Brett Rants

Street Art

Train Station Interior Over Tracks, showing an overhead light illuminating a brick wall, I like the green tones

Text
So, like, I thought about getting a Street Performer's License. I didn't... or haven't yet. But as follows are some of the Ideas I came up with. And yeah, the word Ideas in that last sentence, does need to be set off somehow, as the quality of those Ideas is highly debatable.

Photographs
Fine! No! No! Fine! If I'm not going to be a World Famous Street Artist, I'll just be a ho-hum conventional World Famous Photographer. As in, the photographs have nothing to do with the text.

This was a storefront window, covered during remodel, reconstruction, the paper makes a cellular pattern, pink silly string or so I presume, with archetectural structure reflected in glass

Water, tissue paper, and debri on pavement, creating an interesing image, then again, maybe I do not get out enough, vagely man or ghost shaped watery outline

Red motar filling stone or concrete wall, just looks nice, an abstract sort of image

Text
Wait! Was the previous thematic explanation of the textual elements not clear? Oh, well. You'll catch on. It's just (another) collection of random ideas for ways in which to harass random passerby's in the hopes of eliciting spare change, while staying on the good side of the law.

Photographs
And as to the photographs, well, the photographs (besides being High Art) are of the A or B variety; as in, which image is better? A or B?

You will be judged at the end... or not. Seriously, setting up the JavaScript required to tally votes (or even just importing a plug-in) would be way (like, way) too much work... much like actually getting a Street Performers License.

But in that last, I joke, as a license costs a mere $100 for two years; and the exacting application process can take upwards of ten minutes. I mean, they don't just let anyone juggle balls on the street (or fail to juggle balls on the street; as in, drop balls on the street, as I might do). It requires a Photo ID... and a hundred bucks.

Have I mentioned that hundred bucks part?

I don't have a hundred bucks!

If only there was some easy way I could make a hundred bucks out on the street...

Safety Pins
Safety pins! Safety pins! Get your safety pins! Two for fifty cents, three for a dollar, four for five bucks. Limited edition safety pins, straight out of the box. They have a million uses, my good sir and/or unnervingly suspicious good lady, too numerous for me to mention at this juncture.

I hear tell, by me if no one else, that they were invented in the early seventies by socially maladjusted punk rockers looking for a more dangerous way to pierce their ears than going down to the local druggist.

Ah, would you like a bag for your purchase?

At which point, yours truly, whips out a Big Ass Bag™ to hold the small (safety-pin-like) items now lost in its depths.

Or if that doesn't work for you (so clearly, we are making a callback to that A or B thing), maybe the following Public Performance Debacle would better suit your moods.

Singing
I think it goes without saying that if I were to make any money singing by the side of the road (on the public path, as it were), it would be because folks (and kindly, generous folks they be) would be paying me to stop, 'Whatever it is that you are doing, because singing, it ain't.'

Black concrete wall painted red, has an interesting sort of look to it, or so, I would have you believe, I mean, it is not like I would take patently uninteresting pictures, something caught my eye

Not a Yellow Brick Road, but a red brick wall, soothing in its own way to me

Wedding Ring
She doesn't love me. <sniff> Never did. <sniff-sniff> So, buy her wedding ring off me. <sniff-sniff-sniff> I'm selling it cheap. <wink>

And yes, most of these Ideas (I sure wish you would stop making me italicize it like that) are sales pitches for items of dubious value, as the 'Wedding Ring' in question might well be (that is to say, it would quite obviously be) of the Finest Plastic Quality!

Character Sketches
You know, those cartoon caricatures that folks draw on the spot.

'Seriously, dude! You are the worst sketch artist I've ever seen. Even your samples look like sh!te!'

Um, need I say more?

a single rail of a train track cutting through pavement, surrounded by wood nosing, it sort of bothers me that the track is not straight in the image and that the track does not line up with the next image, oh, well

Train Track with a glove nestled between the cross wooden supports, a simple close up detail of tracks

Rubber Bands
I got your Rubber Bands, right here! Three for a dollar. Never be caught short for Let's Make a Deal, again.

And no, this is totally different from that Safety Pin shtick, so back off. I ain't repeating myself... not yet, anyhow.

Shirt Off My Back
I imagine wearing a Hawaiian Shirt (and not one of those cheap pieces of crap either) as I offer to.. Sell the Shirt Off My Back. A small twenty dollar try on fee and we can see if it's the right shirt for you. This was the shirt I was wearing when I decided to travel around the world. And now, this is the shirt I'm going to be selling in order to buy that ticket back home. So, a mere thousand dollars buys The Shirt Off My Back.

<as an aside>
The cost of this trip is getting seriously out of hand, dude. I cannot begin to tell you how far I under-budgeted.

I can, also, see putting up a shower-curtain fitting-room of sorts for folks to try on clothes.

Perhaps, I should have a rack of bikini... hopefuls! You know, as in, I hope someone tries these skimpy things on.

Sheesh! Just joking!

Fine! I'll have a Business Suit Retirement Sale, instead.

I like images of power lines, so do other folks, in an architectural magazine today, I saw a big image, more or less like this one, taking up a prominent location in an entry hall for some firm, this is a power line, top half, sky filling the background, a picture unlike any other

A power line tower, once again, the lower middle half, highlighting the barbed wire fence that prevents climbers, which makes it look more prison-ish, sun in the background on an overcast day

Silent Drummer
So, I don't know about the 'Street Scene' where you are from, but 'round these parts banging madly on a plastic drum is the most common gig out there.

Um, it's damn annoying!

I mean, it wasn't that annoying the first few times I heard them drum. But now? Give it a rest already... or learn how to play... or maybe just put some felt pads on your sticks, so you don't make so much frickin' noise.

