Sinister: "please, i ask one thing of you, no russian jokes"

[Matthew Henderson]

I found myself being told this sometime last night, leaving the 13th note to 
go to a Russian cafe nearby.  As I was sitting all by my lonesome in "the 
note" last night, I was drinking a pint and reading the free rental guide I 
picked up at this lovely cafe.  A man sitting at a booth near me brought 
over part of the independent so I could read something else, which I was 
very grateful for, and went back to his booth.  I read some nice columns 
about liberals and blah blah blah (is the independent a liberal paper by the 
way?), and then he brought over the rest of the paper, and asked me if I 
thought old dubya was scary.  I said "yes, very much so."  "ooh, you're 
american" he says.  we talked for a bit, then I joined him at his booth, 
where a girl was sitting who didn't know him either.  She was working on 
questions to ask a band she had recorded for her uni project (according to 
her, the same uni where our lovely belles were first recorded all those 
years ago).  This guy was very interesting, if not a bit odd.  He would 
bounce from topic to topic to topic, and I think the poor girl was a bit 
confused by the whole thing.  Nice guy though, showing us poetry and talking 
movies and brian eno.  She was an industrial fan and didn't know much about 
other types of music.  She kind of scoffed when I said "um...belle and 
sebastian" to her query of what music i like, although she had never 
actually heard them.  The night progressed, and whilst me and the guy got 
more inebriated, and the girl's band came along to do an interview, he asked 
me if I wanted to go to the russian cafe.  This was a mistake.  I said 
"sure".  As a bit of time went on, it was obvious this man was very very 
drunk.  Moreso than me even.  He was annoying the poor Russian waitress to 
death, causing scenes by trying to chat with the nice people at the next 
table, and trying to get the poor Russian waitress to play one of his 
aardvarck cd's over the speakers.  He's a  smart man, who oddly enough works 
in insurance, but perhaps a little on the strange side.  Anyhow, as he began 
to throw up, I realized it was about time to go.  After getting him into a 
taxi (which took a bit of work), I began walking back to my hotel.  An odd 
evening, probably not a smart one on my part, but ya know, I had fun.

Moving on, as I was walking down the street yesterday, I saw this little 
kid, no older than eight, harassing, and even kicking, this poor crouched 
homeless man.  I didn't hear what was going on, because I was listening to 
my new and excellent Mum remix cd*.  I walked on, a bit disturbed, but 
stopped.  I turned around and, not knowing what else to do, gave him 50p and 
moved on.  I don't know the homeless man's story, and some people might rail 
me for actually giving money to a homeless man, but I felt bad.  I wish 
there was something else I could do.

I did love Rachel and Dimitra's dual post.  In my Ethics of Cyberpunk class, 
my teacher and the whole class were going on and on about how dangerous and 
creepy meeting people over the internet is.  I decided to interject an 
opposing view on the matter by telling everyone part of Dimitra's story 
(without using any names of course) and some seemed to decide that the 
internet can be a pretty swell place after all.

And in somewhat more pressing news, I think a few of my clash cd's were 
stolen.  Borders is having a dandy sale on cd's, and I know I'm going to get 
the smiths "queen is dead" (mine is horribly scratched) and "louder than 
bombs" (i only have it on vinyl), and I can get one more.  Should I get the 
best of the divine comedy?  Or maybe try to replace my London Calling?  
perhaps some van morrison?  Some decisions in life are just too difficult to 
make.

I realize now that this isn't very interesting.  I probably just have tried 
to inject humour or something, but what do you people know about humour?

-Matt

*I understand that remix albums are about as desperate as live albums when a 
band wants to release something and get money without actually doing 
anything new, but come on, mum just screams to be remixed.

P.S.  I surely hope this is better than my last post, but ya know what, I 
don't think it is.

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