PRESS
There among the street grunge and punks and tourists and Boomers, the beggars and the shoppers, the wannabe hipsters and the long-ago wasted, a lone street musician stands against a wrought-iron gate, invisible but for her voice.
She wears a brown suede jacket with
fringe, a red velvet skirt down to her ankles, woolen socks and
Birkenstocks, a necklace of wooden beads, dangling crystal earrings and
a smile. An acoustic guitar hangs from her neck on a strap of smiley
faces. On the sidewalk a worn guitar case lies open, filled with loose
change.
Haight Street used to be filled with
street musicians. But these days, they're rare. And her songs of peace
and love, themes that once defined an era and the street, now seem
quaint.
At 23, she was born more than a dozen years after 1967 and the Summer of Love. But like so many other young people drawn to Haight Street over the years, it is the legend of those days that carried her here.
"It's part of the adventure, to come to California,'' she says. "It's San Francisco. It's Haight Ashbury. It's legendary.''
Her name is Maria Mango-- or rather, as she says, "it is now." She arrived in September from Canada by way of Hawaii. But she's so into the mythical groove here, she already belongs.
There's still a lot of magic
here,'' she tells a sidewalk cynic. Her tone is motherly, though the
cynic is twice her age. "There are some of us keeping that magic alive
in the present day. It's not just something that happened back then
..."
In midsentence she begins strumming
her guitar. Her voice is lilting, pure. As she sings, she closes her
eyes. She has sung her songs hundreds of times, but to watch her is to
know she still feels them.
Do you remember the Summer of Love? "I'm in my bliss here,'' she says, delighted with her song and herself. "I'm spreading the love."
She pauses so folks can get past her and into the apartment building behind the wrought-iron gate that is her stage curtain.
"You guys love me, huh?'' she says to them, her face beaming.
Love? They look at her as if she has
three heads. This, after all, is Haight Street 2004, and
love-thy-stranger is in deep hibernation for the winter. Finally, one
of them takes pity and musters a smile:
"We don't mind."
Mango feels the love, even if they can't. She's there to help.
She writes most of her songs, usually
in a park, under a tree. She likes to keep things happy. She has no
tolerance for bad vibes.
"Hey, this is a positive zone,''
she says to a veteran panhandler who's hassling a listener for three
pennies. She plucks some change out of her guitar case, hands it to
him, and shoos him away with the promise they'll talk later.
OK, so maybe the Haight's not nirvana.
"There's a lot of people here just to
buy shoes,'' she admits, somewhat bummed. "There are people who look
like hippies but don't have the love in their hearts. I guess that was
true then ...
"When somebody gets cynical about the Haight, I say, 'I don't feel that. It's what you make it.' " It's hard to see the big picture when you keep looking down ... Mango has been creating her own reality and
happiness for years. She says she grew up in a tiny town near Winnipeg,
Canada, the daughter of middle-class professionals who were neither
hippies nor musicians. While her pals listened to 1990s grunge music,
Mango grooved on Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan and taught herself to play
the guitar.
Soon she was strumming and singing
on street corners. She was studying sociology at the University of
Winnipeg when she realized that music was her life. So in the spring of
2001, just three courses shy of her degree, she hit the road with a
backpack and guitar.
She traveled across Canada,
couch-surfing at the homes of instant friends she made on the street,
landing in whatever town her new pals were headed. Last year she ended
up on Kauai. It was there, while writing a song under a mango tree,
that she came up with her last name.
A mango tree, she says, drops its fruit to share whether anyone is there or not. She says her songs are mangos.
Last summer, someone she met was
heading to Burning Man and she tagged along. The desert arts festival
was "far out ... cool,'' she says. When it was over, she hitched a ride
to San Francisco and the Haight.
She has played in a few
neighborhood clubs but says she is happiest on the street, where she
can feel that one-to-one connection with people.
"I would do this even if I did gigs,'' she says. "It's real out here.''
Most days, Mango comes out after
noon, maybe 1 p.m. She's never sure what time it is, much less what
day. She doesn't wear a watch. She tells time by the sun. She stays out
singing into the night, rain or shine or cold. She always stands on the
north side of Haight Street, "the sunny side of the street.'' She's
usually on the 1500 block, next to the Haight Ashbury Market, which has
an outdoor stand of vegetables and fruit. Mangos included.
She feels lucky to be making money
by singing her songs and occasionally selling a $15 to $20 CD of her
music, "Playing for Change," which she recorded at a pal's studio in
Canada. People in the Haight drop by her sidewalk spot and give her
food and offer her places to spend the night. Others let her use their
computers so she can send her parents and friends e-mails and can tweak
her Web site, www.mariamango.com.
She has no wish for fame or fortune.
"I am a star,'' she says. "I love what I'm doing. I would be singing anyway.''
She plans to make a trip home to
Canada soon. Maybe she'll come back to the Haight. Maybe not. The best
plan, she has found, is no plan at all. She goes where the spirit moves
her.
Well, I don't think that one summer's enough ...
Some would have you think that it ended back then
But it never stopped growing and now is the when.
And the love-olution is still happening to this day ...
Feel the love around you,
Let it make you glad.
People they come and people they go
Live in the moment, know when to let go ...
Some things they last for only a short while
I bid you farewell with a tear and a smile.
I was busking in Seattle at Pike Place Market this last summer, and my first day out there I was playing in front of a Starbucks, I'd rather have not been, but it was the only spot open at the time. This dude comes along and starts taking a bunch of pictures, and when I ask him what they're for, he says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is doing an article on Starbucks being richer than ever, 44% more profits that they expected this year, blah, blah, blah... and I say to him, "You know, I don't support Starbucks and their business practices in any way, shape or form, in fact, I've never even been in one of their stores. I like to support the little guys, you know? Are you sure you want me to be your poster girl for this?" And he just thought the irony was hilarious, and so somehow he managed to get that mentioned in the caption. So this picture appeared in color on the front of the business section of this major Seattle paper sometime in early August...
