Thursday, February 5, 2009

Living in Berkeley

BART Musicians vs Homeless Guy Who Ain't Afraid of No Po-lice



While waiting for her BART train to arrive, we saw a pair of musicians setting up their musical act at the entrance to the station. This isn't unusual: there are often musicians trying to earn a buck at the BART station. (We also passed a homeless guy who yelled "Hey, white boy! Hey, white boy!" either at me or at the musicians. This wasn't unusual, either.) What was unusual, however, was the instruments they were using. Rather than being some unwashed hipster-hippies with guitars, these guys had a shamisen and an accordion. They started playing. These guys were pretty good.



And then the homeless guy started pestering them. It got pretty ugly, and the accordion player had to stop and leave so that he could call the police. The shamisen player paused as well, and we went over to talk to him. He was selling some CDs from other projects he and the accordion guy had done in the past. We both gave him a little money to show our appreciation.



To me, this whole experience sums up what it's like to live in Berkeley: genuinely cool, creative, and unusual people, juxtaposed with unruly pseudo-criminals. Well, so it goes.

2 comments:

bluefish said...

Was either of them transsexual?

Oh, wait, that's San Franscisco.

Cool story. Sorry to hear that cool musicians get hassled.

Kawaika said...

Will the bloody scuffle appear on the next episode of Bumfights?