Rant of a figuratively starving musician

Recently THE quartet wanted to busk before we went back to school but we realised that we have to apply for things called endorsement
letters from NAC which involves forms and auditions. And the website
said something along the lines of 'Now you don't require licenses just
endorsement letters.' (What's the difference right?!) It isn't a
surprise that you don't get many people busking in town - either you
get chased away by the really fierce Malay guitarist along the
Wheelock Place underpass, get drowned out by the blind keyboardist,
and when you really get an endorsement letter to busk for charity,
there'll be some person who complains of noise pollution (in
Orchard?!) and sends two policemen along to check on us (it
happened.).

I think the Straits Times did a write up on busking recently, but I
think we cannot deny the fact that busking seems to be the territory
of the disabled with only a few exceptions. If the government, or
rather, NAC, really wants to 'help enliven the streets of Singapore
and to add colour to city life', the last thing you want to do is
regulate spontaneous urges to make music right? I suppose the
rationale for the audition is to ensure 'quality not quantity' but
that hasn't stopped the Californian amputee from striking a Chinese
gong with his feet at ten second intervals for a whole day. And what
about the dialect speaking old erhu player who probably can't read
English, much less fill up the application for the endorsement letter
anyway?

No wonder the saying 'laws are meant to be broken'. Not in a bad,
dissident-ish way, but when a simple thing like busking requires
endorsement which demands that the person in question has a certain
level of literacy in English, and whose music/act appeals to the
person auditioning him/her, it seems, ironically, rather elitist.
Interestingly enough, it seems to contradict one of the objectives of
the busking scheme, namely, to 'make the arts more accessible to the
public'. Is the general population not discerning enough to decide if
the music is worth parting with their money for? We're not even
delving into the taboo realm of forum theatre or inflammatory
political speeches - busking is the harmless territory of more often
than not physically incapacitated people seeking to get by in any way
they can.

I have no idea why I'm ranting on behalf of buskers, present or
would-bes, but I just don't believe the extent to which the government wants to exercise its control. Grrr. Of course, the plight of buskers can't compare to let's say the Andrew and Grace Home who have to raise close to $750 000 per year for their programmes (I think-- to the extent of my memory of what Andrew said the last time my social work group went there to visit). However I think the rights of buskers to be endorsement-letter free is still worth fighting for! (Though according to Charles Dickens the real pugilists are government officials 'always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus'...)

Busking is a great, but still largely unused platform for local
musicians who want to showcase their stuff and/or earn enough money for the group to survive without having to eat kaya toast everyday (which isn't a bad idea at all.)

This isn't a very substantial argument, more like a huge grouse
against the system. No actually, I'm just giving my disused fingers
and brain a practical and harmless dose of overwork before I start
school in 3 days time