inside the wonderful world of vee

i found a new “talk to us” friend! rachel and i went to westlake center today to hold up a sign saying “talk to us.” we went around 6, and initially, people were reluctant. i take it because it was rush hour.

THE TWO BLACK GUYS I COULDN’T REALLY UNDERSTAND.
the first two people to talk to us stopped by and talked to us but it was an awkward convo. one was wearing one of those handkerchiefs around his face and didn’t talk. the other one was friendly, but he was a little odd. he said he was going to stand on the street corner to be a “living, breathing stereotype,” and he was going to be the “angry black guy standing on the corner.” a little random and kind of funny. but kinda very random.

THE DUDE FROM LOUISIANA.
this guy was nice, nice. he walked by us at first (after giving us a smile), but came back right after. he asked us how many people had talked to us and we said not many. he said, “that’s seattle for ya!” and i said, “usually it’s a lot better than this.” and he said that if we were in lousiana, where he’s from, everyone would stop and talk to us and ask what we were doing and invite us over to their homes. kewl. he didn’t have much to say as he was meeting up with his friend, but just wanted to say that he thought things like this were great because they make people stop and think and make people understand that other people exist.

THE GUY I ARGUED WITH.
i forget this guy’s name but he was half-awesome and half-annoying. he had an extremely interesting way of looking at things. 4/4 on black male stopping to talk to us. anyway. he asked me if i was a citizen. i said i was. he asked how i knew. i said because they told me i was. then he said, “i don’t know if i’m a citizen sometimes,” and i asked him why. he said, “because i’m black.” and then i said… “well, at least you have some rights.” that brought a tear to his eye, cause he thought i meant that black people don’t have all the rights. i don’t necessarily think that, but i said some because i figured he was thinking that if he said he didn’t know sometimes if he was a citizen because he was black. bleh. some other stuff transpired, and then he asked me if i was in school. i said i’d graduated and that i was a sociology major. he asked me what the solution to the world’s problems were. i said i didn’t know. he said i had a sociology degree but i didn’t know? and then he proceeded to tell me i was a clone because i had a sociology degree — that having a degree and going to college made people clones. i said, “what if i didn’t think it was necessary?” and he said, “it’s too late. you’re already indoctrinated.” he went off about how no one wants to solve the problems in the world because then they would be without a job… that sociologists would go on to become social workers but they would only social work enough to solve the problem a little but not enough to solve the problem 100%, because they simply wanted to keep their own jobs under wraps, and solving the problem of homelessness or of the poor would mean that their jobs would be eradicated. i didn’t know how to argue with that. at some point while he was bitching and crying i kind of started to yell at him and i said, “you don’t like rich people. you don’t like people with degrees because you think they’re clones. you don’t like social workers because you don’t believe they’re really trying to make a difference. who do you like then? it’s not like poor people aren’t trying to be not poor anymore.” he didn’t have anything to say about that. sat there for a while, silently. and then after a while, i said, “nothing to say?” and he said, “popcorn that’s put in a pan is still popcorn if it doesn’t explode,” or something like that. i didn’t understand. then he said something about how martin luther king was once asked why he was looking melancholy, and he said he was looking melancholy because he was thought he was trying to integrate his people into a burning house. and he said some crap about how fire changes things and that for change to be made, america must burn. i was all a little confused by this.

at some point a few people interrupted — who knew him — and would come by. one large black dude and his? wife? came by and were yammering on about god. they asked the guy i was arguing with if he’d spread the word about god yet to me, and he said he was getting there. and the god guy said, “well, i’ll leave you to it, then,” and left. well the guy never did share anything about god, thank god, but if you’re going to talk to me about clones, what about religious clones?? TALK ABOUT CLONES. anyway.

THE HOMELESS LADY WHO WAS CONFUSING.
another lady came by, staring at our signs for a long, long time and not saying much. she finally came by and asked if we were in school or something and the guy i was arguing with (who knew the lady) said that i had a sociology degree. apparently they knew each other from a soup kitchen or something, and she asked me if i knew where that soup kitchen was. i said yes. she asked if i’d been there, and i said no. and then the guy i was arguing with said, “she wouldn’t ever be going there. she has a sociology degree.” bitter much? that’s pretty much the gist of it.

THE COUCHSURFER FROM FINLAND.
unfortnately, i didn’t get to talk to this guy because i was too busy arguing with the one guy and rachel was talking to him… this guy was from finland and was basically just couchsurfing across the united states (which is funny, cause i just signed up for that site yesterday…) and had just used rideshare to get a ride to seattle from wyoming or something. more details from rachel hopefully, since i cannot relay it, since i didn’t get to talk to him. which really sucks. because i want to couchsurf and i’d love to pick his brain about it T__T i actually juuuust looked him up on couchsurfing, though, and it’s pretty funny. i looked for people traveling in the seattle area and he was the third person on the list!! too easy!!

at some point here the security guards came by and shooed us away because we were sitting on westlake property and no one was supposed to loiter there (we’d long seen the signs but ignored them!). another homeless guy who had a sign asking for $20 was trying to save us, telling them that we didn’t want money and that we just wanted to talk to people, but we ended up getting shooed away anyway. nice of him. we just went to the planters across the walkway from where we were, and that worked out fine.

THE GAME PRODUCER FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
this guy was pretty much just trying to kill time while his friend was doing something else. he was here for a microsoft meeting and had just moved to boston. he was a producer? for lord of the rings online. didn’t talk to him that much… mostly just small talk. upper middle class white guy. he said it was cool that he goes into meetings and just discusses hit points all day. haha.

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” LADY.
she asked us, “what do you want to talk about?” and we said, “anything.” she said, “did you know that jesus loves you?” and the massachusetts guy was still here — obviously uninterested when she came by. we answered in the negatory. she continued by saying that god would show himself to me sometime. i said, “i hope he does, because if he doesn’t, i will never believe him.” she left on that note.

