25 January 2008

Stray Comment

Wednesday, Jan. 23, a disheveled middle-aged man in a wool hat and huge parka, waiting in line for the bathroom at an Upper West Side Starbucks, casually but loudly announces to the assembled patrons:

"1983, on this day, me and Paul Newman got drunk and got a hotel room. I'm not bragging. I'm just telling facts."

The incident has nothing to do with this site's m.o. It was just too odd, even by New York standards, not to relate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I once had a similar experience on 23rd Street near Second Avenue in 1993:

An extremely thin and shabbily dressed man stepped out of the Repeat Performance thriftstore, which benefits the New York City Opera Guild, and proclaimed that he had once had sex with Tony Curtis.

When he caught my eye, he followed me across the street toward Third Avenue, insisting that it had happened and trying to make his case, which I had no intention of refuting. The event seemed important to his self identity. He only left me alone when I acknowledged his assertion with "Wow."