You never know who will show up in the Valise!

So we left the door open today because the heat is on and the store is very warm and we wanted to cool it down a little. When we do that more people wander in off of the street. That is good and bad. Most of the time it is people who are just browsing or looking to come in from the cold. Today it seemed like it was mostly dudes. First the window washer came by. Then the guy who greases the gates. Some guy looking for a business card holder. A guy selling artwork from the back of his car. And this tall skinny dude who looks like he was homeless.

Now normally I am in the back at my desk and I come out when there is a dude in the store. So each time I pop out and check out what is going on. This tall guy was dressed very rough and dirty with a hat and a hood and he looked like he wanted to steal something. I looked closely at him. And I go: "Hey dude aren't you Nelson Van Alden?"

It was him or actually Michael Shannon which is the actor's name. He was buying a scarf. He pretty much was a dick. Stiff. Arrogant. A typical self entitled moron. One of the reasons I want to leave Brooklyn because all of these famous people are moving in to the neighborhood. You see I grew up with real gangsters. Not the ones who play them on TV. So we were not all that impressed. But we always try to be nice. We chatted while Lisa rang up the card. I was talking about how I have to explain what is going on because Lisa doesn't always follow the ins and outs of the show because she is texting or instagraming or some shit while it is on.

Last episode they depicted the murder of Dion O'Bannion. They implied that Van Alden was going to do it with a gun that Al Capone gave him. Everybody knows that Frankie Yale came from Brooklyn to kill O'Bannion while Scalise and Anselmi held his arms. It is one of the most famous hits in history.

So I say to him "You guys looked like you were going to pull a fast one. You made it appear that Van Alden was going to do the hit but you showed what really happened. It was one of the few times you followed what really happened. I know, I know artistic license." He goes "Boy you are a real history buff."

No I am just well informed. Ok I might have slightly encyclopedic knowledge of Mafia hits and Western gunfights but that is just my hobby. I just hate when they trash history and make up shit that is not as interesting as what really went down. When they invent characters instead of using the real people.

I can understand when people are socially awkward. Most of our customers are until they warm up. This guy warmed up a little at the end to the point that he agreed to take a photo. Lisa insisted because she wanted to post it on facebook and Instagram.

I left him with the words of wisdom I always tell people from TV when I meet them in person. "You know I met a lot of terrible people in my life. Mafia hit men. Burglars and thieves. Drug peddlers. But not of them are as bad as people who work in TV."

Hey nobody can be as big a dick as me. Just sayn'