One of my favorite things about the BSC is you never know what's going to happen next. OK, that's not entirely true, most of the time you know exactly what's going to happen next. Something else you should know is that we skate in a well lit park like area near a courthouse, which is surrounded by a dimly lit, covered by shurbs, sidewalk kind of thing were some homeless dudes have taken up residency. Also, Jessica isn't the quietest person you will ever meet, all three of us are smart asses, and grumpy half asleep Bums are not, which last night turned out to be the recipe for fun.

Last night we showed up to skate as usual and shortly there after were interrupted by some domicile-challanged gentleman from the shurbery. I can't remember the conversation verbatim but that's probably due to the fact that I have this bad habit of forming complete sentences and following logic trains of thought, and I'm not insane. The bum was. He seemed to think it was quite the opposite and tried to drop philosophy all over us. He tried and failed. The posted signs say "NO SKATEBOARDING, NO TRESPASSING, NO PERSONS ARE ALLOWED ON THIS PROPERTY AFTER 6PM" so technically, neither one of us has any right to be there. Be it for Sleeping or Skating.

Here were some of his arguments:

- Most of the "Northern Continent" is asleep right now, [including birds, that was a big point for some reasons, maybe he argues with them during the day] therefore sleep is the norm and by infringing on that we are abnormal and therefore required to relocate someplace where we are not infringing on sleep, such as two blocks away. (When pressed on the issue he could not explain how going two blocks away would put us any further from rest of the Northern Continent)

- Night is the designated time for sleep, not skateboarding. (I can't remember for sure but I think this statement was made implying sleep is the only legal thing to do at night, a point he dropped when he decided to go get the cops and we asked how come they weren't breaking the law by not being asleep)

- Society is based on mutual respect, so we need to go someplace else out of respect for him, because his sleeping in the park is more respectful then us skating, and again doesn't infringe on the rest of the Northern Continent.

- That the posted "No Trespassing" signs did not apply to him, because in a perfect display of our ignorance, we didn't know that all of the public land is set aside for the use of the homeless and that those laws are there to ensure transients everywhere get the full 8 hours of beauty sleep they require each night to be on tip top shape for dumpster diving and pan handling the next day.

OK, he didn't really phrase that last one like that but you get the point. He also kept saying that we needed to come to a compromise, but I'm not sure he knew what that meant. There's 7 days in a week, we skate there on 2 of them. That leaves 5 nights skate free for bum-town. I tried to explain that he already had the majority of the week but his suggestion for the "compromise" was that we don't ever skate there at night, ever. I said a compromise involves give and take on each side, the end result being each side gives up something, but also gets something. His reply... "no."

He also kept saying "We" in his declarations. "We can't sleep" etc. It was never clear as to who the "we" was. Other bums still hiding the bushes? The Editorial We? He and the "voices"? He and the Northern Continent?

Jessizzle (Jessicrap, Jessicaca, Jessicock, Sizzle, Crap, or 'El Jessicareno if you aren't into the whole brevity thing) had actually been chased out by this same guy a few months earlier. Her vindication came when she resolved the whole event. After he originally came yelling at us, I told him to go get the cops (whose clubhouse is only a block away) if he was so damn sure he had more right to be there than us and have them kick us out. He took off to get Johnny Law and we had a pow-wow. Do we take the chance and run? Nah, then we could never come back for fear of being called sissies. We figured there was a very slim chance he'd even go see the cops, and even slimmer that they'd give a shit and decided to hold our ground.

About 10 minutes later he came back, with no cops in tow, but assured us they were sending several cars over very shortly. Rather than returning to his leafy living-room he parked it on the stairs where we were sitting and gave us the evil eye. You know, the only only a half insane bum can dish out. The kind that burns through you so much so that you aren't quite sure if he's eyeing you or half eaten burger on the sidewalk that he was probably talking to before you showed up.

Finally J-dizzy suggested "Why the fuck don't you just go back to your bushes and we'll just wait here for the cops to come lock us up." he agreed and left. 45 minutes later so did we, a little later than usual, and without police escorts. Anyone want to join us next week? Anyone want to read The Poon Report?