Sometimes it’s a little hard to tell when the world is changing forever. A couple of examples from my childhood: When I was about 15 years old the Hula Hoop was invented. Everybody in my neighborhood bought one and that summer in the evening after supper all the kids would gather at a quiet intersection (this was the little town of Crockett where there was hardly any traffic) and spin their hoops for an hour or so.
I was transfixed by this spectacle and thought it amazing that the world had changed so suddenly. From now on, I thought, the world is a different place. Every night people will come out and go Hula Hooping. Now and forever.
Well, after a few weeks or months the fad faded and the hoops were banished to the backs of garages and the corners of dark basements. And life returned to real normal.
A few years earlier, my uncle Jim, who ran a radio/record shop in town, succeeded in getting a TV signal into Crockett. In those days there was one TV station in San Francisco, KPIX. Crockett was regarded as a fringe area, too far away from San Francisco ever to get TV. But Uncle Jim rigged up an amplifier in the attic to boost the signal before it went into the television set. The first, very snowy, picture we saw puzzled us. We could see a figure moving around and hear a strange honking sound. As Uncle Jim refined his system and his antenna the reception got clearer and we discovered we were watching Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody show.
In those days KPIX signed on about 6 p.m. and broadcast for about three hours, winding up with the national anthem playing as a (black-and-white) American flag waved. After that the test pattern flashed on for a while, and then it was over.
When word got around that we had TV (my family lived downstairs) neighbors started showing up to watch. Aunt Marie would bring the dining room chairs into the living room and place them in front of the set, which was about the size of a modern electric clothes dryer and had a screen maybe ten inches across.
And my young mind had an epiphany: From now on, every night, the neighbors would show up to watch TV. Life would forever be altered.
Of course within a few months KPIX’s signal got stronger and tall TV antennas sprouted on every home in town and the neighbors repaired to their own living rooms.
Recently I have been noticing a trend that isn’t exactly a new era checking in, but maybe one slowly easing in. Tips for busking musicians seem to be getting better.
My very first “paid” gig was with the Carquinez Valley Boys, three guitars and an accordion, at a little cafe near the American Smelting & Refining Co. lead refinery in the village of Selby, near Crockett, when I was about 16 years old. The manager put a tip jar on the pinball machine and much to our delight when we counted up the nickels and quarters we each got about $3.50, which seemed like a princely sum in 1958. Back then the normal tip was a coin, usually a quarter but a 50-cent piece if you were lucky. (That $3.50 totally convinced me there was big money in country music — which I continue to look for.)
I was away from the busking world for a long time and when I got back about 14 years ago the $1 bill had mostly supplanted the quarter. And that’s the way it has been for a long time, although we usually get some change in the bottom of the tip bucket.
Last weekend my band played a farmers market and when we were counting up the money, Mark the bass player shook the bucket and said, “Check this out. No coins at all.” Sure enough, the bucket was bereft of quarters, but there were several fives, one $20 and several $2 and $3 tips consisting of singles folded together.
It had been a very pleasant morning, perfect weather and an adequate if not really large crowd. And we each walked off with $65. Plus some free apples, a free chocolate croissant, and some discounted tomatoes.
I’m hoping a new era is upon us.
