Arrived at mosaics spot at 3pm I set up, started playing, took me a while to settle in due to the cold. Steel strings on fingers pretty much sap all the warmth out, and the pick doesn’t stay comfortably between my fingers as all moisture is gone.

I love the beauty of the mosaics, there are 2 walls of them. Today I set up with the marketplace scene behind me. I looked across at the wall with the film location scene. The surreal colors constantly match those of the real people passing by and at times from a distance images blur and mix together. It’s a fabulous life=art experience.

I watched as a gold spray painted man set up for a performance piece. Later I introduced myself and found out his name is not surprisingly, “Midas”…or Gold Man. He sits without moving until someone tips him and then he smiles, raises a gold painted bottle to his gold lips and smiles a gold smile…..

1 hour into playing and settling into the cold, loud drumming and horns not only seeped into my performance spot, but completely took over. Usually I work with the sounds around me, but as a soloist I can’t fill in my empty beats, the space around me does, with ambient sound. The drum/horns not only filled the empty beats but the full on ones too-not very ambient. After an hour of trying to go with the flow, I packed up (I couldn’t leave my spot to check out who was performing without packing everything up). I rode the escalator down to the platform and then realized the group was playing at the mezzanine just below me. The group Drumatics (another Music Under NY group) were playing. They are really great, fun energy and fab rhythm and horn section.

Pure and simple, we all have to get along, I love what I do as a subway performer and today was a moment where various elements collided to make performing any longer not worth getting frustrated over. I went home and had a nice cup of hot tea.