THE INVISIBLE MAN

Many times in life I've felt invisible. And sometimes I actually have been.

No, not that sort of invisible, but the kind where you can be anywhere and people just don't know you are there.

An example:

One night (when I worked overnights) I was on a lunch break in downtown Seattle. I went down to Elliott Bay Books (doesn't exist anymore) and on the way back to my previous place of employment (doesn't exist anymore) I had to pass Pike Street.

Pike Street at the time was notorious for being a skid row kind of area of downtown Seattle. It still has some of that reputation, but like most of the rest of Seattle, it's become slowly rich and gentrified.

When I approached Pike Street -- on my way back to work, mind you -- there was a huge fight brewing. It looked like a cross between a large fight and small riot -- mostly the former. Five or six people yelling at each other, throwing stuff. The cops hadn't shown up yet. I needed to cross the small riot to get back to work.

The Invisible Me and a bit of railroad archeology -- definitely not Pike Street.

So I thought -- screw this. I'm just going to mind my own business and walk right through and past all these people, pretending that they're just naturally going to ignore me -- I'm going to be invisible.

And I did. Not a scratch, not a punch, not an insult -- nothing came my way. It was as if I truly were invisible. Maybe there was an angel of some sort protecting me. But either way, it felt like I was invisible.

I once wrote a song called The Invisible Man, not about that incident described above, but about a similar one that occured about the same time in my life. The music was good -- the words weren't, so I trashed it.

Invisible Me (holding camera) and Timmy the Cat.

I don't have a massive online presence, aside from the few standard places everyone goes.

I put this blog up as a means to promote some of my music projects, and perhaps connect with a couple of people. Over the past month I've seen a few people from the U.S., Denmark, UK, France, Israel, India, Netherlands, Poland, China, and Thailand (and most recently, Romania) check in.

How much of the blog people actually have read is anyone's guess, but it's cool to see any of you bother to read what drivel I'm writing at the moment!

PS, anyone can feel free to comment if they read anything that they like. I'll always comment back.

Have a great day wherever you are, from the Invisible Man.