I Can’t Rap. You Can’t Mug.

At times it is a challenge to tie a series of random events together in one big bow of a blogaruu. Isolated events of oddness which just occur and end with no string attached. However, other times, these random events occur in a sequential order and all lead up to something. Saturday, running into Sunday, was one of those days. A match. A long train ride. A lack of seats. And a distracting thought about corn all tied together to lead up to an event. Which never ended up getting off the ground now I think about it. Back to the start…

I’ve decided to come up to San Fran for a week or so to visit my cousins and buddies here, and get some writing done while I’m here. Book deadline is looming. Better to go now, before I get properly settled in L.A and can’t be as flexible. If that day ever arrives. Anyways, Saturday morning I headed to the pub early with my cousins to watch the Irish match. En route I was intent, along with my cousin, not to go boozing. Too early. Arrived at the pub about half eleven. Within maybe two minutes of entering, the first beer was handed to me. I am a weak, weak, weak man! Stood by my earlier decision for a lengthy two minutes. Mighty work. Strong convictions. Anyways, this would be the start of a long old session.

Tipping & Tripping

Tipping away throughout the match. Over. Disappointed. Tipping on. That night I planned to meet up with other buddies of mine in a place called Walnut Creek. A girl I lived with for a good few months. Who, in fairness to her, has a particularly hot group of friends. Always nice to catch up! On a good day, it takes me one tram and a train to get out there. Topping an hour and a half max for the whole journey. On a good day. Saturday, traveling wise, was not a good day. Routes were under going repairs. Detours were all over the place. A bus came into the equation. Another change. More waiting for a new tram. Then the BART train. Which had to stop in Oakland for some reason. Another unexpected change. Finally arriving in Walnut Creek. Roughly three hours later. Thankfully I had planned ahead and brought my iPod and a few more tipping buddies to accompany me for the lengthy trip. Tip on.

Walnut Creek was under a lot of pressure to be spectacular after enduring a three hour trip to get there. Never been boozing there before, only a few day time trips. Wealthy place by the looks of it. Cougar town as well apparently. Was it worth the trip? Obviously. Not. Kind of place with a few bars. And one club. Bounced by a little man with a syndrome. Who didn’t seem to like Irish folk. Who wore scarves. Who could blame him really.

Although, besides him, I did realise that the Irish accent is even more exotic in smaller towns around California. Hard to use exotic and Irish in the same sentence. But in these places, it would appear to be true. You could purposely say the dullest, most mundane things possible (which is not hard for me to do, I hear you say) and people still thinking you’re singing hilarious lyrical jokes at them. Just as long as you say it in an accent. There are an odd amount of tall, tall, tall women in Walnut. Like a good head above me. I mix up the word big with tall a lot. Big here means fat, apparently. Not good to tell a group of women that they are peculiarly big. Not that it’s a bad thing. Just that I’ve never seen so many big women in one place. Digging a hole. With an accent though, I could’ve called them obese and I think they still would’ve liked it. Some people get used for their looks. Others for their money. And a small group are used for our accents.

Headed back to my friend’s house afterwards. Hanging out with her brother and his buddies. Who have a recording studio in the house. All up drinking and making songs. Laying down tracks, as I was told. Did I want to join in. Or spit a few lyrics, as I was asked. Bit of free-styling. Eh, I’ll watch ye for a while. Beer bong on. Shotsaruu. Mull over my lyrical flow. And then I was ready to make a few rap songs! 

Rambling off gibberish as it came into my head. Pretending to know what I was on about. Could you slow down that loop a notch. Yeah, I like that beat. Play it back. Like I was a seasoned rapper. Really being like a seasoned ape. Uh’ing. Duu’ing. Butchering. Editing. Finishing up with two songs under my belt. Convinced they were great. They could be huge! Joking how funny it’d be if they were one-hit wonders. Seriously believing they had the potential to be. ‘Seriously man, seriously, they’re good songs. I’d buy that song. Seriously man. Seriously. I might be after a bit of drink, but seriously, that’s a great song. A great hook. Seriously.’ Finally calling it a night at about 6 in the morning.

No Seats. No Corn.

Getting back up at 11.30 for breakfast. Surprisingly feeling great. Probably still drunk. My hangover finally kicking in on the BART train back to San Fran. Decided to get something to eat before I got the tram back to my cousin’s place. Heading to Subway. Ordered. Realising all the seats and tables were occupied. Asking a girl if she would mind me sitting at the spare seat at her table. Getting shunned. Told no. Not taken. Just didn’t wanted to be disturbed. Not happy with her.

Perplexed where I would eat my roll. Standing in Subway wondering where to go. Ending up outside. Strolling around the streets looking for somewhere to sit and eat the roll. Realising I was in a dodgy enough part of town. Remembering how many homeless people there are in certain areas of San Fran. Thoughts suddenly taking a different route. Wondering why Subway don’t offer corn as part of their fillings selection. Starting to eat the roll as I walked along. Realising I had walked down an alley. One which was full of bums.

Pardon? Oh, No.

All of the above led me to act as care-free as I did when one bum approached me. Thought he was asking for change. Took out one iPod earphone. Couldn’t understand him. Took out my other earphone. Now I could understand him. He wanted my food and my iPod. Or he would f**k me up. Hung over. Tired. Love of iPod. Hungry. All combined to make me just shrug my shoulders, shake my head and say no. Too tired to care what he was trying to do. Which I think threw him off. So he added in more aggressively that he wanted my wallet as well. Still too tired to take him seriously. He was a lot smaller than me. Didn’t look intimidating. All that he really had on his side was the setting that we were in – an alley full of bums. And that he looked like a small crazy homeless guy himself.

Besides that though, it felt like a poor attempt of being mugged. None of the bums had his back or seemed to care what was going on. Too busy talking. Gibberish. To themselves. Sober, clear thinking, I might’ve thought this was a dodgy situation. Don’t want to get mugged. However, hung over thoughts do make you a bit oblivious. I presumed that he would be more aggressive if he actually going to mug me properly, so I decided to again just decline his offer/attempt to mug me and walk on past him. Not happening buddy. Way too tired and spent a bit too much money yesterday to be mugged today. As I started to walk on, he started to yell he had a weapon. Putting his hand in his pocket. Then taking it back out. With nothing in his hand. Finally just started calling me crazy and asking if I could I give him some money so instead. Trying to then be buddy buddy like. Which made me realise he was just the world’s worst mugger. 

Not sure if that made as good a blogaruu as I had anticipated. Maybe the non-sequential way makes for a better flow. Or, maybe, that series of events would be better expressed by rapping about it. Spit a few lyrics. Could be a plan. A better plan might be for me to go to bed now. Song on…

Soldiers – Detroit Social Club

Tags: Detroit Social Club, France, Gibberish, Homeless, Irish, Mugging, Rapping, San Francisco, Soldiers, Subway, Walnut Creek, World Cup, Worst