- Where are you coming from?
- I was talking with your double at the cafe.
- My double?
- He does numerology, studies the Kabbala, relates symbols, demons, angels, gods from every religion, considers himself a spiritual force. The last thing he said was pretty funny.
- What?
- That when people called him a genius he protests, "Don't insult me. I'm god. I create geniuses."
- Was he serious?
- I think he was. But he calls his Facebook page "The Church Of Comedy". He knows his claims aren't getting him anywhere so he exaggerates for comic effect. He says he's the best musician, as good or better than Mozart, the best filmmaker but is being kept out by the powers that be. He says he will be the world's first Trillioniare. Every one of the best movies of the past 20 years stole their ideas from his life. His family were the most important people in all professions. I could be his assistant if I wanted. One day soon we'd go to Hawaii where his 84 year old mother lived with his two young children, and once there we'd start filming the story of his life.
- The world is filled with all kinds.
- You don't think he's the same kind as you?
- I study computers too. Does he?
- He says his brain is better than any computer invented.
- Where is he now?
- I refused his job offer and told him to go home to his kids.
- What did he say?
- He got angry. Said I was a bum. He helped people wherever he went, films had been made about him. He'd go home, but had important things to do first.
- Who's to say? Maybe he does.
- No, he doesn't. Like money has to increase for the banker, for him ideas have to show profit by leading to other ideas. The banker and corporations don't know what to do with the money itself, and he doesn't have a clue what use to put ideas to. What about you? What use do you put your ideas to? I'd like to hear you talk about yourself, what happened with your family. Where are they?
- In my heart.
- Yesterday you said you'd go make some money, but here you are.
- You're here too. What about the woman you met?
- The one who filled her apartment with hundreds of objects she found on the street? She offered me a nap on her couch. Today I met another woman on the way to the market. She advised me to become an apartment manager. When had a long talk, I told her a lot of stories, and when we were saying goodbye she turned her head to look directly in my eyes and asked me if I had seen her 2nd bag, the one with a gun in it.
- Was she crazy?
- I don't think so. I don't know how to make money. I don't claim my ability to make connections puts me in touch with gods. But you said you knew how to make money.
- I went to the Chancellor's office today.
- For money? Did you see him?
- I talked to the secretary and got tired of waiting.
- What did you want?
- I said I deserved a meal ticket. I was a UCLA graduate and one day I would make the school famous.
- What did she say? Are you going to the diner? Let's walk. Socrates said he deserved a meal ticket too, when the court found him guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens and worshiping false gods and asked him to name the punishment he deserved. Do you want to hear something else?
- What?
- A couple years ago, when I first tried to return for good to L.A. and was with my wife, I went to the Chancellor's office with a request too and ended up talking with his secretary.
- What did you ask for?
- I'd applied to study philosophy and had been rejected. I asked why, and the department head said it was because they saw philosophical problems as confusions caused by misuse of language, but I wanted to work out the problems by telling stories of how people actually lived. He suggested I study literature instead. I wrote to all the University administrators, Chancellor included, saying something like:
The University was acting like the corporation bosses who managed it who must legally disregard all human concerns in their pursuit of making profits. The philosophy department looked for efficiency of language like the corporations looked for efficiency of money making, both at the expense of understanding or respecting anything about human life.- What did they answer?
- That I had no right to tell the department what to do. I said I did. That the University was acting for the interests of bankers and corporations, concerned only with the mindless application of technique. But it was a public institution and was obligated to respect also the other aspects of human life.
- That's it?
- You know, the Athenian court didn't give Socrates his meal ticket. They executed him.
