Buskers of New Orleans: Transgressive Sociology in the Urban Underbelly

Introduction

This article is based on a sociology of transgressive behavior that examines cultural life in the urban underbelly of a postindustrial tourist-intensive economy of New Orleans. New Orleans, and its heart the Vieux Carré, or what most people refer to as the French Quarter, has been attracting bohemian types for over a century. And while bohemians come in all different shapes, sizes, and flavors, they share a unified desire to carve out creative lives that transcend the ordinary to manifest an alternative vision of human life from the ashes of an outdated and sterile American dream. This article is about the resilient city of New Orleans showcasing the fascinating and uneven journeys of late modern New Orleans urban dwellers living on the periphery of city life. It reveals the complexities of busker social life within the cultural mecca that produced jazz and brass-band funk.

New Orleans is an unapologetically contradictory city, one that can at once be stagnant but vibrant, exhibitionistic but mysterious, celebratory but treacherous, rich but poor, and one that is eternally fascinating because of all of it. What follows below pulls back the veil of the postcard-ready tourist city to reveal the less-seen spaces of New Orleans, intimately depicting the social life of the new creative urban dweller living at and near poverty.

Revealing this underbelly requires moving beyond standard sociological methodology. I do not merely study the city’s fringes; rather I live on them. I don’t merely interview the city’s new bohemians; I live among them, living as one of them. I don’t settle for examining the city’s modern underbelly; I creep and crawl through it myself—sometimes on my hands and knees, walking on glass as “Cuban Pete the Clown,” participating in sideshow freak shows, pantomiming on the streets in the shadows of the Superdome, and writing poetry on Frenchmen Street.

People busk, or perform on the street for entertainment earning tips, all over the place “cruising as pirates” in nearly every nook and cranny of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) and Faubourg Marigny. Although parts of the area flirt with “Disneyfication” more than ever before, outsiders reclaim space for their own individual uses while taking full advantage of the sustainable habitat the Vieux Carré and Faubourg Marigny provides for buskers and street entertainers of all sorts. Some people busk to survive, while others do it to supplement their meager wages earned working in the New Orleans service industry. Still others busk to avoid the bore of mainstream, nine-to-five jobs. Many hipsters rely on welfare-for-the-poor programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, while busking to avoid working jobs in the traditional economy. Some people busk, as in the case of many brass bands in New Orleans, as a starting point to launch their careers in the local—and if they’re lucky—international music industry. Buskers develop a particular skill to take to the streets. Street performers busk poetry, music of a wide assortment of genres, portraiture and landscape painting, tarot cards and palm reading, miming, juggling, freeze posing, politics, tap-dancing, shticks such as “dog playing dead lying in a coffin,” comedy, and so on. Let’s stroll New Orleans streets to peek into busker life.

A Portrait of Busker Life of the French Quarter

Walking west towards Canal Street on French Market Place near the corner of Ursulines Street where the sun hits almost directly upon hundreds of flâneurs, an old man and middle-aged black woman with a genteel smile play simple classic folk tunes under an umbrella behind the French Market. Next to them is a sign reading, “If you like the sound, stick around, if ya gotta split leave a bit.” She yells to one man taking a picture, “How about a tip? You got more money than me, sir.” Nearby, wearing a star-spangled cowboy hat, political activist and conspiracy theorist Michael DiBari sits next to his Roving Info Wagon and busks radical politics, sometimes arguing with “uninformed” tourists. A board sitting on his cart reads, “If you can change one thing in government, what would it be?” DiBari uses his graphic-design skills to create political postcards and posters with pictures like President Obama as a vampire slitting the throat of the Statue of Liberty while stealing its torch. Another cartoon depicts a “corporate owned news network” image that reads “Con news today: More shit we made up to socially-engineer you fuckers.” He hopes to further develop his mobile political cart with a glass case and enhanced video equipment to interview city officials and others about local and national politics.

Further down the road, heading east towards Esplanade Avenue, a young black kid on Governor Nicholls Street near the French Market beats on repurposed white buckets that once held drywall compound while another even younger kid watches in boredom from his bike. A few yards down, eight young black kids, middle- to high-school age, blow brass to a large audience next to the flea market behind El Gato Negro restaurant. They play sousaphone, trumpet, tuba, sax, and drums—the usual musical suspects in this thing called funk brass jazz in the down-and-dirty bayou of New Orleans. Tourists clamor for more, as these youths from the surrounding historic black and poor neighborhoods harbor hopes of one day playing at the famous Uptown New Orleans music venue Tipitina’s.

Heading north toward Rampart on the corner of Decatur and Governor Nicholls Streets in front of a shop calling itself Wicked Orleans, a man with long brown hair tucked under a cowboy hat sits in front of his Harley with money spilling out of his open guitar case. He’s singing old-school country music and tapping on a foot pedal that beats on a drum. One amp, giving voice to his guitar, hangs on his motorcycle. Another, connected to his microphone, is parked on the ground near his drum.

On Ursulines and Decatur Streets just past the saloon Molly’s on the Market, across the street from Margaritaville and the Pepper Palace, the “Slick Skillet Serenaders” play on the corner as passers-by drop dollar bills into their tip bucket. Nearby, two gutter punks sleep next to a sign reading, “Got a dollar? Beer now and pop tarts in the morning.” Another sign reads, “Gotta dime for some slime?” Their dog seems bored.

Next to them, a middle-aged black woman sells water for a dollar, and another gutter punk sits in his filth wearing a jester hat and petting his two dogs. Heading towards the Café du Monde on Rue Decatur in front of the Artists Co-op, seven youths take a busking break in the shade of an old tree. Most of them wear long white T-shirts and pants sagging below the waist. They smoke cigarettes next to their instruments, tell stories, and prepare for another round. One of these young musicians performs at various music venues in Faubourg Marigny, venues that often require cover charges and attract huge crowds. Heading west towards Canal Street on the corner of Decatur and St. Ann, two dirty gutter punks in rags sit with a cat and dog. One of the punks rubs his tattooed face all over the dog while tourists, standing awkwardly in a long line for beignet in front of the Café du Monde, stare.

Across the street, a young black kid no more than six years old, with tacks hammered into the soles of his Nike Air Jordans, tap dances for the fascinated tourists strolling the sidewalk. He claims to make three hundred dollars a day and says he buys his own shoes, of which he says he has many. A cursory observation suggests he averages six to seven dollars for each thirty-second tap-dancing performance—well above the average wages of many Americans. His pockets can barely hold the money. The young children of white tourists stare confusedly at the tap-dancer, probably wondering what a kid their age is doing performing on the streets. Perhaps they have never seen poor people begging and entertaining for money on city streets. A white male tourist with a thick country accent condescendingly orders the boy to dance faster as he points at the lad with a condescending smirk as he looks at his wife. He drops another five bucks into the bucket and walks away.