THE CASUAL GAME AND TOY CREATOR FROM LOS ANGELES.
this guy’s name was ferad or something. he said he had tried to make up a story for his name before, since no one had actually heard of that name. he said he used to make up stories about where the name was from but that he’d forgotten it. i said he should say something about the fact that he is a prince, and he said it was something similar to that. lol. anyway. this guy was pretty laid back but still kinda cool. he was a freelance casual game designer and was just up here to crash some conference or something. he had bought an eyemask from daiso. i asked why. he said christmas. whatever that means. *__* he was very patient… when the christian guy (see next guy) was babbling on and on and on, he was obviously uninterested but still stuck around until the guy was finished. *__*

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” MAN.
clones much? as if his wife asking us, “did you know that jesus loves you?” wasn’t enough, he comes by and says, “talk to you about what?” and we say, “anything.” he responds by saying, “did you know that jesus loves you?” i mean come on guy. nice thoughts but you’re a bit too um… clone-like. except whereas his wife backed off really fast, this guy shared personal stories for muuuch too long. there was the massachusetts guy still hanging around and ferad, and everyone was stuck listening to how he used to be an alcoholic but was no longer one and that jesus saved him blahblahblah. he told us that if we had a bible, we should read john 3:16, and i mean, come on. pick a better verse. any fool off the street can tell us to read that verse (and they do). he was nice and jolly though so i can’t fault him too much, and they didn’t argue about no one being interested in jesus… they mostly just spread positive vibes despite the fact that they were preaching, so i’m kinda mostly okay with it even though it was just a little boring. as they were leaving the wife regaled a story about how one of her friends got shot in the head and got in two accidents on the way to the hospital, and that he died and went to hell, and when he came back, he knew he didn’t want to go back to hell so he changed his life. she said he was a bad man prior to that. well, that’s certainly interesting. i thought she was going to say something about how he got shot and then started believing in god but at least this story has slightly more weight to it. then they went on their merry ways. they were, though, in my long times of doing this, the first couple that actually straight out preached to us. other people have given pamphlets or done run-by, “jesus loooves yoooooouuuu!”’s but they were the first ones that actually stopped and TRIED to make a difference, so kudos to them on that, although their plights fell on deaf years. the lady before she left also kept saying, “he’s going to make a difference in your life,” to me in particular, and she also said at some point that she wished she could witness it when it happened. if she were a little more um, not fanatical about christianity, i’d mighta’d give’d her my info or gotten hers to see if it ever happened. but no. no thanks.

THE FRIEND OF THE LOTR GUY.
the friend of the lotr guy had been buying a drink in starbucks and when he came out, he got me and rachel drinks (this all while the couple was preaching). he said, “you must be tired after listening to this guy yammer on!” and we thought it was very kind of him, even though the drink was sick as shit.

THE GROUP OF KIDS FROM BELLINGHAM.
this group of kids who had just graduated from high school — despite the fact that they looked older than rachel and i — stopped by after two of the guys, donovan and paul, noticed us and came by. their friends stood a ways away watching until they realized that donovan and paul were talking to us just fine and that we weren’t terrifying… and then it was all good even though the fact that we were surrounded by a wall of kids was kinda scary. *__* they were like this:

- girl 1 - guy who looked like john lennon - girl 2 - paul - girl 3 - donovan -

wow, now that i realize it, they were in perfect changing order. even though john lennon guy looked a little bit like a woman. initially, at least ;0 those kids had driven down two hours from bellingham or whatever JUST to watch “dark knight” in imax. that’s dedication right there. they all loved it. who doesn’t love that movie? pretty much everyone loves it. donovan works at colophon cafe (or at least i think that’s the right one) in bellingham. he told me to look him up if i went there this weekend — which i am going to. so i’m going to! this all because paul said bellingham was kinda hippie and that people would DEFINITELY talk to us there, and why not… i’ve never explored bellingham at all so i’d love the opportunity this weekend (sunday) to explore the place! anyway, when they first walked up, paul was mentioning that people did “free hugs” in bellingham and i said that wasn’t intimate enough, and the girl to the left of him said, “can i get a hug, though?” and i said yes, and we exchanged huggles. and then we talked a bit about donovan’s totally mangled shoes that were orange and green and looked like they had been destroyed, and they had been signed by flogging molly. he was also wearing red and blue socks. AWESOME. apparently paul’s shoes had been set on fire seven times — which i wanted to ask him about, but there was way too much conversation going on. all in all cool kids, and they asked us if there was anywhere in the westlake area to eat that was cheap. we said no and told them to walk ten blocks east to capitol hill to find something to eat. i gave them a redefine card telling them to check it out since they obviously liked music (at least, liked flogging molly). that was all after i said that people always thought we were selling things when we weren’t… but they said it was okay since this time the selling of things came after the talking and that it was an effective method of selling things. and off they went. i shall try to contact them this weekend. or something.

and that’s it for now. still have to recap on talk to us part six. i’ll try to do that another time *__* but now yay! rachel loves it and she will participate with me in such events in the future. finally, someone that actually likes it.

um, can i just start this off by saying… I LOVE FOLK LIFE? i’ve never been to the damned thing before. the only thing i knew about it was that it was a “hippie” fest but i am so into it. i guess i am partly hippie, maybe that contributes to the sentiment that folk life is AMAZING.

alright so, after circling around queen anne for a long while, completely unable to find parking, i decided that i should just park at the spaghetti factory since i have a pass to park there. and so i did. and i checked on this piece of paper i stuck on the pole near the sculpture park last friday, and it was full, so i took it down.

the point of that piece of paper was to tell people to contribute one thing to the drawing to build off of what was there before it. woot. i’ll have the results up sometime soon.

walked up to the space needle and it was like, five blocks or so. put up another sheet of paper right near the space needle. then walked into folk life.

upon first going in, this guy! and he had a “free hugs” sign so i gave him one. WOOT. the first of many. he had these little stuffed lions framing him. haha. they had tiaras… one had a tiara that was a tambourine. how cute.

there was another folk band with accordion and washboard… these things are all the rage nowadays, that’s for sure.

then there was this guy with a whiteboard… on it had the word “who’s right?” and below that were other words, like “athiests”, “jews”, “christians”, etc. um, he was doing a lot of screaming and not a huge amount of dispelling anything interesting, really. he asked this question… “who thinks they are a good person?” and someone responded that he said he was. and the sign guy said, “have you ever lied?” and the good person says, yes, and somehow the sign guy took that to mean that he wasn’t really good, because he’d lied before. blahblah. then he got bored so he pointed to lenny and asked lenny who he thought was right, off the people on his board. lenny said, “i think all of them have good qualities,” and the sign guy said, “i agree with that,” and moved on. some guy to our left said, “hinduism? there’s something right about hinduism? they have a multi-armed monkey man picking his nose… something something bullshit bullshit,” and i said, “it doesn’t mean that’s the part that is the good part,” and he did this kind of pompous knowing scoff/laugh and said something about else along those lines. and i said, “you don’t have to be religious — i’m not religious — to think that religions have something good to offer,” and he couldn’t even say a godamned thing. nor did he try. he just gave another knowing laugh. and i said, “yeah, that’s a good answer.” and i was like mad, lol, and turned around. what a fucker. can’t even give reasons for why he thinks no religion has anything good about it… can only press his opinion that is worth shit. FUCKTARD.

anyway.

there were some other guys with jesus signs (pictured) and these three guys wearing all black walked by and like said “BAAA BAAAA BAAAAAAA!” in their faces. it was really quite quite hilarious. shoulda videotaped. oh well, at least i have this photo. ahha. i mean. it’s an asshole thing to do. but it’s still hilarious. unfortunately i caught him in pic too late so he’s not screaming in this pic :{

walked around a bit. ran into lenny’s friend. it was kinda awkward. but interesting! because her husband had the exact same camera and exact same lens as i did! he had a lens hood… that was the only difference.

