Until I get my Mojo back...........

You probably are wondering over the lack of activity around here. To be honest I just keep coming up blank. I'll get a few hundred words in to a post, then it just falls apart. I've been trying to pin down some work, but 50 year old former career criminals aren't in high demand. Background checks, a job market flooded with younger, cheaper, cleaner applicants, and a shit economy are all making it tough to find my niche. So I'm chalking the writers block up to those factors. give me a week or two, and I'll be back up to speed. In the meantime I'm going to rerun some of my favorite stuff over the past 3 years. If you've already read it, read it again. If you haven't read it, it's all new to you anyway, so quit bitchin.
.............Without further ado. ................................

Willie was one of those guys that you instantly liked, always smiling, when he asked how you were doing, you believed he actually cared, wasn't just mouthing the words. I first met Willie when I was around 13, scraping plates, scrubbing pots, and busing tables at my Uncles restaurant. Willie was so fat he looked like he was standing up when he was sitting down, the way really big people do. It's like he couldn't bend in the middle. Willie almost whispered when he talked, a low gravelly voice, like a cross between Miles Davis and Froggy from the Little Rascals. Willie was black, it was the mid 70's, he had the requisite giant afro, the shirts with shoulder width collar, he drove a dollar bill green Cadillac. Willie was the epitome of the stereotypical inner city criminal of his era.

Willie didn't run girls, he didn't sell dope, and as far as I know he never got heavy handed with anyone. Willie ran a crap game out of a house, a stones throw from the little lake on Paseo Blvd.He also fenced stolen property, cars, motorcycles, whatever would turn a buck. Fast forward 10 years or so. Willie was like the Jimmy Carter of the local Kansas city criminal world. He bridged the divide between criminals from separate areas of the city. A black guy steals a car, Willie sells it to a white owned body shop where it was magically changed to a legal car and resold. In other words Willie was able to move in and out of opposing circles. With Willie moving around in so many different circles, I would run in to him in one bar or another along Wornall road. I never had any dealings with Willie as far as that goes, we were in different fields as it were. But we always took a few minutes to talk when we ran in to one another.

Willie was a family man, married to the same woman all his adult life, he had about a half dozen kids, did all the same things with his kids, as regular Joe America does with his kids. He was a good guy. I know what you're thinking, "he was a crook, and that means a not so good guy", and you are right, sort of. Nothing in life is black and white, life is full of various shades of gray. You can argue that Willie, or anyone for that matter, who makes a living illegally is basically a bad guy, taking the easy way, morally bankrupt, and I can't fault your thinking. The other side of the coin, there are guys like Willie who do everything else, just like everyone else. All of his kids but one, turned out well, went to college or some regular job. all I'm saying is that neither one cancels out the other.

One of the last times I saw Willie was in the late 80's, maybe the early 90's, the face of crime was changing, Willie was pushing 60, he looked tired. We had run in to one another at a bar on the south end of the city, so we had a few and he started talking about his youngest son, the only one who didn't turn out so well. Gangs had begun to really take hold on the east side of troost, Willies boy was mixed up in it all. Maybe it was the booze, or the late hour, but Willie was talking about something I had never heard come out of another criminals mouth. Regret. He told me he wished he had done things different, done things right, legit. His kid had caught a drug case and a murder charge, Willie figured he was to blame, set a poor example for his son. Maybe he was right , or maybe his kid would have turned out the same if Willie had been a janitor, or a doctor, who knows. The thing that struck me was the regret. I didn't get it, not back then anyway.

There was a moment when I thought I saw Willie start to tear up, there was a long pause, and Willie got up from the bar, slapped me on the shoulder and gave his standard parting line " Don't get none on ya", then he left. I remember thinking at the time that Willie was just getting old, that his regret was just a by product of getting closer to the end of his life, a superstitious belief that he would burn in hell if he didn't repent , feel remorse.

When I got out of prison it was the year 2000, Willie was dead, killed in an argument over a game of dice. Most of the guys I came up with were either dead or in prison for the rest of their lives. In most cases the thing that killed them or put them away, was drugs, whether directly or indirectly, dope was their downfall. I never fell under that curse, that's probably why I'm still around. Not because I was smarter than the Willie's of the world, I wasn't, I was just luckier and in the end that's all it comes down to , at least for me, just dumb luck.

