The Emperor is stingy. The Emperor is greedy. The Emperor hates
the poor. He hates music and sex. And so long as the Emperor is
on the throne, the subway philanthropist plies his trade, prowling
the bowels of New York City moving deliberately from subway sta-
tion to subway station dropping fifty-dollar bills into white plastic
five gallon buckets, saxophone cases, violin cases, upturned straw
hates, Tupperware bowls, all sitting quietly in front of electric guitar
players, Mariachi bands, women classical saxophonists, avant garde
jazz ensembles, brothers in do-rags drumming on plastic buckets
and tin cans, a woman playing a saw, an electric organist playing
Guy Lombardo's greatest hits, old Chinese men playing one-string
Chinese violins, Peruvian Panpipe Players, young Chinese men play-
ing Chinese flutes, Buddhist monks playing Shakuhachi, doo-wop
singers doing close four part harmonies, conga players, bongo play-
ers, cellists, string quartets, Hawaiian guitar players and trombone
players too, all of them, every one, no matter how good, how bad,
it's music and it's a stay against, an antidote to, The Emperor's ha-
tred of all that is warm, good and alive. And so the subway philan-
thropist plies his trade, makes his rounds, prowls the subways pay-
ing one fifty-dollar bill at a time to keep humanity alive while the
Emperor wages war upstairs, above ground, in the sad daylight of
the world.
David Budbill
budbill@wildblue.net