The whole idea of yellowman began 6 years ago! My wife, kids and I were on a lil inner city trip. We went downtown to act like tourists for the day. We dressed the parts carried our cameras and maps. We asked people for directions and everything! Well during that day we ran across several street performers. One in particular was a silver man. He was moving with very slow robotic motions. My son, who was 7 or 8 at the time, was in awe over this guy. So I attempted to give him a buck for the silver mans bucket. Stating to him that he was out here to make money! Well my son wanted nothing to do with going up to him. He thought he was really kewl, but he wasnt moving any closer to him!



Seeing how he wouldnt go up to him, I did it for him! I went to drop the buck into the Silvermans bucket. ! (I guess this was the moment that yellowman was born!) As I walked up to the bucket, I could see it was full. He had it loaded with singles, fives, tens, and twenties! I was amazed at just how much money this guy was making! I mean he had a five gallon bucket full of lute! It was right then that I thought to myself saying, (PFFFFT you could freaking do that!)



(AND SO IT WAS ON THAT DAY, THAT THE YELLOWMAN WAS BORN)


At the time I was working for Xerox business services. I was an account manager and had been with them for 13 long years.



Needless to say my mind was going a mile a minute. I got home, jumped online to find out what I would have to do in order to be a street performer on the streets of Chicago. In getting all that together, I also started thinking about what I would do out there. I had no real special talents, no real musical talents to speak of either. It took me a few days, but came up with (YELLOWMAN). I figured if I had no real talent to perform, then thats just what I would do when I went out there! NOTHING!




Within a wk of seeing the Silverman, I hit a few thrift stores, gathered a bunch of white clothes to dye yellow. (got all the permits and such)! Went to my local makeup/costume store, bought a bunch of yellow makeup. Painted a bucket and a chair yellow, and that was it.




Chicagos very own yellowman was about to hit the streets for the first time. I headed downtown to the opening of the taste of Chicago. I found a rather busy street corner, opened up my chair, set up my bucket and had a seat. Thats all I did. I didnt move for over 4 hours. I kept still as stone! Never budging an inch the whole time. Tourists and festival goers alike took picture after picture with me. All of them dropping tips for the pix into my yellow bucket! Sound kinda boring? Well it really wasnt. Was one of the best and most fun days ever. The people were so kicked up about this guy all yellow, sitting and doing nothing. I finished up that first day as a yellowman. Went home and counted all my cash! Wow was I shocked at the amount of money my bucket had taken in/ while that was a large part of it; the people were fabulous as well. Never in my life had I had such a great day working!




So what did I do? I went right back out the very next day. This time I was out there for over 9 hours. It was the same as the day before. A freakingly fantastic day! But now we had a problem. Monday was on the way. What was I going to do? Go back to work for Xerox or head back out to the streets. I opted for the streets. I called in sick for the whole wk and half of the next wk.
I worked the streets for the whole taste of Chicago. By the end of that festival I was really into the whole yellowman thing. I continued back at my regular job, but yellowman kept poking thru my mind all wk long. Where and when would he show up again? How would I fit my new alter ago into my daily life? Could this be something that I could do all the time? What would my friends, family and coworkers think of this new alter ego type part of me?




I started being the yellowman on the wkends. I hit every festival the city had. I worked the neighborhood festivals as well as the larger festivals the city held. I continued doing this for the whole summer. It truly was one of if not the best summers of my entire life.




As anyone in Chicago knows, summers here dont last all to long. So yellowman had to go away and come back again on a warmer spring day next year. This left me with the winter to think about how and what yellowman would do! Would he come back in the spring, or was this just a really kewl summer job I had for one year. Would I continue being a colored man, or would I just go back to making the copies. Well I guess we know what I chose..




Even though I had gone back to my other job I wanted to do more with YELLOWMAN during the winter. To be honest I had no idea what a street performer could do outside during a Chicago winter, so a new idea was needed to keep ol yellow busy all winter long!




again I went back to the trusty internet to look up a few things. In doing so I found out that basically anyone could become an ordained minister! So what did I do? I went and got myself ordained and became a wedding minister! Sound funny? Well it is! But funny as it may sound, its a legal deal! I started advertising here and there, and before I knew it I had wed almost 20 couples during that first winter.




I was so busy doing weddings and working the full time job with Xerox that I never really got YELLOWMAN ready for spring time on the streets. The warmer weather was coming fast and I needed to figure out what I was going to do. Something had to go, I had to drop one of my jobs! So it was time to say see ya to mid mgmt and the corp world. For good I had hoped!




with a lot more free time I started with a fresh season on my hands. Got all the new gear together and hit the streets and became chicagos very own YELLOWMAN on a full time basis. I had my regular spot outside virgin records on the mag mile. Slowly but surly like anything else that one does for money, it became a job. One just like everyone else has to go to if they wish to make money. If I didnt work I didnt get paid! So I was looking for more to do with YELLOWMAN. But what?




I thought if I could get people to hire a yellow minister and I could get people to give me money for just being yellow and sitting still, maybe I could get them to give me money doing other things that I knew how to do. With that said Chicago got its first yellow bartender, doorman & bouncer. With all that YELLOWMAN was doing and being hired for. It was only natural that I started YELLOWMAN PROMOTIONS. This allowed me to expand even further into the world of yellow.




Since then yellowman has become some sort of local icon, he has been on just about all of the news stations here in Chicago, been in just about all of the newspapers in and around Chicago, and has been pictured with hundreds if not thousands of tourists, and celebrities alike.