Begging as Performance Art

The man who really can’t play the trumpet is Wynton Marsalis compared to the men who really can’t play the keyboard.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Nicollet Avenue Mall, where the creatively-challenged and the overly-confident come to ask for your change.

The trumpet player: what can I say about a man who riffs on Mary Had a Little Lamb, who repeats the opening phrase of Somewhere Over the Rainbow only to hold on to the last note as if being paid to do so?  Day in and day out – barring heavy rains or temperatures below freezing, he is there, with the skill level of a 7^th grader with promise, assaulting the ears of the 4:30 to 5:30 commuting crowd.

He’s a dapper fellow, and despite his affection for playing half a song and then trailing off, only to start -- again! -- with Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I wish him luck.

He’ll get no money from me, but still.  I wish him luck.

This new guy, though.  Surely he is some sort of social experiment.

I’ve been watching for cameras, but so far, it seems legit.

Or as legit as it’s going to get.

There are two guys actually.  Two men with access to a full-sized keyboard, the kind with the built-in speaker. 

“Anything helps,” the cardboard sign propped up next to the keyboard says.  “God bless.”

They’re working in shifts.

The interesting thing, of course, is that neither man plays piano.  Not even remotely.  And so while the afternoon rush makes its weary, underpaid way toward the buses, we are introduced to the club-fisted, dystonal poundings of these disturbed and disturbing performers.

It's enough to cause one to make up one's own word.

Look at them over there: literally playing with the palms of both hands.

Initially, I waited.  This was going to get rhythmic.  Any minute now, I would catch on to whatever it was that was going to make this noteworthy.  My ears strained to detect the hidden melody.  Surely one of them would suddenly break into “Salt Peanuts” or some other jazz great that would make me reach for my wallet.

One of them would start tap dancing.

One of them would provide the key that would unlock this cacophony.

Several weeks into their Minneapolis show, I still await clarification.