Fast Eddie Friday.....They say 50 is the new 49.....

Here we go, fast and loose.

Shon ( my wife ran away with a rich stranger) Pernice is being squeezed like fresh orange juice. Tampering with a witness, 250 k bond, Grand Jury Indictment, not good if you are him. Yesterdays news that Shon The Shovel was being held on such a high bond makes me believe he is the recipient of the old " More than one way to skin a cat" routine. The thinking being, if you squeeze hard enough your suspect will crack. Ever since Renee Pernice went missing her husband Shon has been the main suspect. He has also been on a slow melt down. Allegedly stealing a pistol from a neighbor, drunken run ins with neighbors, questionable choices of interviews. Lets face it, the guy is a walking train wreck. Clearly the cops have narrowed the suspect list down to one. The fact that he hasn't been charged isn't a big surprise, murder cases are hard to make with no body, no witnesses, and no declaration of death. Now comes the Grand Jury indictment for witness tampering. Grand jurys usually don't hear cases like this one. I'd say the tampering charge is probably thin as well, otherwise they would have just charged him without a Grand Jury hearing the case.

Back when I was at the top of my criminal career I felt the squeeze. For about an 8 month period I woke many a morning to find an unmarked car out front of my house. Kansas City had formed a unit known as the Career Criminal Unit, at the time they had only been around for a couple of years at best . Detective Bob Guffey was the lead guy, he usually rode around with another Dick whose actual name I don't recall, I just remember they called him Pancho. He was a thin guy with a pock marked face. Guffey was a chunky guy with a mullet, hey it was the late 80's early 90's, what are ya gonna do. The first few months it was a game, cat and mouse, lots of flipping off, plenty of posturing. I had a mobile command center, a rolling forgers office, where I kept the tools of my trade. It was a late 60's AMC Ambassador, stripped down, a big block Chrysler motor, and a hole cut in the floorboard. The car wasn't registered to me, the tags came from a junkyard, it looked plain, ran like a scalded dog, and it had that James Bond ala Joe Dirt trapdoor in the floor.

My favorite place to park the car was in the underground parking at the old Wornall Bank on 79th. I'd drive my regular car in and reappear in my rolling forger mobile. I'd go do my dirt, return the car, then pick it up the next time I needed it. The tricky part was making sure I wasn't being followed before I made the switch. Criminals, especially those who choose fruad as a career path tend to be ego driven. We think we are smarter than your average run of the mill robbers and burglars, and for the most part that's true. We also think we are smarter than the police, which isn't always true. The last time I drove that car I was bringing it back to my spot. I pulled down in the parking area only to find Bob and his pock marked partner laying in wait, a chase ensued. We ended up on Blue River road, every time Id hit a curve and they were out of sight, I'd tear up some evidence, checks, loan papers, etc, and send them through the hole in the floor. We ended up on a back road in Grandview. I got far enough ahead of them to whip into an elks lodge, pull behind the building, and pat myself on the back for shaking my tail and disposing of the evidence. Unfortunately I hadn't shaken shit, Bob Guffey appeared at my drivers window, pistol in my face, game , set , match. I didn't catch a case, not then anyway. I did receive a free ride to jail, about 8 or 10 tickets, and an impromptu ass beating in a gravel parking lot. Note to self, gravel leaves a dust cloud.

My point, the squeeze, I've felt it, and you can bet your ass Shon Pernice is feeling it. Like me Pernice thinks he is smarter than the cops, and that's where all similarities end. I've never been a suspect in a homicide case, or any violent crime for that matter. Prediction time; Pernice isn't a criminal, not in the true sense of the word, he may be a killer, he is clearly a drunken moron, and a sociopath who cares little for his children, his only concern is Shon. His actions over the past couple of months show that he is starting to crack, he is breaking down. if the D.A. is smart they will allow the bond to be lowered, let Pernice get out, and reapply pressure. The guy is ready to crack. when you crack, you make mistakes, you get caught. That's how the game is played.

