Getting Street Singing Off the Streets

Instead of waiting for a bailout that may never come, people are taking destiny by the reigns to creatively make ends meet.  Some have taken to the kitchen to make Mortgage Apple cakes, while others have started singing. Not that original you say. Have you heard of an online street singer before? I thought so.

Like many Americans, Andrei Soroker, found himself in over his head with a mortgage on the lavender Victorian house he purchased for $500,000 in 2006. With 20/20 hindsight, the 28-year-old software engineer wishes he'd done things a little differently, but since you can't go back in time, he's taking action.

"I wasn't going to sit there and wait for something to happen," Soroker told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I needed help, but I don't like the idea of a bailout because it's getting money for free. What I needed was a second job, but I couldn't get that."

The industrious Russian immigrant embraced the idea of street singing, but gave it a modern twist by performing online — instead of the local corner. Equal to the idea's sharp originality, is its potential efficiency. Soroker can record one show that can then be seen by audiences of one, at different times of the day around the globe. And it doesn't hurt that the guitar-strumming crooner can also sing in English, Russian and French.

So far he's collected $1,000 from friends and family, but hopes that his idea will pick up pace among random strangers. What Soroker doesn't mention on the site, is that his son Boris was born three months prematurely. In addition to the unexpected medical bills, his girlfriend had to leave her job to care for the baby.

Check out the online street singer at pleasehelpmepayoffmyhouse.com and see if his services are worth paying for. In his own words, he's "hoping for a hand up, not a handout."

Photo courtesy of Natasha Valik.