On the same street just a few feet away, a limber black kid in his early twenties, covered in grey body spray and hair painted gold, makes his body roll like a moving escalator as he mimes to hip-hop electronic music in front of a large attentive crowd of about sixty tourists. His performance lasts about three minutes. Tourists give him a hearty ovation as they drop money into his can; at least one man drops a ten. The kid does this all day and easily makes three or four hundred dollars for his efforts. And there goes Chewbacca walking down the street.

Crossing Decatur Street and heading north towards Rampart on St. Ann Street on the other side of the French colonial Place d’Armes, now called Jackson Square, a man paints caricatures of musicians leaning on the street signs of New Orleans under bright orange sunlight. Dozens of artists display their work on the front and sides of the wrought-iron fence encircling Jackson Square. Tarot card and palm readers line the pedestrian walkways at the front and sides of the square, sitting next to tables and ready to service curious customers. A striking woman at the “Henna by Jenna” table tattoos tourists with Indian-inspired designs in the shadows of the centuries-old St. Louis Cathedral, the jewel of the square Eric Odditorium, a street clown with a tattooed face, swallows swords for freaked-out tourists.

Further back, in front of the Cathedral, yet another funky brass band composed of about eight black youths attract a huge crowd of tourists. The crowd remains standing for more than an hour as these eight young men play their hearts out: four blow their horns—including trombones, saxophones, and a tuba—in the front, while the others compose the rhythm section with several drums. This is how the brass bands of New Orleans get their start. One kid walks around with a brown cardboard tip jar. The tourists tip these musicians well.

Heading up Royal Street towards Canal, the street becomes a pedestrian mall at Orleans Avenue, closed to vehicular traffic and providing a sustainable habitat for buskers and street performers to make money from wide-eyed tourists leisurely strolling the streets of the historic Vieux Carré. In front of the former A&P grocery, now a Rouses Supermarket—a popular busking spot—four brass-playing buskers crank out old New Orleans tunes. It’s here that the now-renowned New Orleans musician Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews got his start. New Orleans Busker Washboard Brad tells the story of how he once busked in the same spot as Trombone Shorty at the A&P on Rues Royal and Toulouse in the early 1980s. He explains how they had a battle of the bands competing against one another to gain the interests of the tourists. He recalls, “We beat them at the time. They were little kids with trombones and horns, but we were adults, so we won. Well, in the end, I guess Trombone Shorty won.” One guy puffs into a tuba while maintaining a rhythm with cymbals. They display six white buckets, each emblazoned with a money sign, encouraging all to tip. A half-naked man walks past with a crawfish on a leash.

Further west towards Canal on Royal and Toulouse, a black couple plays Caribbean-influenced music near a sign stating, “Quit our corporate jobs to do this full time.” The man sings and plays guitar while the woman concentrates on vocals. Their unimpressed dog sits with them. Further up the road, men dressed as Rastafarians with a television camera pack up their equipment on St. Louis and Royal Streets after busking. An older man with thinning gray hair pulled back into a ponytail plays acoustic guitar in front of Café Beignet on Royal Street. He wears sunglasses, cargo shorts, and a short-sleeve button-down shirt while performing in front of his blue tip bucket. Nearby and closer to Canal Street, a man makes flowers shaped from palm fronds across the street from Hotel Monteleone next to Mr. B’s Bar, known to tourists for its New Orleans bread pudding and Ramos gin fizz. A dog named Galen wearing a black and white tuxedo and holding a tennis ball under his left arm “plays dead” in a coffin next to a sign that reads “Need money for a proper burial: If it’s worth a picture, it’s worth a dollar,” attracting the attention of a cooing audience.

Royal Street between Iberville and Canal serve as a skid row, with tattooed derelicts drunkenly stumbling all over the place while shirtless, barefoot, and drinking beer. These men are out of sorts, down and out to the bone. A black guy plays the harmonica, hoping to attract the attention of a group of young professional-looking female tourists. Eight gutter punks sit and beg on Royal Street on the side of a McDonalds restaurant. A thin, young gutter punk chick—walking with two older men—suddenly stops, drops her pants, squats, and takes a shit in plain view.

Heading east on Bourbon Street from Canal Street towards Esplanade Avenue, the strip joint called the Hustler Club welcomes you to the notorious street of unapologetic sin and debauchery. Thin, nearly naked black and Hispanic women in exotic lingerie stand at club thresholds, trying to lure randy and leering tourists. On Bourbon Street near Iberville, a middle-aged white man with a beard plays a saxophone while wearing a blue beret hat, shorts, and T-shirt, while money spills out of his sax case. A strip club bouncer barks, “Don’t be shy, get some titty in your eye” to entice wide-eyed tourists staring at nearly naked strippers. Two hustlers approach a white couple and point to the man’s shoes asking, “Twenty dollars I can tell you where you got dem shoes at,” a time-worn New Orleans street con. (The answer, a play on the local vernacular: “You got them right here, on your feet on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans, Louisiana.”) The man replies, “Man, I’m too old for that shit.” One of the hustlers asks me the same thing, to which I reply, “I’m from Gentilly.” They respectfully nod and set off to find another sucker. A man approaches me to tell his story of homeless shelters and the problems of theft and homosexuality in them. He asks to use my phone.

Buskers on Bourbon and Conti Streets next to the Royal Sonesta Hotel play sousaphone, trombone, trumpet, sax, and tuba while drunken tourists dance on the street. This particular group of musicians are the same ones that earlier took a break to eat and smoke in front of the Artist’s Co-op. A black man with a worn, wrinkled face full of character pretends to climb a well-balanced ladder. Wearing a pinkish brassiere, he yells at people to give him a dollar for the pictures of him just taken. Steve, a former certified welder and current squatter in a vacant house, stands next to his dog, Eugene, who is laying on his back and pretending to be passed out with two New Orleans “Hand Grenades”—the name of a popular French Quarter cocktail—tucked under his front legs. “He’s my best friend,” Steve Says. “We both rescued each other.” An amused tourist asks, “Does he move if you tickle his balls?” A man dressed as the animated character SpongeBob SquarePants waves to tourists on Bourbon and Toulouse. The ersatz SpongeBob says he wants to kick Minion’s ass, another man in a cartoon costume, who sometimes stands on that very same corner.

Three black kids younger than ten years old tap dance in front of cardboard boxes on Bourbon Street in front of Pat O’Briens Piano Bar, home of the famous Hurricane. One screams out “tip, tip” to people taking their pictures. At such a tender age, they have developed the art of the hustle. They have learned how to make money from nothing, just a thrown-away nail placed underneath tennis shoes.

Wait. Pondering how these kids from the ghettos of New Orleans make a living off the streets, something common in many Third World countries that experience extreme poverty, requires a pause from the busker stroll.

I reflect on how these tap-dancing poverty kids find creative ways to survive on the beaten streets using only their wit and intellect, improvising life as they go along. I compare this to how some university students today demand strict guidelines and detailed instructions on assignments and papers—“rubrics” they call them—and prefer “being told what to do and when.” Jock Young once explained in casual conversation how the term “rubric” brings upon him feelings of dread and misery. Yeah, you right Jock. It forces one to wonder who really deserves access to our privileged universities, access that eventually offers institutional power. Is it the rubric-dependent, uncritical and privileged, middle-class kid? Or is it the poor kid possessing of a quick wit, improvisation skills, creativity, and a drive to survive? While some university students of the pampered middle class become increasingly dependent upon rubrics and guidelines to show them what to do, kids from ghettos have always been forced to figure it out on their own, usually at a very young age—and they do it without any access to institutional resources or being told what to do.

