Last night in a Menlo Park pizza restaurant, CR and I were privileged to meet Ace. For several minutes Ace spoke to us. Here is a short run-down of the situation and what I can remember of the conversation:

CR and I were in a booth enjoying a sausage, bell pepper and onion pizza (I was picking out the onions). Directly behind me in another booth, some guy was sitting by himself. We were sort of winding down our conversation and getting ready to leave, but I noticed that someone was talking to the guy behind me. I was trying to listen to the conversation, but wasn't really hearing all of it. But based on the tone of voice of the guy sitting down, I thought he was complaining to the manager about the pizza or the service or something. (After the incident CR mentions that during the course of the meal, he stood up and talked to the people at the adjoining table, and then one of the guys from that table stands up and comes over to his booth and talks to him. This is the guy that I think is the manager) Anyway, we stand up to leave, and CR goes to get a box for the pizza. I am putting on a pullover. The guy stands up and faces me. I can tell right away he's a "biker" type guy. He has a wonderful Mullet style haircut that runs down 8-10 inches past his shoulders, and a gray goatee. I'm sizing him up because, as I normally do when strangers approach me, I'm putting on my "back off" face, and getting ready to say, "why are you talking to me?!". But as I size him up, I'm not sure that I can take him. He's shorter than me by 4-5 inches, but he's wearing a tight t-shirt and I can tell he's buff. Plus the whole "biker" persona leads me to believe he's been in a couple of bar fights in his life. At this time Christine comes back to the booth and he steps up on me, but puts his hand past me to shake CR's hand and introduce himself. So now I'm pissed that some F*** is fronting me and hitting on my chick. So I am turning to face him and cut off his access to CR, you know, getting in between them. I realize at this point that he has a "lazy" eye. And I'm not sure if he's looking at me, or her. Maybe he's looking at both of us. And that's when he starts talking. He is using lots of hand gestures and I notice that he has deep, new cuts all over his hands and fingers. Anyway in a nice-enough sort of gravelly voice he goes on for about 5 - 7 minutes in a stream of conciousness tirade. This is what I can remember of the monologue:

--Introduced himself as Ace
--Mentioned he is bi-polar and manic depressant
--Conversation at adjoining table is easy to understand
--Please appease him and sit down to listen to their conversation
--If we don't know who they are talking about in 1 minute, he'll pay for our meal, "in other words, I'll buy you another pizza"
--Something about the lady in Texas getting framed
--Some lady perjured herself while under oath
--His friend Foo was murdered
--Foo sold motorcycles all over the world
--In 3 days sold approx. 11 motorcycles for $25,000/each
--Enough money to buy all the manufacturing equipment
--More money than who was the manager for Waylon and Willie AND Merle
--Filled the Oakland coliseum with these three country singers on the bill
--Ace and 4 others arrested in relation to Foo's murder
--Also charged with Racketeering, conspiracy and misc. charges
--Charges carried 35 to life
--Bail set at $25k
--Made bail, got thru all the doors except the last one... was not let out
--Bail was re-set at $1m
--Someone anonymously bailed him out
--Again arrested
--Lots of mentioning of "fair and speedy" trial
--On the 28th day of the 30 day limit, was taken into the court room
--Rigged jury (one of the women on the jury was actually the court reporter from his arraignment)(Note: when he was telling this part of the story, he was actually re-enacting the courtroom so he points at CR and says, "Excuse me miss, but tell me if I'm wrong... You were in this very courtroom not two days ago as the court reporter. Okay so now I'm thinking that Ace is accusing CR of being the court reporter. Later CR told me that when he started saying that and pointing his finger at her, she was trying her hardest to put on as sympathetic face as she could, and in no way show any facial expressions that could be interpreted as confrontational...)
--Either he (or the judge, I'm not clear) quoted lyrics from the Police song Every Breath You Take (He said, "Every breath you take every move you make every claim you stake I'll be watching ..." He has this look on his face of... finish the sentence. So we both said, "...you." And he said, "ACE! I'll be watching Ace..."
--Was let out with the title of "man who can go anywhere anytime in the whole world"
--Showed up in NY at the home of a well-known politician who was recently married
--Knocked on the door at 3 am
--Well-known politician was so excited to see him that he didn't even put his clothes on to open the door
--Said politician was in the middle of making love to his new bride when doorbell rang
--Was so excited that it was Ace, he ran downstairs and hugged him (no clothes and still excited from love making)
--That's how much carte blanche he has

We were both racking our brains as how we could get out of the situation. Knowing that freaks like this can turn ugly by mentioning the wrong thing. We were both just sort of nodding our heads during the rambling. During the conversation I notice something in his hand, that is partially hidden by his napkin. I couldn't tell what it was, but it looked metallic, and I was worried that it was a knife (turns out it was a ball point pen). CR started saying things like, "wow Ace, that's quite a story". And we sort of just made very subtle moves towards the door. Finally he started winding it down, and actually let us leave. However, as we were walking away he wrote a phone number on the pizza box, "in case we needed to get in touch with him." I'm dying to call the number posing as a G-man and give him some top secret assignment with passwords and contacts. Anyway, just another exciting night in Menlo Park, CA