aww, crackie, aww

Let me tell you about Victoria. Victoria is a lush town full of many types of plants. Apparently the British loved it so much because plants grow so well here, so they brought their plants from all over, which tended to spread all over the place and spill out into our sidewalks, ocean and yards. That was hundreds of years ago, and not much has changed. Only in addition to flowers there are hundreds of crack lovin' street dwellers keeping it real the only way they know how: with the hardest drugs available on planet earth.

Where am I going with this? Flash to this morning, I'm walking to work downtown, going through the "sketchy district" which, compared to any other city on earth is a lot like wandering around an amusement park. An amusement park with Crackies!

I'm not trying to be derogatory by calling them Crackies. I love the Crackies and I think they add a lot of atmosphere to an otherwise overpoliced, dull city. Don't be misled by the picture though; they lack both Dave Chappelle's charm and also money to spend on really nice clothes. Real Crackies don't dress in pimpin' sparkling new threads. They wear the rejected bottom of the barrel second hand clothing. Again, this is not their fault and I applaud them for wearing clothes I wouldn't even consider for an oil rag.

This particular Crackie I passed by was doing just one variant of the crack dance - and there are many. This one involved the back and fourth sway, while chanting rhythmically to the unseen Creator, or perhaps one of the many gods of the crack pantheon. Actually I'm not sure if crack has an entire pantheon dedicated to it, or just one god of the drug pantheon. I'll get back to you when I get a chance to consult my Theologist.

The guy in the middle of his crack dance trance, as with all dancers, seem to be either reliving painful memories or maybe dreaming up new painful memories that never happened. Maybe they are doing something important or fulfilling. Someday I would very much like to write stories about what is going on in their dual worlds, kind of like that new movie with Jet Li and Jackie Chan, except not as crappy. This will be difficult, because, as you may have already noticed, I'm not a very good writer. But, like the Crackies, I bravely dance on.