Every time I'm there, he is there, wearing some type of weird boots, paint coated so thick on his hands they could stop a bullet, and sun glasses at night. But tonight I saw those eyes. Red, red eyes. Ay yay yay eyes. I probably notice homeless people more than other people, i'd imagine they try to get you to notice them more. This guy, he is always selling paintings. He calls it street art, i imagine because he paints it right there on the street. The "Binary Art" is what first caught my attention, months ago, an african american character, maybe a seperate painting all together, completely drawn in layers and layers of ballpoint pen, covered by a layer of 0's and 1's. I told him how cool that was, because I learned once about these numbers, and how to count them, but i forgot. He forgot too, he said they are either numbers or symbols, I think he never knew. I wish i could have bought these. Today he had a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off and tic tac toe games painted on there. Was he hanging out and his friend suggested playing a game of tic tac toe, and off came the jacket? Is that when the sleeves came off?
So today, i got a burger and a chocolate shake, eating while staring at his blocks of wood with paint and various things on them. I knew he'd ask me if i wanted to buy one, so, boom, preemptive strike, I talked to him. I asked him what number that is, on that binary art! He still didnt know. "How do you come up with this stuff?" "Ahh, man, i tap into my REM. Random Eye Motion." "While you're awake?" "Yeah, my dad used to be a millionaire in California, in the Bay Area, and i didnt need to do anything to survive, but I learned how to tap into it when I moved to Seattle." Not wanting to disclose proprietary secrets, he changed the subject, and asked me my name, which i took as a cue that he was ending the conversation. Earlier he had asked me which one I liked the most, I told him, and he asked if I could give him 3 or 4 dollars for it. I got this for 4 dollars, but, its double sided, and "the joke of the day" part, where roman numerals transform themselves into new meanings, that there was a complete, secret bonus.