found some cardboard in a recycle bin (after lenny gave $1 to this guy who had a sign that said, “i bet you $1 that you will read this sign”), haha. genius. ripped apart the cardboard in preparation for sign-making. never a shortage of cardboard, i guess.

borrowed a marker from the vendor that lenny bought a nature photograph from, and wrote a sign that said, “talk to us (about anything) we don’t want money, we just want conversation.” (i wrote that last part because there were SO many people begging for money at folk life, albeit rather creatively.)

there was this DOPE balloon guy. he did some things i’ve never seen a balloon maker do. he would pinch off sections of balloon without popping it… i don’t really understand how. he also got water into the balloon after blowing it up with this little cup-like gadget. he was trippy. his hat said, “NO WEAPONS,” and he said he only made things that were “helpful”. which is soo awesome. this is his helpful thing for this kid… it’s a fire-fighting airplane… hence the water on the bottom of it (can’t really see :[):

drum n’ bass… with a TUBA? fucking awesome. someone said this was a french horn. it is a tuba, isn’t it? i don’t know. too lazy to look it up. oh god. no i have to. no, it’s totally a tuba. i win. asshole.

got a smoothie and went to find a spot. there was this great spot on a corner but this band took it, so we found another spot near the main path that didn’t have seating or nothing… we just sat on the ground. werd.

and so, the adventure begineth.

***

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
we’d seen this guy talking with the “who’s right” guy. he came down and sat down by lenny. ian and i talked about where vee and i were from and what we do for a living. he mentioned that he was leaving seattle soon and that folklife was like his goodbye seattle thing.

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
so this blonde girl comes with two of her friends — a guy and a gal — and tries making conversation with us but we keep getting distracted and kind of ignoring her. she asks what our best conversation with people has been and i fail to answer because all these other people come by… (see below…)

THE 14 YEAR OLD RAVER GIRL.
so i saw that this girl was wearing a ton of candy and asked her about raving a bit. she said that this was her first time coming to folk life sober or some shit. i was like, what?? and she said that she had just popped an ecstasy pill (wtf!) and so i was like, whaaat! and i asked her how old she was and she said she was 14, and i asked her how many times she’d done it, and she said she’d lost count. i said, what? like 100? and she said, no, more like 23 or something. i was like, wtf, that’s more than me and i’m 24! and yeahhhhh. *__* she’s too young for that shit z0mg. her friend was on the phone, refusing to talk to us. i didnt talk to this girl but i talked to ian about them. i was like raver chix lul and he was like “hahaha”

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
initially spurned forth by two of them — sam and this other guy whose name i don’t know — these two thirteen and fourteen year olds sat down next to us. the asian kid with glasses asked us what we thought about marijuana. i said it should be legalized. i had forgotten who i was talking to. then that kid said that he agreed. sam was surprised. then asian kid said something about how marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol. i said, yes! but then lenny asked the kid if he’d done those things before. he said that he had not gotten drunk but had tried marijuana. so lenny said, then how do you know? and he didn’t seem to have an answer, really. meanwhile their group of friends came by but didn’t much say anything. when the 8th graders were talking to us about what we were up to i mentioned that ian was getting paid while doing this at the same time! sweeeet. i got the vibe that the asian kid with glasses was trying to act cooler than he was as a means to impress his lady friends. more power to him. go, asian kid. the girls in the group were quiet, they seemed like they wanted to talk but seemed like they were used to staying quiet. i wanted to hear what they had to say, but oh well.

THE ARMY GUY.
this guy came out of nowhere. i didn’t see him coming, but he gave his opinion of marijuana, and that was that it was not only a gateway drug but much, much more. he seemed to think that being in the military almost gave him credit to say this or something. so like this guy was just sitting there for a while next to ian listening to our conversation. so i saw him and said hey whats up. when we started talking about drugs i wanted to help him join in on the conversation so i was like “hey do you have any words of wisdom for these youngins?” and he was like haha i like how you turn to the oldest looking guy in the group, so i was like yea with age comes wisdom! lets hear it! so he started talking about how marijuana was more than a gateway drug and that he’s seen people’s lives ruined by it and he used to be a dealer down in cali but never did it. he started talking about how a joint was way worse than smoking a cigarette then the asian kid with glasses was like “do you smoke?” and he was like yea, and the asian kid was like you spend 3000 dollars a month on cigarettes, and the army guy was like dude i spent 3000 dollars in the past two days, and we were like wow on what? and he was like hahaha i dont wanna say so we all just assumed it was on hookers or something.

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian interjected by saying that he was 25 and from his personal experience he felt that people did marijuana but outgrew it. oh yea this is where ian interjected with his personal experiences and that only people who have addictive personalities have a problem with marijuana, and that marijuana itself isnt bad, its just that the people who are gonna get addicted to something anyways happen to get addicted to marijuana

THE ARMY GUY.
got a phone call and left after not really agreeing with ian. so yea he was just like preaching about how drugs were bad and stuff and then he started talking about how his job is way more dangerous than smoking and that he was a soldier… anyways he ended up leaving and it was like woa

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian tells lenny some stuff. (lenny?)

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
the girl tries to continue that conversation and tries to ask us what our favorite conversation in other times we did this was. on the spot, i can think of NOTHING. now i can think of a buncha things i coulda told her, but at the time nothing seemed all that appropriate or interesting :{ suckage. they leave after a bit. sorry, gal.

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
this kid was dressed up totaly awesome, raver-style, and kinda femme, with lots of pink and purple mixed with black. he had purple/black hair, i think. totally etarded, i’m pretty sure. he was talking about how he had scammed some “dirka dirkas” into buying his broken ipod and that they owed him $10. and he was totally looking to get that $10 even though he had scammed those guys and sold them a broken ipod that was stuck on the same one song. wtfs. those people hadn’t even checked it!!!! and he was asking if we’d seen the arabs and iraqis and we said no. he went to go look for them. he kept yelling dirka dirka! im lookin for some dirkadirkastan guy!! when he walked over i was like lawl this is gonna be interesting

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
leave and promise to come back. before they leave, i tell them, that if they’re going to do drugs, to make sure NOT to do meth, crack cocaine, or heroine. ahahhaha.

THE LESBIANS WITH A KID FROM KAZAKHSTAN.
or at least i thought they were lesbian. they were nice and middle-aged, with a cute asian-ish looking kid who they had gotten from kazakhstan. one was saying that she was talking to her partner about the trip to kazakhstan and how vacations like that were so relaxing and nothing much mattered on vacation. she said that what we were doing with our sign was probably like a mini vacation. the other woman had other thoughts to add… and that was that as she was getting older, she felt like she was talking to people less and less because she had no real interest in speaking with them, and that perhaps she should do something like this, too. they tried getting the kid to say hi to us but he had just awoken from a nappy nap.

