I keep wondering at what point one is no longer considered an orphan? Honestly, the thought of a 56 year old orphan seems kind of ridiculous to me. I'm going to say the cut-off is probably somewhere around thirty. With that as an opening statement, I had an utterly insane guy approach me on the street last night [and the following story is going to blow your mind like some kind of vicious thought hurricane]...Once upon a yesterday, a rugged man, riddled with age, walked up, sat down on the rustic guitar case he was carrying and listened intently to the slow sad lines I sang awhile. Sounds like the start of an amazing story that involves highway robbery, train jumping, outlaw love and epic death in a fiery rain of bullets after a years of having the police hot on our tails, doesn't it? Well, it's not. If that's the kind of stories you expect out of my life than you're obviously an over-expecting-no-friend-of-mine. If that's what you need to be content, Warren Beaty, did a great job with Bonny and Clyde; so go watch that. Hipster elitists. Anyway, back to my story...he'd sat calmly for awhile when, out of nowhere, he covered his ears and started screaming obscenities while telling me that my Fender sounded like trash and that he'd give me $1000 right then if I'd smash it on the street and play his Taylor. He opened his guitar case, which contained a loaf of bread, a bible and a bunch of random keys, bells and other jingly objects tied to a shoelace and attempted to hand me an invisible "Taylor" acoustic that he claimed was given to him by Tommy Lee in exchange for his writing fifteen songs for Motley Crue. He then proceeded to list off the names of the members in the band as proof that he really knew them. I was impressed and was preparing to smash my guitar but before I could say anything, he handed me a business card from FedEx with a woman's name on it, told me his name was Daniel and if I'd give him a dollar he'd show me his ID to prove that he wrote for Motley Crue. Apparently he didn't need the dollar because he whipped out a Wisconsin drivers license with some random Asian guy’s picture on it and some name that wasn't even Daniel. I guess he’d stolen it. I still hadn't really said anything and was attempting to ignore him when he shouted for me to stop playing and tried to hand me his non-existent guitar again. When I didn't accept his gracious offer (mainly because I physically couldn't), he became enraged and started ripping off the random articles of clothing he had draped over himself and throwing them all over Broadway. He had a pair of jeans over his shoulders like a cape that he sent flailing into the wall and a bunch of random strips of colorful cloth and neck ties he flung across the street. He tossed his guitar case a little ways or so down the sidewalk (sending its contents sliding across the ground), chased after it then sat in the, now empty, case a dozen feet or so away from me. I tried to ignore him and started playing again but he quickly made that impossible. Apparently the fact that his loaf of bread was scattered across the ground didn't matter as he began forcing three or four pieces of bread at a time into his mouth creating a sort of 'chubby bunny' effect. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. A group of tourists came by and he spat his bread out everywhere with an Old Faithful-esque spew, yelled in a sing-song voice that he loved bread and started offering them the regurgitated pieces saying it was the bread of life and a part of his body. Then the moment I'd expected arrived; far later than anticipated. He crawled up to me holding a bible and, other than the fact that he was crawling and dressed like a maniac, every ounce of insanity left his body as he calmly whispered, "I'm tired, homeless and hungry. Can you please give me a dollar to get a hamburger?" I told him I'd give him two dollars and pay for a taxi if he'd leave. He ripped out several pages from the bible, jotted a few scribbled notes in blue highlighter across them, studied them intently for awhile before, finally, saying it looked like a good deal and offering a deal sealing handshake in agreement. No sooner had I handed him his two bucks when he leapt to his feet and offered the first person who walked by the cash. He just walked right up to some random guy and handed him my $2. He started dancing and singing Wagon Wheel by Bob Dylan before running back to me and asking for more money. I was like, "No way, man. You're just going to go give it to somebody." He became furious again and told me that I was a liar and nobody in the music industry had ever heard of me, whipped out a pink plastic phone, shouted what he thought was my name into it and told the "producer from Warner Records" who was on the other end to look it up. He smiled kind of maliciously and said, "We'll see about your stories, man. He's looking you up right now and I'll get the truth." I was fine with that. It was a toy phone and he'd spelled a hilariously random name into it. Not to mention while he was "on the phone" he wasn't talking to me...and I liked that. He laid the phone at my feet, told me to keep playing for the producer because he could hear me fine and liked what he was hearing, then he took off running down the street. He came back a half hour or so later, told me that nobody at Universal, Warner or Sony had ever heard of Hot-Ray Walker (which I guess he assumed was my name?), called me a liar again, spat in my face and told me he was in a hurry so if I'd pick up his trash he'd send Jerry Only from the Misfits to meet me and would write a good review on his website about me. He then dumped out his guitar case, shook a bunch of candy wrappers that were apparently inside his gloves, handed the toy cell phone to some random Joe, jumped in a passing taxi and was never seen again...thus proving that there is a God in heaven...
...this guy sitting near me is wearing headphones and keeps giggling to himself...I have a feeling this whole post is going to reenact itself...
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