You can't be serious

Walking down Telegraph Ave to the second-hand bookstore today I passed a young blonde woman of apparently robust good health sitting on a corner, wrapped in a blanket. I have a lot of sympathy for homeless people but this girl rubbed me up the wrong way. For one thing, there was no discernible reason for her to be there. I could hear Dad on my shoulder: Why don't you get a job, you lazy pup?The world doesn't owe you a living, young lady. For another, as I passed she said, "Gimme some money." As bald as that.

Ramblin' Jack

I went to my first folk concert at the weekend, and found myself spellbound by a 75-year-old who looked like a Christmas decoration ready to hang.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is a Bay Area legend, the last man standing who traveled and played with Woodie Guthrie; he appeared on the Johnny Cash Show and sang with Bob Dylan. He knows Springsteen. Springsteen! He started rambling when he ran away to the rodeo when he was 14 and he so clearly does what he darn well pleases, you just have to admire him, although he probably wasn't dad of the year. Pure speculation of course.
He is about 5'2'' and on Saturday night he was decked out in a fire engine red flannel shirt, green kerchief, jeans that bunched around his ankles, short-man cowboy boots and an enormous black cowboy hat that sat right down on his ears. All he needed was a wee gold thread poking out the top and you could stick him on the tree. Adorable.
He told as many stories as he sang songs, and they were great stories about cranky folk lyricists and sun-bleached podunk Arizona towns and jolly good songs sung with a keening worldliness that ya gotta admire: If I Had A Hammer, San Francisco Blues, The Ludlow Massacre. I'm not a folk convert yet but I'm closer, I must admit. Tim will be over the freakin' moon.
We met him afterwards (he was on his way to the bar to get paid) and it was kinda thrilling to shake the hand of a Grammy winner. My first one.