If you frequent the Bayfair BART station, you may have caught yourself singing along at times with that station's resident busker, Mike "Mick" Myers.
"Officially I'm the old homeless hippie, but my name's Mike," Myers says by way of introduction.
Myers — who's 60 years old, thin, and holds his long, straggly hair back with a headband — has been playing at the station for about a year, he says, often for four to five hours each day.
Classic rock is Myers's genre of choice.
He's occasionally joined by Sheela Gunn-Cushman, who provides harmony. (Click on the video at right to see the two perform.)
"I live here and I breeze through here and we do things," Gunn-Cushman says before heading through the BART turnstile with her companion, both feeling their way forward with canes for the visually impaired.
When Gunn-Cushman isn't around, Myers tries to get his "pet" pigeon, Homer ("you can call him 'Homey,'" he says) to coo along with his songs.
Myers throws Homey an English muffin crumb, and the bird is soon perched on Myers's crossed leg.
"Can I get you to sing?" Myers asks the bird, as he starts to strum, at the same time cooing at Homey.
The bird seems to cock his head with the rhythm but doesn't open his beak.
Born at Highland Hospital, Myers is a lifetime local, and says he used to fix antique pinball machines and sell commercial popcorn makers for a living. He's been homeless for 22 years. For the past five years, he's slept in a tent by the highway, he says.
Myers has been playing guitar since he was a kid, he says. He even had a brush with fame, once playing lead guitar for a band that opened for Eddie Money at the San Jose Pavilion, he says.
Besides the Bayfair BART station, you can also catch Myers at the 99 Cents Only store in Creekside Center in Hayward.
