#278: Saffron Jean: The Santa Bocado Mystic

     What better way to counteract the kicking-off of the 2nd dullest month of the year, next to January, then with a hearty dose of meandering absurdity. For me, that was treating myself to the first half of Yellow Submarine. For you, I give you this post. Ladies, gents, and any other fine folks constituting to "other," may I introduce you to Saffron Jean, the Santa Bocado Mystic! Jean "Saffron Jean" Saffronson lives his life the way most people finish theirs: clammy, incoherent, and hollering into the aether at his late grandmother. So, one could say that he's ahead of the curve. As Santa Bocado Pier's resident beach hobo, medicine man, "astral chiropractor," therapist, self-published author, and trimonthly continental-cod-hut-and-tiki-bar rant poet, the man's done pretty well for himself. With a cushy central set-up sandwiched between the solo keyboardist and the shirtless guy who'll let you insult his chin curtain for $4 (as well as a none-too-shabby write-up in the Bocado Babbler heralding his business as "pleasantly not a front for a cult") Jean's essentially set for life. One has to ponder how an aging 11th-grade dropout who stores salted peanuts in the shell dangling from his neck could've incanted his way to the top. Well, according to his paperback memoir Third Eye on the Lookout, Lady Luck was kind. Whilst purchasing a corn chip portrait of the Dalai Lama at Venice Beach in '67, Jean recollects, he pulled out a half-dollar to pay. Suddenly, the 50 cents slipped from his damp didgets and plummeted to the concrete, landing at a 50 degree angle. And at that very moment, the intricacies of the universe were engraved into his brain. The next five World Series runner-ups and Woodstock headliners flashed before his sunken eyes. And the rest was history. While I myself can't fully endorse the word of a pier-based entrepeneur who lives in a tipi that reeks of incense and fish tacos, I would encourage you to take him at face value. The JC-Verse has seen stranger. Now, before I depart, allow me to offer you some noteworthy quotes from the man himself. I apologize beforehand:

"I live my life in accordance with the three Lennons/Lennins: John, Vlad, and the quaint Michigan township."

"They say the future is a promise. But my therapist Iris says thanks to me, life nowadays is a commitment. Therefore, the future is the present."

"Chakras, you ninny!"

"If salt is the devil's sugar, then call me a sinner, brother, call me a si . . . wha . . . Meemaw! For the love of Gosh, do you mind??!"

And lastly:

"It's the 20th Century, of course I know judo."

(Pictured: the famed and pittied Santa Bocado Mystic hoisting up the tools paramount to his patented "Astral Slingshot" maneuver. Any participants that could vouch for this ritual's legitimacy are nowhere to be found, but according to Jean, that's because "it's so groovy in the Astral Plane that no one would ever want to come back, silly.")