How many people from conventional middle-class families could find creative ways to make something out of such a crisis? The poor do it every day in these New Orleans streets. They hustle and they tap-dance. They find a way.

In a late-modern world where state-sponsored capitalism practically ends competition for all but the elites, democratic “equal opportunity” capitalism flourishes on the streets of most major cities like New Orleans.

On Bourbon and St. Peter Streets, a guy “freeze poses” in a New Orleans Saints jersey, football in hand, hoping for tips. The iconic New Orleans mime known as “Tim the Gold Man” later threatens to kick the football guy’s ass after accusing him of stealing his pose. A block up the road farther east, more young kids of about seven years of age tap-dance for money. A child who appears to be no more than four years old runs up to tourists, demanding money for the entertainment provided. A lonely tarot card reader with sad eyes sits under a big yellow umbrella, waiting for customers on Bourbon Street and Orleans Avenue.

Taking a right on Bourbon Street and heading towards the Mississippi River, one runs into Royal Street, where artists quietly paint in the shade while hoping to sell their paintings in nearby Jackson Square. Closer to the river, on Decatur Street, a musician performs on St. Peter Street near Jackson Square. A mime with a gold Mardi Gras mask sits on a stoop near a black bucket collecting tips. Drunks and homeless men smelling of piss and stale beer sit on a bench, animatedly telling stories and laughing heartily, taking turns giving their best jokes. An overgrown black man with a tired face tap-dances for tourists just as he once did as a young kid.

Going past Decatur Street and Esplanade Avenue toward Frenchmen Street, gutter punks sit with their dogs, drinking and begging in front of a joint called Checkpoint Charlie’s, where one can catch a live band while doing laundry over a beer. Buskers line Frenchmen Street, playing indie and folk music in the available cracks and crevices of the street near the many music venues. On Frenchmen and Charters, a traditional New Orleans second-line parade ends while a brass band jams in front of about a hundred fascinated tourists who are dancing wild on the street—New Orleans style.

Naked transvestite polar bears wearing pink string bikinis while humping whiskey-addled panda bears in stiletto heels would barely catch the attention of a native New Orleanian—to hell with Simmel’s Berlin blasé. To the tourists, second-lining and street dancing excites their senses and allows them to, as Washboard Brad says, “relax their sphincters,” maybe for the very first time in their lives. One block away just past the music club D.B.A., writers in fancy fedoras and John Lennon–style glasses type poetry about the busker blues while another brass band plays its heart out, hoping for a chance to become famous.

Busker Spots of the Vieux Carré

Jackson Square, the French Market District, and Royal and Bourbon Streets serve as the main busker spots in the Vieux Carré, or what most people know as the New Orleans French Quarter. Enter into the busker urban spaces of New Orleans below.

Jackson Square: Once called the Place d’Armes, Jackson Square sits along Decatur Street between the Jax Brewery Shopping Mall and the French Market, directly in front of St. Louis Cathedral and across the street from Café du Monde. For a few dollars, tourists can jump on a mule-drawn carriage in front of the Square for a ride in and around the Vieux Carré. Buskers do not need a license to perform in the part of Jackson Square directly in front of the cathedral. As a result, dozens of artists, street performers, musicians, and readers share this space throughout the day, often making a living from the city’s streets. The venerable apartments overlooking the square house a wealthy class of people. As a result, the city’s noise ordinances keep the sound level on Jackson Square within the 85-decibel limit. Buskers work the corners of Jackson Square but leave the sides directly in front of the Pontalba Apartments to the artists possessing difficult-to-obtain sales permits. City ordinances allow buskers and musicians to work on the benches on the square but keep them from performing on the steps leading to the Cathedral and the grassy park that occupies the center of the Square. Buskers must set up at least twenty feet from the black fence protecting the park area of the square, and must not block entrances. All music must stop at 8 p.m.

French Market District: The French Market District includes the areas North and South from the Mississippi River to Charters Street and West to East from the shops in the Pontalba Building near St. Peters Street to the Old U.S. Mint near Barracks Street. More than two hundred years old, the French Market began as a Native American trading post on the banks of the Mississippi River. The historic French Market District includes the Farmers Market, where vendors sell local produce on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and a flea market, where locals and tourists alike can haggle with vendors selling everything from leather belts and wallets to Fleur-de-lis earrings. Strolling through the French Market District includes a visit through the great statues of Dutch Alley and the converted row houses of the elaborate ornamental cast iron work Pontalba Buildings of Jackson Square. This building is where locals scream “Stella” and “Stanley” during the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival and where the literary great Sherwood Anderson once lived. The French Market District also includes the Moon Walk promenade along the Mississippi Riverfront and Washington Artillery Park, offering the best views of the St. Louis Cathedral, where many believe its former priest Père Antoine still haunts the famous French Cathedral; and Latrobe park, where gutter punks used to hang out for hours until French Market authorities cleaned up what once functioned as a mini skid row.

The French Market hosts many events and festivals throughout the year that attract huge influxes of locals and tourists, from the Mardi Gras Mask Market in February to the Creole Tomato Fest held in June to the Boo Carré Halloween and Harvest Festival in October. Even without the festivals, the dozens of shops and restaurants of the French Market District, including the world famous Café du Monde, provide a stampede of foot traffic to the area throughout the day. It’s a busker’s paradise, and getting a license to street perform takes almost no effort at all. The French Market Marketing Office, located on the third floor of a building on 1008 N. Peters Street, from which the New Orleans public radio station WWOZ-FM broadcasts and digitally streams perhaps what is arguably some of the best music in the world, offers street performers and buskers free licenses. They issue badges to buskers, allowing them to perform on the streets legally on a 90-day registration cycle from January 5 to March 31, April 1 to June 30, July 1 to September 30, and October 1 to December 31.

The rules for busking in the French Market are as follows:

According to French Market District authorities, performer Rules include the following:

Aside from these rules, street performers have a legal right to perform on the streets without interference from city authorities, including from French Market District security. While there is no information or police data that records any arrests for busking, members of the New Orleans Police Department’s 8th District in the French Quarter tell me that busking is the least of their worries. Further, buskers and street performers rarely find trouble with the police. Usually, buskers who violate rules are generally told to simply leave the area. It is also important to note that buskers cannot legally solicit people for money or sell anything. Rather, street performers may place donation baskets, or what some buskers call “buskets,” near their performances. Buskers must compete for the most desirable spots in the French Market District since a maximum of only four performers at a time are allowed on a spot. This competition is based in part on a first-come, first-serve basis, but more importantly, one must perform well to earn a spot in the most desired locations. Good performances are judged by street reputation and the ability to attract a large crowd. Because of noise complaints, brass band musicians are allowed to perform only between Dumaine Plaza and Washington Artillery Park in the French Market. Aside from these rules, the French Market District serves as a prime urban busking spot with its large and steady flow of tourists throughout the day, every day.

