Busking on Venice Beach Boardwalk

Seems like every time I go down to the Boardwalk, the rules for Buskers have changed.....

This time they have changed for the better, I think. This video is from last year, but I went down today on a truly beautiful February morning, to check out the fallout from the latest attempt to reign in the anarchy of the masses. Now normally I'm all for anarchy, but the Venice Boardwalk scene was getting a little crazy, and I think the new rules are better than the old new rules, or the old old new rules.....

The once a week lottery sucked, for instance. And there was too many rugged capitalists clogging up the people's space selling Chinese crap. The zones were too complicated, too. Now they have banned the sale of manufactured junk, and that opens up more space for artists. That is a good thing, brothers. It's good for all.

Some folks are disgruntled because they're not allowed to camp out all night and hog the good spaces all day. Now it's first come, first served from 9 AM until Sunset. That's fair. I guess they can still hog their spaces all day, but there's more spaces available since the junk merchants have been banned.

For entertainers, no permit is required now. You can choose any of the 250 designated spaces on a first come, first served basis, and reasonable amplification is allowed in all sections. I can live with that. When Summer comes, it might be a good idea to put a time limit on the space hoarders. They're still hogging spaces while sitting there not doing Jack Shit, but the scene is much improved over the chaos that existed there a year ago. It has never ceased to amaze me how people will fight over spaces, and the sit around looking surly and complaining about how little money they're making when they're not even playing. But, oh well, that's America for ya....

On the flip side, the policia have been waging a vicious and uncalled for war against the homeless in this town. That's what the song Easy's Gone is about. Yeah there's a lot of homeless folks on the Boardwalk. They're not criminals. They're us, man. No banker, cop or politician cares if you hit a streak of bad luck and wind up on the street, brother. If you don't think it can happen to you, you haven't been reading the paper, or the sometimes beautiful graffiti on the rest room walls of Venice, California. Police harrassment of homeless citizens is a disgrace and it has to stop.

Don't expect to make a shitload of money busking down here, friends, but expect to learn something about life, meet some good folks, cop a contact high and come away with a new song and maybe even a new chord. It's the Venice Chord, and you have to earn it.....