A few years back, we stopped watching American Idol and I began to develop a hypothesis as we surfed from competition music program to competition music program, hoping that a Voice or a Got-Talented individual would spark our interest and move our souls.

America had run out of talented people.

Every singing, dancing, weeping individual with any training at all had auditioned for every show there was and been summarily rejected or hoisted onto the airwaves, judged and then crowned or rejected.

There was nobody left.

But… That didn’t mean people stopped trying.

Which brings me to the guy murdering a Johnny Cash ballad on the subway platform today. It’s not his fault he can’t sing (or even talk it out–this was a Johnny Cash tune), but it is his fault he made us all listen to it.

I think he wanted cash, but there was no sign indicating it would go to vocal lessons, so I declined.

He could have tuned his guitar, as well, but why quibble when his tenor was so bad, the screeching brakes of the subway cars were welcomed joyously by the crowd.

In contrast, there is another gentleman pursuing a career in the pedestrian entertainment field just outside my office near the library. He’s got a saxophone and could use a bath, but man can that dude blow.

I’ll tell you right now, it always makes me happy when I see a guy playing decent jazz on a street corner.

Before I started working downtown, this was a treat generally reserved for nighttime. You had to be in a park, or a gathering of food trucks, or braving the tourists in some destination near the ocean.

I love, love, love having a little Miles Davis great me on my way to a sub-par sandwich at Subway. I could do without the off-key strumming and vocal malaise I just experienced in the subway.

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Photo credit: I saw_that via Foter.com / CC BY-NC