Halloween is Tomorrow, But The Witches Are Already Here
A guy helped me bring my busking gear up the stairs at the subway station.
Guy: “Oh, you’re the Saw Lady!”
Saw Lady: “That’s right. I’m on my way to 14th street where I’ll be playing dressed as a witch. Halloween is tomorrow, but the witches are already here 🙂 ”
Guy: “What?! It’s Halloween already?”
Saw Lady: “It’s the last day of October tomorrow. Snuck up on you?”
Guy: “I must have been sleeping too much.”
At the Lexington & 59th street station I saw a lady selling churos on the platform. I haven’t seen these sale’s people in the subway in a long time. Is this a sign winter is here?
Delphin Tardio was at the Music Under New York spot playing electric guitar. He misses his time in Paris and wants to go back. He told me getting a permit to play on the streets in Paris is very easy – no audition, and they don’t mind if you are not a French citizen. When I played in the streets and subways of Paris it didn’t even occur to me to get a license…
A lady I have seen many times before said to me: “I don’t see you any more. Have you been here?”
Saw Lady: “Yes”
Lady: “Oh, that’s right, I’ve been passing by here on Tuesdays now”.
Wow – she knows my busking schedule! She knows I don’t busk on Tuesdays!
An oriental lady gave me a booklet titled “The Winning Life – an introduction to Buddhist practice”. She invited me to the Buddhist temple which is up stairs at Union Square and asked if I want fruit. I told her that I have actually played at that temple many years ago (the lawyer who represented me at the trial after I got a ticket claiming the saw’s teeth are a weapon was a member of that temple and she asked me to play there for one of their services). The Oriental lady was impressed. She said I have the face of a person who makes a lot of people happy…
A cop stood by the bench. He stayed there for a long time. I saw him talking to a guy sitting on the bench but he didn’t give the guy a ticket nor did he make him leave. The cop stood with his back to me, so obviously he wasn’t concerned with me. Still, I felt very conscious.
As I played ‘Over the Rainbow’ (from the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’) I wondered if anybody appreciated the irony of a witch playing this song.
A steel drummer started playing on the platform below, his sound competing with mine.
A Paramedics team arrived. They put the guy sitting on the bench in a wheel chair and wheeled him away. The policeman left with them.
The homeless guy I often see at Times Square came to say ‘hi’.
Saw Lady: “You lost weight!”
Homeless guy: “Yes, I lost 150 pounds” he said as he opened his coat to show me his stomach. “I used to be 365 pounds. I was a house” he said.
Somebody put a coin from Bermuda in my bucket.
The Chinese dulcimer player who never says ‘hi’ went from the up to the down town elevator, obviously looking for a spot to play.
A lady put a bill in my box and said: “It’s a two dollar bill”. Those are rare.
A guy told me that at the NY Sports Club they were playing a documentary about me on their TVs. “You were talking about how you asked a guy to teach you to play the musical saw and he said no, you gotta do it yourself” he said. It must have been the MSG TV show they were showing.
Michael Schulman, the electric violinist, showed up for his permitted time at the spot. As I changed out of my witch costume he changed into his black spandex. Michael has a lot of electronic gear to set up, so by the time I left he hasn’t started playing yet.