Royal and Bourbon: Although city ordinance defines and regulates the street performers of New Orleans, most buskers find it easy to avoid problems with the police. The city ordinance is as follows:

Article XX. Street Entertainer*

*Cross references: Mayoralty permits required for various callings or occupations or occasions, § 30-69; proof of eligibility for reader permit shall include possession of street entertainment permits, § 30-1286; Jackson Square, § 106-261 et seq.; Vieux Carré, ch. 166.

State law references: Regulation of street entertainers and imposition of privilege tax by city, authorized, R.S. 4:7.

Sec. 30-1451. Definitions.

The following words, terms and phrases, when used in this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:

Street entertainer means any natural person who:

(1) Alone or in a group, for the purpose of self-expression or entertainment, performs in public; (2) Who performs without any set fee, required donation or suggested minimum or maximum donation; (3) Whose performance does not require interaction between the entertainer and any other person; and (4) Whose performance does not consist of the rendering of a service or the sale or exchange of tangible personal property to any particular individual, audience member or customer, in exchange for any of the aforementioned payments.

Street entertainer includes but is not limited to brass bands, guitarists, pianists, other musicians, tap dancers, jugglers, mimes, puppeteers, unicyclist, clowns, breakdancers, and comedians.

Street entertainment means any of the following activities performed on the streets or sidewalks of this city for commercial purposes or where donations from the public are solicited or encouraged:

The police rarely arrest anyone for violating these rules, buskers are usually just told to leave the area.

World-famous Bourbon Street draws rowdy tourists from all over the globe with its impressive number of bars and restaurants. Although the street remains relatively quiet in the early afternoon, Bourbon begins to attract huge numbers of tourists as the evening approaches. This is perhaps one of the best busking spots in the world, though it is sometimes dangerous and unnerving for some buskers. According to city ordinance Sec. 30-1456, “It shall be unlawful for any person to perform any street entertainment on the street or sidewalk of Bourbon Street from the uptown side of Canal Street to the downtown side of St. Ann Street between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.”

The more tranquil and sophisticated Royal Street—with its antique shops and art studios—also offers another excellent busker and street performer area that runs parallel to Bourbon one block over toward the river. The Rouses Supermarket on Royal and St. Ann serves as one of the hottest and most cherished busker spots in New Orleans. It’s where some well-known musicians in the city, like Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, began their musical careers. At certain times of the day, city officials close the street to vehicular traffic to increase pedestrian space in specific areas on both Bourbon and Royal, making these two streets prime busking real estate.

New Orleans as a Sustaining Habitat for Buskers

The Vieux Carré—including the above-mentioned French Market District, Jackson Square, and Royal and Bourbon Street areas—offer a sustaining habitat for buskers to make a living performing on the streets of New Orleans. This habitat is much like that of Duneier’s homeless magazine vendors found in Greenwich Village’s Sixth Avenue. The main qualities for a sustainable busker habitat include (1) heavy foot traffic in tourist hot spots and pleasure-seeker zones; (2) busy bars, restaurants, shops, and music venues; (3) short-term tourists with money to spend; (4) easy-to-obtain busker licenses; (5) laissez faire attitudes from city authorities on street performers; (6) urban sidewalk spaces that do not block walkways and banquettes; and (7) sympathetic business owners who do not complain to rule enforcers. For the most part, street performers enjoy a busker’s paradise in the big Busker Easy.

Although this seemingly changes with the political climate, the city’s noise ordinances prohibit public performances after 8 p.m., but this does not seem to apply to—or at least is not enforced on—Frenchmen Street. Sometimes the rules for street performances are stringently enforced, especially during large festivals. At other times, they are largely ignored. Though it is rare, sometimes business owners complain about the buskers, calling police and claiming that buskers interfere with their legitimate business. Buskers must find urban spaces that do not conflict with the interests of business owners. As a result, they search for locations in the ambiguous urban spaces between businesses to perform. Other businesses, like the Rouses Supermarket on Decatur and St. Peter, rarely, if ever, cause problems for street entertainers. Such “friendly” business owners still maintain the right to ask buskers to leave or risk a call to the police.

The Vieux Carré offers buskers all the resources needed for daily survival, such as ample access to bathrooms in the many bars that attract relatively large crowds throughout the day, as well as the fulfillment of life’s pleasures with cheap drinks in many of the small grocery stores, and easy access to illicit drugs, with local dealers serving both local and international clientele. The buskers know each other well, and while some disputes emerge with regard to turf and the copying of styles of other buskers, most get along with one another. Some buskers, like the famous mime Tim the Gold Man, help budding street performers, teaching them their craft, even if it adds to the competition on the streets. Further inspection of the city’s busker community reveals a network of street performers informally offering internal support mechanisms to one another. Some of the street performers live together in places like the “Clown House” where New Orleans buskers such as sword swallower Eric Odditorium and Stumps the Clown once lived, and where Tim the Gold Man currently resides. Buskers will often house down-and-out people in New Orleans to help them get established, or at least get back on their feet. Others share the wealth, spotting each other a few dollars here and there when some members become down—and sometimes very close to out.

Buskers also often provide networks of emotional support as well as opportunities to achieve local fame in the city. What is more, hundreds of tourists who drop money in “buskets” take pictures of these men and women performing on the streets of this bayou busker city. Their pictures must be plastered in houses, phones, and laptop computers all over the world, not to mention all over such social media platforms as Flickr, Facebook, and Instagram.

The buskers of New Orleans exist on the fringes of a multi-billion-dollar tourist economy, often making enough money to survive using their own creativity and drive. This unconventional economic street life serves as one example of the type of creativity that thrives at the periphery of the postindustrial capitalist economy. The postindustrial society includes, among other things, widespread economic restructuring in a highly fluid and rapidly changing economy with increasing inequalities between the wealthy and working classes (Young 1999). This includes a shift from manufacturing to service sector jobs and an increase in marginal, or “shit” jobs, that offer low wages and even lower social status (Ehrenreich 2001; Doussard 2013). Such growing inequality in this late-modern world has created an underclass of socially excluded people who carve out lives on the fringes of our societal institutions, especially the economy (Young 2007). These folks consist of the new underclass, and live as outsiders, but refuse to accept the same conditions of the working poor, or at least their jobs. Instead, they look to the informal tourist economy to scrape up the chicken bones cash strap left over from the droppings of a multi-billion-dollar tourist economy. This informal economy exists outside the regulated and legal economy, just out of view of the tax collectors. Some of these street performers of the informal economy struggle to secure regular employment that offers livable wages, while others can simply put on a change of sharp attire and get an office job any day of the week. Other buskers find themselves excluded from the resources that offer access to jobs they perceive as worthy, while others willfully exist on the urban economic fringes of a post-industrial, capitalist, and tourist-intensive economy in a protest based on philosophical differences with mainstream society. Some street performers busk to simply avoid the bore and disrespect of a conventional mainstream job.