THE PEOPLE FROM REDMOND.
this mom, with her two kids and… boyfriend? stop by. she’s the only one who talks but she loves the idea. there’s some generic talk. we talk about the delicious-looking donuts her youngest son has. they’re from redmond, as the younger son baseball’s tshirt says (redmond west).

THE POETRY GIRLS.
so some girls were walking by and told us to contribute one line to their poem. i told the main chick that she should go contribute to the paper that i posted up, and she said, “oh? that was you?” and it’s pretty cool that she’d seen it! i gave her my card and told her to send me the poems she got. the line i wrote in her poem was “they then searched in vain for the fuse” oh yes! my line was something about “penguins marching in line to the ______” here’s one of the poems they got that people contributed to:

THE SHORTEST POEM IN THE WORLD GUY.
this guy waited until the group left and then approached lenny and apologized if he talked funny… i guess he’d suffered a stroke before. he then said he used to know the guy who wrote the shortest poem in the world and recited the poem. it was something about how a day is just from dawn to dawn. and lenny said, “that’s a very straightforward poem.” this guy was pretty cool i could see him standing behind everyone eagerly awaiting to talk to me so i kept saying hello to him to get him to join the group conversation. he seemed perfectly content and i could tell he wanted to wait till other people were done. i commented about the card around his neck and he said it was an indian reservation card or something, then he was like i suffered a stroke so please forgive me if im slow with this, so i was like oh ok and he said he used to know the guy who wrote the worlds shortest poem, and i was like oh cool lets hear it! and he was like oh man and got nervous and forgot the poem and was like forgive me im nervous, but then he remembered it and told it to me, it was something like “i yawn until dawn”, and was like oh thats very short and straight forward, nice!

THE FLY-BY KONICHIWA MAN.
some elderly man walked by and was like, “konichiwa,” and i said, “i’m not japanese, but okay.” don’t think he heard cause he’d said konichiwa without really caring if we responded, methinks.

THE CRAZY LADY WITH THE SUNFLOWER SEEDS.
this partially crazy lady with a bag of sunflower seeds came by. her first question to us was, “how come orientals don’t talk to people?” and we were like whaaa? cause how the fuck do you answer that? lenny said something about how it was probably cultural. she would sit there listening to his answer and not saying anything… picking at her bag of sunflower seeds. and then lenny would offer forth some other idea and she would continue doing the same. no real answer-giving. and then because it was so awkward, lenny would keep saying stuff about how he thought it was cultural that asians don’t talk to people as much blahblah, and also mixed in a lot of “i don’t know”’s because, well, she wasn’t responding and made everyone feel uncomfortable. finally she spoke and said that she thought it was all a front that asians don’t talk to other people and that there was nothing cultural about it. she was weird. and ignant. she walked away. lenny and i were giving funny looks to the air as she walked away and i guess she kept turning around and seeing those. i didn’t see her reaction but lenny said she looked like she wanted to kill. this lady was thoroughly disappointing, but good thing she showed up because she gave us something to talk about afterwards: her. anyways… i kept offering answers to her like well its mainly the older generation that is old fashioned and more reserved, but the younger generation is more outgoing and she was still mean muggin the whole time. so these two asian kids (see below!) sat down and i was like hey you guys why do you think asians in general are less social than most people?? the asian kids were like what ?? asian people are the most talkative in my class, (although one did say asian girls were more quiet!) so i was like oh no i mean the older 1st gen people, your parents are asian right? and they were like yea haha it sux and i was like lawl azn parents. so i keep talking to the old lady trying to convince her that its not a defect in asian genes, its a cultural learned thing but she was just not having any of it. she started talking about how when asian people dance they have no feeling and its all just robotic, and i was like again thats cultural. and then she started talking about how she doesnt like how people blame it on culture and that thats just a front to cover up their own inadequacies.. anyways i started showing disinterest in her and she got the idea and walked away. as she walked away i gave the two kids this funny look and she saw me and glared at me and i started laughing and she kept turning around to look at me as she walked away, owned! im sure i didnt help fix the image of asians in her head.

THE TWO OTHER ASIAN KIDS.
so while crazy lady was there, two other kids sat down — one mixed, one not. we filled them in on what the conversation was about and they agreed with OUR ideas about it, but again, they too were scared by crazy lady. as soon as crazy lady left, the mixed one said, “i wasn’t talking because she was there.”

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
he comes back and tells us that he found the iraqi guy he was looking for, and that the guy gave him his $10. a bit shady. lol. oh well. then he saw some guy walking by with a free hugs sign and ran after the dude and was like growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGG!” (so wish i’d gotten it on video.) after he’d hugged that group of people, he came back, and i saw another, and i was like, “ZOMG FREE HUG!! GO GO GO!” and again, he growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGGGG” and went flying after those people. ahhahaha. man. shoulda definitely taken a video after setting him up like that. damn. :{ We were talking to those two other kids when he came back and i had to give them the backstory on this guy and why he got 10 dollars and stuff, they were like ohhh ic one of those two asian kids complemented raver kid on his totally flaming outfit. awesome.

(see that guy with his arms raised? that’s our raver kid who growl-screams for hugs.)

THE SPOKEN WORD GUY.
this one guy, raajni, stopped by, and he was a spoken word artist. he had a buncha cds with him and had sold eight today. lenny bought one from him for $7, although the suggested price was $10. he liked what we were doing, and said that he was trying to spread dialogue just like we were. he gave us a little taste of his spoken word / rap, and it was basically along the lines of how there is no more democracy in america and that everything is a lie. i said, “i agree,” and he said, “she concurs,” and gave me a pound (fist pound). there was a lot of fist pounding and he was pretty much awesome. and in all honesty, his spoken word was not at all bad! his spoken word was suprisingly good it had a good message about the state of our country and where its heading

THE TWO GIRLS?
they don’t get a better description, unfortunately. one just asked me about my lip ring and said she was thinking about getting one later today. i said it just felt like getting your ear pierced. i don’t even know if they’re old enough to get that shit. don’t you have to be 18?!!!?!

THE PSYCHOLOGIST GIRL.
so, people with signs are DEFINITELY attracted to other people with signs. this lady stopped by and she had a “psychiatric help, 5 cents (suggested donation)” sign. she was with a guy who didn’t really say a damned thing. she talked about how she had earned $1.25 or so from four people, but that only one of those people had actually talked to her about an actual problem and that everyone else just wanted a diagnosis but didn’t want to share a problem. so this couple was pretty funny, i talked to them about how portland is a vortex of unfun and how it was good for them to get out of that horrible city. talked to them also about various stuff and she said alot of people asked her what her qualifications were and she was like “look im offering help for a nickle! do i need qualifications?” and i was like lawl, talked about peanuts and how she needed a booth.

