Right now I'm listening to "Wish you were here." by Pink Floyd. It's on my "Chillin'" playlist in winamp.
And it reminds me of this time that I was walking to Brutopia or Red Lion, down on Crescent, and this homeless guy comes running over with his beat up guitar. I respect that. The man wants to work for his change, instead of just asking for our sympathy. He's offering us a concert for the price of whatever is in your pocket. And we trust that he's worth it.
But he comes running across the street to us playing "Wish you were here." Every one of us recognized the tune and for a few minutes we all stood there, singing with this guy. And cars drove by and people walked past us, around us, through us.
Drunken punks. Homeless guitar weilding crazies. Good people.
Then when the song ended, some of us reached into our pockets to give this strange guy compensation for the wonderful ballad we've just belted through the frozen streets of Montreal. He smiles and says with a broken, uneducated French accent: "That was one of the funnest times I've had in a while. Thanks, guys."
He walked off without taking our money. Crossing the street, zig-zagging through traffic, dodging maniacal cabbies and tourists to approach the next unsuspecting couple--- this time in less-awkward French. They wave him away and he runs down the block to another group only to be laughed off. A cabbie swerves AT him as he runs through a red light and narrowly gets out of the way. He lands in a puddle of nightly frozen, melting slush.
We enter the bar and buy drinks. Sitting at our table getting drunk, we only leave to go to the bathroom or the kareoke stage. Toward the end of the night we all get up to sing "Wish you were here."
