I started busking cause it's been hard to find enough gigs to keep me happy and practicing the accordion is both more fun on a street corner and less grating fo

I started busking cause it's been hard to find enough gigs to keep me happy and practicing the accordion is both more fun on a street corner and less grating for the neighbors in my apartment. It's been kind of interested to meet some of the other folks who are on the street for various reasons. I did sound for a music festival a couple weeks ago and there were a bunch of folks who had just been at Rainbow... now that same little crew is camping out near the town where I live. I see them sometimes and they join up and play music with me on the street. Or if I see them, I guess I am joining them. It's really hard to make tips... when these folks are with me, I don't get the bigger bills any more. While it's true that a lot of folks who are living rough are doing it because they have no choice, between the dirtbag climbers I climb with sometimes, the crusty punks I grew up around, and the itinerant musicians I've been hanging out with, there is a large segment of folks who choose to be outside. For all that, it's -still- a really bad idea to romanticize living rough. Where I live, I get the idea that most folks don't think people who don't own property are actual humans-- much less the folks who won't or can't pay rent. And the systems of power around us treat folks consistently with that outlook. People get beat down really fast, and it can be really hard for folks to get back into some place or other once they've been living in a car or on the street for more than a couple years.