Well, If It Ain't The Superfan

So, after dinner at Virgil's BBQ (delicious actually - I had the Fried Shrimp Po' Boy YUM) with Geoff, Jerf & Monica, I skipped a Sky Captain excursion to go ahead and make it on home. I was kinda tired and in need of a chill li'l evening of not doing much at all. I went down to the F station at 42nd St., got down to the platform and was stopped by the Skits-O-Phrenics SuperFan.

I'm not sure what his actual name is (Chris? Riccione? or something like that) but he was a BIG Skits-O-Phrenics fan back at Cornell, always coming to the shows, and stopping us all on Slope Day. We would hear Hey! Skits-O-Phrenic! and we'd know it was him. He's now moved down to the city where he's been a fixture at our Elephant Larry shows. Apparently, he's now works in finance, investing people's money according to him, and I regularly get sucked into conversations with him that increasingly center on him being a sketchy dude, the kind that prostitutes and strippers gravitate to in search of business. The last time I talked to him (after the Crime Machine) he had mentioned that he was working on some sort of television show modeled after the "Mike's Apartment" website thing - ad is placed, girls respond, he requests favors like massages and stripteases from them in exchange for letting them stay in his apartment. Sketchy, right? Well, today he informs me that this project (entitled "Roommate with Benefits") is well underway, but that it's now going to be an all-acted endeavor - i.e. the girls will be actresses, and he's going to have pre-scripted scenarios that he'll play out. STILL SKETCHY, I'll point out. Especially since he's not going to be paying the Craig's List actresses that he's recruiting. The "twist" on the film is that he's going to have his friends observing the whole thing via some sort of hidden camera and commenting, colorfully, on the procedure. It still sounds like a television show to me, but he has the idea that he's going to turn it into a film. It's weird that for an idea that centers around thwarted expectations and hidden cameras, everybody's in on the deception. Which means that these better be some pretty damn well-written scenarios that he's got going on, and that his friends better be freakin' amazing at coming up with quips and hilarious zingers. He offered that I could be one of the friends commenting. I told him I'd consider it. Because, honestly, I would. This whole thing may just be too weird to pass up.

I have to say, it was pretty entertaining talking to him, especially since I put it out there right away that I thought this seemed like a sketchy excuse to get himself carousing with women who'd be "acting" while they massage him with oil or whatever. So there was some fun ribbing about that and he did joke around that he spent all his free time in strip clubs and cavorting with whores (not true, apparently). And I do like that I can run into people on subway platforms and have conversation buddies. I thrive on random situations, but I'm not quite forward enough to make them really happen. So it's nice when they decide to randomly decide to happen to me instead.

Oh, and playlists. Tonight on Real Rhapsody I've listened to: Wilco A Ghost Is Born, G. Love The Hustle & Nas Illmatic.