SoylentNews

For a while now there's been a Truly Righteous Donut Shop just one block from my home. "Righteous" in that they serve espresso drinks and ice cream as well, and have free WiFi.

But I'm their _only_ regular.

I'd go every morning but I've been busted because I've had no clients for several months. But whenever I sing on the street I make a point of spending some of my tips there, usually a medium coffee but sometimes a scoop of ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it - try that yourself, it's Truly Righteous as well.

They've had quite a lot of trouble finding enough employees. Their location behind a large bus shelter makes them difficult to see from the street, and their sign does not light up at night. They sadly told me they'd be closing soon. Their saving grace is that their other location sells donuts like hotcakes.

I'm friends with most of the people who work there. Most weekends I'll take the bus to that other location, when Spring comes I'll ride my bike.

One Monday I clued in to that I have a clear path to earning more money by singing on the street than by contract programming. That's not at all because I'm such a bad coder but because I've gotten to be a Truly Righteous singer - my best song is Somewhere Over The Rainbow followed closely by The Start Spangled Banner.

All but a very few of the clients I've ever signed have taken at least a month to close, quite commonly three months. I have not the first clue as to how to estimate software cost and time, so throughout this whole time I've commonly underbid jobs.

What's the very most Righteous about busking is that I get paid on the spot.

The gating factors to my singing full-time are that a congenital deformity in my hips leads it to being painful to stand in one place for an extended period of time, however I'm hopeful that having a Podiatrist make me a custom pair of Shoe Orthotics would fix that - my insurance will cover it if I'm referred by my Primary Care Physician.

Also an obstacle is my small set list. I don't sing it repeatedly at any one venue so as to avoid driving my neighbors bananas while they're at their places of employment in Downtown Portland. I have a really, really hard time with memorizing new lyrics; the only way I can do so is to read from printed lyrics that I hold in my hand as I sing. Strangely no one objects to this aside from one Useless Bint who pointed out that if I can afford an iPad to read lyrics from, then surely I don't really need my tips.

Strangely she would not have objected to my $1,500 Fatar MIDI Controller - no sound, I use an Emu sound module for that - nor my $250 Busker's Roland Busker's Amp, so-called because it can run off batteries.

But I don't want to catch crap like that so always I read from hardcopies. But that leads to my plan to license in-copyright song lyrics and sheet music - ORLY? RLY! - then sell songbooks as I sing.

Finally, there remain some serious problems with my voice, most serious that that singing high notes often make me cough uncontrollably. But I've had enough professional Voice Lessons that I know how to fix that problem all on my own:

Sing Vocal Exercises accompanied by my keyboard, mostly successively higher scales - I can play all twelve Western music Major Scales as well as all three variations of the Minor Scales with both hands in parallel motion, up and down.

Mick Jagger is well into his eighties, even _he_ still singles scales every single day. I'll go do so right now.