The Blog of Wistar Watts Murray

Gawker is compiling a guide to “New York’s modern eccentrics.” The list includes Mr. Purple:

Is Mr. Purple from the Upper West Side still around? I first saw him in 1978 on West 86th St. He wore flowing purple robes and a live boa constrictor wrapped around his neck and waist and he rode a purple bike…He asked my mother out on a date and she actually went.

This is so much better than Gawker Stalker. I don’t love the idea of turning potentially mentally ill people into pseudo-celebrities, but they’ve suffered for their craft a lot more than Sarah Jessica Parker has and they deserve the fame if they want it. Plus I expect that the internet attention will benefit them in some way. Maybe they’ll start blogs. Or write memoirs. Or maybe they’ll get laid by Gawker groupies:

The Earth Angel is a freak of nature who frequents the 6 train and various buses. He was written up in AM New York in early April. This guy gets on the train - with hair down to his ass - holding a folder in front of his face that he calls his forcefield. He claims to have been sent to Earth to find the angels - which, conveniently, are always hot chicks.

For some reason hipsters love crazy homeless people. I remember a man in D.C. who knew this and used it to his advantage. Every night he sat outside the Black Cat, an indie night club, and said “Black cat, black cat” on a monotone loop to the kids standing in line at rock shows. No one could resist him or the little change cup he shook. The man was a legend who made more money than I did. He may still reside in D.C., but I bet he’s retired to St. Tropez or Ibiza by now.

The story of the Black Cat Man teaches that if you’re homeless and you have style and a gimmick, you might as well capitalize on it. Maybe hipsters relate because they have style and gimmicks of their own. Is being homeless really so different from being in a band? Is being homeless really so different from living in a mansion? Is being schizophrenic and owning snakes really so different from seeing a therapist and breeding purebred dogs for Westminster? For the sake of my moral convenience, no. But the truth is I lost my train of thought halfway through that paragraph.

This morning I read about a father and a son who have both written memoirs about the son’s meth addiction. And they’re being published at the same time! How awkward is that? I can just see the two men sitting around the kitchen table a few months ago.

“Dad,” says the son, “I think I am ready to conquer my demons. I’m going to write about my meth addiction. Maybe my cautionary tale will connect with some young, would-be meth addicts. Maybe I can keep them off drugs, and in the process, make a name for myself.”

“Son,” says the father, “That is some major bullshit. I started writing about your meth addiction first.”

The New York Times article gives the father’s memoir top billing. I hope the son’s meth addiction wasn’t originally brought on by the pressure to prove himself to his competitive father, because if so, that kid will probably be smoking a whole lot of crystal come book tour time.

I wonder about these awkward moments whenever there are two writers in one family. Do Amy and David Sedaris have to check with each other before submitting a personal essay to the New Yorker? Did the Sedaris siblings wrestle for who would first chronicle their crazy childhoods? I would have fought to the death for the right to unveil The Rooster. Anyway, I want to get this stuff straight before my sister Margaret and I start shopping our competing memoirs:

How I Survived My Formative Years with a Self-Obsessed Older Sister Who Always Ate All the Ice Cream by Margaret Murray

versus

I Love Ice Cream and You Can’t Have Any: A Childhood by Wistar Murray

*I am trying to drum up some good lawsuit publicity for my blog by rearranging other peoples’ headlines/book titles.