How do you know if someone (other than yourself) is crazy?
I've concluded in the past year or so that EVERYONE is crazy--everyone. Some of us know this about ourselves (which puts you in a sort of "sane-ish" category of crazy) but most of us have no inkling that insanity everywhere, all the time, is what's really going on.
That being said, my sons and I were out last night at the outdoor mall in Santa Monica. We stopped in at Barnes and Nobles and bought Gulliver's Travels and The Book Thief. We stopped near a performer who was singing the final lines of Hallelujah (this one's Leonard Cohen, not Handel, I told my son. Mighty observant 12-year-old, that kid.) And then we went around the corner--around the bend to get some Gelato.
Standing right at that corner, as if frozen in time was a scruffy, long haired guy talking to a pole. He was there last summer, talking about underground mole people.
My older son and I walked away and started laughing--it's the same guy! And the younger one started up, frustrated: He's not crazy!
He's wack! We respond. Talking to no one is what crazy people do. (Oh God--my son catches me doing that all the time. Oh wait--I already admitted that I'm crazy. Phhhhew.)
It's too stereotyped, too contrived, the 12-year old says. Underground mole people. And now he's talking like a robot.
And he was.
We've enough homeless people out here by the beach (where cold is in the 50s) that such people aren't an unusual sight. And I can't remember ever laughing at any of them. But this guy.
Even crazy people can put on a show, I told my son.
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Brassawe
Barbara O'Brien
iamsurly
ohsotender
Dr. Spudman44
m. a.h
Salon.com
Comments
yep! the older i get the more i've come to realize that crazy is a relative term, but it sounds like the underground mole people man has advanced to the next level.
there used to be a guy who lived in the basement of this apartment complex i was staying at who'd walk around on the sidewalk holding one of those mini-cassette recorders to his mouth and talking feverishly into it. then he'd pause, thumb the play button and it'd play back his own voice, but slowed down like 8 times so it sounded really freaky. he'd hold these conversations with himself for hours at a time, and he always claimed he was talking with the invaders from Cynus X1-9:-P
Thanks for the comment about my kids. They are my biggest joy.