Friday, September 7, 2007

Samba > Broken-Down-Car Stories

The professional beggars of Downtown Jacksonville may do well to learn a thing or two from these Brazilian Samba performers. Many of these train-riders gave liberally after the performance. But then again, Vietnam-injury-stories, broken-down-car stories, and Bus-fare-stories can be entertaining. My favorite are the car stories. I grade them on eye-contact and on finding a balance between sounding genuine but not memorized. This balance is achieved by choosing the right problem with the car (the safest choice being an empty tank), the claimed distance between subject and car (not too far but far enough to be an inconvienence for the potential giver to walk to), the correct number of needy children waiting for subject to return home with food, the amount of despair in the voice tone, etc.