The Local Hero

Perhaps I am putting my neck on the line by taking shots at someone as beloved as The Local Hero, but his behavior has been less than exemplary. The Local Hero runs a local venue for art and music, which, to many of the citizens of our fair city, would make his actions above reproach. On its wall hang the work of any number of area artists--a great number of works with little space between them, the weight of which I imagine must be incredibly tiresome for the building. It makes me wonder exactly how stringent are his requirements for allowing an artist to show work in the gallery:

A bedraggled ARTIST walks into the gallery. Under his arm he carries a loose collection of newspapers.

Artist: I was, uh, wondering if I could like hang some of--

Local Hero: Absolutely!

Artist: They're, like, some doodles of my toe I did on this newspaper. I didn't have anything to draw with, so I had to use a cigar butt. Then I kind of spilled coffee over it and ruined it, but--

Local Hero: What are you waiting for? Hang them!

Artist: Don't you even want to look at them?

Local Hero: Who am I to evaluate art?

Artist: Well, you kind of run a gallery, don't you?

Touring bands also play there and I think, if you happen to be there at the right time, you might also be able to get a tattoo or a burrito.

The Local Hero dresses in such a fashion that asserts his uniqueness: pork-pie hat, granny glasses, dashiki, cargo shorts, hiking boots, and wool socks. From the waist down, he's a sort of rugged outdoorsman, from the waist up, well, some sort of fucking weirdo. At any moment you might expect him to offer you a cup of Kool-Aid or ask if you're interested on hitching a ride on a passing comet.

The Local Hero invariably starts things off on a bad foot by walking right past the sign reading "Please Wait To Be Seated" and helping himself to a place at the bar. He is apparently oblivious to the possibility that, since I am a small restaurant that cannot accommodate a large number of people at once (but I am secure in my size, people feel that the space inside me is intimate,) there may be other people already waiting politely to be seated by the server. Buildings and restaurant workers alike do appreciate when people can display a modicum of courtesy when arriving as a guest in a restaurant. Perhaps the Local Hero feels that he is above such displays of social nicety and, as an artist, or as at least someone who supports the, er, arts, is more comfortable being in touch with his primal urges for food and the eight ounce bottle of Perrier he splits with his dining partner.

At his side is a woman of indeterminate origin--her accent is difficult to distinguish due to the spiteful hiss with which she shapes her every utterance (though all signs point to French--read as hairy pits). The two are rumored to be involved in a religious movement which aims to unite all of mankind by inundating it with children's drawings of differently-colored people holding hands across a little crayon-scribbled planet earth. Apparently this religion also espouses the practice of leaving a flat tip of three dollars in the chef's tip jar while leaving nothing for the server, even when tipping on a tab that inevitably falls in the thirty to sixty dollar range.

The Local Hero has a man crush on the sushi chef (this is not uncommon--many disaffected people gravitate toward sushi chefs). Since the chef is all but shackled behind the bar, the Local Hero makes of him an unwitting audience as he pores over every inane detail of the latest event held at his venue. The subtext of these one-sided conversations is undoubtedly, look at the ease with which I interact with people from different cultures. Can't you see that the hairy pits of my common-law wife do not bother me in the slightest? The relative ease with which I have risen to the rank of Local Hero is certainly no fluke.

The Local hero is a creature of habit to a disgusting extent. The people who have the misfortune of working at a certain time on a certain day of the week must bear the trial of his presence week after week. Like clockwork he appears again and again. If science could somehow combine Old Faithful with a herpes outbreak, mankind would be able to experience a phenomenon similar to the appearance of the Local Hero in my doorway.

The Local Hero gets zero out of a possible five openings. Unless the openings in question are hobo's assholes, in which case I give him five.