“Hey, man!” yelled the dude standing outside the various restaurants on Mississippi Avenue. “Hey, man!”
Look, I’m not one to randomly start conversations with strangers yelling at me on streets as I try to walk past, especially when I’m visibly listening to music on my phone. (For reference, it was “Night Vision” by Super Furry Animals.) It’s not that this guy looked like he was about to start a fight or cause trouble or anything; if anything, he looked like The Dude from The Big Lebowski if he’s started working out a little bit and was trying to take care of himself more these days, but had also gotten really into buying his entire wardrobe from the local military supply store. Still, he was yelling to get my attention and for some reason, I figured that I should probably see what’s up before things got out of hand.
I took my earphones out, and the dude happily — gleefully! — announced, “If it wasn’t for your beard, you’d look like the twin of Telly Savalas, man.”
I’ll be honest; I had no idea how to take this. On the one hand, I didn’t think I look anything like Telly Savalas, for any number of reasons, not least of which the fact that I rarely think of the man who was once Kojak because, really, who does these days? On the other, Telly Savalas was a sex symbol back in the day, so perhaps the comparison was a good thing and a sign that I should pick up a lollipop habit as quickly as possible, just in case it helps my appeal. (On a third hand, Telly Savalas was a sex symbol in the 1970s. That was a decade when plenty of not-entirely-attractive people were considered sex symbols for some inexplicable reason. Did I really want to be likened to a man beloved by a decade with questionable taste?)
I laughed, nervously, and replied, “I’ll take that as a compliment” as I hurried away, hoping that would be the end of the discussion, feeling other people watching the two of us. “Who loves ya, baby!” yelled the man as I walked away, seeming affirming that it was, in fact, meant to be a comparison that worked in my favor. A woman smiled at me in sympathy as she walked past me: “I think you look great,” she said.
It was an unusual start to the afternoon, at least.