L.A.

One of the things I miss about living in a big metropolitan city like Los Angeles is the random weird shit you would observe during the course of a day. Certainly, that happened when I was living in Seattle too, but the occurrences were usually more infrequent and significant enough that they garnered extensive attention...the incident in 1995 where a homeless guy stood on the corner of Pike (or Pine--they ran parallel and even after four years of living there, I never got them straight) downtown, holding up a sword for hours in a stand-off with police, comes to mind (my co-workers and I watched him off and on for hours from our safe high-rise office vantage point)...but in L.A., every day there was some bizarre piece of behavior or visual anomaly you could observe and note for sharing with your partner (or roommate, or cat) when you got home.

Anyway, one that came to mind today--that I still find particularly funny--was when I was walking into a Target in Culver City and this guy, who looked like he'd been up for about a week (and was probably doing a healthy amount of meth while depriving himself of sleep) was dragging along one of those rolling luggage bags behind him on the sidewalk that circled the strip mall. That in itself isn't really very weird, but he had a boom box resting inside of the luggage, and the zipper was pulled down so that he could blast the sounds of ABC's "Poison Arrow." It was an odd choice of music; even though it was a big hit in 1982-83, it was nearly 25 years old by the time everyone could hear it coming out of his suitcase.

At any rate, I've always been one who appreciates oddballs. Especially oddballs who are so demonstrative; who shake up the status quo of any situation, but do it without harming anyone. This guy fit the bill. Perhaps I was moved as well because the song reminded me of my childhood, and while a revisitation of music that wasn't that great in the big picture, it was nonetheless instrumental in the early formulation of my musical tastes (I still love New Wave). I'm sure my response was a culmination of all of the above, but whatever was creating the positive vibe, I felt the need to comment. "That's the coolest fucking thing ever," I said to him. He shot me an amused glance, as if to say, "Of course it is. And now, I'll be moving on."

He continued his trajectory around the corner of a Subway restaurant; to where he was headed, I don't know. But as I watched him drag away his moving piece of art/memory, I couldn't stop smiling.