his little boy. When he is on medication you can hear the shades of a marvellous intelligence. One of the many unfortunates who fall between the cracks. he is harmless.

I have to tell you that Gary is a licenced busker. He passed an audition in 2004.
in that regard he is more fortunate than my friend Johnny and I.
Today is the third day I have taken off work to go and get a group licence. First they had no one to take a picture and of course on Monday we were told all sorts of interesting stuff. We were also given a busking application which turned out to be a home business application.
Today we went again, twenty dollars in hand, bylaws in briefcase and with all our promotional material.
Veneta told us that we can audition tomorrow at 9:00 AM which means I have to take more time off work. When I asked her how many of Nanaimo's licenced buskers have taken Auditions in The last two years she told my friend and I that it is up to her discretion as to who needs to audition.Find that in the bylaws.
Johnny and I are the only buskers in Nanimo who have headlined at the Port Theatre, done a cd release at Tania's and hundreds of other professional gigs.
Are we being singled out because we are professionals? Is it because Johnny is black or is it because I am blind?
Big question why only the two of us?
One more comment they took our money and we still cant go busking together.

[TH2008]

That poor man's name is Gary.Once upon a time he had a real job but his illness cost him that , and his girlfriend and his little boy. When he is on medication you can hear the shades of a marvellous intelligence. One of the many unfortunates who fall between the cracks. he is harmless.

Thanks And yeah, I knew he was intelligent. You can hear that in the songs he sometimes creates.

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TH

[queen of the waterfront]

No prob
Just to let you know our audition has been changed to friday morning so now I have to take another day off work.
I am curious to see whether all the buskers that have new licences will be there.

[Piper]

TH The guy with the harmonica is Garry he is 49 years old and is a very intelegent person. Garry was once a licensed busker but I dont believe he has a license now, He continues to busk without a valid busking license but never gets ticketed by bylaw enforcement. It's the same for at least 3 other unlicensed buskers they play on the spots we have paid for but never get ticketed. The existing bylaw for busking is modified each day to benefit the bylaw officers on duty. An example of this fact is today I was in the bylaw office to get a list of how many licensed buskers there are and also to find out how many of these licensed buskers have had an audition as per section 4.1 of the bylaw which says- Each applicant for a street entertainmer permit must, in each year, audition before the audition pannel.This is not true I have not done an audition since 2004 and also 2 of my kids have never had an audition and have been busking since the bylaw was ammended in 2003.
Just for the record the audition pannel consists of a bylaw officer and a staff member from parks & Rec. neither of these pannel members have the skills or knowledge needed to judge a street entertainer.

[TH2008]

No prob
Just to let you know our audition has been changed to friday morning so now I have to take another day off work.
I am curious to see whether all the buskers that have new licences will be there.

I hope this works out for you and your friends.

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TH

[TH2008]

[B]TH The guy with the harmonica is Garry he is 49 years old and is a very intelegent person. Garry was once a licensed busker but I dont believe he has a license now, He continues to busk without a valid busking license but never gets ticketed by bylaw enforcement.

I am glad that Garry does not get ticketed.

I'll be sure to keep an eye out for Garry and make sure he gets some spare change from me pockets. I hope others will keep an eye out for Garry too.

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TH

[queen of the waterfront]

you have a kind heart.

I think there should be special spots for the disadvantaged or the disabled . These spots should require no fee and be in different areas from the spots that other buskers have to pay for.
i am legally blind and female.There are very few spots that are safe for me to play on my own, hence my desire to play in a duo or group situation.
it is a tough business music whether it be busking or bars

[TH2008]

What about busking instruments? What do you play?

I found this on youtube a while back.

The "Hang Drum"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZscmv4v2l0

Like, wow

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TH

[queen of the waterfront]

Very cool!

I play bass, accoustic guitar, electric in the big band, some piano and tambourine. i am a singer songwriter doing lead and harmony vocals.

I am a member of the Nanaimo Blues Society and also involved in the Nanaimo songwriters group.

i come from a long line of buskers in Scotland and started playing on the street when i was fifteen years old.

I am mother to five, grandmother to eight and still singing Joni Mitchell after all these years.

[Piper]

I strongly feel that if the city of Nanaimo goes to so much trouble to put a bylaw in place to regulate busking then this bylaw should be enforced against all violators and not just certain people who the bylaw officer of the day feels like applying the bylaw on. The bylaw should not be changed everyday to accomodate the bylaw officer of the day, and this does happen or we would'nt be on hear talking about it. The city of Nanaimo should elliminate the existing street entertainers bylaw and use other bylaws in place to regulate busking such as the noise bylaw or the nusiance bylaw. The bylaw office has different interpretations in the street entertainers bylaw than what they should be such as a non accoustical instrument there is no such thing, this is something they made up. When they took amplification away from us in 2003 and only allowed amplification for electric guitars and keyboards I contacted Rita McNeil and told her and the reply I got back was the human voice is the first thing that should be amplified before instruments and I'm sure she is qualified to make such a judgment call. (I still have the email)