Can I tell you something?

Riding the subway at 2am, it's always a grab bag of which intoxicated homeless prototype you're going to land.

I'm one of those libertarian-liberals with a heart of gold. My heart hasn't fully sunken into a hollow hole of Rand Institute economics quite yet.

But occasionally, my fresh faced idealism has been chomped to the bit by surly nomadic drunkards with a well-placed "whatchu-smiling-about-cracker?' That shuts my idealistic trap right up.

However, last night, geez o' petemoss, the drunken black homeless man on the A train was a hoot-and-a-half.

"Girl," he told a well-to-doer, "I may be shit-faced, but Ima' Sagitturus."

"That's nice," she responded, barely nudging her nose from her newspaper.

There was a pregnant pause. "Girl, you look like you Russian or some shit. You live in Greendale?"

The woman twisted uncomfortably on the subway bench, sharply shooting a glare from behind her glasses. "No," she said coldly.

"Well girl, lemme tell you sumethin'. I think you look Russian. Girl, I know all about them Russians. Matter of fact, I've got a book coming out later this year. It's called 'I Know Shit.'"

I couldn't help to laugh at this. It just tickled me just the right way.

The homeless man didn't seem to mind, either. He was the consummate performer.

The whole car descended into a fit of laughs, in fact. Big beautiful laughs, too, ones that you feel emanate from the pit of your belly.