Where Did All the Crazies Go? (I'm not talking about the GOP here)

When I first arrived in New York City 15 years ago there used to be so many crazies on the subways and elsewhere who really added a lot to the ambience of the city.  Quite a shock for someone who just spent the previous few months happily ensconced in upper middle class Southern California.

(Now I'm not talking about those smelly homeless guys who pee on the seats or pass out on the floor and pee themselves or any of the pee-associated or pee-adjacent crazies. I'm also not talking about the mutterers or the yellers or the bat-shit crazy Christians or the Jews for Jesus or the Watchtower flyer people or... or... or...)

But whatever happened to...

-- that Jamaican woman with the Erykuh Badhu turban that used to since sing on 1,2,3,9 trains? (Yes, there used to be a 9 train)  She really sang well with that haunting lilt in her voice.  I couldn't really understand her but I loved it when she would show p as I was riding back to Columbia after a night in the Village.

-- those guys who did the puppet show with the magpies.  There were four puppets, all of whom were like Hekyll and Jekyll and they would sing in great 4-part harmony. They used to perform in Central Park sometimes too.

-- the old guy who would ride around Central Park with a boombox attached to the back of his bike blasting out opera music (or was it salsa?)

-- the guys who rode up and down the trains in the Upper West Side whose schpiel was "I haven't eaten in 5 days..." and he would say that EVERY day, never adding a day or subtracting a day to the total.  Once I even saw him eating a sandwich while he was saying that!

-- how is "Rare"- The guy who would run around Telegraph Avenue (in Berkeley) without a shirt and yell "Rare!" all the time.  It got to be that the frat guys and many others would just yell "Rare!" at him whenever they saw him.  I could have sworn I saw him hanging around Hell's Kitchen a few years ago.

-- what about the old Chinese guy who plays that weird 3-stringed instrument -- GOD HE SUCKED!!

OK, I'm not stupid -- just the fact that these people were "crazies" probably means that the true endings of these life stories were not pleasant, but I gotta tell you that the crazies these days really aren't "up to snuff" anymore.  Time for them to step it up a notch. I need some amusement on my subway rides, other than the iPod.

;-)