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Sport 37: Winter 2009

Practise

Practise

We were walking down Courtenay Place on a Friday night. It was almost 3am. I saw a man perched on a stool, with an electric guitar in his lap and an amplifier and microphone set up beside him on the footpath. As far as I could tell, he wasn't getting much attention from anyone walking down the street—no one was stopping to listen, or stare, or throw him any coins. The man's version of 'Sweet Jane' was a bit bluesier and a lot slower than I was used to.

We were going to buy a kebab. While waiting for the traffic lights to change, I tried not to look at the man though I could hear him fine. The amplifier was growling hoarse and out of tune. The man started making this terrible growling sound in the back of his throat. I think he did it for a soulful effect.

I thought about this man practising his act. I pictured him practising in his garage, belting out such classics as 'You Really Got Me', 'Thunder Road', 'Hotel California'. He is able to convey the essence of these songs with a minimum of chords. People walking past his garage think to themselves, I know that song . . . what is it?

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But chords have nothing to do with it. This man desires to be as much a part of Friday night as booze and sex. In his garage, he practises how to be essential.

I looked at the way the man was sitting on his stool. The man was sitting like the stool wasn't even there. Sitting on a stool is generally awkward. Where do you put your feet? Do you sit upright or with a slouch? The man had practised this poise—he made it look easy and right. But was that enough, I thought?

I forgot about the man for a minute as I crossed the road and neared the kebab shop. I tried to gauge how hungry I really was. Or if I would get a meat kebab, even though my boyfriend was with me. That was when I heard a crash. I turned around and saw cords and bits of microphone and amplifier and drunken youth spread across the footpath. But the man hadn't moved from his stool. I could still hear the faint drumming of the strings of his guitar—low and tinny without the electric. And he was still singing as well, in a voice now barely audible above the street noise, but clearer and sweeter without its microphone, as if he were singing to himself in his own kitchen. Lying at his feet was the drunk kid, with his arms thrust ahead of him, and his head arching up in an awkward gasping manner, looking as if he were a child just learning how to swim.