The Sounds of the Underground Page #4

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I mean, you know, stuff that

would make you

just...

(Saxophone music)

(Crowd chatter)

(Distant crowd noises)

So you can say people are like

songs to me now. I've been coming

up here for forty years.

Forty years.

You know. So, when I see a face,

it just automatically brings back a song.

(Saxophone music)

Sometimes, I can sit here for

maybe,

ten minutes and the first ten minutes

of playing, somebody will throw a ten

or even a twenty dollar bill.

And, other times, I can sit

here for another

hour and break my back and I

won't

get maybe some change. So, a

lot of it is luck.

Beautiful to listen to a violin

or

a Spanish guitar or somebody

doing

breakdancing like it was when I

first came to New York.

It's a world. It's like a city.

It's a city. It's not like a

city. It's a city underneath.

Vibrant, vital, moving,

giving us, in a way, some sort

of oxygen

that we really need to survive

up here.

Sometimes, I got people walking

by me and I don't think they know what

I'm trying to lay on them. I really don't.

And then I have the most

obscure people that would come by

and know what I'm doing.

People in their sixties and seventies

and stuff that know what I'm

doing, and like, there are

other people that

they really don't have any idea

of what I'm doing, you know.

You're down there playing them

Hendrix with another guitar.

And they ask you to play Hendrix

and you play them Little Wing,

and you say, man

I am playing Hendrix.

I'm doing it on an acoustic

guitar.

You know, it's like,

what are you asking me? What

are you telling me?

You know, it's like, where the

f*** are you at, man?

You know, but you sort of just

laugh at it, you know. It's...

(Passing traffic)

(Guitar music)

What up?

So what you want to do, bro?

What you want to do this weekend?

Yeah?

I don't have no money.

Some bullshit, man.

(Background drum music)

Whatever. Alright.

Peace.

Alright, let's go.

(Train sounds)

Yo, I'm going to get my wood.

So, hopefully this sh*t will be here.

That girl looked good, right?

What?

-She's looking at you.

She want them thug, dirty guys,

yeah.

Talk about dirty. This sh*t is

dirty.

(Background crowd chatter)

(Train sounds)

(Tapping sound)

(Tapping sounds)

(Train sounds)

Doing what we do is real hard because

it's hard on your body, you

know.

The dust... just the

pressure on your legs for three hours

straight. It's happened, you know.

All my drummer friends always

look at me and go man, come on man.

Come on man, I don't understand.

I'm jumping around

three hours, you know.

(Tapping sounds)

Musicians appreciate me and

that's all I care about.

You know,

I really could care less about what

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