As we will see below, while it is nearly impossible to know the buskers’ exact income, or the income of most people who tend to exaggerate their earnings, it is clear from months of personal observations and spending time with buskers that some buskers make more than $300 a day while some struggle mightily. Although some buskers make only a few dollars a day, more innovative and talented buskers make hundreds of dollars a day, well more than that earned by many hard-working New Orleans service-industry employees. These self-made transgressive misfit entrepreneurs of late-modern capitalism find ways to make money while avoiding the boring and mundane jobs of conventional society as well as the shit jobs in the service industry that offer a dreadful plight into a life of low-wage work, especially in New Orleans, where the tourist industry pays its workers some of the lowest wages in the United States (Gladstone and Préau 2008; Gladstone 2012). As Marx once quoted from a Frenchmen regarding taxes, “Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!” The same can be said for low-wage jobs in the tourist industry of New Orleans.

Although New Orleans provides a sustaining habitat for buskers, street performers offer a profit-sustaining habitat for the tourist industry. They entertain and fascinate tourists and enhance the visual and soundscapes of the city. Buskers and street performers are part of the heart and culture of New Orleans that attracts tourists from all over the world and which brings in big bucks for the tourist regime (Gladstone 2012).

Some street performers play for money as well as love for music and the culture of New Orleans. The musician known as Tuba Fats, a former street performer and one of the founding members of the famous Dirty Dozen Brass Band says, “I don’t need to be a millionaire. If I want to play on the street, that’s my business. We’re not beggars, we’re not homeless, I play in Jackson Square and I do it because peoples love music and I love to see peoples enjoy music. People come to New Orleans to hear the music and they don’t get it up and down Bourbon Street. It’s not there anymore” (Edwards and Edwards 2000). While most buskers work hard to pay rent like other working people, some people see these men and women as eyesores, and even lazy.

Buskers: Hard-Working or Hardly Working?

“Officer Joe” of the New Orleans Police Department—not his real name, as he wasn’t authorized by his superiors to speak on the record—reveals the sentiments that some police officers have, as well as other locals from the community, about people who make a living on the streets of New Orleans. Some people, like Officer Joe, wonder why street performers decide to avoid conventional jobs in favor of working the tough city streets. Officer Joe says, “They seem lazy to me,” Officer Joe says. “They don’t want to go to work. They don’t want to get a job like everybody else, so they just make an easy living off the streets.” Realizing that most people go to work only for fear of the consequences and costs of missing it, I asked Joe if he would work if there were no negative consequences from missing it. Joe admits, “Well, if I did not get paid for my work, or if I made the same amount of money even without going to work, of course I wouldn’t. Who would?” Popular American sentiment seems to hold that most people, especially in the working and lower classes, should work conventional jobs, even if those jobs offer minimum wages and an even shorter supply of social status.

The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality fits well for those who have internalized the idea that inequality is a product of lacking ability or intelligence rather than a built-in reality of the current economic system. As the Haitian proverb goes, “If work were a such good thing, the rich would have grabbed it a long time ago.” In actuality of course, work often involves mundane, mind-numbing activities and long hours that increase profits of the wealthy but barely provides the worker enough to survive, thus only increasing the inequality gap. Perhaps we should ask why so many people in the working and lower classes continue to work jobs that offer low pay, less prestige, and fewer benefits? Unsurprisingly, many potential workers find it irrational to work shit jobs to live at or near poverty levels.

Some innovators (Merton 1938) find new and creative ways to achieve desired cultural goals when institutional means seem insufficient. Busking and other jobs in the informal street economy is one such creative solution to the poverty wages the New Orleans service and tourist industry offer. While some observers believe that street performers are lazy, poor, and lacking dignity, in actuality it is drive and ambition that allow street performers to make livings as self-employed entrepreneurs. Yet, this perception of laziness persists from the idea that people who work in the transgressive informal economy are lazy because they refuse to get regular jobs, poor because making money from the streets resembles begging, lack dignity because they exist outside the status bestowing legitimate formal economy.

Let’s go deeper into the world of New Orleans buskers.

The Social and Economic Lives of New Orleans Buskers

Do the qualities (1) poor, (2) lazy and (3) undignified apply to the street performers of New Orleans? On the corner of Decatur and St. Ann Streets, an hour of observation reveals that the young black kid tap dancing with nothing but the top of a coke can nailed to the bottom of his shoes and a milk crate acting as a “busket,” makes an average of six dollars for every twenty seconds of performance. He tap dances about once every two or three minutes, usually when a huge pack of tourists are less than a block from passing him. He does this throughout the entire day, earning anywhere between two and three hundred dollars a day. Of course, some of it goes to his parents or guardians, who take it from him once he gets home, but this clever tap dancer hides much of this money in his shoes and underwear. At such a young age, this young kid’s rate of income is higher than many college graduates.

On one side of Jackson Square close to St. Ann, Tyrone and his brass band in less than an hour play four sets to a large tourist crowd. The seven musicians together earn between $350 and $400 at the end of each of the four sets: that’s at least $200 for each musician for one street “gig.” This gig is but one of a number they play throughout the day. Tyrone sits on the steps of St. Louis Cathedral with his wife and kids. “I love what I do,” he says, a big grin on his face. “I love playing music for the people, making them happy. I support my family doing this, got a car and cell phone and nice apartment in New Orleans East.” It’s easy to spot many of these musicians later in the evening performing in front of large audiences at New Orleans music venues such as D.B.A., Blue Nile, Vaso, and Balcony Music Club (BMC) as well as at large festivals that attract tens of thousands of tourists. These musicians have all the amenities: cars, cell phones, apartments, houses, and many make enough busking to support their families. These brass band members also work on commission for second-lines, funerals, memorials, and other celebrations of life and death. Often with no formal training outside of perhaps participation in their high school marching bands—sometimes even less—many brass band members get their start performing on the streets of New Orleans. Without access to the institutional resources afforded budding musicians in the middle class, the brass band members of New Orleans often start their musical careers on some of the more well-known busker spots of the city.

Tap-dancing kids and many of the young black brass band musicians of New Orleans often skip school to make a living on the informal streets of New Orleans. New Orleans, and the rest of the United States, fails to provide a reasonable alternative to many young black kids as to why they should give up their street life and attend school to “better” themselves. They can make hundreds of dollars a day performing on the street, well more than the poverty wages awaiting them once high school ends. This reminds me of a story my friend Bill recalls:

A sentencing specialist in Michigan feels it his duty to counsel an eighth-grade male named Jerome who recently skipped 120 out of 180 days of school. The sentencing specialist talks with Jerome in his fancy office about the middle-class virtues of attending school, respecting authority, getting jobs, and obeying rules and laws. The young Jerome, slumped in the chair on the other side of the huge desk, leans over to the sentencing specialist stating, “You must think that I am stupid. Just because I don’t go to school does not mean I’m stupid.” Jerome continues, “Listen, I stand on the corner of 68th and Simpson Avenue to blow a whistle every time I see a cop. When I blow the whistle, all the dealers flock to safety. They return once the cop leaves. These dealers pay me $200 a day. Why would I give this up to go to school so that when I graduate I’ll work 52 weeks a year for poverty wages?” As the surprised reading specialist listens, the counselee becomes the councilor as Jerome confidently points out, “I make more money than most college graduates. I’ll probably retire before you.” Jerome, now looking deep into the eye of the sentencing specialist, asks, “Now who is the stupid one?”

