Dan Grabauskas, General Manager of the MBTA, was paraphrased in today's Metro as "saying T-Radio isn't meant to replace live performances and that the T has considered featuring those performers on the radio to give them greater exposure."

Let's think about this for a moment, shall we?

1) If radio is playing, there can't be live performances. It just doesn't work. If there's some way for buskers to go ask T people to turn off the radio when we're playing, that would be fine, but I doubt there's any protocol in place for that yet.

2) Does Mr. Dan think all subway musicians are singer-songwriters with the mic and the guitar and the whatsits? Some are. Some are very very good. Many of us aren't singer-songwriters, and no matter how good we are, we don't have CDs and our music isn't going to go with the T-Radio concept. How are a flute playing Bach, a cello playing some twentieth-century composition, a fiddle playing Orange Blossom Special and an urdu...urduing...supposed to fit in with Bryan Adams and Rihanna?

Here's another quote from our man Dan in the Metro:

"I think the performers in our stations add life, color and richness to the MBTA system."

I couldn't agree more. So if that's really how he feels, why is he drowning us out?

I'd like to invite him to spend even an hour with me watching people and their reactions to me. Sure, a lot of them ignore me, but I get plenty of smiles and waves, even from people who don't tip me. I don't think people are going to be smiling and waving at T-Radio.