They Work Hard For The Money

 Where I work there are a number of street performers around. There are some who are in costumes, others who play music, some who dance and some who do other things. I have gotten to know some of them a little outside of there act, and they are all really nice people. Most of them come out daily and take photographs with the tourist in town (locals sometimes will take pictures with them, but mostly it is visitors.)
Now the city doesn’t pay these people, but they do help to promote the city and make people smile. For the ones who are in a costume, they will spend hundreds to thousands of dollars for them. I was chatting with one guy who is on of the many Elvis impersonators here,and he is a young guy who is going to college and he does it to pay for his schooling and extra money. I asked him how much the costume cost, and to my surprise he said it was around $1,200 dollars, and that he had bought the cheapest one that he could find. It took him a while to make that much in tips, but he them said that when he looked around not that long ago, the cheapest one that he could find was over twice what he had paid.
Another person has a Mickey Mouse outfit, which ran him almost $700 when he got it, and that it took him nearly 6 weeks in tips to be able to cover the cost of the outfit. I also see women dressed in “Showgirl” outfits, and I am sure that they spent a great deal of money on them. I see a bunch of different outfits which I am sure cost the people a lot of money.
The thing that bothers me are the tourist that come here. Now I am not saying this off all the tourist, but there are a number of them who will come up and take a picture with these folks and not even bother to give them people, who gave them a moment of joy, a single dollar. I watch as people walk along and pull out there cameras and snap a photograph. I notice that people get upset when the characters turn away from the camera. I watch as people will rush up to snap a picture while someone who has tipped was getting their picture taken, and I am sure that many of these pictures are being put onto “social networks” with these strangers being in them. Now because of where I stand, I am sure that I am in pictures on the Internet in the background, but I don’t worry about that.
Now one of my favorites is a guy called “The Stone Arts Man”, who has no big problem with the ones who don’t tip, but with those who do tip him,he makes them feel real special. Yes I have heard about the people in costumes who get very rude and swear at people who don’t tip, but there are a large number of these people that are getting shafted who treat people with respect. This reminds me of something from the Bible and that can be found in other religions as well. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Now would you like to go out and spend a bunch of money for a costume, stand out on a busy street, have people come along and take pictures with and of you, then not offering a single dollar?
With the two ladies in the “Fashion Show” outfits. As I left the office I grabbed two bottles of water and gave it to them as I left. It brought smiles to their faces.

The Need To Cuss

 I have never really understood it, and maybe someone will write in the comments below this blog, but I really don’t understand the need and desire to cuss during normal conversation. As I write this, there is a beautiful female sitting a couple of rows behind me that I was working up the nerve to talk to, who got a phone call and during the conversation got to cussing during it.
I remember as a child me and my best friend at the time would go into the den of my parents house. My father had this big thick dictionary that for some strange reason we decided to look through one day. We came across the word “Daddy Long Legger ” and thought it was the dirtiest word that we had ever seen. We knew that if our fathers were to catch us looking at the word that we would be in BIG trouble. Seriously.
With the woman that basically held my heart for a long time, the one thing that I really admired about her was the fact that she never swore in any way. I had never noticed it until a group of us were together and instead of using a swear word, she used a word that was more kid friendly. We laughed when she said it, then she said that she never used swear words. I thought about it and realized that I had never heard her swear.
My parents took us to a basketball game at the Philadelphia Spectrum, and there were a couple of guys sitting behind us. Time and time again these guys would swear as the game was going on. After a bit of time of these guys swearing over and over again, my father turned around and asked them to stop as he didn’t want his kids hearing it. They stopped with the swearing.
I worked for a company and a group of us always sat and ate lunch together. As apart of the conversations that would go on, swearing would go on. I don’t recall how to topic came up, but somehow we got into the topic of swearing. One of the people suddenly looked at me and said that they had never heard me swear. I said that I saw no point into swearing in normal conversation. They all said that it was a strong way of getting a point across, and I explained that in my opinion that when one uses it in normal conversation that the power of the swearing became lesser and lesser. I did tell them that I do swear, but because when I do it is so rare that the power of the words meant something at that point. The person of the group who swore the most looked at and said that I wttas right, but continued to swear as part of normal conversation. A time did come where I did swear and it came to such a surprise to them that they saw how powerful it was.
But I still don’t understand the point of doing it during normal conversations. What point does it serve doing it? I can somewhat understand why teens do it, as it makes them feel like adults, but after a certain point it serves no real purpose.
I would love to read your comments below…