Homeless drummer marches to his own beat -- and he's happy
"People can live on a lot less money than they think they can."
United States News
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Title: NOPD boots homeless drummer from his usual spot. It was legal, but shouldn't be.
Source:
The Times-Picayune
URL Source: http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf ... /busking_new_orleans_laws.html
Published: Nov 26, 2017
Author: Chelsea Brasted
Post Date: 2017-11-24 20:43:10 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1727
Comments: 48
Drive past the Carrollton Avenue neutral ground between Costco and Xavier University, and you're likely to see Memphis Mike. You can't miss him: He's the guy playing music by himself. But on Sept. 13, Memphis got booted from his spot. According to Memphis and as evidenced in a photo of the incident, two NOPD officers approached the musician and told him to pack up his things and move along. The officers, Memphis said, told him he was violating City Ordinance 14:1, and that he needed a permit to play his drums there. "After discussions with the City Attorney's Office, we have determined this individual must obtain a permit to play on the neutral ground," NOPD spokeswoman Ambria Washington wrote in an email about the incident. Memphis, who is homeless and makes his way to his usual Carrollton spot almost daily, shrugged it all off and showed back up the next day with his bass guitar, ready to keep playing along with his accompaniment: a small radio tuned to 95.7 FM. The ordinance, Memphis said, "is a real big bulls-- law." The ordinance -- which makes it "unlawful to keep any piano, organ or other musical instrument whatsoever" in a "public park or place of public resort or recreation," including a "licensed theatre or restaurant," without a permit -- was adopted in New Orleans 100 years ago. Back then, some powerful folks in the city tried to buckle down on vice. Storyville was notably shut down just months after 14:1 was enacted. The ordinance "can have no other aim than to hold the ground already gained in the stricter regulation of the saloon and the expulsion of the cabaret, which had become a stench in the nostrils of the community and whose removal earned for the city government the gratitude of every self-respecting man and woman in the community," reads a March 30, 1917, Daily States news item regarding challenges to the ordinance. I don't doubt anything about the stench of the cabaret; I've walked down Bourbon Street. But, 100 years later, when we've come to appreciate live music in our bars, throw down cash for performers busking in Jackson Square and actively sell the image of New Orleans as a place of music and culture -- what does this ordinance actually do? The Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans' Guide to New Orleans Street Performance notes that permits aren't required for buskers to perform on the street, though there are guidelines about the specifics. You can't, for example, block any public rights of way, nor can you perform on Bourbon Street between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. There are also some noise level restrictions, and performers can't aggressively ask for tips. Ordinance 14:1 is not only vague -- what does "keep" an instrument mean? -- but read it one way, and it makes it illegal for any performer to actually have a music instrument without a permit. "Calling it hypocritical is too kind," said MACCNO spokeswoman and co-founder Hannah Kreiger-Benson. "It's an incredibly, stunningly clear example of the ways the laws in the books in the city are deeply hostile to culture." The law isn't often enforced, Kreiger-Benson said, but when it is, it's detrimental and confusing to performers. The ordinance "not being enforced is sort of the norm, but ... what the city values, the laws on the book kind of go beneath the lip service that everybody pays." "The fact that it ever existed and still exists -- it's that continuum of deeply unfriendly laws, which are occasionally pulled out as weapons," she said. A request for clarification on 14:1 was sent to the Mayor Mitch Landrieu's office, but it has yet to be answered. Memphis, for one, isn't worried. His bass doesn't even get plugged into anything, and he uses hunks of wood for make-believe pedals. His whole act is just for fun, and sometimes he gets a couple bucks out of the deal. "I entertain people, and if they want to give me money, they can, and if they don't that's fine," he said. "I guess you didn't like it." Memphis has been playing the drums for about 25 years. He started playing after injuring his hand in a motorcycle accident made his dexterity on the bass strings more difficult. He said he's played in reggae bands, country bands, gospel groups, and even a hip-hop group. And he's got a plan if police show up again to move him along. "If they say something about the bass, guess what?" he said. "I've got a harmonica."
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
There, I fixed your yella article.
And he's got a plan if police show up again to move him along. "If they say something about the bass, guess what?" he said. "I've got a harmonica."
#3. To: Deckard, GrandIsland (#2)
"If they say something about the bass, guess what?" he said. "I've got a harmonica." Uh…how is a harmonica exempt for the ordinance which makes it "unlawful to keep any piano, organ or other musical instrument whatsoever?" How can the harmonica not be considered a “musical instrument?” Can you please explain that? You are such a simpleton …
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestMemphis, shrugged it all off and showed back up the next day... basically saying, fuck you and your laws. I'll do what I please.
#2. To: GrandIsland (#1)
Replies to Comment # 2. And he's got a plan if police show up again to move him along.
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