Whenever he gets too drunk to maintain his Valencia serenade, Mission troubadour Omer retreats to the mural wall across the street from my house, right next to the mockingbird car alarm tree. Instrument skills extinguished for the night due to inebriated motor reflexes, he nonetheless continues the show and resorts to borderline racism and half-baked paranoia, even if there is no audience. While it was too dark to really see what was going on, I’m sure you’ll recognize the voice.
Full disclosure: If you choose NOT to listen to these rants of his, you will probably end up smarter for it. I, on the other hand, do not have much of a choice!
Omer extols us to study the Constitution, and he wonders where Obama is from:
Omer rallies against gentrification and apologizes for the sorry state in which his hero Jimmy Carter left our country:
Previously:
This guy told my dad I was going to die of AIDS.
Omer also cries a lot late a night. Poor thing.
The rocking sounds of Bum-Jovi.
This dude actually used to be pretty nice. He was still loud, but less “What are you looking at fag?!” and more “Whistle along!”.
I liked it better when he was actually singing.
Walking down the street with my mom, of course, Omer says “Pucker up, sweet cheeks!” to her.
Seriously.
Not my favorite vagrant, but always sobering.
Tonight he was very excited about the stillness of the air and how the one tree that’s always swaying in the wind, wasn’t. Not so sure that’s just the booze talking, but at least he wasn’t yelling at anyone.
I had no idea his name was Omar, I’ve always called him “The Rocker.” He’s the best on the bunch!
Through a drunken barrage of insults, this fellow tried to get me to dump my boyfriend for him. A few times. His reasoning wasn’t half bad, and there was a split second that I considered becoming the lover to this inebriated Don Juan of the streets. Just sayin, the stories to bring home to mom would surely beat out my sister’s five foot tall Japanese law school dropout boyfriend in NYC.
Ohhh you mean William H Macy. He has been method acting the shit out of this Omer role for quite some time now.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!
While Omer sometimes hangs out on Bartlett a block from my apartment in the late afternoon/early evening, he’s usually not singing, but rather in some kind of trance (he doesn’t usually even look at me).
My favorite Omer story, however, is one evening my girlfriend and I were walking back from having dinner somewhere on Valencia, and he starts walking toward us. Just as we’re about to reach him, he perfectly moves to the middle, forcing us to separate so he can walk in between us, at which point he lifts his shirt up in order to flash his belly, and loudly mutters a phrase we cannot understand. Classic.
There is a book in the public library at Bartlett and 24th St, about the Mission, written during the 90′s. In that book is a picture and write-up of our dear old friend Omer. He says that he always wanted to be a successful musician, and he figured that if he played on the streets instead of in the clubs there was much more likelihood that someone special would recognize his talent and sign him. He makes me want to stop playing music forever.
I SEENT THAT BOOK!
they have a copy of the same one for sale at dog eared books.
fun omer fact……I guess the dude broke into yoko ono’s house in the 70′s.
the street folks around the area are interesting if you talk to them.
Ray is another good one to know.
And RIP Kathy.
Yes, we all miss Cathy dearly – especially John. And “Killer Ray”, as we have come to know him has passed out inside of our front door before. We had to poke him with sticks continuously to get him to leave.
[...] mural of Valencia Street on the wall South End Grill ‘n’ Bar. Look closely and you can spot Omer the rocker (aka Bum [...]
[...] #15- Omer a.k.a Bum Jovi [...]