Tickle Me, Hobo

I stood outside the Tin Angel on South Second Street, on the phone with my girlfriend, Laura. Minutes earlier, I had photographed French acoustic-pop duo Herman Dune, or tried my best to, anyhow. Long and narrow, the Tin Angel is a submarine masquerading as a rock (well, singer-songwritery) club, and it was overpacked -- not for Herman Dune, necessarily, but for headliner Jolie Holland, whom I was was there to photograph for Philadelphia Weekly -- and there was absolutely nowhere to stand to get shots that wasn't in the way of the seated throng. I made my way close to the tiny stage to get a few shots, and barely 30 seconds into doing so, the murmurs began and two people tapped me on the shoulder to inform me I was blocking their view, so I beat a retreat down to the street and debated whether I'd be able to get any decent shots of Holland before the angry crowd might tear me to bits.

As I leaned against a parking meter and whined about the situation on the phone to Laura, a rather homeless and harmless looking fellow on a bicycle slowly rode past me on the sidewalk. As he got to where I was standing, he dismounted and pulled out a leafy branch that had gotten caught in his rear spokes at some recent point in his evening's travels. "It's sage!" he cried out, looking at me. And then he took the branch and poked-slash-tickled me in the shoulder with it for a few seconds as I stood there, rather puzzled, going "Uhhhhh...." into the phone. And then he rode off. "What's going on?" Laura asked, sensing the weirdness that had just taken place. I told her, and she laughed for a solid three minutes. And then I walked to my car and drove home. I'll have to photograph Jolie Holland another night.