Who the hell is Ziggie?

Well, despite the tons of releases that dropped on Tuesday, I'm going to play a little catch-up. Sorry, no time to discuss the new Beck or the new Cocorosie 7 inch or the new Albert Hammond Jr. right now.

I forgot to mention one of the best parts of my July 4th: the train ride to Red Hook (even despite the J and F trains, and my horrible lack of intuition when it comes to directions). Some women in front of me were discussing philosophy. Deep. I, on the other hand, was discussing my fatty cut (deep) and how gross it was...

A black man dressed in all black clothing walked onto the train. A spiked collar perfectly outlined the circumference of his neck, and a tourist's hat squished the top of his naturally dreaded hair. His smile revealed, well, nothing- he was missing most of his front teeth, and a light lisp trailed his speech. Whale noises came from the suitcase in his right hand.

I looked to the thirty-something amateur philosophers in front of me. It's an unspoken rule that when something out of the ordinary happens on the train, you're allowed to break the tacit code of indifference, sangfroid and antisocial behavior to assess the situation at hand. They looked back at me to assure me that they'd heard the whale noises too. Together, we figured out the suitcase held an amp.

I looked at his amp and printed in white stencil was "ZIIGGYY.com". A homeless man with a website? Huh? Okay, maybe I was presumptuous. Maybe he wasnt homeless. Maybe he thought he looked really cool. According to some, much to the disdain of everyone else, dirty/worn-out stuff is the new black these days. Some choose the look, while others adopt it because of circumstances they can't control. He could have been some mix of the two.

I go to ziiggyy.com a couple of days later and it redirects me to a myspace page. He has friends. More than I do. He has pictures, even one with Citizen Cope. I don't like Citizen Cope, but, you know, people know him. He's on an indie label. Even with a few strong connections, I can't get a job at a label. People say things like "miss you baby" and "come back to England!" on his wall.  My wall has messages like, "you're sketch," "traitor," and "get me a job...now...please!"

I realize that despite college, I'm probably going to struggle a lot when I get older. He'll be happy and dead by then. Shortly after that I wished I gave him the 5 dollar bill in my pocket...