| So, the first time I saw him was at the annual city festival,
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| at the end of the plaza, on, uh, «Punker Hill», also known as
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| «The Island of Misfits». |
| Um, It’s like a mound of black leather
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| and army surplus jackets and boots and spiky egg-white hairdos
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| and mohawks and second generation Exploited and Minor
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| Threat and Sex Pistols patches and stuff. |
| Basically a haven
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| for the misunderstood punk-y, rock-y, goth-y, what was «me"types
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| And, uh, there he was, right in the middle of it all.
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| Um, oversized yellow form-rubber cowboy hat; |
| pink
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| plastic Toys-R-Us pistols and holster. |
| Off-white dashiki,
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| uh, shirt, and tattered bell bottom jeans, leather feet,
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| Raleigh cigarette finger stains. |
| And he was an island within an island,
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| and I just, kinda had to know more
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| So, I, uhh, I sat with him for hours just trying to get a bearing
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| on his beautiful insanity. |
| Every third inquiry was met with, you know,
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| an eloquent but unusual response, and, you know, the subsequent
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| exchange, it kinda warranted continuing the conversation,
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| because he was, he was interesting. |
| Uh, 'course the other,
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| the other reason my efforts where dismissed, while he took in the
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| constant flow of the festival crowd, all around us
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| A raging river of multi cultural river of music, art, food,
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| families, uh, all of this with his Walkman at full volume.
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| I think it was Foreigner, playing through the headphones.
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| And I asked maybe, you know «Hey maybe you could turn that down,
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| so we can talk?», and he replied «Can you hear me»? |
| and I said
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| «Yes», he said «Well, then it’s fine». |
| He never really pretended,
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| not once, to be able to organize all of this chaos that was going
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| on around us. |
| Uh, he just unapologetically chose which pieces to focus on
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| Well, you know, after a few hours we seemed to have found our stride,
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| found our rhythm, kinda settled into it, and we’re having these
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| intermittent conversations, uh, flipping back and forth between
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| the chaos and the focus. |
| And then, just kinda out of no where,
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| he seemed to become a little unsettled and disturbed.
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| And I asked him what was wrong and he just blurted out «Keynote,
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| parents and syrup», and then he looked at me like I wondered what that
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| means, and then he said, «You have any, do you have any batteries?»
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| So Basically his, his walkman was running out of power,
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| and he just needed batteries, so before I could ever turn and
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| ask one of our fellow punkers for some double-A's,
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| he grabbed my face with both hands, and then for the
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| first time in the entire conversation, he, gave me his complete
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| focus and attention, completely present, and calmly said
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| «We will never know world peace, until three people can
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| simultaneously look each other straight in the eye»
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| Should the oceans rise
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| Should the sky come falling down
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| Should the islands tremble beneath a sea of better nature blossoms
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| Should the sun rain fire
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| Should Hell on Earth freeze over
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| And our enemies wait hungry
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| See our better nature feed them
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| Should the sun rain fire
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| Should Hell on Earth freeze over
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| And our enemies wait hungry
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| See our better nature feed and calm them
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over
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| Find a way through, around, or over |