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Rasheed Hooda: Weirdo or Pied Piper?
It’s a small, small world.
Mr. Weirdo
I first met Rasheed Hooda about a dozen years ago in a local CiCi’s Pizza, where he was entertaining children and adults by making balloon animals — and, for my son, a balloon sword. We talked about fencing, a sport that my son wanted to try; balloons; and blogging. We exchanged URLs and Twitter handles, then quickly lost touch. A few years ago, Rasheed’s picture popped up on my friend Mitch Mitchell’s blog, in a post called, “Dream It And It Will Come.” Rasheed was living a dream, traveling the US — and there he was, with Mitch — in New York. Apparently, the two of them had been blogging buddies since before I ever ran into Rasheed, in Texas.
It’s a small world, after all.
Rasheed likes to introduce himself as, “Mr. Weirdo.” That’s branding; he’s not a weirdo. At least not the kind your mama warned you about. My own parents once gave me a keychain with a fob that said, “I like you, you’re weird!” I like people who dance to the beat of the imaginary drummer in their own heads.
I’ve come to think of Rasheed as The Pied Piper, enticing people out of their comfort zones, bit by tiny bit, until they look around and think, “Well, this place isn’t so bad, after all!”
