Encountering Crazies

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/13/neighborhoods_of_the_traveling_pantless/

Above is a link to a Boston Globe story about a group of people who ride the subway pantless. As I encountered some interesting characters at the park today, I started thinking about the strange people I've seen in the past few weeks. The thing about living in a city is that there are a lot of people living in very close quarters- for better or worse. That means there are more hilarious people to watch on a daily basis.
Saturday morning, my roommate and I hopped on the subway to go to an open studios event in the South End. While waiting for the train, we saw a girl dressed from head to toe as a zombie. We found out later where she was going. We got off the train to peruse some art studios and decided to get back on again to go to the Hemp Festival in Boston Common to kill time before our movie started. Here we saw Zombie Girl and her Zombie Friends. We walked past two stages where singers and speakers were performing for thousands of people. One speaker actually said that pot should be legalized to support the American Dream. Not the "bogus" American Dream of getting a job, getting married, and having children, but the American Dream to "Live freely." The event was insanely crowded, so we left pretty quickly. We got back on the subway to go up to Cambridge for a few hours. The Hemp Festival must have ended about the time we decided to head home, because when the train got to the stop outside Boston Common, dozens of bleary and red-eyed festival attendees got on accompanied by a very distinctive smell. No, not body odor. At one point, the conductor got on the system and yelled at passengers to stay away from the doors so they could be closed. One of the festival-goers was particularly struck by this and felt strongly enough about it that he needed to tell me. The following conversation occurred:
Festival Attendee: Do you remember those old Snapple commercials?
Me: I don't know which ones?
Festival Attendee: You know, that one with the lady.
Me: No, I don't know that one
Festival Attendee: You know, the one where she's on the island?
Me: Nope
Festival Attendee: And she's on a boat trying to paddle away and the guys on the island are like no don't go!
Me: Never seen it
Festival Attendee (referring to the conductor): That's what that lady sounds like!

The madness continued today when I was at the park trying to study. Once I learn more about how to use the DSM-IV I'm going to play a game where I try to diagnose people at this park. I was about to sit down at a table when a man who seemed to be sleeping on the next table woke up and slurred "Do you know Leeong?" (I'm guessing on the name- that's just what it sounded like). I told him I didn't, and he turned and stumbled down the hill, at the end of which he hopped over the fence, even though an entrance to the park was only a few yards away. While this was happening, there were men at another table playing chess. At first, I was sort of glad they were there in case the drunken man got too rowdy. They seemed like sort of nice fellows at first. I was wrong. Eventually, one of them got up and walked toward some bushes about 30-40 yards away from the playground where a young couple was sitting with their baby in a stroller. He then began to relieve himself. Before he did this, he asked the couple if they minded if he urinated in the bushes and told them not to look. The couple left soon after.
I then thought I was out of the woods in regards to witnessing possible future case-studies while I read. Again, I was wrong. About six 8-10 year-olds showed up and at first were sweetly singing Taylor Swift songs together. Two 14-ish year-old boys arrived to ride their skateboards. One of the younger kids began to taunt the teenagers. These young men could so obviously stuff this kid's head in a toilet and make him sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" from now until he hits puberty that they didn't even bother to retaliate. As they were leaving, the same little boy threw a small stick at the teens and then started yelling "I threw a stick at you! HA HA! An 8 year-old threw a stick at you! F*** you!" I don't know what's more shocking, the fact that he had the gumption to throw something at boys twice his size, or that he had the cojones to curse them off.
This brings me back to a conversation I had with my landlord this afternoon. He told me that he was cleaning up the apartment on the first floor so he could show it to potential renters. I know from experience that he is pretty careful about who he lets rent out the place. He said something about making sure the right kind of people move in, so I replied "That's right, you don't want crazies moving in." To this he responded half-joking "No you don't want crazies moving in." I would, after all, be the one living in the same building with the tenants.
It sounds simple enough. We just have to avoid all the pantless, high, drunk, public urinating, taunting zombies and we'll be fine.