Are You Nutso ?

There seems to be an inordinate amount of crazy people freely roaming the streets these days.Very few are even aware that they are crazy, I am not speaking about the demented hobos who wander around aimlessly, frothing at the mouth, shouting gibberish or having arguments with broken payphones.

I am speaking of high-functioning whack-jobs, the kind that have jobs and are more than likely to be seated right next to you at your job. I see them on the city streets every day; there they are, absolutely convinced of their intellectual superiority and just as blindly immersed in their own delusions. These are the dysfunctional members of our society, the kinds that will annoy you, waste your time with pointless subterfuge, frighten you or just plain piss you off; The Crazy People.


1.Scowling Skanks.

Every city has them. They stroll down the street a rapid clip usually shod with loud  clacking shoes, sporting a scowl, or at the very least, a constipated expression.. They always, and I mean always, have their arms folded. I have yet to figure out why. Who the fuck rolls down the street with their arms folded. Are they pissed at something? Hiding a coffee stain? Their boobs hurt ? What ? Judging by the demeanor that they present to the world, I can only come up with one reasonable answer: they are deranged.


2. I Gots Da Blooz.

There seems to be some inexplicable correlation between Blues bands and  the need for fully grown adults to make complete fools out of themselves. Lacking any sense of rhythm whatsoever, these coolness challenged denizen of the blues bar rarely miss an opportunity to spaz out as soon as the band hits the first 12 bars.

In a fit of booze and blues induced fervor, some will add air guitar moves to their repertoire and the most fervent eventually end up on their ass, dizzy from the cheap beer and lack of the beat.

In the earlier part of the 20th century, this was often diagnosed as the St. Vidas Dance and health officials would promptly lock these people up and medicate them. Today, these gyrating , oscillating , flailing and jumping maniacs are left free to roam amongst us. Other than the damage that they may induce to our brain, not unlike those seizure inducing Japanese animations shows, they are for the most part harmless. Stay at least twenty feet away in case some uncontrolled body part whacks you in the eyeball.


3.Hats Off.

I like a cool hat as much as the next guy. Most self respecting greasers have at least on poor boy in their repertoire for those days when messing with a pomp just ain't in the cards.  A quick trip to the beer store getting bacon for that Sunday morning hangover just ain't worth the effort of foolin' around with grease and a comb.

Then there are the hats that are designed to annoy such as the various headpieces that hipsters seem to be fond of. Those stupid saggy wool caps seem to go well with their skinny jeans and the rest of their attire. Pork pie hats are best left to be worn by seasoned and venerable bluesmen. Even more annoying still are the hipster-douche-ironic-trucker-hat. Irony being the defining factor of the hollow life of the hipster, the trucker hat has become iconic. Double the annoyance factor when the brim is turned up or the hat is worn askew. These hipsters need to find a Peterbilt and inhale some of the diesel fumes.

What frightens me is far more insidious. Take some time to observe people walking down the street and remember the following: The crazier the hat, the crazier the person.

Also size is a factor. You might seem some crazy ladies with hats the size of SUV tires. They are nuts. The mutter incoherently about conspiracy theories, crystals and other things too weird to understand and the sentences are punctuated with" man". They tend to have 12 cats or more.

Hippies are also fond of ridiculous head ware.  Floppy velvet rags, bits of trees anything goes in the putrid world of the hippie. They are not so much demented as just plain old stupid and more than likely addled from excessive cannabis use.

4. Sports Louts

Your average sports fan probably isn't nuts. The hooligans that start riots if their teams win or or lose probably are.  Their shouts of "we won" are the their rallying cry, but they are usually too drunk to realize that technically they did not win, they just watched.  Their testosterone induced fits of barbaric behavior cloud the irony that that they are being taken in by slick marketing, creation of brand loyalty and over priced team merchandise.  Usually found in large groups on the street after a game, it is best to avoid these dangerous lunatics.


5. Records, man.

Dudes who run used vinyl stores usually seem to be a little off. They sniff with airs of superiority at anything that outside their realm and have an unhealthy disdain for CD's. They usually own all 23 versions of some song by an obscure 60's garage band, and given the opportunity, will discuss it at length and dissect every note. They sometimes forgo food and personal hygiene in their search for rare vinyl.

They will openly berate non-believers and have very few social skills. It is always funny to throw them a curve, because most of these guys know fuck all about Rockabilly.

They can often be found with their half-witted brethren; the Dungeons and Dragons folk. They can sometimes be seen in parks staging mock sword battles or dancing to medieval music.


6.Skid Bars

I'm not sure how the skid bar ever came to be, but their seems to be an alarming abundance of them in most large North American cities. There is no amount of booze that can make these places appealing, they are just as depressing drunk or sober. They all have regulars, however, and the regulars love their local skid bar. Some can be found drinking really bad draft in the dark confines of the bar on a nice sunny day, only occasionally venturing outside to search for cigarette butts on the sidewalk.

Many of these places are devoid of music, not even having the most rudimentary of juke boxes. As the  din would indicate, the regulars don't even give a damn. They are content to yammer at each other in their own, incomprehensible skid bar dialect. Shouts of " Yaarg", "Frag", and " Maaah" can be heard interspersed in the din with the occasional beer belch.

This is probably what lunatic asylums would look like if they served alcohol, but the skid bar provides invaluable services should one be in need of stolen cheese or contraband cigarettes.


7. 4:20 Day

Marijuana users seem to think that they have a morally superior cause. They are too stoned to know that all they are doing is getting fucked up in the head. Their self righteous and ardent devotion to this substance culminates in 4:20 day, cleverly held on April 20th every year. They congregate downtown in large crowds and defiantly blow pot smoke at cops. Oh those dangerous rebels that they are.

They will have important pot-people give speeches that are rarely completed due to the excessive misfiring of brain cells. They will chant and cause a ruckus, smug in the knowledge that they are pissing pretty much everybody off. Always held in the middle of the day, theses so-called activists don't seem to have any visible signs of employment. They will go on ad nauseam about the mind expanding properties of the magic weed  and trail off mumbling, having forgotten their point.

The revel in their defiance, yet are basically a bunch of smart asses. If you happen to be in the vicinity of this inert mass of dirt and dreadlocks, you will definitely see some truly insane people. And they are stoned to top it off. It doesn't last long however, and the firemen will hose the place down when it's done as the hippies airily meander off, trying to remember where they live.

Crazy, man, crazy.