THE SALMON GUY.
so i don’t know if this guy came by because the psychologist girl was there but he said something about, “what do you think about this problem? no more salmon fishing for this year,” or some shit. and we were like, surprised, both by the idea of it and by his statement, i guess, since it was so random! this was obviously very much on his mind. haha. this guy was funny, he was appalled that they cancelled the chinook salmon season, and i was equally apalled because i love salmon, and he was like at least the silver salmon season is still on, and i was like oh jea silver salmon is my favorite salmon! his wife then came to talk to us about what we were doing and how it was awesome

THE HIP-HOP TEACHER.
this black lady came by and lenny talked to her a bit about the marijuana convo we’d had with the kids. i didn’t listen to that entire conversation but did catch that she worked at a middle school for a rotation program… those schools had hip-hop dance, i guess, not squaredancing shit like we used to. she said she saw a few of the kids she saw at the middle schools and that they would stop swearing as soon as she walked by. haha. she seemed cool but again, i didn’t talk to her that much. oh yeah, and she asked us what star signs we were and was surprised that we were sagittarius and cancer… she thought that we’d be aquarius and gemini. keke. then she asked us if we knew where we could pick up a program. we weren’t so helpful in answering that one.

THE OLD GUY WITH THE HAT AND GLASSES.
he was a cute older guy who sat next to lenny. i’m not sure what he talked about. i forget T__T

THE ASIAN LADIES WITH THE ANIMALS.
a couple of asian ladies came by and one was silent while the other one asked us questions like, “what animal would you be?” i answered that i would be a sloth. (i wanted to insert the awesome fact that sloths could swim well but i didn’t.) lenny said he’d be a flying squirrel. as she was leaving, she told me that next time she thought of a sloth she’d think of me. lol? when vivian said a sloth i was like DUDE A SLOTH’S HEAD IS LIKE ABNORMALLY TINY <– cute old guy, above, thought that was hilarious. i wanted to say my half favorite fact that sloths can swim really well but there wasn’t a good place to insert that in. darn!!

THE MEDICAL MARIJUANA GUY.
he was just passing out flyers. guess he didn’t really want to chat!

THE POT-WANTING GUY.
this guy was a total bum and talked to us briefly about how he likes making signs too, and that once he made a sign saying “potless”. then he asked us if we had pot. lol.

THE GUY WHO WORKED AT UW.
this man and his wife — who had funky fake teeth — stopped by. he worked at uw for biostatistics and we talked about how the building was far away and stuff for a while. along with tons of other people, they asked us if it was a school project. it’s funny, people are searching for reasons, and after i say that i was a sociology major then everyone is like, AAAH. as if all the pieces finally come together and it actually makes sense now. haha.

THE LADY AND SON IN RED.
both of them were in red, yes. i was talking to someone else when they came by but the lady seemed really cool and nice. she liked the idea. the son didn’t say much. we talked to the lady about the scary lady who was kind of racist and she said, “it seems like she is the one who didn’t really like talking,” since scary lady would say stuff and then like not really respond to our answers. lenny talked to her more. the lady liked what we were doing and asked how often we do it and the types of people we talk to and if we got anyone freakish so i mentioned racist lady. as they were leaving i told em they should try “talk to us” sometime

THE JAPAN-LIVING GUY, MICHAEL.
i didn’t talk to this guy much, but he had a blonde mustache with one tip (right side) that was white hair. it was quite interesting. quite interesting indeed. this guy had lived in japan for a while when he was 18 and was pretty fluent in japanese, i think. he said he’d been the only white guy there so everyone knew his name was michael but he didn’t really ever know what most of their names were. haha. he’d spent a recent year in china and picked up some chinese. i put him on the spot and had him try to speak some but i think he was a bit bashful about it. this guy was pretty cool, very chill and laidback, he looked kinda goofy but i liked that about him. he was the kind of person that i can get along with easily he was in seattle for a few months on his break from this neat study abroad program he was in for school he just got back from china and was gonna go to japan next and then 2 other countries which i forget. the thing i liked about michael was that we could talk about the people vivian was talking to and it was fun like that, he stayed for a while and we had many a conversation.

THE WELSH ACCENT GUY.
this guy had some musical wooden sticks. he sat down and he said, “nihonjin desuka?” i said, “no,” as i always do when people ask that question haha. and lenny said, “iie, chugokujin desu.” whatever. people always ask that shit and i always try not to humor them haha. i always answer with a blunt “no”. it’s almost weird that they say that right away because they’re expecting that you’re japanese and asking you in japanese — probably to show off their limited shitty japanese skills — but if you’re not japanese… and you didn’t know any japanese… then you’d just be like, “what on earth are you saying?” and it’s just a bit odd to ask that in another language, i think. just my opinion because it happens to me so much, though, i guess. i talked to him for a while as lenny was talking to michael. i mentioned that he had an accent and asked him if he was irish, and he said no, but i had a keen ear, and that irish accents are similar to welsh accents, and maybe that’s why. um, he told me this joke… something about how people who speak three languages are trilingual, people who speak two are bilingual, and people who speak one are american. we then talked about how it sucked that in america you learn another language when you’re in like, middle school and high school, and not elementary school, and by then, you can’t learn languages as easily. he said he used to tutor vietnamese kids and that the older kid would learn english fine but never could really get rid of his accent, whereas the younger kids learned the same amount of english over the same amount of time but were able to get rid of their accents. interesting point.

THE BEST IDEA GUY.
this guy asked us what we would do when we were out of good ideas. i think lenny said something about how we wouldn’t run out of good ideas, and i said something about how we’d just keep using this idea. i don’t know. then he asked us if this was our best idea and lenny said sushimonsters was his best idea. yeaaar. so this guy was like ‘this is a neat idea what other ideas have you come up with’ and i was like ummm and then he was like ‘whats the best idea youve ever had’ and i was like ‘this one!’ and he was like ‘haha’ and he was like ‘ what will you do when you run out of ideas’ and i was like ‘cry, ill cry’ and then i was like ‘ no just kidding i wont run out of ideas’ and then i mentioned sushimonsters.com and then michael was like ’so what are you some kind of good idea guy?’ that was funny.

THE TIT GUY.
this guy was the only one to come over out of his group of four. he was baked, i guess. came over and lifted up his shirt and said, “tit?” and then said, “talk to you about anything, huh?” and i said, “yeah, anything, but i don’t want to talk about your tit,” or something, and he said, “do you want anything?” and looked at me, and i was like, “uhh no,” and he’s like, “don’t get shy on me now, you don’t seem shy,” and i was like yeahhhhhhhh. felt a little awkward haha. after the tit thing and intense look… not really sure why :0 he just bumbled on a little and then apologized for being really high.

