The Pipes Of Peace

As is well known, the world is broadly divided into two distinct classes of people: a tiny minority of widely shunned mentally unstable people who love bagpipes; and the entire rest of the world.

Among those poor misguided creatures who love the pipes a special Hell is set aside for those who actually play them themselves and willy-nilly, deliberately and with malicious predetermination and intent go out of their way to inflict them on other people.

I am One Of Those.

We moved to the place where we now live on a wing and An Unhealthy Amount Of Wishful Thinking. We had no money, zero prospects, and no work of any description to go to. On the other hand, food and shelter had to be provided for two adults, two growing kids and a wildly fluctuating number of guinea pigs. So we pulled out all stops and worked at anything and everything that presented itself. For myself personally that meant, in addition to guiding wildlife spotting kayak tours on the bay, freelance outdoor education. Outdoor Ed is, by and large, a seasonal occupation. There’s large volumes of work and demand in term 1 and term 4, when the weather is warm and pleasant and otherwise couch-bound people are wont to fancy themselves as hardy outdoor adventurers. There’s a great deal less work in term 2 and 3 when the weather is cold, wet and blowy, and television holds a far greater attraction than the world outside the window. And there’s the square root of bugger all over the summer holidays when school’s out, beaches beckon, and mountains are generally considered to be too hot to climb or even look at from anywhere but the vantage point of a beach towel.

So, in a bid to try to make ends meet I had resolved to make a return to my very first trade, my first occupation, the first way I ever made money. Busking. When I was a kid I lived in the streets and busking was the only way I had to make money and survive. I played guitar with great gusto and very little skill, sang impressively and commendably through my nose and out of tune, and became a champion at the 100 m Dash With Guitar While Pursued By Coppers.

This time, however, seeing as I had progressed in the world of music, I wouldn’t be playing guitar but bagpipes. The pipes are the ideal busking instrument: they are unusual, adding that little bit of exotic quixotic edge of attraction that the aspiring street musician needs to draw potential audience members away from competing and invariably more talented other buskers who can actually play properly. The pipes catch the eye, provide a wow-factor, and, above all, they are loud. They blow your ears right off your head. Noise of car and truck traffic and passing people is always a major issue when performing in the street, and anything that will carry out above the ever-present white background buzz is a bonus. When I used to sing in the street I got to be very, very good at singing very, very loudly out of tune.

I had given the plan comprehensive consideration and had devised a cunning strategy: I would go and play in front of the NAB bank in the main street of town, just down the road from a couple of popular pubs and near all the cafes and shops that people like to mill around, pore over, wander in and out of and spend all their hard-earned money on useless and pointless things that they don’t need, can’t use and don’t even like. It promotes a never ending supply of landfill, so thankfully we never run out of rubbish to fill up these holes that inexplicably keep appearing in the landscape, and greases the wheels of manic-consumer-driven capitalism.

Furthermore the NAB shopfront provided a rare and extremely desirable commodity in the life of a street musician: an overhanging roof, which not only keeps you dry on rainy days, but has the added enviable benefit of, in combination with the solid glass wall of the shopfront, providing a rock-solid acoustic echo-chamber to catch the sound you produce and catapult it back out towards the street in a powerful projection of double-barrelled noise. The fact that all the beautiful natural harmonies the pipes put forth get slightly out of wave-synch with each other due to the delay of the bounce-back, and therefore out of tune, is entirely irrelevant and detracts from the quality of the performance in no way whatsoever.

So I mozied over and set up shop out the front of the bank. I put my hat upside down on the ground in front of me, got the pipes out, smiled winningly at various passers-by who gave me curious, intrigued and slightly terrified glances, and started blowing into the blowpiece. That’s how it works: you blow air into a bag, and then you squeeze it back out again through a pipe that makes music. In theory.

I blew and squeezed.

“Pwaaaaaaaaaaarrrppppppfffffff ... “

A promising start. I blew and squeezed with renewed enthusiasm.

“Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh ... “

Fantastic. Love it when those harmonies kick in.

I looked at the shop front window. Faint cracks were beginning to appear in the glass. A good sign.

The bag had reached critical mass and was approaching nuclear fission, so the moment had arrived. I gave it one last squeeze and, for good measure, a punch in the guts, to help it kick start its melodic journey, and away we went.

