By Greta Hale He’s out on the streets again. This cool September night is like any other for Clark McEwen, who strums his guitar on the streets of downtown Bowling Green. Maybe you’ve seen him out. He always wears a black t-shirt with a white ear of corn on it. He owns six of them. It goes well with his Jenco jeans and black trench coat. The 19-year-old plays next to the bars, as he has for the past two years. Tonight, he is in front of the alley near Kamikaze’s.

“Can you play ‘Bye Bye Miss American Pie’?” one girl asks. But McEwen doesn’t know it.

Between bar hops, students dance and sing to McEwen’s tunes. One student does a cartwheel while McEwen performs “Kryptonite.” But not everyone is sober enough to recognize who sings the song. “Led Zeppelin rules,” a guy yells. A few students jump around doing the air guitar.

McEwen tries to honor every request. A group of college guys request, “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer. Pleased that he knows it, they sing along. “You’re awesome dude,” says one of the guys.

A group of three girls—his regulars—approach. They always request “I Will Survive.” Tonight is one of the girls’ birthdays.

“My boy Clark is out playing,” says senior—and birthday girl—Amanda Darr. “I love him. He’s great. He’s really talented.”

For Darr’s 22nd birthday, McEwen sings his own rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Dressed in red fishnet pantyhose and a Catholic schoolgirl skirt, Darr dances to “Blister in the Sun” with a wide smile plastered on her face.

Tonight is a good night for McEwen. But it’s not always. “You have to take the good and the bad,” he said.

One man sneers as he walks by and yells, “Try New York City or something buddy.”

But McEwen’s heard worse. People have yelled, “Hippie mother f*****,” among other mean-spirited comments. Most of the remarks are yelled out of a car window.

They get McEwen down. “It seems like the students now are not as interested in having fun as they are in being jerks,” he said. McEwen could make $100 and still consider it a bad night if there were hostile students, he said.

The comments vary from “you rock” and “you’re awesome” to “you suck” and “get a job,” he said. “I mean- they range- but they’re usually either very positive or very negative.”
Comments sometimes turn into physical threats. People have gestured as if they were going to hit McEwen. “They consider it some kind of personal insult, because they have to work for a living or something,” he said.

“This is my job,” McEwen said. “I’m a musician.” He collects enough cash to live on. His investments include two guitars: a 1994 Fender electric guitar, which is a reissue of a 1969 model, and an acoustic guitar. He also bought a 50-watt-rechargable battery-operated amp so he could be heard.

McEwen saves money by living at home with his parents, whom he has a good relationship with. “They’ve always encouraged me to be an individual,” he said.

His earnings vary from $20 to more than $100 a night. Seems like a lot, considering people often tell him, “If I had money, I’d give it to you.”

Although he makes money, he puts up with strange behavior from drunk people.

One night, two men dressed in camouflage coats, sweatpants and ski masks tried to profit from McEwen’s performance by dancing. They placed an empty tub of margarine out for donations, but they didn’t get any.

Another time, a girl snuck up behind McEwen and kissed his cheek. “She was trying to get my lips,” McEwen said. “It just sort of astounded me. She just kind of ran up and gave me a kiss and then she was gone. Apparently it was a dare from her friend.”

But that was mild compared to another incident.

One night, when McEwen was playing near Uptown Downtown, a girl reached out and grabbed his crotch.

“She wasn’t gentle either. She was trying to grab and take something home with her. I said ‘holy sh**’ and backed up. She laughed and left. I was like, ‘that’s not cool,’ ” McEwen said.

Sometimes his income is threatened.

People have stolen money from McEwen’s guitar case—twice. The first time, a crowd was gathered around and a man dropped a bill and took a larger one instead. There wasn’t much McEwen could do because he didn’t want to leave his guitar and amp. The same thing happened a second time. But that time, a member of the crowd chased the thief and beat him up, McEwen said.

Despite attacks by thieves, McEwen remains honest.

He once returned a $100 bill that a man dropped from his pocket. The man had placed a $10 bill in McEwen’s guitar case. As he walked away, a $100 bill surrounded by $1 bills fell out of the man’s pocket. McEwen said he thought it was the right thing to do, especially since the man had been so generous.

He avoids most problems when his friends are out playing the drums or guitar with him. “It’s a very free-form kind of thing,” he said.

McEwen emphasized how free-form his music is. Seventy percent of the time, he plays short riffs that he improvises. He calls one “the crazy circus music song.” He has eclectic taste and enjoys playing funk, jazz and blues.

He plays a variety of music, but students often make the same requests—songs by Led Zeppelin and the Dave Matthews Band. A popular one is “What I Got” by Sublime. Another is “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which he never learned. “I don’t want to spend all night playing it,” he said.

One man kept requesting that McEwen play “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado. McEwen tried to learn it, but realized he loathed the song. “I was like, ‘no, no, no, I’m not going to dirty my guitar with that,’ ” he said.

Although he doesn’t play every song, he can play most of them. McEwen learned to play guitar at LOMS Music while he was home schooled during high school. Being home schooled, he said, allowed him to focus on his favorite interest, music.

McEwen simply loves it. “Anything from rock, jazz, country- there is no type of music that is inherently bad in my mind,” he said.