THE 14 YEAR OLD FREE HUGS GIRL.
this younger girl had a free hugs sign so i called her over and gave her a hug. i pretty much gave a hug to everyone who i saw with that sign that looked our way, haha. she was wearing a tegan and sara shirt and i mentioned that redefine had had a tegan and sara interview recently, and she said, “oh no way!” so i wrote down the address of the website for her, along with the redefine myspace site. she told me some story about how she went to go see tegan and sara in bellingham and almost passed out because she was anxious since they were four hours late getting there or something. i don’t really know. she also said that her friends and her were starting up a screenprinting clothing site and was going to launch into something about how we should work together but then caught herself and said nevermind. she asked me what my lip ring felt like and i told her just like a ear piercing, really.

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
they came back. sam was first and said that he kept his promise. i said something about how he loved us and was like, “right?” and he was like, “yeah.” haha. he was this cute little black? maybe mixed? kid with basketball shorts on. they had a crew of like 8 kids — guys and girls — their age. i don’t know the names of any of the rest but we talked to them for a good freaking while. this time we talked about a lot of things.

for starters, myspace, and how their parents wouldn’t let most of them have them. apparently those kids had taken sexual predator classes in school hahahaha. weird. and i said, “we never had those,” and lenny said, “because it wasn’t a problem when we were kids,” and i guess that’s true. sam asked if we’d watched “to catch a predator” before and i said, yeah, and that he should be able to have a myspace because don’t predators usually target girls? and this taller boy with massive calves (i guess he “had hops” hahaha) and a basketball t-shirt on said that he had been approached by older men before. the first story was that he was at a basketball court playing basketball and some guy approached him and asked if he wanted to play, and he said okay, and played with the guy for twenty minutes. and he got really sweaty. and then the guy said that they should go to his house to shower. hahahaha. and this kid told him to fuck off. and he said that it was easy because these predators who had approached him were way shorter and smaller than him (he was pretty tall). this other predator came up jogging behind him when he was running around greenlake. again, he was sweaty. the guy said that later they should go skinny-dipping in the lake at midnight. hahahaha. the kid again told this guy to fuck off. and lenny told him, “maybe you should stop getting sweaty, then,” and he said that he got sweaty from doing nothing. SO FUNNY. we continued talking to the kids about what they termed as chimo’s (child molestors) and four of the kids (two being brother and sister) had a sex offender living in their neighborhood. this chubbyish kid said that there was one living two houses down from him and that that guy would always be staring at him. haha. that kid was cute too. quite rotund.

this one girl had a really cool necklace with legos on it, and i guess all four of the girls there had one of those and they’d made them together. they looked DOPE. i want one. anyway, one girl (after being asked by lenny) suggested that we talk about how young kids have cellphones. she said she was 14 and had just gotten hers and thought it was ridiculous that some 8 year olds are walking around text-messaging on their cellphones. interesting stuff… i got my cell when i was 16 so it’s not too far off. interesting, the generation gap.

we asked them if they had people in their school that smoked pot. one girl said only one kid did. her friend said, “yeah, but there’s only 19 people in our class,” and she said, “true.”

after that we got to talking about the rules they have at their catholic school, since all of them went to catholic school. something about how girls aren’t allowed to wear nailpolish… and then there was talk of uniforms and all that jazz. and how they got in trouble more than we could ever imagine. sounds like a pain. i went to catholic school… i don’t remember it being that strict since i was third grade and under, but as a high schooler or middle schooler, i’m sure it’s a bitch.

at some point talking to all these kids got overwhelming. there were just SO MANY of them and all of them had something to say, which was really kinda cute. they were really open and cool kids.

THE PREACHER LADY.
as we were talking to this group of kids, stupid lady came by and handed us this piece of paper. she said, “this is a good discussion topic.” the paper said on it something like “make peace with god.” further inspection made us realize that it was some advertisement for billy graham. ahha. i said, “no, we are not talking about this,” and stashed it away. lol. kid who had been approached by elderly men said something negatory about those christian word-spreaders (of which there were a LOT LOT LOT at folk life).

THE COOL-LOOKING KIDS.
again, some emo-ish looking kids… four of them… one with a banged up hand drum. talked to them briefly about how — and this is kinda weird of me — they were the coolest-looking people to stop by and that other people who “looked cool” didn’t really stop and talk. and one of the kids said, “guess they aren’t really that cool, then.” touche. his other friends were rather silent, however. i dont remember that conversation at all and didnt notice that they looked cool , i did comment about how their drum was neat though

THE OLD CHINESE MAN.
lenny talked to this guy a little and then told me to speak to him in chinese. bah. putting on the spot. such badness. i spoke to him a little about what we were doing there and he asked if we were practicing english and i said no, that we were born here in america, and he got a bit uninterested at that haha. and i asked him if he was playing his instrument, since he was carrying a case, and he said he was taking a break, and then said bye and left. ok so this guy was mad grinning at me, he was standing to my left when we were talking to people and i noticed him and was like have tharr!!! and he was like are you chineeese! and i as like im half , are you chinese? and he wwas like yea, and i was like do you speak mandarin? and he was like ya, and i was like so does she! you can speak to her!!!

THE SPANISH SPEAKING GUY.
some guy came by and said, “hablas espanol?” and i said, “poco,” and he said something really fast, and i said, “lentamente, por favor,” and he said something about, “yo quiero ir al bano?” and i said, “no,” not that that even makes sense. but he left and as he was leaving, said to his friend, “they said to talk to them about anything.”

THE RAINBOW CAMP PEOPLE.
two folks, unique? and mike, came by and gave us some flyers for this event in wyoming that is like burning man but FREE. sounds interesting. i am actually kind of interested. welcomehome.org is one of the websites. i don’t remember the other off the top of my head. she said that she thought we would love it and it was for weeks or months at a time. i don’t think i’m that much of a hippie haha but she said that it would involve just going into the woods, having giant bonfires, playing music, doing drugs — and she kept stressing we didn’t need to do drugs but that we could — and other fun ol’ hippie stuff. sounds like a jolly good time, i’d say. they said they were getting there a week early so they could get the best hallucinogens but again stressed that we didn’t need to. unique? said that if we went they would for sure see us. she was crouched talking to us and three dirty guys threw water down her pants and said, “it was getting hot down there,” and she stepped up and smiled and they were like, “ohhh she likes it!” and i don’t know if they knew her but it was fairly amusing.

THE INSTRUMENT KIDS.
three kids with various stringed instruments in their cases. asked them what kinda music they played, and they said, “kinda like folk.” i said, “oh yeah. duh. it’s folk life,” and they said, “yeah.” asked them how much money they’d made over the weekend, and they’d made like $120 or so. not bad, not bad. they were young. again, probably 16 or under. cute kids. one was silent. the other two kinda talked.

THE CAMERA GIRLS.
we were walking to sushiland and had to walk through fun forest, and i saw some emo kid with a “free hugs” sign so i went to go hug him. he asked me what my sign said and i showed him, and his two female friends started talking to me about my camera, and one had just gotten a film minolta camera from her grandma and wanted to invest in a digital rebel next. ah yes more 16 and under year olds who are friendly. it’s fucking weird.