“Eeeeeeeeeeerrr-aaaaaaaaaarrr-oooooooowww-auuuuuuu-ngh ngh ngh rururururugggghh”

And I launched into my carefully planned routine. All the all-time favourite standard bagpipe classics, unforgettable timeless tunes such as Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts, and, that eternal crowd pleaser, If You Blow Into That Thing One More Time I’ll Shove It Up Your Arse Sideways Mate.

My fingers danced up and down on the pipe with admirable agility, speed and total lack of musicality. The bag squeezed and heaved and farted. The drones droned and groaned and moaned. The sound bounced around the overhang impressively and poured out over the heads of the passing public, who, I couldn’t fail to notice, had taken to walking a great deal faster right in front of me, and, for some inexplicable reason, had their fingers jammed in their ears and tortured expressions on their faces. Must be the midday sun.

Five seconds later the door of the bank flew open and a bloke stormed out, almost tripping over his feet, with his tie flapping wildly over his left shoulder. He skidded to a halt in front of me, leaving black smoking skidmarks burning into the pavement. He straightened up his tie, smoothed down the hair on his head that was standing on end as if by electric current, drew himself up to all of his impressive four foot nothing, bared his teeth and spoke thusly:

“Sorry mate, you can’t play here. We have a policy of no buskers here.”

Bullshit. Like fuck they do. There’s people busking there twenty-four-seven. I’d seen them heaps, all day every day, although, admittedly, not with bagpipes, and not, perhaps, causing intrinsic damage to the infrastructure through hyper-frequency sound modulation.

I sighed deeply and with feeling. What can you do. It’s the same old story, the story of my life. Move on, we don’t like your kind around here. We’ve called the coppers and I can see them coming around the corner so you’d better fuck off if you know what’s good for you.

At some point Johnny Lydon, erstwhile frontman of The Sex Pistols and once upon a time known as Johnny Rotten, wrote his autobiography about growing up a poor kid in the streets of London. It was called “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs”. He was of Irish descent, one of thousands of immigrants in the big blue smoke of London Town, and the title of his book referred to signs that used to be posted on the front doors of pubs when he was a kid. Racism, random prejudice and unthinking discrimination were not felt to be bad things by the general community in those days, and were embraced with gusto by all layers of society that felt better if they had someone else to look down and shit on. We remember fondly our very own White Australia Policy, the first act ever passed by the brand new Australian Parliament within seconds of its first sitting in 1901.

In regards to myself, the note might have added “No Bagpipe Players On Penalty Of Death”.

There was no point in argueing. So I smiled brightly and manically at the fella, who backed away nervously, mumbled insincere excuses and disappeared inside his bank again. I noticed with satisfaction that the cracks in the shop front window had grown markedly deeper, longer and more jagged.

I turned my back on the benighted philistines of the NAB bank, clearly unable to appreciate the finer points of High Art, and decided to try my luck somewhere else.

As I wandered up the street aimlessly, haphazardly and forlornly, not to mention rejectedly, dejectedly and depressedly, inspiration struck. There was some sort of building a bit further up the road, where, I was sure, I had at some point seen a sign that said “Our Town Welcomes Buskers”, followed by a whole gushing and bubbling blurb about cultural diversity, street entertainment, inclusiveness, and appreciation of world music. I wondered if they’d had bagpipe music in mind when they wrote that.

With a renewed spring in my step I headed that way and found the building. It had a big sign on the front proclaiming it to be the “Community Centre”. And sure enough, right there on the corner of the building, next to a nondescript looking window with drawn curtains, was the fabled sign, the stuff buskers’ dreams and fevered fantasies are made of: Buskers Welcome.

Just the thing I wanted.

I figured if I was going to stand right next to that sign than surely, surely, no one in their right mind could possibly be objecting to a bit of stirring and elevating pipe music. A contribution to the multicultural and diverse streetscape. Entertaining and invigorating lively tunes for the greater edification, merriment and joy of all around, completely and comprehensively for free, a voluntary contribution to the multifaceted jewel of creative and artistic expression of The Human Condition, for the greater good and benefit of all. A gold coin donation will do thanks mate.

So, proudly and secure in the knowledge of having found the Perfect Busking Spot, I stuck the pipes under my arm, channelled large amounts of hot air from my skull into the bag, and cranked out a heartfelt and touching rendition of “The Redback On The Dunny Seat”.

