SURFING JAMAICA (in The Guardian and Revista Trip)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/jun/27/jamaica-surfing-camp

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STREET ART?

The woman I’m lucky enough to call my wife told me a fascinating story. Yesterday, she and a couple friends were walking down Essex Street. In the hubbub of the crowd, a man suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. “Pardon me miss, you’ve got ketchup all over you.” She looked down at her hip and sure enough, a streak of fresh bloodred ketchup. He quickly pulled a napkin out of his pocket and proceeded to wipe it off. It happened so fast that all my beloved, curvaceous wife could do was say, Thanks. After he whisked off down the street she was struck with a sense of violation. She was quite convinced that he was in fact the Ketchup Man: one pocket filled with pilfered ketchup packets from McDonalds or wherever, the other with napkins.

Being of the male gender, I understand the fascination with dribbling gooey substances over our intimate’s bodies. But on the street? Atop a pair of black jeans and black cotton tank top? I imagined him back in his dinghy hovel, stroking himself to this perverse, very public interaction.

The one good thing that came out of it was our idea. My wife is directing a TV show about street art. I’m going to assume the identity of Ketchup Man, and be interviewed as the brainchild behind this sick, original act. I’ve always loved attention, never quite had the balls or ingenuity to be a tagger, and now get to pose as this fictitious (or not) Ketchup Man. I’ll have a drawer full of ketchup in my dimly lit studio wallpapered with Hustler centerfolds and exhausted tubes of KY and the like. I’ll be unshaven and exploiting my paunch. I’ll make up tales of grateful women, bowing in thanks to my chivalrous work with the napkin. There’s something really lovely about the guy who slyly squirts the ketchup, then quickly offers to clean it up, don’t you think?