THE FACTORY MUSIC GUYS.
so, at every local seattle event… or maybe washington event… there are these tribal guys who play music. they were at all the days of folk life, of course. one of the guys saw our sign and started talking to us after we said hi to him. just asked him if they’d sold a lotta cds and they said today was slow but sunday went very well. interesting!!

***

OBSERVATIONS:
1) people our age (21-30) barely talked to us. the primarily age groups of people who did talk to us were 16 and under and hmm, probably over 45 or so. very interesting.
2) some people seem to assume that “talk to us about anything” means that we have the answers to everything… no… it really just means talk to us. lol.

***

i shall end with photo of little girl crying. haw haw. this is totally NOT in focus but look at her awesome (and scary) balloon. she was unfortunately no longer in the throes of anguish, either. she was totally crying a second ago. :[

i’m listening to… brandtson, “celebrity fit club” on vh1.

3:13 am - a couple days ago me, lenny, and liz hit the streets of downtown seattle with a sign saying, “TALK TO US about anything and everything. we’re here to listen.”

it was fun times. it’s always fun times. i didn’t take a racial tally this time around because people were much more engaged than they were in san francisco… but i will give an idea about what kind of thing went on… as best i can remember, anyways.

we started off on the pier downtown waterfront area but couldn’t really find anyone interesting to talk to, and blahblahblehbleh. so we moved, and walked up to pike place. up lots of stairs. :X

as soon as we were setting up on some streetcorner, some guy came to talk to us right away. his name was randall w. stack. he showed me his veteran’s card. he was a veteran from the vietnam war. looked homeless, but was loaded. told lenny to buy him a beer, and then told him to buy us drinks also. we said we didn’t want any, and he said, “you know women. they always say no when they mean yes.” how true! just kidding. anyway, he kept telling me to take notes, even though he could barely finish a sentence, lmao. anyway, right before he told lenny to go buy drinks, he was telling us that he wanted to tell us a story. but right when lenny left, some ther guy name timothy showed up. he kind of looked like indian, with really long curlyish black hair and just normal clothes. he was from the UK, on his way to dinner. when he heard that randall was going to tell a story about the vietnam war, he stuck around, because he grew up in a military family and his dad died in that war, but they never really got the chance to talk about it, so basically, he was pretty repressed his whole life… when timothy first came, we started asking him questions, and randall was just like all freaking out, saying, “oh, you ask him questions but you didn’t ask me any!” like he was jealous that he wasn’t the center of attention anymore, lol.

but lenny took too long to come back with the beer, and randall wouldn’t start telling the story without him there. another guy showed up. his name was shawn. white dude with headphones, just a regular shirt… just a typical working guy. he was working at a law firm, and he didn’t really want to do that for a living, but it was just a job. he had just read a thing on MPR??? about a lady in france who sat in a park with a sign saying “talk to me” in french and english, and she just talked to people. her point was that it’d be hard for young ladies to do the same thing, because people wouldn’t be comfortable talking to young ladies. he found it interesting that this didn’t seem to be true. meanwhile, timothy from the UK had to leave because he had to go to dinner and didn’t have time to hear the story.

fast-forward. shawn left also. lenny came back without a beer, and so randall left to go buy one on his own. he really needed that beer! a guy named rod, a clean-cut african-american dude stopped by. he had a bunch of bags of stuff from pottery barn and some winnie the pooh towels and kid stuff… he was from bellevue. he was like, “i’m bored, so i came down here to buy some stuff.” he had a son that was 12, born in canada. dropped out of tech school that his parents were paying for to join the navy, and they were quite pissed. his son had dual citizenship, and i asked if he got free health care, and he’s like, “hell yeah, that’s part of the reason for having him be born in canada.” ruckyyyy. he was a cool guy. enjoyed his laugh. he’d been in jail for marijuana posession. lame.

randall came back halfway through and gave rod some weird-ass looks. rod left, and randall was about to tell us the story when a security guard lady came and said we couldn’t be in pike’s place market because all the stores were closed. we were going to walk to westlake, but randall told us to go to the park with him. he told us there would be people we could talk to there. didn’t know there was a park in pike’s place for one, but we got there and no one talked to us. he did try to tell us a story, though. haha TRY.

he told us about how when he was young, he was greedy and self-serving, and didn’t believe in religions. he had an apartment on the beach, sold drugs, and knew a lot of girls. he was listening to a ted nugent song which said, “i got news - you never got to go,” and when he was listening, a voice said in his head, “i am the alpha, and i am the omega,” and he thought it was god… uhh so i asked him, “are you christian now?” and he just gave up telling the story altogether, and was just like, “you’re way ahead of me,” but never finished anything. you have to realize that this guy had the absolutely most fascinating teeth. he was missing most of his front teeth except for two on the right side of his mouth, and they were like, yellowed and double the length of my teeth. it was… fascinating. he was like the dirty mad hatter or something.

anyway, we decided to leave because he wasn’t entertaining us, and decided to walk to westlake. the whole way, we held the sign up, and it was probably like a three-block walk. on the way there, this lady was like, “talk to us about anything and everything? get those crackheads off our streets! you see that street right there? a famous musician died there because of crack! get the crackheads off our streets before your kids have to deal with it!” and that was all.

another lady just saw the sign and asked what it was for. she said, “our social experiment is going out ith a group of ladies for this lady’s 39th birthday. just to celebrate that we’re still alive.” lol., like 39 is that old WTF.

then we sat down on these stairs outside of westlake center… and we couldn’t find a place that was that great, but one dude stopped by to talk, and another guy was like, “hey, talk to me,” and we were like, “come over here,” but he said, “i only talk to people here,” so we went to sit by him. his name was savalas. it is greek for “leader of leaders.” smart dude man. but… he sits there everyday talking to people. he told us how he knows everyone and talks to all sorts of people, and people come talk to him… and he told us all about the different kinds of solicitors in the area… people for women’s rights, money for africa, etc. he was a theology major. he really thought the name of my magazine, redefine, was sooo awesome because it is challenging pre-made definitions that were put in place by people of power, etc. etc. blahblahblah. he asked us a lot about what we were studying. i asked him what he was doing with his life, what his dreams and aspirations were. know his responses? he says, “that’s a very personal thing. do you have kids? do you have sex?” and i was answered those questions, but he was like, “see? it’s very personal.” i don’t really think that dreams and aspirations are nearly as personal, but to each his own, i guess.

a large black lady passed by and was like, “i’m so glad you’re talking to them,” to savalas.