The drones rattled along harmoniously, the melody was pumping and heaving, the tune was rollicking and rolling, and I was going great guns.

Until, two minutes into it, a harassed looking bloke in a shirt and tie emerged from the doorway right next to me. He had large sweat patches under his arms, and a pained expression on his face. I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance with his mate at the bank down the road. Maybe they were cousins. Maybe they had married each other’s sisters. Or their own.

I inwardly rolled my eyes. Now what. With a sinking feeling I let the air run out of the bag.

“Heeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrooooooowwwwaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhpppppfffffffrrrrrrrshhhhhhhhhpppllllffffrrt ...”

Like a long protracted musical flat tyre. Or like there was a small and very distressed cow in there desperately trying to get out.

I looked at the fella expectantly and politely. Politeness is the number-one go-to quality to bring to negotiations with people who, really, just want to kill you.

“What’s up mate?”

He looked at me with a deathly pallor on his face. Sweat was beading on his forehead and rolling down his pointy nose. Something told me this bloke wasn’t used to being exposed to the intricacies, vagaries and dubious benefits of pipe music.

“Hey mate, we like buskers around here ...”

That was a first. Not a bad opener for negotiations. Decidedly better than the usual “we’ve called the cops, I’ve got a shotgun, and my pitbull here hasn’t been fed for three days”.

“... and your music sounds really nice ...”

I stared at him, perplexed. Maybe he was suffering from heatstroke. Or delusional psychosis.

“... we like what you’re doing ...”

He was outdoing himself. This bloke deserved a medal for diplomacy. He should be made Secretary-General of the United Nations and be sent to the Middle East on a peace brokering mission. He’d have the whole thing sorted within five minutes, and the Israeli government and Hamas would all be sitting around a small village cafe table together sharing rounds of hommus dip, olive bread and date wine, slapping each other on the shoulders and reminiscing about how they could have been so silly, and doesn’t that camel over there look really sexy.

I could see a “... but ...” coming on a mile off.

“... but ...”, he said

Ahah. I knew it. Here we go. It was too good to be true.

“ ... you know, in here ...”

and he pointed over his shoulder at the window with the drawn curtains I had been standing in front of, right next to the sign that said Welcome Buskers.

I followed his gaze. The curtains were still drawn, and a quiet aura of complacent non-action emanated from it.

“ ... we’re trying to have a relaxation massage.”

Ah.

I looked at the window a bit closer. Sure enough, right there in the bottom right hand corner was a very small rectangular cardboard sign, decorated in pink, purple and lilac hues with elegant, delicate and curly letters of a font most recently used in eighteenth century Zanzibar for drawing up pirates’ treasure maps. They spelled

“Relaxation Massage.

Miss Butterfly Harmony, qualified massage therapist.

Crystal healing, tarot reading and chakra plumbing.

$150.00 per hour. Inquiries inside.”

I looked at the bloke. His eyebrows wiggled up and down, and he looked strained. Sweat dripped off his chin, and a small vein throbbed in his left temple. Maybe he was constipated.

I nodded understandingly. I could see his point. It wasn’t overly hard to imagine how playing bagpipes right outside of your window when you’re having a relaxation massage could be interpreted as slightly less than entirely conducive to having a relaxing time. It might be a bit hard to hear the ploinky-ploinky Eastern music, always a requisite at such sessions. I took a deep sniff, scouting for traces of Essential Oils, also an obligatory accessory for anything Relaxation. Sure enough, a whiff of something exotic drifted into my nostrils. I discerned a hint of burning plastic.

“All right mate, fair enough. Sorry ‘bout that. I’ll head off down that way a bit more.”

I pointed down the road a bit further. His shoulders sagged, and he nodded with relief, anxiety and all the signs of an impending nervous breakdown. The pipes often seem to have that effect on people. Buggered if I know why.

So I packed up the pipes and my hat, which still only had the two coins in it that I had put there to show people what they were supposed to do, and I moved down the street again to a different spot, not too far away. Upon careful reflection, I thought, maybe it was time to give the pipes a bit of a rest.

I put the pipes in their box, and instead got the fiddle out.

Let’s see how relaxing the sound of two cats fucking can be.