Look at them yo yos, that’s the way you do it

Walking through the downtown of Sydney, I would have expected to see more street entertainers than you end up seeing. There is the usual cast of characters with very little variation. The lineup includes: an American tap dancer who works the corner outside the main grocery store, a Chinese teenager who plays saxophone on top of recorded music, kitty corner to the tap dancer. Down the road in a pedestrian shopping centre is where the competition is the fiercest. One guy wears a tuxedo as he plays the violin with backing tracks. There has been the odd Aboriginal group with didgeridoo players, a few guitarists here and there, but by far my favourite has been the other tap dancing guy. He wears an outfit that looks like he got it from James Brown, tight maroon velour pants with a built in corset, terminating just below the xiphoid process. I struggle to describe the pants, but I think everyone will know exactly what I am talking about. He also has billowy satin sleeves on his shirt. He looks just like the godfather of soul but without the conk. He sort of shuffles around and then asks people to pay him. I enjoyed him more for his commitment to costuming than for his skills. Speaking of mad skills, there was a guy who was playing his guitar the other day, just sitting on a stoop outside the movie theatre. His gimmick wasn’t really great guitar playing; rather while he played he balanced a guitar on his forehead. So he was sitting playing something particularly buskworthy and his second guitar was resting on his head from the headstock, big round end straight up in the air. I watched for a while to see if he would keep it up, and yes, as long as the song continued, he kept balancing his guitar. An unexpected skill to be sure, though judging by his outstretched hat not particularly lucrative. I guess like Bryan, he should have practiced until his fingers bled, not just his forehead.