Back, and to the left--Harmonica Man strikes...

I love listening to live music, so when this guy set up and started playing some nice tunes over by Fisherman's Wharf, I wandered out of the shop I was in with Fran and sat down on a bench by myself and and listened to him.

Being from Dallas, I am constantly reminded that the JFK assassination (in 1961, long before I was born) was a pivotal part of our local history. Whenever people visit from out-of-town, I ask them if they would like to go see Dealey Plaza, the site of the shooting--also, I guess we are exposed to lots of the trivial/lesser-known facts about the event. One of these things is "Umbrella Man", the investigation's nickname for a guy who stood by as the motorcade went by, and, I guess, opened an umbrella (even though the day was bright and sunny), which makes him a very suspicious character.

Since that was such a random thing to do, it sometimes strikes me as funny when somebody does a bizzarre, random thing-like wearing a gorilla suit to a party or something-I have a private joke going that "gorilla-man" (in this case) is up to something sinister...

So I was shocked when, while listening to this musician, a man in a blue sweatshirt and dark sunglasses sureptitiously slinked up next to me and sat quietly in the shadows against a building column. I was really afraid that he was going to ask me for money, like nearly a dozen other people had done in the last 10 minutes.

But no.

He whipped out a harmonica and started to harmonize (from 50 feet away) with the musician who was playing. First quietly, then getting gradually louder until people started to stare at him a little. I thought he might be a friend of the musician (sorry, I don't remember his name), but eventually I realized he was just goofing around and trying not to be noticed by the musician. He would play on some songs and not on others, but he sounded pretty good. Harmonica-man: another San Franscisco enigma.

So, I started chuckling to myself that this was the San Francisco version of umbrella-man, and that he was assassinating this poor guy's music by harmonica-ing to it. And I wanted my own official documentation of this character, but my camera was in my bag, and I thought it would be very rude to just point and click--he might freak out. Feeling like a CIA operative, I very slowly unzipped the bag, turned on the camera and disabled the flash and, without looking while still watching the (real) musician, I slowly pointed the lens toward harmonica man and snapped a couple of shots, looking down to make sure they captured him...


A couple of minutes later, he suddenly got up. I looked over at him and he shot me a wide smile, revealing two or three missing teeth in the front. He still had his harmonica in his right hand, and he shoved both hands into the pouches of his sweatshirt, turned quietly and slowly walked away, and within a minute had completely blended into the crowd.