Woman to me on 1st car of the day as she handed me a dollar: “Oh, please stay & sing another would you?” #SubwayLove 

Conductor today on leaning out of his window as I hopped off the “N” train: “Hey, when do I get to hear a tune?” 

Tonight I hit the platforms as I needed to mix things up musically from my train car routine which involves basically one song, plus it was crazy beautiful warm! So I get onto the Uptown A,C,E & a girl sitting on the bench shouted; “Sing that song you sing on the trains! I heard you on the cars and you got a standing ovation. Sing that song please?!” So much for mixing things up  🙂

I have yet to find anything in this city that compares to the gift of busking the NYC Subways. The ability to give and receive love & smiles hour after hour in an environment usually filled with the exact opposite is rare. I hold such love for the privilege & freedom all of us performing down there hold onto literally at this point, by our fingertips. As most of humanity is silently allowing their freedoms to be stripped from them, one by one – buskers continue to struggle daily against obstacles most of humanity has yet to experience, just to have a voice. That struggle, is & has always been inherent in our work. As long as we are down there & continuing to fight for our first amendment, our right to make art, to entertain & spread happiness, I am proud & blessed to be part of this community of  creative, courageous  gypsies. <3

Busker guy in wheelchair with well worn ax on the A,C,E: “You on the cars tonight?”
Me:”Yeah I am. It’s oddly slow though. Not sure why”
Busker guy: ” Well, we have the slow days so we’ll be sure to appreciate the good ones”
‪#‎BuskerWisdom‬

I know it doesn’t appear so always from the surface – but the grass truly is greener under NYC 🙂

Towards the end of my run on a sparsely populated “R” train tonight, a little girl peeped her head over the seat as I began to sing & inch by inch, body part by body part, made her way out to the middle of the train car where she; utilizing the space, the poles & the seats, created the most focused & inspired, improv dance creation I’ve seen in a long time.

I adore these kids

Today on trains there was the cutest, most animated toddler who kept me in stitches for my entire tune with his facial expressions & uber expressive hand & body gyrations. Only thing is every time I stopped singing his face got all scrunchy & he burst into tears. I decided to just keep on strumming & humming ’till the very last second when I had to hop off @ 42nd. God help his mom after that

Bye bye to another pair of busking boots … together we’ve had the most awesome collection of adventures 🙂

Tonight on one of my last runs on the “R” train there was a young couple sitting next to each other. The guy had his arm on the girl’s lap wearing a worried, helpless look on his face. The girl, she had a cap on her head & her head bowed and so I could only catch a glimpse of her face now & again. When I did it was obviously she had been crying a lot & was still in the throws of being very upset, in that place we’ve all been in where it feels there’s absolutely no way out.

I could tell the young man next to her wanted nothing more than for his girlfriend to be happy & smile again.  He appeared so powerless.Then I started to sing & she looked up for a second, surprised, & suddenly she caught herself not being able to help herself from grinning a huge grin. Just as soon as the grin overtook her face she remembered she was supposed to be sad and bowed her head once again, hiding beneath her cap. Despite the tears, her smile, that grin that appeared to have a mind of it’s own, kept popping out uncontrollably in response to the music. And her increasingly unsuccessful attempts at stifling it were akin to watching a cat dance with a ball of yarn, never quite being able to tame it.

By the end of the 2 minutes that it took for me to finish my tune, her smile had won. She had, in those 120 seconds, at least temporarily, lost track of why she’d been crying, why she’d been hiding. She was trying to remember but both her boyfriend & I watched as she struggled to recall the depth of the pain & rather failed. Right as I headed out the door to the next car I leaned down & whispered: “It’s going to be ok. Trust me.” She smiled.

~ It’s a busking thing ~