Lady Related to Royal Family of Chile

When I got to the Music Under New York spot at the Times Square subway station this morning, I found Lenny, a percussionist who goes by the name ‘Drum Zone’, already packed up and ready to hand the spot over to me. He had been playing there since 8am. he asked me if I got away this summer. I told him about my tour with the opera production and how we played at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Lenny told me he has been thinking about going to Philadelphia, to busk in the parks.

While playing I always look around me. Today for the first time I noticed a uniformed guard with a gun standing in the Wachovia ATM area directly opposite the MUNY spot. At 12:35 the guard left and did not return as long as I was there.

The nice guy who has a great handshake stopped to talk with me. Every time after he shakes my hand I feel a surge of good energy which takes my aches and pains away and gives me a boost of energy. This guy has healing hands. I can’t really understand what he says much of the time. He said something about how he had m&ms in his pockets, and he could hear me playing from afar.

The guy who sings on the trains and walks with a cane walked by with his partner. He said “hi Natasha”, which amazed me. Most of us subway buskers know each other by our descriptives, like, I’m the ‘Saw Lady’, Steven Clark is ‘Michael Jackson’, Alex is ‘little Michael Jackson’, etc. A lot of us don’t know people’s names even though we know the people for many years. That’s why I was amazed that the singer with the cane knows my name. It didn’t matter that he said it wrong, calling me ‘Natasha’ instead of Natalia.

I broke a lot of strings on my bow today – 4 strings! I don’t know why… Maybe it has to do with the weather getting colder…

An older lady (born in 1931) from Chile was extremely talkative… she told me that her father was in the construction business in Chile. He had a guy working for him, a carpenter, who used to play the ‘serrucho’ (which means ‘saw’ in spanish). This was at about 1935 to 1937.
Her father put electricity and sidewalks in a remote Indian town. She said she is related to the Royal Family of Chile… and now teaches International dance. She told me her apartment in Manhattan was burglared and the thieves totally emptied it. She felt insecure to stay in that apartement since, so she now resides at a women’s shelter, which is very nice and safe.
She has land in Chile and she wants to invite me to come there and play.

Two orthodox Jewish teen-agers stood by to listen. So, I played “Jerusalem of Gold”, waiting to see if they would recognize it, which they did. One of them asked me if it was me on the channel 10 program in Israel, and I told him it was. They got a kick out of that.

A guy who lives at the Chelsea Hotel bought my CD. He told me he is 77 years old. Isn’t it interesting how often people want to tell me how old they are… He was an industrial chemist and he published an article about chemical in the ‘New York Sun’ newspaper. He told me he has a rare blood disease, but waved it off as if it was not important. He asked if I play the theremin. he told me Mr. Themien, the inventor of the theremin, was sent to NY by Stalin. He said Thermien hung out with leftist folks in NYC. When Stalin told him to return to Russia he refused. After that, he was kidnapped and brought back to Russia by force.

At 3pm Brian Letiecq from the duo ‘Pretty Good’ showed up with his permit. He plays guitar and sings. He is also a high school teacher, teaching English and music. He told me his duo is looking to record a CD. He wasted a lot of money on a bad recording studio.
Brian started to play as a soloist, telling me his partner is on his way to the spot. He said he is ‘Good’ and his partner is ‘Pretty’ 🙂 Brian played a song titled ‘I Feel Good’ which I thought was very fitting 🙂