a couple more people i don’t remember. this one guy stopped by and he kind of looked crazy to begin with. we asked him where he was going, and he said, “i’m going to canada. i’m from los angeles.” wtf? he said it took him 28 hours to get from seattle to the canadian border, and when he got there, they wouldn’t let him in because he didn’t know where he was going. he said that he needed to get there before his girlfriend stopped being his girlfriend. LMAO. wtf? he’s crazy.

another guy was a musician named nick. he had a guitar and was on his way to a coffee shop. he was from the bay area, as were many people… like rod, and some other people. yeah, i didn’t really talk to him because at the time i was talking to savalas about redefine.

at some point a group of skaters walked by, and savalas told them to talk to us. savalas asked one of them if he could do tricks, and he’s like, “of course. i’m a professional.” savalas was like, “bullshit.” and the guy was like, “yeah okay, i can’t do anything. professional people would probably say, ‘i’m alright.’” and i was like, “dude, you’re wearing sandals,” and another guy who was with him was like, “yeah, that totally gives it away.”

savalas left us with a couple of quotes:
“i freed a thousand slaves. i could have freed a thousand more, if only they knew they were slaves.” - harriet tubman.
&
“we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - albert einstein.

werd.

i’m listening to… nothing.
i’m feeling… odd.

1:49 am — today was probably one of the oddest days that i’ve had in a long ass freaking time. okay, so i woke up, and had my brother take me to the bart station (which is like a above-ground-subway thing) so i could pick up my car because my dad drives it to the bart station in the morning. unfortunately, i grabbed the wrong set of keys and had to wait almost a half hour for him to return and give me his keys -__-; what a n00b i am.

anyway, so i picked up claire and we went to berkeley to sherry’s place, and then sherry drove me, claire, herself, and jeanette up to union square in sf. we picked a spot across the street from old navy and sat down… in the little doorway between gap and anthropologie i think. actually, i’m too lazy to finish this right now, so i’ll finish it tomorrow.

(four days later, i have decided to finally finishing updating this):
so, on our excursion in the middle of the street, we met many an interesting person. here are some statistics, cause i’m a sociology geek.

[ TOTAL RESPONSES ]
48: HALF RESPONSE (WAVE, SMILE, “HI”)
35: NEGATIVE RESPONSES (IGNORED, LOOKED AWAY)
26: POSITIVE RESPONSES (CONVERSED WITH US)
—
[ HALF RESPONSES ]
01: ASIAN MALES
02: ASIAN FEMALES
03: WINKS
03: PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN OF US
—
[ POSITIVE RESPONSES ]
01: HOMELESS BLACK MALES
02: HOMELESS WHITE MALES
02: BLACK FEMALES
06: BLACK MALES
07: WHITE FEMALES
09: WHITE MALES

i actually wish i could have categorized them better, but because they were done in the spur of the moment, they were very inaccurate and hurried. responses only include people who we actually made an attempt to greet.

[ CONCLUSIONS ]
- asian people are mean.

the first two people we got were homeless people and jeanette and claire were scared to death of them. one homeless white guy pulled up his shirt to reveal his stomach and he had all these needle marks and stuff… or something… that’s what everyone else said anyway; i had no idea what it was ;( i thought he was sick ;X

so then this black guy comes along… who ended up sticking next to us the whole time we were there. the first second he saw us he gave us job descriptions… i was public relations (because i had the sign), sherry was sargeant in arms (who was in charge of security), jeanette was the leader, and claire was security. he then pronounced himself to be the ceo of our newfound company and i made him a little sign that said “ceo” which he displayed on the rim of his hat ^__^ he sang a little song for us too… which he later sang for another girl. i don’t remember much of it, but i remember lines from it that said stuff like “you smell so sweet; you could be perfume” and “you make me so rich; you could be cash”. lol. he didn’t sing bad though. while he was singing, he was saying how he was “on stage” because it was a black man singing to four asian girls… and then he kept saying how people must be thinking “why is this black man talking to four asian girls”? he talked about how him and his wife were separated because he had a ‘temper problem’… O__o; and how he worked for the government for like eleven years or something. it was neat.

next along we had this guy who worked at puma who became our buddy… he was on his lunch break and he went to go get chinese food and on the way there he started talking to us and saying that it would be easy for four attractive asian girls sitting on the side of street to get people to talk to them. so he went, got his food, came back, talked to us a little, went to eat his food, and came back again later… and he was trying to get jeanette’s number to find out about clubs and crap… supposedly, but yeah, that didn’t work. oh for a while we were saying no girls would talk to us and so he was holding up our neon sign and trying to get girls to talk to us, but that didn’t work =(

then a well-dressed black man came up and he told us he was a tapdancer, and we convinced him to do a little tapdance for us. he started talking to the other people about how some girl was sueing him and how messed up it was, but i wasn’t paying attention because i was listening to these two other people talk =(

i wasn’t listening partly because i was listening to this little brat who thought we were hella weird for sitting there and he told me that, basically. and then he was like “okay, so people are just supposed to talk to you about anything?” and i said yeah, and he was like “then do you know anything about carpet-munching?” i’m like “omg, okay, i can’t help you out there, sorry. ask one of these guys.” and then he got all pissy and was like “you should change your sign to ‘talk to me, but i won’t be able to help you with anything’.” i mean, stfu you little brat! how would i know anything about CARPET-MUNCHING! i mean really!

a gay-but-not-so-gay homeless guy also showed up asking us if we wanted some beer, heh. he had a bunch of food he got from some funeral and he was going to give it to his friends because he had been “blessed” with the food. i thought that was cute, but then he got all weird… ;X he asked us all, “so, who here has gotten an orgasm?” and he guessed that i might have, claire hasn’t, and that sherry and jeanette have. haha. then he was asking me, “have you ever dated a homeless man?” and i said “no”, and then he said, “do you want to?” and i thought he said something else, so i said, “yes” and he’s like “really? then give me your number and address.” and i’m like “oh uhhh i think you’re a little too old for me… yeah.” haha. but yes… i concluded a couple days ago that’s what i need… a gay guy who doesn’t know he’s gay (he was soooooooo gay). i started ignoring him because he kept saying how i had a nice smile and nice eyes, so i just talked to our black ceo… and then i guess everyone else said he said something about how he had to leave because he couldn’t continue sitting there and not being able to do anything about his [boner]… and i guess he got up and left with a BONER. blech. queer eye for a straight man.

we also got like two groups of two middle-aged white, female teachers… they were all very nice and thought we had a terrific idea.

two other white female students appeared and took pictures of us for us… and they were really nice… they were doing surveys or something. *shrug.

but yeah… asian people are REALLY mean. we passed SO many and only three even acknowledged us at ALL… and two of the people who did acknowledge us were fobs, which gives the others no excuses. two others took pictures of us but didn’t say a word to us… stupid tourists. xP

later that night we just got some boba in berkeley at sweetheart’s… and met up with richard and dottie and co… and so me and claire decided to go back to room with a cue and play pool to end the day. voila.