Now, to end this overly long post. Monday marks 50, count em 50 years I've been on this planet. I'm as surprised as anyone. From the stories I've revealed on this blog, no doubt most readers would concur, it's a miracle I've made it to the half century mark. People are always saying shit like "I don't feel 50", or whatever age they are turning. But how do they know how 50 is supposed to feel? I look back over the years, and I feel every day of those 50 years. I'm glad to be here, not planning on checking out anytime soon. I have moments where I miss the old life, then I recall the downside to that way of life, and I let it go. I'm guessing Bob Guffey and Poncho Pockmark are retired by now, as am I, at least from my former occupation. My life is better than I have any right to expect it to be. I hope Guffey and Poncho are enjoying retirement as well. No doubt they would be as surprised as anyone that I made it this far. Have a safe weekend. Thanks for reading.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.......All bad things must come to an end.

A reoccurring theme throughout this series has been drugs, people who sold them or fell under their spell, losing much, often losing their lives. You might wonder how it is I never got tangled up in it all, or wonder if I'm not being totally forthcoming. I came up in the mid 70's, so I brushed up close to the flame, I dabbled, but I never fully committed. I didn't sell dope, even though that's where the easy money was. I didn't come to that decision out of some fictitious Hollywood ideal of the "moral criminal". You know what I mean, the movies tell us that the old "Mustache Pete's", forbid their people to sell dope, or the movie crook who is like some latter day Robin Hood, goes around doing good, swaying the young from getting mixed up in crime, especially drugs. While those images are appealing, it's pure unadulterated bullshit. There is no such thing as Robin Hood. It's about greed and taking the quick and easy means to an end. I avoided the drug trade because there are too many people waiting to roll over on you, simple as that. No Robin Hood bullshit, no fictious criminal code, just self preservation.

Most young boys have idols, it's usually some sports figure, maybe an actor, occasionally it's their own father, although I think that is sadly a rarity. The guy I grew up idolizing happened to be a criminal, my Willie Mays , the guy I wanted to be like, let's call him Hoyt. A distant cousin through marriage, he lived in the same neighborhood as me, he was a legend to young impressionable guys like me. When I was a kid, I'd see him at my Uncles restaurant. He always joked around with me, slipped me a couple of bucks for busing his table, included me in whatever small talk might be going on at his table. He was the guy with the ever changing fast cars, the revolving door of women, the obscenely huge roll of bills wrapped with a rubber band.

Hoyt was a thief, a burglar of a higher sort, he peeled safes, he gambled, and he stole trailer loads of assorted goods including the 40 foot trailer they were contained in. He owned two houses on the end of a cul de sac, one he lived in, the other was a warehouse. He went to prison more times than I can count, he always served short bits due to good lawyers and fat bribes. Over the years he bribed cops, judges and parole board members. In the late 80's, he changed, he got in the drug trade. At some point he started using heroin and coke. He still made tons of money, but he wasn't the same guy, he wasn't Willie Mays, he was just a tired looking, albeit rich junky.

I was about six months out of the joint the last time I saw Hoyt. If you serve more than a couple of years, which I did, when you come back out in to the world it takes a good year to adjust. Everything seems foreign, surreal, you have to keep reassuring yourself that you aren't dreaming, that you really are in the free world. That's where I was when I ran in to Hoyt at a little diner in Grandview. He was 15 years my senior but he looked twice that. He mumbled when he spoke to the waitress, his words all running together in that sleepy, lazy speech pattern that is common in long time heroin addicts. I knew he was not long out of the joint himself, and word was he might be heading back, at 60 he was still in it, still playing the game, still losing more than he could ever hope to win.

To be honest, the day I walked out of prison I was not entirely resolute in my decision to live within the limits of the law. There was a part of me that wasn't ready to let it go. A small voice still promised me I could hit it big, my time was coming, I'd hit the jackpot if I just hustled a little longer. If there was a tipping point, a minute in time where I made a decision to go straight, it probably occurred in that little diner. I sat in a booth a few feet from Hoyt, a guy I'd known since I was 12, and he didn't recognize me. He was busy mumbling in to his cellphone, smoking one cigarette after another, looking old and tired.

