VENICE BEACH, Calif. — Acoustic guitar busker Shelly Martinez is questioning her artistic authenticity after receiving a whopping $3.60 for one day of busking, fellow musicians reported.
“Famous people always say that success changes a person, but I never understood that until I counted the cash in my ratty-ass gig bag after four hours of playing and singing,” said Martinez, whose ancient acoustic guitar is mostly wood filler at this point. “Do you know what this means? I can order a McDouble for $3.20 and add shredded lettuce for 29 cents, the ‘broke person’s Big Mac.’ But now I’m afraid money is clouding my judgment. I added more covers of Sublime into my setlist because that seems to get me the most coinage. I’m really going to have to do some soul-searching to see if I’ve become another corporate stooge.”
Fans of Shelly’s creative fingerstyle guitar renditions are doubting her ability to stay true to the music after this financial windfall.
“She’s a sellout, plain and simple. I will plug my ears with my fingers whenever I walk by her on the boardwalk,” stated Max Dorren, former contributor to Maximumrocknroll. “Make no mistake about it– if you accept money in any form to create or perform music, you are a piece of shit. Shelly is dead to me. She is exploiting an art form for financial gain. When you think about it, she’s basically committing genocide.”
Music industry insiders are secretly competing to sign Martinez in the hopes of creating the next Jewel.
“I know talent when I see it, and my pupils had big-ass dollar signs in them when I strolled past Shelly Martinez,” said VP of Talent at RCA Records Thomas Huber. “She’s going to be huge. I’ll sign her to a mammoth 8-album, $200 record deal that she can’t possibly get out of legally. Of course, recording budgets will come out of that, so she’ll be in debt to RCA until 2077. But I’ll make sure she writes music fitting for Volkswagen commercial royalties, so it’ll all be fine. Or not. I don’t care.”
At press time, Martinez was utterly devastated when she realized she forgot to account for sales tax when attempting to buy her pseudo-Big Mac.