Anyhow, I propose Playing the Drums (or The Plastic Bucket, if you want to get technical about it) sans the drums (and/or plastic bucket), for a quieter interpretation of the Musical Scene.

Yeah, it is true, many of these Ideas (stop italicising it, already) are born out of frustration, like the following, which (perhaps) makes more sense once one realizes that there are a lot of 'Monks' (and this really is one of those quote/unquote things) on the streets I seem to be frequenting these days.

Vow of Silence
I have taken a vow of silence!

Um, please note the irony, as I shout this at the top of my lungs... or at least loud enough for those pedestrians on the street, who are now giving me a wide berth, to hear.

Having renounced attachment to All Worldly Goods, all I have are these wooden bracelets with which to make fifty dollars for a steak dinner... five hundred for my hotel room... or seriously, just write out a check for twenty five grand and I'll call it a season, take off this stupid bathrobe, and hit the beach.

The Lake Shore Drive Bridge looking West on a Summer day down, or is it up, the Chicago River

Lincoln Park looking South over the lagoon, towards Chicagos Skyscrapers

Beef Jerky... er, I mean, Funding the Resistance
Not only is Beef Jerky a manly snack (a manly-manly snack), it is the Official Snack Food of the Fifth Street Irregulars.

Or in other words, I am proposing the sale of candy, snacks, and most especially beef jerky (at the risk of being redundant) in an effort to pay my lawyers the vast sums of money they require in order to defend My Constitutional Rights... rights which pertain mainly to the ownership of large barrel shotguns and talking smack to any and all comers.

Don't tread on me... or I will dance the watusi on those potato chips you just bought and shake up your soda prior to handing it over! Booyah!

CD Suckers
So, like, up and coming (sure they are) rap singers like to hawk CDs of their work down on the drag. Only (not only do said rap performers likely suck, you know, or they'd actually be rapping their sales pitch at me, but) the closest thing I have to a CD player these days has direct access to my computer's hard drive. And I am not granting a strange disc access to my hard drive.

Conflickr! Heart-throb! Doom Ticker! Like I know the names of these things. Get your virus infected disc, here. In mere minutes, be uploading the contents of your hard-drive to the Internet. Be the first to share your personal information with the world.

Free Keylogger! Let me capture your your passwords!

Or if you want to get more meta... and you know that you do...

Sixty Minutes of Silence! Blank CDs! Ten bucks a pop! Aspiring young artist selling his best work, yet!

Along the same lines, I could see selling (or giving away, but let's try selling them first) bootdisks that would launch some Free Speech Linus Distro... if only I could remember the name.

And Tails, it is!

The Same Railroad Crossing, these two are, or close enough, I almost always snap images of the same one or two, this one has the sun in the background, casting a halo, setting the rest of the image in darkened shadow

Fully illuminated railroad crossing street arm, that thing that goes down and prevents cars and pedestrians from entering the intersection and crossing the tracks, crossing guards, likely, nice blue sky

Cigarettes for the Homeless
Lots of non-profits do food, some do shelter, a few even provide methadone, but I'm collecting money for what's really important in life: Cigarettes for the Homeless!

Wedding Pictures
Ever been out and about? Well, I'm guessing you have. And if so, you've likely seem some trendy couple having their wedding pictures taken. Be in ours.

Take your picture with the bride, only five bucks; and help us fund some sort of honeymoon better than Her Parent's Couch.

Sun Going Down, well, sort of, it is still in the sky, likely winter, over the city, Navy Pier, Chicago in the background, nice shadowed out effect from the bright sun

A pair of skyscrapers in the distance, looking out a window, a nice urban landscape picture, bars from the window casting vertical lines down the image

It's Like a Rubber
So, like, some of these things (pitches, performance pieces, whatever) need a bit of explaining. In the local market, they put little cones out on the sidewalk whenever they wash the windows of those great big skyscrapers. It's to warn you. But what good is a warning that you might get wet if there's nothing you can do about it? Well, now you can!

Rent one of my umbrella's for the length of the building. Protect yourself from any dirty water falling from the careless window washers above!

I suppose I would have to have a collection bucket down the way... you know, six or eight feet away.

Hey! Come back with that umbrella!

Maybe, I will have to spray the umbrellas with big orange letters; as in -RENTAL-

Streetside Book Reading
A sign, a circle of chairs, and a small table with several copies of the same book on it says it all. Though, maybe we will want to arrange for donuts or coffee if this takes off and we plan to have any future meetings.

The view North from some skyscraper overlooking Grant Park

The same skyscraper, the same floor, this time looking North... or at least, I believe that is the case

T Pins
So, Trump is an idiot... or he's a great-great super-swell guy. I'll let you decide. I could care less.

That preamble out of the way, here's a short mathematical symbol primer for you.

T: stands for 'Top' and/or Truthfulness ⊥: stands for 'Bottom' or Falsity
It's actually a bit deeper than that in that T stands for Source and ⊥ stands for Destination (or maybe I have that backwards) of the Successor Series, but as that likely gives little to no clarity to the general reading public as to the mathematical concepts involved (they mark the beginning and end of a continuum, he said, wondering if he was getting any closer to the Truth; so, with that said), perhaps it is best I move on.

Suffice to say, with the one 'T Pin' (or should that be '⊥ Pin'), one can show favor (or disfavor) for their favorite (or not so favorite) political leader... or anything else.

For whatever it is worth, this was the first 'real' idea I came up with. And so, maybe explains why I never did get that Street Performers License.

Money for Your Betters
I believe the idea speaks for itself. But if you don't like that shtick, why not help me out with the next one.

Looking for a New Shtick
Help me figure out what to do with my Street Performers License. I can't sing. I can't dance. But I am more than willing to make a fool of myself for money. Have any ideas? And if so, how much are you willing to pay to see them implemented on a street corner near you?

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