Smitty is one cool motherfucker... And he gave a neat twist to a fucked-off trip home.
I'm rolling down Highway 76 from Oceanside to Bansall at about 6:30-7:00 when I come to a stop and hear this bad-assed electric piano pumping out killer tunes from somewhere. It was fucking LOUD and it filled the darkened canyon.
I turned around to use the last ten bucks I had for gas at the station on that corner.
As I stepped out or the 4Runner, a shifty, semi-suburbanite rolled up on me and said, Excuse me, Sir... Do you know where that music is coming from?"
This threw me off.
First reason: I almost NEVER look respectable enough to be called "Sir".
Second: Something was a little wrong with the guy; Like he was trying very hard to be "normal".
I looked across the street and replied, "Sounds like it's coming from 'Foothill Lock and Key'... Sounds like someone really knows how to play."
And he did... The music was like Little Richard if taught by Thelonious Monk, playing an Elton John homage to 'Ragtime'.
"That's weird.", said the fucking weirdo who had stepped up to me at the pump.
I paid for the gas and a pack of Reece's Peanut-Butter Cups (Nope... Can't remember eating all four) and found Mr. Chatty talking up some other stranger at the pump. Didn't catch the convo.
Here's the nutty part...
I'm pulling away and the yappy dweeb parks his shitty ,red Jeep Cherokee right in front of me and jumps out of his seat.
No... I didn't bring the .45 tonight.
So I roll down the window but lock the doors.
"It's a guy playing an electric piano outside the locksmith place.!"
"really..."
"Yeah I drove by and saw him."
"That's cool...."
And he turned around and stared across the street... NOT getting into his Jeep and getting the fuck out of my way.
I had planned on going over there myself without Mr. Creeper's encouragement.
After he got along his merry, little way.... I pulled across the street and into the lot of the locksmith.
A short, older, white crackhead was giving those keys a workout.
He stopped as I killed the engine and rummaged for any change I could find.
I walked up and he turned around to greet me. He talked like he played:
Never finished a sentence... Always on the subject, just never in the same context.
"Hey! Hi. Brother... You stop to... Welcome, Man."
I smile and nod dropping a handful of coin into his "Tip" box... An empty cardboard cigar-tray with broken parts of technical equiptment in it... Buttons and knobs and such.
"Hey! Thanks, Brother... Fuckin first time all damned.. Right On!"
It could be just that I've been poking around on Myspace and have gotten used to that kind of communication...
Maybe it was just because this guy was all Jive.... But I understood him just fine.
"Yeah I been playin... Call me 'Smitty'... I needed money for a cigar... Only drugs caffeine and this... Cigars and caffeine gonna... Better than I was though."
He dug through the box for the change for a cigar and we talked about some of the songs he's working on and why he was playing in the middle of the canyon.
"My neighbor she... Foothill Ranch, Man... I was playin in my... And she called my Boss... 'Can you please make him'... Out there in the middle of Foothill Ranch and... 'Boowhoop' (makes police-siren noise)."
His shoulder was leaking some sort of fluid from some kind of surgery.
He told me that her nearly died but didn't elaborate too well.
"God slapped me pretty hard, Man." That was the one full sentence he spoke.
He was weird...
He was out there...
And he was easily one of the coolest fucking guys I've met in my odd travels.
I want to bring my bass next time and gather all of these musical transients to me.
"Introducing, Smitty and The Dees Damned Derelicts!"