Busking With the Best of Them

The subway is fucking annoying. People act like rats down there. When I come up the escalator the first thing I encounter after I pass through the turnstile is the little troll who sits in the newstand booth. The booth is just a little aluminum cage that says "Newsstand" on it. This homeless-looking guy with a pointy nose and long, stringy grey hair sits inside of it in the morning and sells newspapers. He's usually wearing a pair of those headphones that have an FM radio built in them. One morning as I was coming up the escalator the strap on my backpack came loose (huh-huh, I said "strap on"). I set it down on the aluminum cage and the instantly the troll was on me. "Can you move that? Please? PLEASE!" You remember that scene in Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman goes bonkers? That's what this was like. I didn't even see it coming.

Anyways, this was about busking. Here's a list of some of the regular buskers I see at the Montgomery Station:

1. Jesse Morris - He's a punk rock kid who sings like Johnny Cash. Just like Johnny Cash. It's great to see him down there at 8:00 on a Monday morning, totally decked out in punk regalia singing Ring of Fire to uptight paperpushers on their way to the office, but to me it begs an obvious question- why? If I were him I'd move to Vegas and make a hundred grand a year like all those shitty Michael Jackson impersonators instead of waking up early as fuck and getting my mohawk ready so I could go down into the subway and wait for the Financial District herd to throw coins at me.

2. Asshole and Mandolin Man - Not their real names. Mandolin Man is a sturdy-looking, small, bearded man who sits on a stool. Usually he just plays leads over the Asshole on guitar, almost always harmonic minor scales. It's boring but ignorable. I call the guitar player asshole because he plays guitar like Jack Johnson, everything has that annoyingly crisp, punchy backbeat. I fucking hate Jack Johnson more han I hate Nazis, because he IS a Nazi. He's a fucking World War's worth of lame, uninspired, mediocre music. And the Asshole down in Montgomery Station who plays sort of like him is folkier. It's brutal. I picture the music video to his hit single having a sing along with a bunch of people in mom jeans shaking heir butts in front of the camera. Like cheesy 90s shit that makes you feel awkward while you're watching it.

3. Mariachi Guy - He's a short Mexican guy who wears a cowboy hat and sings songs like "Cielito Lindo". His guitar is almost always out of tune. Needless to say, I give him the nod almost everytime I walk by.

I gave it a try a couple of times. It was fun and I made about $10 during the hour and a half I played, but who the fuck wants to be underground with the rats any more than you have to be?