Eavesdropping in Santa Cruz

It is no secret that Santa Cruz is chock full of eccentrics, or "weirdos," as they are sometimes referred to. Go for a stroll downtown and you are likely to see someone talking to god on a pay phone, for example. 

For many locals, public displays of weirdness are a key ingredient in the cultural gumbo of Santa Cruz. True as this may be, I have found that the weirdest weirdos are the ones who appear clean, composed, well-adjusted, and even well-to-do, and yet have a Weltanschauung straight from the pages of a Philip K. Dick novel. 

I encountered a good example of Santa Cruz's signature brand of covert weirdo while seated at the sidewalk tables of the Pacific Coffee Roasters several days ago.

While I read a newspaper, I casually followed the meandering course of a conversation between two older gentlemen at the table beside mine. Both men were cleanly dressed and well spoken, and nothing about the initial course of their conversation, which revolved around favorite foods and mutual friends, hinted at what was soon to come.

It was when one man asked the other about his plans for the impending holiday season that the conversation abruptly sent the dials of my weird-o-meter into cartwheels. 

One of the men, whose graying beard and hair suggested his progression into a healthy old age, told his friend that planning for the holidays was a fool's errand, because 2012 will be the final year for humanity.

"There are these machines, and they are everywhere, and they shine, they are like stars, but they are thought, pure thought," the graying man said, by way of explanation.

"I call them 'thought-stars.' They are like black-holes, but they are pure thought. It's why the dinosaurs are gone, because they took them away."

His friend said something I couldn't hear over the buzz and shuffle of the passing weekend crowd.

"It's a mind," said the graying man. "They were made to repair machines, these big machines, but they were made with a flaw. They are attracted to certain kinds of sound, like music. Do you understand?" he asked his friend.

The other man said something else I could not make out over the street noise.

"Do you know blue cheese? You know the skin on the cheese?" the graying man asked. "Human beings, if you peel them like a grape, and hang them to cure properly, they form a skin like blue cheese. Its called eschar."

His friend laughed and said, "So it doesn't matter what I'm planning for the holidays?"

"You know why it doesn't matter?" the older man said.
"Because we are all gonna be dead, this year, 2012. GGGKKHKK!" 
He grabbed his neck in mock strangulation.

"Pet food. Those of us who don't drink arsenic in advance are gonna be pet food."

He paused to sip his coffee, and again his friend said something I couldn't hear .

"Why?" the graying man said.

"Well, the only reason they are coming for the harvest is because we have gained so much weight." 

The conversation then changed course, and the men discussed different incarnations of hot dog, including beef wellington and stroganoff varieties. 

I finished my coffee and left to continue my life, business as usual, end of the world or not.