Intrepid reporter Justin Juul hits the streets each week for our Meet Your Neighbors series, interviewing the Bay Area folks you'd like to know most.
If you’ve ever been to Chaya, the Japanese restaurant on Valencia and 19th streets, then you’ve seen Omer (last name withheld). He’s the little short guy with the crusty Joe-Dirt mullet who pops out of the shadows with a guitar and scares tourists. Omer’s confrontational approach to panhandling seems counterintuitive, but he has found success with Mission-district locals who get off on watching tourists shit their pants when he attacks them with his vicious renditions of classic rock hits.
I tried to do a regular interview with Omer, but he refused to directly answer most of my questions. That said, I did manage to get some valuable information out of him, and was happy to leave the interview without getting spit on or mauled, which is what I always thought would happen if I ever got close enough to shake Omer’s hand. He’s a pretty funny dude actually… and not mean at all.
SFBG: Hey what’s up man, can I interview you for a magazine?
Omer: Raaaaargh!
SFBG: Was that a yes?
Omer: Yeah sure, why the fuck not? My name’s Omer.
SFBG: Nice to meet you Omer, I’m Justin. So… how’d you find yourself here in the city?
Omer: Well, I don’t know. It’s like… what I’m doing is so perfect for Frisco. I’m just like a guy in a doorway. Britney Spears sells a million records.
SFBG: Fuck that bitch.
Omer: Exactly! Britney Spears sells a million records, and I’m just a guy in a doorway. But the good news is… I’d rather be me than her.
SFBG: Hell yeah, man. So would I.
Omer: I mean… let’s think about the children in Darfur for a minute.
SFBG: Okay….
Omer: Now don’t you feel sorry for Britney Spears?
SFBG: Yeah, I guess.
Omer: No! The answer is no! Now here, buy a cd!
After the jump: Watch Omer in action!
SFBG: Wow, Omer, what’s all this shit on the back of the CD?
Omer: I do formulas. The concept is like Pi-R-Squared, right? It’s not a perfect number! It’s not round! So I always talk about how my mom used to bake pies that were round, but not perfect.
SFBG: Sounds good to me.
Omer: So… lately, on the back’s of some of these mother-fuckers [the CDs], I’ve been doing formulas for people to try to figure out how my mom cooked those fuckin' pies. It’s like Pi-R-Squared plus Pax, with a little thing over the top. I haven’t gotten it figured out yet, but those fuckin’ pies were delicious, man, shit! Don’t listen to me, I’m fucking retarded! Ha-ha!
SFBG: No you’re not, man. This shit is awesome. Where are you from, by the way?
Omer: Well, I got relatives back in Arizona, but I only see those mother-fuckers in January. I was born in San Diego. That’s when I got the bug! That’s when I knew I had to entertain people. I used to go the bar with my dad when I was five years old. I used to make people laugh, and they gave me money. They liked me! That was 1961, when I started entertaining people.
SFBG: And you’re still entertaining people, man. That’s cool. You’ve entertained me a few times. Actually, you kind of scared the shit out of me.
Omer: Oh fuck yeah! Ha ha ha! I scare those mother fuckers and then they give me money. Let me tell you something, Jack. You’re gonna die in a ring of fire, Jack, just like little June Bug who wrote this song. Johnny Cash DID NOT WRITE THIS MOTHERFUCKING SONG, JACK! Let me show you.
At this point Omer stopped talking and broke into song. Check out the video.
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Comments (6)
He's migrated over the years. When I was in elementary school, he used to sing "Feliz Navidad" all year long in front of the grocery store on 23rd & Mission. Locals (and by this I mean people who have been in SF all or most of their lives) just know him as The Man With the Guitar. Another person you should look for is The Red Man (if he hasn't died or been forced to move already).
Posted by Iris | October 23, 2007 05:03 PM
I've never heard of the red man. Where does he hang out? What does he do?
Posted by IamJustin | October 23, 2007 11:28 PM
I LOVE this guy! Great interview. I once walked past years ago and he was singing a song that my partner and I continue to sing to one antoher all the time. it goes like this:
Piggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggypiggy PIGGY FARM!
We love it. This guy is a latter-day Frank Black.
Posted by Karen | October 25, 2007 10:56 AM
The Red man is gone- sadly. He was my first street idol- he painted himself in mercurochrome from top to bottom. He looked like a little red devil...He woke me up one night at like 3:00 in the morning, sitting ontop of a SFBG dispenser on the corner of 22nd/Valencia just singing some song- the fog was rolling in all around him- beautiful, like a shot out of a Fellini movie..I heard that he died.
Omer on the other hand has steadily cirlcled the drain. Thirteen years ago, he was just a scruffy little busker, but now he's a screaming maniac, who has gotten a little too agressive.
Posted by Elizabeth | October 30, 2007 01:02 PM
Omer has been a screaming maniac for a long time--I remember seeing him doing his thang back in '93--but a good-hearted screamer all the same. He used to rent a store-front on Valencia with his then wife and daughter, and they sold homemade clothes and art. It was a very cool little spot, but all that fell through.
He kept on in the area, continuing to get better at "scare-busking". I used to work at Muddy Waters on Valenica and so we would talk a lot, and once I took him out for dinner.
I avoid the Mission as much as possible these days. The Mission provided me with my mid-20's to mid-30's playground (bars and clubs and parties) but now I don't drink and am healing. Also it's sad to see the change because we ( my friends then and I) were very ani-gentrification and with youthful optimism, truly (foolishly?) believed we could change the negative course of affordable housing took during the dot-com explosion, and then the bust.
I'm glad to see that Omer's still around but this guy has been without a home and so poor for years and years. He has some mental issues, and he is a survivor in this society that doesn't offer a lot in terms of social safety nets or understanding for peoples delicate mental conditions.
Sad to hear the red man has passed. But every life must come to an end, even Red Man's....
Does anyone remember the white lady, who painted her skin white and wore all white (antique-looking) clothes? I would see her in the Mission, mostly. We would wonder if someday the red man and the white lady had babies, they would be pink. But I never saw them speak to each other.
Posted by AMP | November 7, 2007 01:20 PM
AMP, I sure DO remember the White Lady (damn, you took it back!). But I must say I'm glad to hear the Red Man is gone. Why? While I was a kid at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary, he once sneaked into the girls' bathroom wearing a postal worker uniform. He didn't harm anyone as far as I know, but that was scary nonetheless (especially since a pair of gun-toting guys attacked one of my classmates in the boys' bathroom!). Scary!!
Posted by Iris | November 27, 2007 03:32 PM