Los Angeles has some of the best street performers. Everyone comes here with stars in their eyes, hoping to make it big. Most fail, not because they lack talent, but because there are simply too many of them. When they don't, these talented people find themselves in one of two professions; porn or street performer. The former will someday be addressed in a series called, "Sherman Oaks Makes Me Feel Dirty," but the noble Los Angeles street performer is someone deserving of respect.
From the beginning of time, (my time, meaning 1972,) a gypsy caravan of performers flocked to Westwood Village. Armed with a wide variety of questionable talents, they proceeded to swallow knives, use costumed housecats to hand out fortunes, and break dance on a piece of cardboard. The knife swallower really freaked me out.
Around the same time, Venice boardwalk was having its own, slightly more questionable street performing renaissance, led by the roller skated, turbaned, alien-fearing, guitar-wielding Patron Saint of Street Performers, Harry Perry. When I was young, I would catch a glimpse of him as he skated by. Once he approached me and sang of "alien invaders coming to rule the world," while staring unblinkingly into my terrified eyes. Cupping his hands before me, he asked for a donation. He had just alerted me to the terror to come - surely that advance notice was worth something. I looked into his eyes and saw something that totally changed my understanding of Street Performers. He was totally crazy. Not just a kooky guy with a schtick, but Out Of Touch With Reality Nobody's Home kind of crazy. And I think that's partially why I love them. I mean, crazy people can be talented too. Right?
Westwood is now a ghost town, and Venice is just too far for me to haul my lazy tush, so my main source for street performers is the Third Street Promenade, aka "The Nod." While significantly less colorful than the performers at Venice, many of these performers have real talent. I have even bought the CDs of a few of these performers, and enjoy sitting on the curb listening to them. I always wonder why they don't have record deals, or try out for American Idol, but I'll never know. All I can do is help get the word out, and give them a dollar or two on the days when I can bribe one of my kids to get up and put it in the guitar case.
And in the era of self-publishing and myspace and twitter and facebook, they just might avoid Sherman Oaks.
Stay tuned for some of my favorites.
PS, I partied with Harry Perry at a Grateful Dead show in Arizona. He was not wearing roller skates or his amp and seemed like a really normal guy.
