they say it's good to have aspirations

    I believe it was Mitch Clem and Joe Dunn that mentioned that you know you're at a real coffee shop when there are crazy old people from the Vietnam era hanging around.  I have to say that that was a very astute observation of them.  I was hanging out with Jason and the Alchemy coffee shop crew tonight and was chatting it up with their local batshit insane Vietnam vet, Chris.  Chris is a wonderful wonderful man.  I aspire to be like him if I ever manage to make it to old age.  He is so incredibly morbid and completely crazy that he actually makes old people seem tolerable... or at the very least entertaining. 

    I must give you a mental image of this man.  He's a very tall and lanky gentleman, where during the warmer seasons wears really really short shorts, shaves his legs, has no teeth, and will talk your ear off if you let him.  He's a great story teller though, so most people don't mind when he goes on and on about his cynicism for the world (how the world has gone to hell, and there is no future left for humanity), his view on how children should be raised (locked in a chest and thrown into a closet for 18 years), the environment ("it's so fucking cold, shit, we NEED global warming"), politics ("i don't care if a man is a little bit corrupt, as long as they bring about SOME kind of change in the way we run things, shit, he coulda killed somebody in his day, I don't give a rat's ass about that"), and his job in construction, where he often has to direct traffic ("them snooty ass drivers thinking they can get away with anything, shiit, I make em WAIT for a long ass time.  Ain't gonna have that attitude with me, nuh-uh!").

    He makes me actually want to get old and embittered.  I can only hope to be half as enthralling.