Benjamin Bandito

by Bencasso Barnesquiat

Title

Benjamin Bandito

Artist

Bencasso Barnesquiat

Medium

Mixed Media - Photograph

Description

I busk for most of my living. I've busked for most of my life. I have never encountered a man who has physically tried to move me away from a store that I was performing beautiful classical music for public benefit when people were watching me play. I was getting donations too. Generous donations. It all started in 2018. I was teaching at my ex's place because I was holed up at a house for men who were having trouble with the law. I had threatened a man who had ripped me off. He had duped me into doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Swindlefish "Unlucky" album. I told him I didn't want to hassle my friends for money. I had saved 10 grand playing in the BART stations, and I could pay for the album without the embarrassing task of hassling my
Facebook friends for their hard earned money. It was a worse thing than being on welfare for your psyche. I was already diagnosed, and considered by medical professionals to be "Gravely Disabled". I never felt like I was, but every time I'd see the Dr.s notes on my medical reciepts, it would be written in my description. "Gravely Disabled". Well, When it came around to finishing the "Unlucky" record, Tommy Babbitt got it in his head that he was going to be a superstar producer who "Discovered" Grace Frazer. She was my vocal and violin student who liked my original songs, and sang them like a pro. Her father took me aside one day after her brother's and her's lessons, and offered 1000 dollars to the kickstarter fund if I'd let her sing on "Unlucky". Well, Tommy got a hard on for a 13 year old girl, and wanted to spend several thousand that I had begged from my Facebook friends, and the 3000 we were short from making the mandatory 10 grand to collect the funds, I put the money I'd made busking from 6 am to 10 am every morning at 16th street BART station. When I refused to let him take advantage of a 13 year old girl, and a disabled 40 year old has been rock star, I even gave him an out. "How much would it take to get you to stop working on this project?" I asked him. He replied "A million fucking dollars!" I kept cool. I always do, but I knew then what he had told me and Justing in the recording room "Speed isn't bad for you." he said while we were mixing "Unlucky". Justin and I looked at each other in the Trakworx mixing room, and gave blank faces of "Oh my god, that is why he's such a controlling, egotistical freak. He's on Meth." It all became clear. So I refused to make the video, or engage Grace and the Frazers with his freaky presence any more than I had to. So Tommy ghosted me, rerouted half he merch and shirts and cd's to his place. He also kept all of kickstarter money I had begged my friends for, like 10,000 dollars, and I never heard from him again. I was destitute, at the end of ropes, and almost homeless, when I started trying to contact Tommy. I wanted to get the 10,000 dollar kickstarter award from him, and hoped he out the goodness of his liberal heart, would at least give me enough to get a UHaul storage and truck to move. For two months he didn't reply to my cordial correspondence. I was starting to get unstable, the Schizoaffective Disorder with bipolar tendencies had started to rear its ugly head again. I hadn't had an episode since I had jumped in front of the BART train because I believed Juan Pablo was a Mexican Cartel dealer, and if I testified against him, he would have all my friends and girlfriend killed. So that is why I jumped. I didn't want the event of the previous night to create a feed back loop that involved dirty cops, Mexican cartels, and my band mates, Karen, and Josh, my brother. Back to Tommy. When he refused to reply, I started to go into an alternate reality due to the stress of knowing once again I was going to be homeless, and no one was going to help me. I left him a few angry phone calls before I sent an email saying I was going to feed his balls to the rats that lived outside his apartment if he didn't reply. He took that to the police, an empty threat stated in an altered state, and got me charged with a felony, criminal threats. The police called me, and asked me to. turn myself in. I did. I always do what people tell me to do. My mother taught me that I needed to respect the police. Oh well, that's why I had to teach violin lessons at my ex girlfriend's house and live four to room in a halfway house with twenty people who were just released from prison, and do some time, and misdemeanor behavioral court for 2 years to get my felony expunged. Tommy's a bastard, who I trusted, took to the symphony, taught how to play violin for 3 years. When another of my students saw me, she told me Tommy had gone to Brazil with her and her boyfriend Jake. While there, he refused to wear clothing in a house full of vacationing soccer fans, and drink himself into a stupor every day. There's more too. Take some time to call a publisher and tell them a Schizoaffective writer who paints, plays violin, viola, guitar and sings, who graduated form the San Francisco Conservatory with two degrees, a Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential, who taught Kindergarten for two years, and has played and recorded with Jason Newsted of Metallica, Mr. Bungle DJ Disk, Isaac Stern, Fishbone, Graeme Jennings, Carla Kihlstedt, Chris Latham, Les Claypool, and whose band Deadweight is on Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label, and Nippon Columbia, jammed with PFunk and George Clinton, and recorded for The Coups and Dead Prez, among other accomplishments needs a book deal.

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February 14th, 2022

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