It’s a social problem when a society cannot offer a realistic alternative to Jerome’s reasoning. Until society offers a viable solution for Jerome, we should expect people to make a living in the informal and transgressive economy on the streets—whether it’s selling drugs, busking streets, or hustling tourists. People need money to survive in a capitalist society—and one way or another, they will get it, finding creative ways when the legitimate paths fail or seem ineffective. Graffiti written on a New Orleans abandoned house in Mid-City reads, “Housing and homelessness = society fails.” It seems like it’s failing again for many American citizens and young men like Jerome.

Meanwhile, just a few yards away, directly in front of the Saint Louis Cathedral, tattooed sword-swallower Eric Odditorium performs his daily routine, shoving swords down his throat in front of about a dozen tourists. Most of the people in the crowd of twelve drop anywhere between one and five dollars, and sometimes ten dollars, in his sword case. This act takes between five and seven minutes. He usually performs it between ten and twenty times a day. Eric works roughly from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, except on the slower Tuesdays, making what he estimates to be an average $100 to $150 daily during tourist season and sometimes much less during the summer off-seasons. He supplements his income performing with his show “Cut Throat Freakshow South” with Stumps the Clown at venues such as Mags on Elysian Fields in Faubourg Marigny.

The beautiful Jenna, of Henna by Jenna, sits behind a table in the comfortable shadows of the iconic Saint Louis Cathedral, ready to tattoo customers attracted to the ancient Indian practice of dyeing the skin using material prepared from the flowering plant Lawsonia genus (a.k.a. henna) to produce temporary body art. She sets up her makeshift studio at about three or four in the afternoon and works until the sun begins to set. Often wearing a 1920s-style dress and just enough makeup to accentuate her striking features, Jenna usually makes about $20 for each tattoo, and sometimes finds long lines of customers, many of them young girls with their families, who keep her busy throughout her shift. Jenna says that she makes anywhere between $100 and $300 dollars in a four- to five-hour workday, depending on the season.

Uncle Louis makes enough cash every day to continue his “black Uncle Sam walking a dog” routine. He’s been performing this routine for about thirty years. The tourists love him, many stopping to take pictures and throw money into his “busket.” He teaches a tourist how to pantomime with enthusiasm while making jokes about interests in his street performance. He’s a blue-collar street performer, working regular shifts to make a living. Kenny the Silver Cowboy has been coming to this city for decades from Mississippi to pantomime while standing on a crate on Decatur Street. He makes enough to eke out a living to pay for food and rent. It might not be much, but it does just enough.

Michael the Political Busker—the guy with the red, white, and blue cowboy hat and all those conspiracy theories—sits for hours debating with pedestrians while hoping to give away his radical political art for a “donation.” Meanwhile folk musicians Roselyn and David claim to have supported their kids busking in places like Jackson Square and the French Market District. They also used their busking money to buy a house in the now posh Bywater neighborhood. They’ve achieved the busker version of the American dream. Shannon the Bourbon Street Whip girl walks around with a whip, spanking paddle, and wearing pasties on her exposed breasts. For a dollar donation, she will “discipline” tourists. Shannon explains that she loves her job, something evident as she giggles while running after tourists who chicken out of the whipping after giving her money. She claims to make a killing as a Whip Girl. Shannon also boasts of the prestige and status she receives from being the hottest act on Bourbon Street. “Soap Man” claims to make his own natural soap and creams, elegantly displaying his products on a table in front of a closed local business on Decatur Street. He’s been busking various hustles much of his life from city to city. Soap Man stands by his products and proudly proclaims that he is an entrepreneur who has learned to make a decent living selling products on urban streets. The silver-painted Reuben mimes to hip-hop electronic music during three-minute performances that makes him about three or four hundred dollars a day. Two break-dancing kids on Bourbon Street make a couple hundred dollars a night with their street show. They are self-effacing, using a barrage of black stereotypes to make mostly white tourists laugh to increase their tips, but these young men tear it up making good money. One of the kids also appeared on the television show “America’s Got Talent.” That’s a source of pride and status for these young men from places like the 9th Ward.

Cubs the Poet sits on his crate with a typewriter on his desk on Royal Street near the corner of St. Peters Street close to Rouses Supermarket, typing away for hours about love and life. “We are all poets,” he says. “We all use words, we all have beauty.” He writes, he says, because he must—because he is. Cubs was one of the first poet buskers in New Orleans and, while many poets struggle to publish, he makes a living from his street verse.

The sexy 1920s-style jazz singer Meschiya Lake started busking on the streets of New Orleans and hanging around as “Nurse Nasty” with crazy circus folks like Stumps the Clown before reaching celebrity status in New Orleans and playing in popular music venues like The Spotted Cat. “Music saves people,” she says. “It saved me. New Orleans is the town that made it happen” (Jim Flynn 2011). Many of the hipsters of New Orleans supplement their incomes busking indie music on the streets, making enough money to pay rent and live on the fringes of New Orleans as willful outsiders avoiding the humdrum life of their middle-class parents.

Not everyone fairs so nicely. Sheila stands nearly naked with antler horns and exposed breasts, save for her pasties, with a sad look in her eyes while the tourists of Bourbon Street either harass or ignore her. She lost her conventional job months ago. Frustrated with the lack of well-paying job opportunities, she complains there are just not enough ways to make decent money. On one night she sat alone on Toulouse Street near Bourbon close to a Lucky Dog vendor, her knees resting on her chin and a slight trickle of tears falling down her cheeks.

While some people struggle mightily, the majority of buskers make at least enough to survive, and sometimes earn enough to put their kids through school and buy houses in places like the historic Bywater neighborhood.

Busking is not for the lazy and unmotivated. People such as Cubs toils every day to improve. Eric Odditorium trained for years to be able to shove a sword down his throat without hurting himself. Musicians work hard to learn how to play well enough to generate a crowd on the streets. Others may not use their artistic and musical talent but they sure find creative ways to make money using nothing but their wit. Gold Man, who occasionally works as a grass cutter and house painter, learned how to pantomime without any training, creating a pose—which I will describe momentarily—that has put money into his “busket” for almost three decades.

It’s not just money that street performers receive busking in New Orleans. As stated before, many launch their musical careers on these city streets. Others achieve local celebrity status, like Tim the Gold Man, by inventing creative street performances. Under other circumstances, people like Tim often fade into obscurity working odd jobs and drinking heavily until the inevitable end. The conditions were ripe for Tim the Gold Man to meet that exact fate and untimely demise, but he used his agency to beat the odds. He transitioned from a poor, wandering, homeless traveler to a New Orleans mini-celebrity. Who dat? Gold Man dat. It is clear the buskers, as a whole, make wages above the poverty level, work hard to develop their skills and talents, and find status and prestige from performing on the streets of New Orleans. In short, the labels often attached to buskers—poor, lazy, undignified—fail to match the reality of these busker streets.

