“If you see a dirty kid on the street, he’s going to entertain you.”

This wisdom comes from someone with insight: traveler and occasional street performer Matt Longwell. The young man was looking a little disheveled this week when interviewed downtown, but that’s the price of being homeless, he said. He wears a necklace adorned with small silverware – although it appears to be a fashion statement, he actually uses it to eat.

Traveling musician may not be the oldest profession, which is said to be prostitution, but it certainly goes back centuries. In Durango, traveling musicians have been stopping by for years. Whether they’re well-loved or not is another issue, one that businesses struggle with, particularly in the summer.

Downtown businesses haven’t been universally supportive of the activity. Most agree that the decision of whether to let them stay or tell them to move along is a case-by-case situation.

Many musicians aren’t even hoping to get discovered. They either want to make a few bucks to eat or simply share the gift of music.

Longwell was with two other travelers on the sidewalk outside of Magpies Newsstand Cafe, on Main Avenue, exchanging stories and watching passers-by.

His new friend “Teal” (who declined to give his full name) was holding a djembe, a small handheld drum, he had purchased a few months earlier.

Teal hitchhiked from Mississippi and made it to Durango as a result of the kindness of strangers. He subsists by “spanging” or asking people for spare change, with drum in hand. Teal also plays the flute but had it recently shipped back to his mother’s house to continue his travels.

“I don’t read music, I just play whatever I feel,” he said.

Unfortunately, he is unable to play the drum because of a wrist injury. His new friend Stacia Carola was thrilled to play the drum instead. She and her father have experience in street performing, she said.

Longwell’s talent – swinging a rope with a weight at the end – is a bit more dangerous, but he enjoys it and occasionally gets generous donors. He shows agility and balance with his rope javelin, otherwise known as a rope dart, which dates back about 1,400 years to China.

Longwell can’t swing his rope in the middle of a sidewalk because it could accidentally strike a nearby watcher. His rope has a heavy bottle of rocks tied at the end and duct-taped together. On Monday, he was making a chakra, or vortex shape, he said, with each swing in the back parking lot of Magpies. The rope eventually changes its trajectory to aim at the nearest person, he said.

“It’s used as a weapon and aims spiritually,” he said.

Violating city ordinances

Though these often-seen travelers may be entertaining tourists and other casual passers-by, their actions are not quite legal. There are city ordinances that don’t permit loitering.

Lt. Ray Shupe, spokesman with the Durango Police Department, said businesses tend to call the police to remove a musician or performer when he or she is interfering. Generally, a musician is violating a noise ordinance or is loitering. You aren’t allowed to block the sidewalk, he said.

Police aren’t walking around Main Avenue to monitor this behavior. Most police actions are complaint-generated, Shupe said.

The city also has been looking into the books to see what specific ordinances are being violated by someone playing for money on the street or sidewalk. Law enforcement checked into an ordinance that doesn’t permit operating without a business license, but it doesn’t quite fit the situation, he said. Other cities have specific laws about street musicians asking for donations.

Law enforcement officials are not in favor of musicians playing on sidewalks. If a business is allowing the performance, it is encouraged to have the performer play inside the establishment, Shupe said.

He estimated police respond to either noise or loitering complaints outside of a Main Avenue businesses about four or five times a week.

‘Doing what I love’

Isaac Hawkins is here by way of Nebraska, playing guitar and singing for spare change. He had his straw hat sitting in front of him Thursday and passers-by were occasionally tipping him.

He uses the money mostly for food but occasionally will need it for something else, like fixing a broken guitar string, he said.

“I’m just doing what I’m passionate about and doing what I love,” he said.

Hawkins has often encountered people who have been offended by his actions and appearance, he said. He feels those people tend to be middle-class citizens who are unhappy with the lives they have chosen and are projecting that onto him, he said.

He will continue his travels to spread the love, light and music, he said.

Some businesses don’t mind, others do.

Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District, said businesses are split about how they feel about street musicians playing outside their stores.

“It’s different from block to block, from store to store and from owner to owner,” he said.

Businesses that find the music disruptive won’t hesitate to call the police, he said, while others just let it happen. Walsworth has encountered several musicians playing outside his office (some more soothing to the ear than others), and he simply lets them be, he said.

Though it’s not recommended you quit your job anytime soon to play music for tips on Main Avenue, it appears people might be making money.

“Well, people keep doing it,” Walsworth said. “If your aim is to make some money, I would guess it works because people keep doing it.”

Robert Stapleton, owner of Southwest Sound, doesn’t particularly mind the more “colorful” folks that he sees outside his business.

Recently, he saw people twirling fire batons, and it was interesting, but it was scaring passers-by, he said. However, he is bothered by panhandling vagrants and homeless people who just sit outside businesses or on bus stops asking for money, he said.

Also, musicians or “buskers” who sit at trolley stops playing can pose a problem because bus riders need that space, he said.

“If they moved up and down the street to share the wealth, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Stapleton said. “I would only see them for an hour, and they would move on.”

vguthrie@durangoherald.com