Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Grad Student Discos for Dollars

Grad Student Discos for Dollars – script

HOST INTRO: College students are notoriously low on cash and competition for jobs can be fierce. Hillary Frank tells us how one Animation student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago invented a job for himself.

If you walk by the Watertower on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on a Saturday afternoon, you can be sure to hear this [music: "superfreak"], this [music: "funkytown"], and a whole lot of this [woman laughing]. What’s all the fuss about? A grad student. And what’s he doing?

tape – [:08] (woman in crowd) he’s dancing his little tail off for money...and he’s really selling it too! (laughs)

tape – [:29] my name is jason hopkins...i disco for dollars on weekends...which means i get an old boombox, put on some vintage clothing, and get down with the boogie...[music in clear: "play that funky music white boy"]...i've put together sort of a slipshod sign that says grad student discos for dollars and a little basket there for tentative donations

Donations...which he gets...often.

tape – [:04] (woman in crowd) i paid him already...he earned it...he's good!...he actually can move

tape – [:10] there's kinda the arm roll and the hitchhiker, the sprinkler, the peewee herman into the parachute

But it's more than dancing technique that lands money in Jason's basket. It's the eye contact he makes with the crowd, the way he points at bystanders as if they're in on the joke with him...and the perpetually ecstatic look on his face. But it's not like he always knew how to dance.

tape – [:28] i was a wallflower and terrified of all types of dancing and well i was elected student body president in high school and i couldn't dance and i had to put on a skit for the upcoming 70s dance – so i rented sat night fever and memorized john travolta's routine and my life has changed ever since- i had no idea it would make me the amount of cash that it has

How much cash? Well, on a bad day, Jason goes home with between twenty-five and fifty dollars an hour. On a good day, it's around 100. The whole thing started as a joke a couple years ago, when Jason wanted some extra money to go out for dinner. He earned sixty bucks...way more than he needed...so he decided to get a street performer's license and keep up the act. Jason makes $10,000 a year dancing - more than all his other freelancing gigs put together. And, it's saved him from working in an office or waiting tables...which gives him more time to pursue his real love: animation.

tape – [:32] there's nothing glamorous about this cash- it goes to pay my rent & buy groceries- but it's been nice- when i 1st started making the money i thought about all the things i could buy- when i came to chicago i'd never seen the fine stores we have here- it's kinda cool and i thought to myself what if i go out and buy a cutting edge designer shirt – i think i went out for an hour and made $120 and went to nordstroms and paid them in ones [post music: "love machine"]

Women who grew up dancing in the 70s are Jason's best customers. But all kinds of people give him money. And each time he goes out, he gets some special requests. Dates, invitations to bachelorette parties and talk shows. And then there was the man who approached Jason and told him that his wife had just given birth.

tape – [:38] he promptly handed me $40 and said come meet us up at such and such location in half hour and i'll pay you $150 to dance in the hospital for my wife – so i went up to the hospital and with boombox and polyester shirt busted out the routine and they got it on videotape and we welcomed in that new baby boy and i'm sure he'll look back on this in extreme and utter horror

Or, he might be inspired, like these young women...

tape – [:07] we're gonna be going to grad school so we feel for him...it's a great idea...i wish i'd thought of it

Jason's advice?

tape – [:24] well the statement that money grows on the sidewalks is a true one and if you find some way of entertaining ppl- if you share your talents with people i think they'll be appreciative- i'd say to anyone pick up a street performer's permit at city hall and let it fly [post music: "turning me around"]

In Chicago, I'm Hillary Frank for Sound Money.