Month: May 2003

Overheard

Scenario: Crowded mid-day bus.

Characters: Two men, one at the front of the bus, one near the back. Perhaps homeless, perhaps just a bit off.

Man 1: (Begins yelling suddenly.) K-JAMS on WYMX. WE GOTTA GRRRREEEAT SHOW FOR YOU FOLKS.

Man 2: Ha! Ha! That’s right!

Man 1: That’s right!

Man 2: Hey! Heeeeey! You know Lisa Jones?

Man 1: Yeah.

Man 2: Yeah!

Man 1: She fiddy.

Man 2: What that?

Man 1: She fiddy.

Man 2: She filthy?

Man1: Yeah.

Man 2: She ain’t filthy. She got money.

Man 1: No she ain’t.

Man 2: She got money. She got money. Get back here.

Man 1: All right.

(The two converse mostly inaudibly, except for occasional mimicry of various radio announcers.)

Man 1: This my stop.

Man 2: You gettin’ off?

Man 1: Yeah.

Man 2: No you ain’t. You gettin off up here where they got the restaurant.

Man 1: No. I got to get off. I got to get me a new T-shirt up here. One I got on all wet ’cause I spilled water on it this… this little bit earlier. I got to get a new one.

(Disembarks.)

Man 2: (Obviously annoyed. Loud.)You got to take a bath. That’s what you got to do. ‘Cause you smell. Smelly sonofabitch. I just washed up this morning. I took three showers. I wash my hair like three times with the soap, used the body wash, everything. Everything. I shampoo like three times, like five times. Like ten times! I got to make sure I smell nice.

Sunday

I only spent about ten minutes at Bay to Breakers this year. The best thing I saw was a guy sitting in a wheelchair, naked from the waist down, walking the chair up the street with his feet.

Later that day, I went to visit my grandmother.

FOOTRACE

Wanna come with us to Bay to Breakers?

I’m going.

Cool, wanna pull a keg with us?

Actually, I’m running it.

You’re running it? …Without beer?

Overheard

Scenario: Bus commute at about 9:30 a.m.

Characters: Two middle-aged men.

Guy 1: A lot of people are late for work today.

Guy 2: Oh, it seems like there’s a whole bunch of people who are on this schedule.

Guy 1: Or maybe a lot of people are late for work today.

Guy 2: By an hour?

(angry silence)

Guy 2: What are you doing for lunch?

Curiouser and Curiouser

Curiosa is fascinating. It’s by an artist who collects the detritus of fame, death, and other aspects of life, and groups them in interesting ways. He has a communion wafer from JFK’s funeral, a straw with Monica Lewinsky’s lipstick from the Barbara Walters interview, mortician’s eye caps (which are sharp on one side to keep a corpse’s eyes from popping open), and countless other bits of not-quite-trash. Amazing.

Verification

In a museum the other day:

Are those real skulls?

Huh. I don’t know.

I’ll check the materials tag.

What does it say?

“Oil and human skulls on canvas.”

Yep.

Overheard

A man and woman are headed toward the junkyard where the Second Annual Power Tool Drag Races are about to begin. He’s sporting a mohawk and kilt with no underwear, she’s wearing a bra with dozens of three inch spikes on the cups. He says, “So you were a cheerleader, or you just have the pom-poms?”

On the Road

You know you’ve lived in a big city too long when room-service prices at the Fairmont look cheap. The best thing about being on the 19th floor is standing right in front of the bay window, naked, brushing your teeth.

Bryan has packed five tubes of chapstick in his travel bag.

TivoLution

Do you remember the first time you said something stupid and had a reflex to hit the undo command? That’s happening to me with TiVo technology now. In the last few weeks, I’ve had the urge to rewind NPR more than once. In conversation, if I want someone to get to the point, I think, “bloop-bloop, bloop-bloop.”