i have a long, storied history with guitar man (he's called "guitar man" because he carries an electric guitar gig bag over his shoulder [actually, not any more. i don't know what happened to the bag. now he flies solo]. i used to theorize what was in that bag. everything from candy canes to a million dollar bills to tiny pieces of dead children...) that stretches over the last 5 years (oh, by the way, WOW. i just realized today is my 5 YEAR anniversary working this damned job in television. huzzah.) he's probably the only person that's been hanging around riverside drive longer than me (though there was a period of time that he was thought to be dead. maybe about a year. he just wasn't around. i don't know where he went. and once i saw him walking up laurel canyon from the west hollywood side). i guess. maybe not. other key things to know about guitar man are that he smokes, he sometimes stares at women walking up the street, and he's very dirty. and sometimes he gets haircuts. anyway, ever since my first day of work five years ago, i've come into contact with him many, many times, but have never spoken to him until today.
so i was walking back from timmy nolan's with three pieces of my chicken quesadilla (i know what you're saying. "quesadilla from a irish pub? wtf, man?!" but trust me, it's one of the best things on the menu...), and guitar man suddenly appeared on the grass between the sidewalk and the street (which supports my theory that many hobos [that's right, i said "hobos"] are actually the devil in disguise, able to shape-shift and bend the laws of physics at will [the wild eyes are another dead giveaway]...), kind of just staring into space, so i offered him my leftovers. it kind of went down like this:
me (extends arm to offer the styrofoam box to guitar man): hey man, do you want some quesadilla?
guitar man (abruptly, cutting me off): no. (explodes into the biggest sneeze possible, barely missing said styrofoam box and said arm)
huh? are things so fucked up in this post-9/11 world that there are hobos in the streets turning down free food? after years of eating rats and dirt, have their palettes become that sophisticated? look, i don't make the most money in the world, but i'm nowhere near homeless. and yet if someone offered me a free quesadilla, well, i'd at least take a moment or two to consider the offer.
and i used to feel bad for this guy. holes in his shoes, sleeping in the post office lobby, smoking women's lipstick-caked cigarette butts. i can tell you one thing: if he dies from starvation the blood's not on my hands.
i guess the terrorists have already won.
or maybe not. maybe los angeles hobos just have spoiled palettes. because this all reminded me of a time, many many years ago, when i was walking back to the u.s.c. campus from the trashy 32 market across the street at university village, and a homel-- i'm sorry, a hobo-- approached me asking for change. being a starving blue-collar student at a university largely filled with trust-fund babies, i honesty didn't have any money to spare. but i did have a roll of powdered mini donuts i was eating, and i offered them to him. this one went down like so:
hobo: do you have any change?
me: sorry, man. but hey, do you want some donuts?
hobo (in complete disgust): dammmmn, I don't want no DONUT!
yes, what you're reading is true: the fact that i offered the man a mini powdered donut enraged him so much that he actually slipped and used a double negative.
so maybe it's not the jihad. maybe it's just me.
No comments:
Post a Comment