Aching Soul

At the Music Under New York busking spot at the 34th street subway station an Andean flute player was playing. He has been there since 10am. He only plays in the subway on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The rest of the days he sells Ecuadorian stuff, like bracelets, sweaters, etc., at street fairs. He has…

Read More

Snakes Don’t Like Vibrations

There were a lot of people waiting for the Staten Island ferry on the Manhattan side. A policeman with a dog checked out my busking gear. “Are you playing at this side today?” the cop asked me. “No”, I answered, “on the other side”. I was happy that he recognized me. I boarded the boat…

Read More

A Little Mermaid

Walking towards my busking spot at Times Square, I ran into Erubay, an Andean busker who told me that there will be a memorial concert at the Grand Central Station for Arturo, the Andean busker who died recently. I was on my way to the Music Under New York spot by the mosaics, while Erubay…

Read More

A Different Bag Every Day

On my way up the subway station’s stairs two guys offered to help me bring my busking gear up. It turned out that they were the two guys I saw at the 14th street subway station last Friday – Guillermo and Martin, who were the ones sitting on a bench and fixing a string on…

Read More

The Weirdest Thing Put in My Donations Box

There was nobody playing at the usual busking spots at the Times Square subway station when I got there. As I was setting up to play by the Mosaics, a guy named Charlie told me that he saw me on TV, and he asked if I play at cafes. His friend is opening a cafe…

Read More

Working on Co-existing

Salieu Suso, the African kora player, was playing at the Music Under New York spot at the Times Square subway station when I got there. Salieu told me that a lady from Arts for Transit was there this morning. She told him to point his amp away from the record store. Salieu told me that…

Read More