A Crazy For All Seasons

New York, you have the best Crazies. If there was, like, a "Crazy Olympics" you would win the gold in every event. And this is certainly not to say that Seattle didn't have it's share of Crazies, or my it surely did, but they were of a different breed.

You would typically find a Seattle Crazy strung out and asking for money. Their appearance, a drug-addled teen who moved to The Emerald City in order to live where Nirvana was formed. They, of course, realize all too soon that sitting outside of Kurt Kobein's house is just as boring as sitting in front of any house, and often regret selling their guitar for a bus pass and some crystal meth. They're skinny, and dirty, and far younger than you're comfortable with--but they're not aggressive.

Today, while walking to my favorite food cart, I heard this insane rambling about Jesus or Revelations or something along those lines. Whoever it was was belting his gospel for everyone to hear. I turned around and there, in front of Brooks Brothers, as a genuine New York crazy, screaming at people's backs about how much shit their gonna' be in when Jesus gets back. What makes this especially funny, though, is that he was a bell ringer for the Salvation Army...

Can you catch more flies with honey?

The bell ringers in the Northwest were pretty docile, and often times kind of sweet. I mean, they're always homeless people (9 times out of 10), or just a bored religious woman ringing bells out of the goodness of her heart. I mean, you know they're going to shake out what they can at the end of their shift and buy a jug of Monarch Rum, but that's just understood. In New York, you get the impression that they already drank the rum and are just bell ringing because they're bored and want to scream about Jesus with the aid of a bell.

But to be completely honest, and I've said this before, New York is just so damn intense. Northwest Crazies could probably be financial consultants here, in fact, they might be an improvement on some of the people you find in the Financial District.

Yeah, what's up Financial District? Burn!

It's just a new breed here, and I guess if you're going to get pushed by society and circumstance this is a place that will push you hard. The people who are forced to stay in the city just have stores of built-up insanity that has collected over so so long. I mean, at least in Seattle it doesn't snow. At least in Seattle if you're homeless you're always a 20-minute walk away from some forest no one will ever bother you in. The crazies in Seattle get to re-charge their batteries a little bit, at least to an extent. But sorry New York, Trump has renovated all the bombed out warehouses, turned 'em into luxury condos; and don't even think about finding a few trees where you can hide a tent.

Can we please, for the sake of everyone, just hire a bus, collect all the crazies, and move them to Staten Island? Really, I don't think anyone will notice.