My decision to end my criminal career came in a little nondescript diner, sitting unrecognized, just feet away from a guy I had known and admired most of my life. I realized, I didn't want to be that guy. It was really as simple and uneventful as that. I think this is a fitting way to end this series. Nothing earth shattering , exciting, or glamorous. No big revelation to be found here. In the end it came down to the realization that I didn't want to be like the guy I had most admired, most of my life. I left my tip on the table, paid on my way out, never speaking to or acknowledging the guy I'd most wanted to be.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.........Swimming with Sharks

Not everyone is cut out for a life of crime. Thankfully, most of you fall in that category. You have that tiny voice, the one that shames you for even thinking about stealing, or cheating to get ahead. Criminals can rationalize away guilt, quell conscience, silence the voice that doles out shame. I had that ability, probably still do. I don't make that statement with any pride or smugness, it is what it is. I choose to not use this criminal super power, like Gary Cooper hanging up his pistols for a plow, I've closed the door on that chapter, although I leave it slightly ajar to share it with all of you. Truth be told, there is a part of me that misses that life, I suppose writing about it calms the itch, keeps my powder dry. There is a small cross section of society that falls somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between John Q Citizen and career criminal. They can't excel in the square world, and they don't have the stomach for the underbelly, and every now and again they wander over to the wrong side of the tracks, never to return. That's what this latest installment is about, people I've known who got in over their heads and paid the ultimate price.

Gina was one of those girls who made men do a double take when she walked by. I knew her and her two brothers since elementary school. They had devoutly religious, overly strict parents, Jehovah Witnesses, I think. The boys were finally given some freedom by Jr. high, and they turned out okay. Gina on the other hand was kept under ever stricter control, the more she matured, the tighter the rein. I've no doubt her father believed his gorgeous daughter was at great peril form the hordes of testosterone amped boys, who looked at her lustfully. so she was driven to and from school, not allowed to date, not allowed friends outside the family's religious circle. The day Gina turned 18 she left home and moved in with a car thief named Darren.

Gina didn't stay with Darren for long, as soon as she learned how easily she could manipulate men, she found a bigger and better crook, she got herself a dope dealer. She also got herself a first rate drug problem, cocaine. Coke affects women differently than men, it takes a heavier toll on her looks, it kills that thing that makes a woman really something special, it extinguishes that spark in her eye. I watched Gina go through that same slow death like process for about a year and a half. She was still something to see, still drop dead gorgeous, but the light had left her eyes, replaced by a harder, colder something. I cant explain it, you would just have to see it for yourself. If you or someone you have been close to ever got on that end, then you know what I'm talking about, if not, be thankful and hope you never see it first hand.

There are people who like to rub elbows with criminals, like groupies almost, or hanger on types. These same people will begin to think they belong, that they have the same character defects and moral ambiguity that it takes to break the law for a living. More often than not, they don't, and they end up totally out of their element, in way over their heads. I can't say with absolute certainty that is what happened with Gina, but my gut says that was the case. At some point she started an on again off again game with the coke dealer. When it was in the Off phase, I'd see her around, usually selling small amounts of powder to the bar crowd, hustling one guy or another, playing at something she wasn't really suited for. I heard from other people that the coke guy smacked her around, which would lead to a black eye, and a brief off again period. But she would always go back, that's where the dope was.

Sometimes the people who need help the most never get it, nobody offers, even though in many cases, it might actually work were it offered. When you are close to it, when you see someone in trouble, you have to look the other way. You can't save the Charlies and the Gina's, not when you are living dirty yourself. It's a cover your own ass kind of world, as callous as that may be. So you maybe offer up a quick line like" you can do better", or, "who needs that shit", then you go back to worrying about yourself.

It came as no big surprise when I heard Gina had turned up dead. They found her body near a boat ramp on the Missouri river. Her head caved in by a rock. There were never any charges, and probably not much of an investigation. Everyone assumed the boyfriend did it, but who knows. Toward the end she played a lot of games with a lot of different people, so there's no telling who it might have been. I wish I could say that the news of her death had an impact on me at the time, but it didn't. Sure it was sad news, tragic even, but I didn't give the news more than a cursory acknowledgement and obligatory " That's a shame".

All of this took place around 25 years ago, maybe a little longer. Looking back on it now disturbs me more than when it all happened. Maybe it's guilt talking, or some morbid nostalgia. I've drug this thing out a whole lot longer than I intended. It's tough to make someone like Gina sound sympathetic. Of course its tragic when anyone is killed, but when that person isn't living right, is putting their self out there, there is a " you get what you ask for" mentality, sometimes unspoken, but it's there. The thing is, I remember Gina from grade school, when she was just an over protected kid. I watched her grow up, insulated from all of the Boogie Men, imagined by her over bearing father, only to fall prey to a real one.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless.....The Vagina Monologues

Say the word criminal and ask people to describe a mental image of what a criminal looks like, most likely they will come up with a cross between the Hamburglar and Tupac, in other words a stereotypical male figure will emerge as the culprit. While it's true that most career criminals are male, their female counterparts are often far more successful and less likely to get caught. Today I'm going to talk about some of the Femme Felons I've known. From strippers to seemingly upright well educated pillars of the community, women criminals are often far more devious and ruthless than their male counterparts.

