Day 18 - Buskers

I've just walked down Vaclavske Namesti in Prague. It's a warm Friday afternoon, the tourist are out in force and the street performers are here to entertain them. Now, I consider myself to be a bit of a busker, but words are my instrument and blogs are my street corner. Like them I don't have a record deal or a theatrical agent, I don't have a publishing deal or anything but I still find a way to put my work out there for people to enjoy, or not :-). So I empathise with the street artists plying their trade on this muggy Friday afternoon, or I would if they were not lazy. Now don't get me wrong, there are some very talented buskers in Prague. The gypsy band who serenaded me with Beseme Mucho the other day were a sight to behold, then there are the guys who do that trick that makes them look like they are levitating, that is cool. But today I saw two men standing on boxes wearing old-fashioned clothes, their faces painted white. They looked like mime artists, or those people who stand completely still, but they were neither miming nor standing like statues, in fact they were doing ostensibly nothing to earn their crowns. Then further down a man playing air guitar to a Guns and Roses track (it was a real guitar but  he sure as hell wasn't playing it.) Finally a boy playing "drums" on an old plastic paint pot, (to be fair, he was quite good but still it was a paint pot. Maybe he was busking so he could afford to buy a drum kit).  The worst thing was that people were actually throwing money in the hats of all three of these “acts”, these charlatans were actually making money from their lack of talent. So if you are ever walking around Prague and you see a man reading stories to no one in particular, drop a crown or two in to my hat, there's a good chap.