“What could have compelled you to move to New York City with the unemployment rate at 20%?”
Not the kind of question anyone wants to be asked shuddering in suspense before their prospective employer. It’s a valid question, I thought, but I brushed it off.

“I just know I’m meant to be here right now,” I said in confirmation of John Lennon’s line – there’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be – a line I’ve had to repeat to myself just to find solace in the midst of my financial quagmire. Paying rent is indeed difficult when one has no income.

And the search continues.

Since I’ve moved to New York City, I’ve spent a lot of time scanning online lists – craigslist, idealist, TGC listserv – looking for work. My objective and hope has been to find a tolerable part-time job working 15-20 hours per week and making the same amount per hour so that I could focus full-time hours on music: practicing, gigging, busking, instructing, composing/arranging, etc. After hunting for a month and a half I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was existentially frustrated, physically exhausted, and financially drained. I felt as though I had no other choice. I would have to take to the streets. Finally. Once and for all.
I tried Central Park, sitting alongside the bike/walking trails playing and singing to the passersby. Over the course of a couple hours I met and had conversations with some interesting people, but I only made one dollar American and a slight bit more Canadian.

This was not good enough. I could not afford to be playing for two fifty (in mixed currency) per hour. Surely I would fare better along busy streets, I thought.

A couple weeks later I tried the corner of Houston and 1st Ave but the rain and cold got the best of me. My icy pink fingers and guitar were displeased. For only a few dollars, it was still not worth the suffering; so I took the nearest subway train to the Broadway/Lafayette stop, where I opened my case on the platform between the Brooklyn-bound lines and played for pittance.

A few days later I tried the platform at the Jackson Heights stop in Queens, through which five different lines run. A pair of pretty p’licemen approached me asking whether I had a permit, though they could tell I didn’t. They graciously told me that their superiors were roaming the station (not a terribly common occurrence, they assured me) and that if I was spotted by them, the officers would be forced to ticket me – something that they admitted they did not want to do. “I don’t want you to either,” I confessed. They directed me to the mezzanine, where I would be able to play without interference. Before I had even finished setting up on the mezzanine another officer approached me with the same bad tidings. It was apparently not the best day to perform in that particular station.

I’ve made valorous attempts at a number of other stations, but I believe I’m averaging only about $4 per hour altogether.
Thankfully, I have not been insulted or publicly ridiculed as was my experience in Orlando. Still, this consolation and my meager earnings are not enough to pay rent next month. I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to make busking worth my while… at least until I join that other demographic – the 80% of New Yorkers with stable income. You know, the ones who can afford to pay November’s rent in USD.