Day 13

Sunday: Crowded, came away a little more money than the weekday, with no job anything helps. A Jewish college girl sat off to the side in the tunnel for a couple of hours listening to me. She then moved right in front of me. Think she had a crush on me. I can’t say I was attracted to her, but she was nice, enjoyed her company. She said she was doing her homework, but I doubt she got much done. Sitting there for that long, she got a small glimpse of what the tunnel’s like, the kids hopping around, me bullshitting my way through songs I don’t know the words to, the slow time. I joked around with her. She found it all quite interesting. She didn’t have any cash, but she wanted to write me a check. I said it wasn’t a big deal, but she insisted. She made it out for 15 bucks and in the For section she wrote “A wonderful afternoon.”

Later on I was playing and a photographer was taking pictures of me. I get a lot of this, probably three to four serious photographers a day. She goes to Fashion school, studying photojournalism. Her dad was with her, also taking pictures. I sang Freight Train for them. It just so happened that the father had been a freight train operator in upstate New York. He asked if I knew the Wabash Cannonball, an old country song about the adventures of a mythical train, Roy Acuff and Carter Family and many others have done this song. I knew part of it, but not the chords. In front of me the dad started singing the song acapella. I tried to follow what he was singing. Like nearly every country song, the chords were C,F,G and within ten seconds I had the song down. His daughter smiled and took pictures. It was pretty damn cool. Part of the playing in public thing that makes it fun is being able to spontaneously adapt to your crowd. It makes it more fun for the folks and yourself. Music has something magical in it that the spoken word doesn’t, and in those moments when you can get it right, it makes it all seem right.