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Is Busking Safe In a Pandemic?


Are buskers safe in the Coronavirus age?

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2020: Good afternoon, Climate Strikers! I regret to say that I've been slacking off on this blog during the past couple of months--not because I stopped caring about climate change; but because I've been seasonally depressed for a long time, and resorted to a prolific spate of teeshirt designing as a kind of immediate gratification. And I still haven't gone freaking vegan, though I might be persuaded to give up fish for a while, just so the polar bears (one of my spirit animals) and other marine species don't starve into extinction. But I digress.


Anyway...busking, or street performing, is something I've been doing here in Seattle for many years, in a desperate attempt to get my original songs heard by some percentage of the public. But I've been wondering recently if it's still safe, with the potential pandemic of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) closing in on us. After all, when you're a street performer in Seattle, you come into fairly close contact with tourists, cruise ship passengers, citizens and residents who have migrated here from literally everywhere else on the planet, as well as young children, university students; and lots and lots of doggies (that last one is particularly concerning to me, as I seem to have become a dog magnet in just the last several years. Doggies of all different breeds just seem to LOVE me, even though I'm actually more of a cat person). I'm already starting to see people wearing surgical masks walking down the street, and it's probably not due to tree-pollen allergies. And speaking of nature, does the rapid spread of this new virus relate to climate change in some way?


As far as I know, there are no confirmed cases of Covid-19 here in Seattle yet; but it will get here, sooner or later. We've got an airport that with flights coming and going to and from practically everywhere on the planet, after all, not to mention a port drawing a constant stream of everything from cruise ships to shipments of foreign-made cars. The disease has already begun to affect U.S. politics, and not just because Mike Pence is somehow expected to wrangle the epidemic, whenever it gets to be widespread in this country. Conspiracy theorists are already making bets on how soon it will be until Drumpf is persuaded to declare Martial Law. I myself was asked if I had traveled, or been in contact with anyone who had traveled, to China in the past two weeks, when I went up to my health clinic for a periodic checkup.


In any case, sitting here this afternoon in Macrina Bakery/Cafe, I haven't been scared off busking in Pike Place Market just yet. It's just that until recently, it was a bit too cold and wet to play music outdoors. But I'll still go ahead and do it very soon, unless or until I get warned off of it by whoever's in charge of dealing with epidemics on our local level. Gosh knows my guitar, fiddle and I could use a good musical workout, after a long winter's stretch of churning out teeshirt designs that aren't selling worth a tinker's damn. Stay safe and healthy, folks; but keep striking for the climate!

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