Let’s take a closer look into the lives of two street buskers.

Tim the Gold Man: Tim got drunk. That’s how he became Gold Man. That and he saw Silverman while drunk. Now Gold Man says, “I’ll be out here till I die, this is my retirement home.” It started for him almost three decades ago when he was found drunk on a highway while traveling to, well, he doesn’t even know. He eventually landed in New Orleans and first sold “Scooby Snacks” while working as a Lucky Dog vendor, selling hot dogs to tourists and drunk locals, but with a little pot-dealing on the side as lagniappe. One day, like many days, he drank heavily, and like many good ideas that come from a night’s drinking, Eureka!

The Gold Man has been performing on the streets of New Orleans for twenty-six years. He’s now part of the social structure of sidewalk life in the French Quarter, or—borrowing from Jane Jacobs—what Mitch Duneier calls a self-appointed public character.

A public character is anyone who is in frequent contact with a wide circle of people and who is sufficiently interested to make himself a public character. A public character need have no special talents or wisdom to fulfill his function—although he often does. He just needs to be present, and there need to be enough of his counterparts. His main qualification is that he is public, that he talks to lots of different people. In this way, news travels that is of sidewalk interest. (Duneier, Sidewalk, 2000)

Gold Man knows just about all the characters that make up the street life in the Vieux Carré, from the gutter punks and homeless beggars to the buskers and street performers. Gold Man readily admits, “Everyone in this town knows who I am. I know a shitload of people. I treat ’em like I wanna be treated.” Indeed, interviewing Gold Man on the streets of New Orleans involved constant interruptions from people wanting his attention. He seems to know the stories of most of the main characters in the Vieux Carré, and stories of the hundreds who have come and gone throughout the years. He readily tells the stories of the talented and iconic Uncle Louie of Bourbon Street and Kenny “The Silver Cowboy” with a whistle in his mouth, as well as others who have spent years making a living busking in the tourist intensive streets of New Orleans.

As we walk down Decatur Street just past Tujague’s, the second-oldest restaurant in New Orleans, Gold Man strikes up numerous conversations with seemingly random people, from service and tourist industry workers to tourists to down-and-out street beggars. Sometimes he gives beggars some of the cash he busked that day. Sometimes he gives them cigarettes and marijuana. What is perhaps most surprising is his propensity to teach other down-and-out urban dwellers how to pantomime.

At the same time, people must follow the informal rules of the street to avoid stepping on someone’s toes and creating trouble. Street performers compete for the best spots to busk and engage in constant negotiations that usually keep the peace on the streets. Street performers share the best spaces throughout the day, reaching compromises on such matters as how long to perform in a given spot before ceding the space to the next busker. A willingness to share space and compromise often avoids conflict. The general rule, however, is that space belongs to people grandfathered in—that is, those who have simply been there the longest. Copying someone else’s act however is a clear violation of a street norm. One day while I was walking with Gold Man down St. Peter’s towards Jackson Square to meet Eric Odditorium, Gold Man spotted a man using his pose to busk on Rue Royal. Gold Man first stared at the shtick-stealing interloper, then proceeded to challenge him to a fight, flailing his arms and yelling. A fight appeared near breaking out, at which point I urged Gold Man to continue our path toward the famous sword-swallower. The takeaway was clear: Mimicking another person’s street performance is a clear violation of the informal rules on the streets, and there are penalties for violating the busker code.

Aside from making enough money to survive, serving as eyes on the street, helping tourists, and teaching down-and-out people to pantomime, Gold Man also finds a sense of personal accomplishment and dignity from the minor celebrity status busking has brought him.

That status is reinforced even when he transgresses minor laws and rules. A photograph of Gold Man made it into the pages of the previous day’s newspaper because someone took a photograph of him in the act of stealing a newspaper from a front porch. As he tells it, he had only enough money on his person for beer, but thought, “Why not both?” So he bought a beer and stole a newspaper. As Gold Man boasts about his headline-making ways, it becomes apparent that he finds a personal sense of pride and notoriety, even if at times dubious, at being a New Orleans icon, a fixture on the streets of the old Vieux Carré.

Gold Man’s local fame and prestige is apparent with the many people stopping to talk with him on the streets as well as the constant shouts from pedestrians, bicyclists, other buskers, and drivers yelling, “Hey, Gold Man” and “Yo, Gold Man.” The local police definitely know him, given his thirty-six arrests. Aside from that dubious distinction, Gold Man talks about how he started “hitting it big” and getting into movies, magazines, TV commercials, and commercials for the local lawyer Morris Bart, a sort of real-life, law-abiding version of the lawyer character in the TV drama “Better Call Saul.” Although it is difficult to confirm the above fame, Gold Man does appear in Jim Flynn’s clever New Orleans book Sidewalk Saints (2011) which depicts portraits and brief character descriptions of New Orleans street performers. Either way, working the streets of New Orleans gives Gold Man the type of celebrity status that probably would never have happened otherwise. A traveling misfit drunkard traveled to New Orleans almost three decades ago and became a minor local celebrity entertaining tourists in New Orleans. This gives Gold Man the type of status and recognition that a city like New Orleans offers to all the transgressive street characters of the world.

Eric Odditorium—The Busker Sword Swallower

Eric Odditorium’s path to becoming a sword swallower happened through a social process that involved intensive training and dedication to a craft few people aspire towards, and perhaps could not achieve. Always feeling himself an outsider, he embraced the role as a self-made “freak” that could shock and entertain others. Eric explains, “I was the kid in school who was kind of labeled the class clown. I used to do things like poke needles through my skin, eat bugs, and convince people to pay me money to jump off of buildings.” Just like any conventional skill or blue-collar trade, Eric worked hard to perfect his craft. He explains the process that led to his acquiring local and national attention, “I’d do broken glass stunts, animal trap stunts, eating bugs. After a couple years of that, I kept progressing, started doing fire stunts, pin stunts, eventually eating fire then blowing fire, which I hardly ever do any more. I still will do human pincushion, which includes self-piercing and deep tissue piercing. You take skewers and pierce through your arm, through your jaw, through your cheeks.”

Eventually, Eric began the process of learning to swallow swords, requiring years of practice to control his gag reflex as well as physically learning to control at will the two sphincters that keep the contents of the stomach contained, the esophageal and pyloric sphincters. All of this involves years of sticking objects down one’s throat and constantly puking and dealing with throat sores until one finally gets used to it. This moves beyond simply hard work. And all for a craft that is not awarded in conventional mainstream society.

