The Tab (and Bigfoot)

Last night was an eventful one at the Cantab. Before making it to the tab, our thursday night haunt with the Chicken Slacks, we had a great opening reception at the gallery for Miriam's show. Then some drinks at the Middle East and some vegan grub, then off to the tab. I think I worried some of my friends who didn't see how the whole following went down, but here it is in brief.

I walk outside for the set break and there's a tall black (only important because he kept bringing up race and how I "don't know anything", etc) homeless (also important for the same reason), self-professed alcoholic 59 year old guy. Anyhow, he's singing really well, and tapping some rhythms on his legs, and it sounds so good and I've had a couple of drinks so I sit down and join him in song. He feeds me the bass line which I sing, and I think we're sounding pretty good. Then it went down hill right after that song. He tore into me, getting in my face. Which was fine, because I knew he wasn't going to do anything bad and it was obvious he was sort of all over the place, canned lines, not listening to me, so I took it for a while, then decided that I thought he wanted some action. So I started barking back a little at him...this is when my friends were worried something was actually going down, which of course it wasn't. Anyhow, we calmed down after a bit, and then for about 30 minutes, I got some seriously nutty tales. He was obviously well-educated somewhere along the long line of life, dropping interesting words and phrases. He told me he used to be an industrial psychologist, ok fair enough, his friend had been a clinical psychologist. But then there was a refrigerator in a field somewhere (he could not disclose the location, there was some military tie in, but it sounded like southern U.S.) locked up, and he was hiding behind it to not get shot. Enter Saskwatch - aka BigFoot, although Al also refered to him as Billy. Billy saved him, and was huge, and had a fat girfriend, but with a very cute face, but Al hasn't seen him since it all happened. After that story, Al asked me, "Are you an abductee." He claimed to have been abducted by aliens. It went on like that for a while.

We ended on a good note, both fed up with the world but agreeing on that at least, and we stood up and I moseyed back into the tab. And I guess to clear my own conscious, I am not posting this in a way of saying "hey look at all the fucked up crazy people out there, check this one out...". I like talking to people, and if I can talk to someone who got the short end of the stick, all the better. I generally try to listen and do my best to commiserate on the sadness of how the world stamps some people down so hard. It would be great to know his story, and all the other stories. Afterward, his friend saddled up to me and told me I had lots of patience.

Then, we got freindly with Sam, who we only ever see serving us falafel late night at Moody's, but he was out and about last night. Nice guy. Apparently "suspended" from the job until Monday -- issues with the boss. We still got ourselves a great couple of falafels, which we really didn't need given that we all consumed tons of homemade hummous with japanese knotweed and dock, and another with all sorts of wild greens, including linden leaves which are out in full force right now. We alsohad the treat of a Mike "Not Art" appearance, who tagged brian's T-shirt and my gray button down. The Not Art movement is going strong thanks to it's one foot soldier, Mike.