Smarfy

Was stolling along Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica last night and walked by a man I assume is homeless standing in a doorway. When I was about 30 paces past him I heard him say (at a volume level that made me believe he thought I was still in front of him) “Give me all your money.” Walking by him again later that evening I had the exact same experience. I thought about complying but I didn’t want to walk all the way back.

Now, if you’ve ever been around Santa Monica, you know that panhandling is commonplace (Flickr returns 166 images for the tags “santamonica” and “homeless”…not that I’m saying all homeless people pandhandle but I didn’t figure that “panhandling” was that common of a tag on Flickr) and the place is so laid-back about homeless folks that most people who ask you for money go about it with a pretty calm and cool attitude. Last night I saw a guy with a sign saying he needed 25,000 (no dollar sign) for an operation on his hands. A footnote on the sign explained that he had arthritis. He stood between a man walking on his hands while clapping his feet together and another crooning Frank Sinatra tunes with his backup band coming from a small black amplifier. To whom should my dollars go?

All this activity reminded me of the day I took my cousin, who was visiting California from Wisconsin, to the Santa Monica / Venice Beach area. I parked the car in a lot near the Santa Monica Pier and paid the $8.00 parking fee. Unfortunately, at that moment I realized I was left with only $5.00 for lunch, and that had to cover both our meals. We had only walked a few feet from the car when a man seated on a bench asked us if we could spare a buck or two. I informed him of the financial dilema we were facing for lunch and to our complete amazement, he proceeded to pull out a large roll of cash from his coat pocket and asked us how much money we needed for our meals. We stood dumbfounded for a moment and then politely said no thank you to his unsual offer. As we turned and walked away he became instantly agitated and yelled “FINE! Then go back to MILWAUKEE!!!” I was shocked by his highly active ESP until I remembered my cousin was wearing his Milwaukee Brewerss baseball cap backwards, now flashing its logo at the ornry rich man who’s charity we had so recently declined.

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