The day I met John Mayer

Not a photoshop job. Pretty awesome.


Somehow I attract vagabond-types, the odd, the mentally insane. The streets in this area are clogged with shiny bmw suvs in modern colours, their obnoxious drivers pulling into their obnoxious mansions. There are weirdos of course, but not many of the kind people desperately-ignore, with teeth rotting out of their heads.

They get me with a question, and once they have my attention, they're hard to peel off. I had a friend in New York who would just yell fuck off until they slunk away. I'm just not tough enough for that.

On Monday, I was accompanied on a 20 minute walk to the bank, and back again, by a severely paranoid, 40 year old conspiracy theorist. Interestingly, he had a lot of advice for me. A homeless motivational speaker. Listening to him talk was fascinating. He was hyper aware of life's little things, and darkly resentful about his past. I contributed the occasional nod. All he really wanted, was to be heard.

It was a challenge extricating myself from his company. Fortunately those sorts of characters don't have cell phones. I have an odd English-like politeness I can't shake, which results in me giving my phone number (under pressure) to people I really don't want to hear from.

As we walked along, he'd target people to ask for a couple of dollars for "gas", a cigarette, or both. It wasn't lost on me that he yielded the best results with pretty young women. They would look from him to me, and back. I tried to look blasé. Having slimy, stained, toothless drug addict acquaintances approach me in public before, I recognized the strange looks. Not all drug addicts maintain a guise like I do.

The last person you'd expect, that's me.


Paper art, so intricate. Not sure who the artist was, or who had that much patience.

Oh, and John Mayer's been getting such a bad time in the press, if you go with the media slant, this may as well be him.