Champion(s) of the Day:Guitar Gauchos at the BART Station

It's not unusual for me to see musicians performing at the BART station in the morning after I get off the train. It's a good way to practice your craft and maybe make a few bucks from kindly passersby.

The regulars include a cool, jazzy old dude who plays the clarinet; a pair of hippie dudes with mandolins; an old chinese man who plays a long wooden flute (it's very serene when he's there); there's even a string quartet made up of college kids.

But Friday morning was different. As I made my way up the escalator from the train bay, I heard some very weird, but vaguely familiar sounds. I know I heard guitars. But what was the other sharp, piercing noise?

When I got off the escalator and made my way to street level, the crowd parted ahead of me to reveal two Mexican dudes strumming away on acoustic guitars. They both had long black hair and may have been twins. So what? Not so special, right? WRONG.

You know how sometimes you'll see guys playing guitars, but they'll have a harness on their shoulders that holds a harmonica in front of their mouths? Like old-school Bob Dylan?

Well, these gauchos took it to another level. Instead of harmonicas, they were blowing into PAN FLUTES. And they were selling it like nobody's business. Strumming and blowing, hair tossing back and forth--they were the greatest guitar-slash-pan flutists I'd ever seen.

I was dumbfounded.

And then I was jolted out of my stupor by the shock of something even MORE dumbfounding. Here is the song they were performing (imagine pan flute sounds in place of the "popping")...