So I am walking to Starbucks (it is the closest place that has decent coffee; don’t start in on me about sponsoring “the machine”), which is a route I have traveled almost daily over the past four years of my work life. There is one particular barber shop on the way where there is always one of several guys sitting there in a chair with a card table of CDs for sale and a boom box-ish cassette player trying earnestly to play one of the selections at a volume that can be heard over the bustle on the street.

The offerings appear to be a mix of independent artists and bootlegs, mostly in the hard core rap and soul categories. Sizing up street-walkers by appearance is apparently a key part of their sales strategy. I have never been solicited to buy from them, although I have seen other people solicited for their business.

Until this week.

On this particular day there was a white guy manning the card table (a first) in his best take on ghetto-fabulous clothing, including an authenthic do-rag and a black Dick Tracy-style hat cocked forward and to the side over said do-rag. He had obviously been trained in the approved posture of having one butt-cheek on one side of the chair, the other hanging off the side of the chair, with one leg cocked back and one straight out, apparently to showcase the oversized denims and the flawless athletic shoes.

I was walking by, expecting the usual event of him looking past me, when he made eye contact with me and quickly offered, “Hey man, we got the new Kenny G…”.

Yep, pegged me as a Kenny G fan. Maybe that’s how Kenneth Cole comes across on the street.