Barbara was one of the first women I ever recognized as a really proficient crook. She ran fat girls back in the 70's and 80's. No, she wasn't a physical trainer, and the fat girls didn't actually run, since this would have been counterproductive, since the girls being fat was an intricate part of Barbara's hustle. Clear as mud? Before you could order up drugs over the Internet from some shady "Doctor", there was a big market for pharmaceutical amphetamines, pain pills and Valium. There was only a few ways to get your hands on these narcotics, crooked doctors, crooked pharmacists, burglary or robbery of pharmacies, or in the case of amphetamines, being fat. Barb ran a herd of fat chicks. Once a month she would round up about a half dozen fat girls, load them in a conversion van, and run a route from Kansas City to as far as Colorado. She paid the girls for their time, and covered expenses for the 4 or 5 days they were on the road. The food bill must have been enormous. Sounds like a lot of running around for little pay off, I know, but it wasn't. Barb retired in the mid 80's, comfortably.

In my case, the one that put me away, my partner was a woman. Before I get carried away, I need to preface this with a few disclaimers and cover my ass. In my case there was no co defendant, she was never charged, and never under much scrutiny, at least not from federal prosecutors. The secret Service agents and Postal Inspectors who eventually built their case around me, knew she was as dirty as a pig in shit, but the grand jury didn't buy it, so I took the full brunt and remained mute. Before you think I tried to assassinate the president, the Secret Service handles paper and fraud related crimes, which is what my case was. So to avoid being sued for slander, which could result in losing my vast midtown empire, a half a pack of Marlboro's, 3 joints and a Yorkie, the names, places and some details have been changed to protect the not so innocent.

Jan was a news anchor when I met her, she also had several business ventures that were failing to one degree or another. This was in large part due to her husbands mismanagement, poor business practices and his nasty coke habit. I was in sales at the time, legit sales, and met Jan through friends of friends. She needed somebody who could sell , I needed a job, match made in heaven. So I sold, and sold, they spent and spent, we got nowhere fast. At some point there was some inappropriate work place shenanigans of an adulterous nature. To be honest, I never saw it coming, at the time I just assumed that I was irresistible, which just goes to show how out of touch I was. Jan was hotter than donut grease, had a masters in journalism, was the top rated news anchor in the area we were in, had turned down offers from big news agencies, and was as far out of my league as humanly possible. In short, she took one for the team and hustled the hustler.

To make a long story a little shorter, the business was going under, the end was inevitable, so we did what all greedy people do, we stole as much as we could before there was nothing left. the business was incorporated and international, we had a Taiwanese investor/partner, we had government grants and loans, and Jan convinced me that it would be a good idea if I became CEO of the corporation. My ego and penis agreed with her wholeheartedly, and a sucker was born. We moved money around, we set up shill companies to funnel it off, and when the house of cards finally came tumbling down, she was so far removed from it all, that the guy with a criminal record and dubious past, me, was left to take the rap.

In hindsight it's all too clear that I got played, dont get me wrong, I was a full participant, knew what we were doing was illegal, I even came up with the more creative ways of moving the money around, so it's not like I didn't know what the score was. What I didn't know, what I was totally unaware of, was that Jan knew I would be the perfect partner in crime. I wouldn't talk, I'd take the fall, she would avoid being indicted. Well played, hats off. Today Jan works for a news station in a small city, she makes good money, lives a good life, and is none the worse for wear.

Don't feel bad for me, I was a bad guy back then, if it hadn't been that case, there would have been another, so no harm no foul, that's just part of the life I chose. So here you have two women, as far removed from the other as humanely possible. One slung dope obtained from exploiting fat girls, one who lined her pockets while keeping her hands clean, by stroking the ego, heh, of a guy who thought he was slicker the WD 40. On the surface they are miles apart, but in reality not as different as they first appear.

Special thanks to KC Best Blogger Meesha V. for the awesome header picture that accompanies this post.

