<p>Heard something very cool at that cultural mecca, the Foggy Bottom Metro this morning.
Solid body electric bass and amped violin playing classical thing I didn’t have time to stop and recognize…just kept moving. I linger more on the way home from work - just the way I roll.</p>
<p>One old lady at an SF subway stop is so bad people pay her NOT to play! Actually, I think there are several non-musicians in SF who do this to supplement their GA.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my daughter is not interested in music as a career.</p>
<p>She wants to be a poet."</p>
<p>Bless her! The world needs more poets!</p>
<p>Regulating them doesn’t mean they report their income. I am very proud of the fact that my son reported all of his income last year, although it was a difficult thing for him to do. He really vacillated for a long time because his overall income is pretty low, but he felt like it was the right thing to do and managed to come up with the money he owed. It was hard to listen to him go through his struggle and then hear about the multi-million dollar corps that end up paying nothing. Sigh…</p>
<p>We got a full dose of them when we visited Montreal and Toronto several years ago. Montreal won for quantity and quality, hands down. Every Metro stop had a musician.</p>
<p>My favorite was a guy in formal tails and a top hat at the waterfront with his keyboard playing classical music. We passed an opera singer near the hotel. A reggae musician seranaded my daughter when we got off at one Metro stop, but my husband gave him the stink eye.</p>
<p>Some drugged up Country and Western group greeted us at another stop. That was interesting.</p>
<p>My favorite was in Toronto. We just got off the boat from the Toronto Islands and a bum was playing a harmonica. Just zipping it along his lips, “weeee wroooo weee wroooo”, along with the refrain, “Give me money, give me money!”. I lost any sense of decorum and laughed uncontrollably - lol. My husband just took my arm and led me away. I laughed for about 5 more minutes!! Heh after all these years, I still laugh. :)</p>
<p>There used to be a guy at a subway stop I went through who played a trumpet with no mouthpiece. I really did want to pay him not to play.</p>
<p>There was a guy who played saxophone terribly on the corner where my former firm’s former building was. People tried to avoid offices on that corner because it was so wearing to hear him all the time, and occasionally people would hire him to go play elsewhere.</p>
<p>For every slumming Joshua Bell, or up-and-coming Crystal Bowersox or Mary Lou Lord, there are lots of people whose chutzpah exceeds their ability.</p>
<p>^^^ Indeed JHS. People usually vote with their pocketbooks as they say. If something sucks you won’t see a lot of people “donating.”</p>