Part of this sacrifice to become a sideshow performer involves a refusal to participate in the world of “legitimate” work, the end of the road for many aspiring artists of odd trades. To guard against that fate, Eric decided to bridge-burn in one of the most brazen ways one could imagine: He tattooed his face as a clown, to prevent people from hiring him in case he ever felt the pressure to “sell out.” While unfamiliar outsiders might see him as a “lazy freak,” Eric perceives himself as motivated. “When you refuse to take a job and you’re sleeping on someone’s couch, it just puts a strain on everything,” he says. “People see you as lazy. I saw myself as determined. I wasn’t just lying around on the couch. I was practicing out in the streets, performing every day. I was always being proactive about being a sideshow performer. I’m going to perform. And moreover, I’m going to perform this mostly dead genre.” Perseverance eventually leads Eric to gain recognition, performing on the televised talent competition “America’s Got Talent” and guest appearing on the drama series “American Horror Story.” Eric now makes a living busking the streets of New Orleans, touring sideshows mainly in the United States South, and running the Cut Throat Freak Show South circus in venues throughout New Orleans. He also finds dignity with some degree of local and national fame achieved through hard work and dedication to a craft, albeit a highly peculiar one, that goes without much reward in mainstream society.

For those unconvinced of his work ethic, he also holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology from the University of California–Santa Cruz. He loves sociology, says it makes him better at everything he does in life. Now, Eric wonders, can I as a sociologist take this ethnographic work to new levels and perform at a freak show or busk on the streets of New Orleans? Yeah, you right.

A Sociologists Goes Busking—Pantomiming and Stomping on Glass

Pantomiming: It’s three hours before the New Orleans Saints’ first preseason home game of the year, a time in which Tim the Gold Man usually pantomimes on the corner of Decatur and St. Peter Streets while taking breaks to drink his cheap 40-ounces-to-freedom beer. With my face painted as an unshaven demented hobo clown—a Fleur-di-lis just above both upward curving eyebrows—the dark-clown look serves as a striking juxtaposition to his brilliant gold display as we walk up Decatur Street before meandering into the Central Business District heading toward the Superdome. Gold Man carries his trademark gold-painted and, due to excessive use and little maintenance, a deflated mini-football that serves as a prop with which to ridicule New England Patriot fans during the controversial so-called Deflategate scandal.

We reach the Superdome to take turns pantomiming to both locals and tourists. They stare at the spectacle that is The Gold Man while fumbling for their cameras and phones to take pictures. Gold Man strikes his usual pose, holding a football with a wide front-to-back-stance with feet pointed out and body balanced over the center, like an exaggerated ballet fourth position. It takes talent to remain in that position. After a few minutes, Gold Man looks at me and, smirking, says, “Well, go ahead man. Do your thing.” Feeling awkward and unaccustomed to playing the role of a street performer, I take the football and position myself as a running back about to stiff-arm a potential defensive player attempting to make a tackle. People almost immediately stop and stare to take pictures while others point fingers in my direction. This continues until a New Orleans policeman approaches us explaining that we cannot conduct our business this close to the Superdome. We look for another spot while heading toward a brightly lit area with excessive advertisements called “Champions Square,” where football fans find entertainment prior to a football game. Although it’s a good busking spot, police are intolerant of any disruption to the flow of traffic. We head to Sugar Bowl Drive directly near the passageway to the Superdome entrance where security is stricter than at an airport.

After taking turns pantomiming, Gold Man and I collaborate to pantomime together where he strikes his usual pose and I act as an offensive blocker providing daylight for an offensive player to advance the football. The hardest part initially isn’t standing entirely motionless for minutes at a time. Rather, it’s keeping one’s eyes fixed at a specific point and refraining from blinking as much as possible while large groups of people walk past and take pictures. After some time, remaining in one position also becomes a challenge. After pantomiming for about an hour, it becomes obvious that this work is difficult, and though at times entertaining (it’s better than an office job, of course), it becomes boring and uncomfortable to stand still for so long counting tips in your head. After we make a couple of dollars, someone hands Gold Man a free ticket with front row seats, provided he does not scalp them. We walk together to watch our “local heroes,” as local sportswriter Peter Finney used to describe them, begin another unpredictable but hopeful season for the die-hard Saints fans. Judging from first-hand experience, pantomiming in the streets of New Orleans, to put it colloquially, ain’t for no slouches.

Conclusion

New Orleans’ buskers—self-made transgressive misfit entrepreneurs of late-modernity—find ways to make money while avoiding the low-wage jobs of the city’s tourist industry. Judging from years of observations, dozens of interviews, and personal experiences walking on glass, pantomiming, and writing poems on Frenchmen street, buskers hardly fit the categories of poor, lazy, and undignified. Eric Odditorium took years of preparation and training to swallow swords, and two of them at a time. He gagged and puked for years training his throat and stomach muscles while learning to swallow fifteen- and twenty-inch swords. Perhaps learning to swallow swords is more challenging than accomplishing a doctorate. Eric is a blue-collar street worker, or a performer who puts in a full day’s hard work, busking in front of St. Louis Cathedral. He also finds gigs for his Cut Throat Freak Show South where he taught this author to walk on glass.

Others like Cubs the Poet, Shannon the Bourbon Street whip girl, and the pantomime Tim the Gold Man work five- to ten-hour days “blue-collar style” jobs, perfecting their respective skills and talents. Cubs works at his poetry making books for display for tourists and locals alike while people like Gold Man and Shannon find new and creative ways to entertain tourists on the informal streets just outside the official tourist establishments.

While some buskers work part-time jobs in the legal and semilegal economy (i.e., paid under the table), many of these street performers see taking on conventional jobs, or “shit jobs” in the service and retail industry, as either selling out, or sacrificing time better spent perfecting their craft and engaging in work they consider their desired calling. The buskers of New Orleans enjoy a respect and dignity often unavailable to members of “normal” mainstream society working the boring humdrum of conventional jobs. While Tim the Gold Man has become a well-known New Orleans icon, others like Eric perform on famous television shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “American Horror Story.” Others like Shannon receive the attention from hundreds of tourist every day, while many of the proud black musicians of New Orleans, like Trombone Shorty among many others, make their fame in the music industry playing in the down and dirty bayou streets of the great sociocultural experiment known as New Orleans.

Finally, this article reveals how both willfully and socially excluded members of the under-and near-underclasses find creative cultural solutions to make money and find work that grants social status in a postindustrial economy that denies such prosperity and dignity. Just as the culture of New Orleans showcases its remarkable agency under heavy oppressive structural conditions, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, these creative transgressive misfits of the postindustrial economy have created a relatively successful busker culture made possible on the fringes of tourist economy where there is a numerical poverty of good jobs. This article reveals one type of creative response people have to the conditions of widespread economic restructuring that has exacerbated the inequalities between the wealthier and poorer classes. The buskers discussed in this research showcase the refusal of people to simply accept the structural conditions imposed upon them, rather, they find unique solutions to their collectively experienced problems. The question remains if this showcases human agency or the undying nature of the human spirit to refuse subordination and succumbing to power and domination. Perhaps, it is both. As the growing inequalities produced in our late-modern world increases, we should expect an increase of more outsiders refusing to accept the oppressive structural conditions of our times.