Ruthless, Worthless, and Clueless......ch 2... Dude looks like a lady.

Some people are born crazy, and I dont mean clinically depressed or a little bi polar, I mean bat shit crazy. Dave would fall under that category. I wasn't close friends with Dave, I dated his sister, knew people he knew, we crossed paths and that's it. Dave was an opportunistic thief, dope dealer, forger, whatever. If he saw a way to slide in , turn a buck, get out, then that's what he did. In some circles, this type of non specific criminal is called a sneak thief or a shit heel, I have no idea why, but Ive used that term myself. Just consider criminal slang a form of Yiddish for felons. Anyway, the guy was a shit heel, but a mostly harmless one, or so everyone thought.

The first sign that Dave was more than a little crazy was when he shot his wife, a school teacher, paralyzed her from the waist down. The thing is he claimed it was an accident, and his wife said the same. The story goes that he is in the kitchen cleaning a pistol, a semi auto 9mm, the gun goes off, twice, hits the wife, twice. Later his sister told me that it wasn't an accident, who knows?

Now might be a good time to mention that Dave had a drug problem, a meth problem to be exact. Meth can take an already wacky person and turn them in to a walking cartoon, one of those really violent cartoons from the 30's. He would go on long binges, steal shit from his sister and mother, a real nice piece of work, our Davey. Every now and again the sister would tell me he was "back on that shit", this proclamation usually followed by a story about him stealing something from someone. I stayed clear of her family in general and her brother especially, so I had never witnessed his finer moments first hand. All of that changed one morning when I get a call from the sister, blubbering about Dave stealing her car and would I take her to go get it. He was holed up in a hotel off 71 near Grandview. I said Id take her, but I wasn't getting involved, other than to make sure he didn't chloroform her and eat her face.

The sister told me that Dave was bugged out and in what he referred to as Ninja Mode. The way she explained it to me, was that Dave would get all crazy from too many sleepless nights of happy dust. The lack of sleep, his already unstable state of mind, and copious amounts of dope had Dave convinced that "They" were looking for or following him. "They", being the cops I suppose. Having heard her describe what ninja mode meant, I knew what to expect when Dave opened the door, and I wasn't disappointed. Dave was kind of fat, balding, had a perpetual blue shadow always on his face. He was one of those guys that look like they need a shave five minutes after shaving. He reminded me of a balding Barney rubble, but fat. So Dave opens the door, in a dress. Yes, you heard me right , a dress. and not just any dress, he had on one of those grandma sundress/house dress things.

Before you jump to conclusions, thinking maybe the guy gets off dressing like Aunt Bea, that just isn't the case here. He dressed like that because he believed whoever was looking for him wouldn't recognize him as the drag equivalent of an 80 year old Russian woman. While I highly doubt anyone was after him, I'm sure in his drug addled mind it was all too real, and his response was not only logical, but crafty to boot. So there he stood in the doorway of his hotel room, sheepishly grinning as he handed his sister her car keys. a 6 foot tall, 220 pound, bald headed , generic, grandma. It was both frightening and breath taking in its weirdness.

About a month or so after the hotel incident, Dave pulled a feat that was the epitome of insanity. He painted the front of his house, black, flat black. He lived on a dead end street on the east edge of Independence. Trees lined both sides of his house so all you could see from the street at night, was the front of the house. Dave painted it black so you couldn't see it at night. Makes perfect sense, if the cops cant see the house, they wont find him. Ive never ceased to be amazed when confronted by the thought process of dope fiends. Dave was an extreme case to be sure, but the people I have known who boarded the crazy meth train, have all ended up brain damaged to one degree or another.

I'm not sure what ever became of Dave, I stopped seeing his sister a few months after the house painting incident. I imagine he either ended up dead, in jail, or the nut house. It's been 15 years or better, he probably is dead. I can only imagine what the casual reader must think when I start describing or writing about some of the people Ive known or encountered. Believe me if I hadn't seen some of it with my own eyes, Id have trouble swallowing it as well. Most people live normal lives, in normal neighborhoods. The closest they come to calling someone crazy, is when they talk about the old hippie neighbor , who bought one of those ugly ass Pontiac Aztec SUV's, or the funny looking Goth kids that hang out at the house across the street. In other words, most people are more normal and less odd than you might first think, at least compared to some of the real crazy's that occupy the under belly of society, that most never encounter or come in contact with.