My wife and I are playing chess again. After all of the Bobby Fischer stories over the weekend, the game was on our mind so we started playing. I have a nice hand-carved wooden set from Poland, which had been in storage for the last couple of years (RE: in boxes we still haven't unpacked since the move to the condo). It's a great way to keep the mind sharp and totally void of anything work-related. On Sunday, I was on the web, searching for basic beginning strategies and endgames that I had forgotten or that were rusty. It's a lot of fun...too bad the wife's too tired to play tonight.
On a totally separate note, we watched the movie Monster on Saturday. Wow, what a performance by Charlize Theron. She was spot-on Florida white trash. Amazing. In addition to her acting, what really stuck with me was the lying that the character did, the tales she told, to get johns to "help her get some money." She lied because the truth would have scared the johns away faster than a bored state trooper or convinced them that they didn't want to get involved, no matter what kind of urge they had in their pants. This situation--without the murder, of course--reminded me of the time I spent with the homeless dude I met a few weeks agao. Hist story: He was roaming the streets of Chicago, out on parole, begging for money to get a bus ticket to California...so he said.
I believed his story to a certain extent. Our interaction, however, did start with a lie, a lie he'd been using for weeks to score quarters here, dollars there. His lie had pieces of truth in it, but the story didn't reveal the whole predicament. Basically, when I met him, he was in violation of parole and wanted to jump Chicago for California to meet up with a girl. Later, while we ate, he showed me pictures of this girl and the letters she wrote to him in prison and told me, over tears, how much he loved her, and, now with his mom dead, he had no one else in this world. The whole three hours passed by with him telling me about all the mistakes he made (drugs, theft), sharing his writings from prison (mostly poetry and spoken-word rants) and just getting things off his chest. Theron's character reminded me of that situation because both Chicago guy and she were in bad situations, much beyond their control and mental faculty. I believe both of them wanted to escape to a better life, but needed monetary help. To get money, they couldn't confess to the truth, for fear of no help at all.
There are so many people out there who have had really tough lives. But now, I don't know what to believe. You hear stories--the Chicago guy, Charlize Theron's character--and you want to help, but how much is real and how much is bullshit? Maybe they are bullshitting because the truth is so much scarier? Who knows...I don't regret what I did for this guy in Chicago because I learned a lot about myself and the world around me. But, it's so much easier now to walk past homeless people or tell them no.
On a totally separate note, we watched the movie Monster on Saturday. Wow, what a performance by Charlize Theron. She was spot-on Florida white trash. Amazing. In addition to her acting, what really stuck with me was the lying that the character did, the tales she told, to get johns to "help her get some money." She lied because the truth would have scared the johns away faster than a bored state trooper or convinced them that they didn't want to get involved, no matter what kind of urge they had in their pants. This situation--without the murder, of course--reminded me of the time I spent with the homeless dude I met a few weeks agao. Hist story: He was roaming the streets of Chicago, out on parole, begging for money to get a bus ticket to California...so he said.
I believed his story to a certain extent. Our interaction, however, did start with a lie, a lie he'd been using for weeks to score quarters here, dollars there. His lie had pieces of truth in it, but the story didn't reveal the whole predicament. Basically, when I met him, he was in violation of parole and wanted to jump Chicago for California to meet up with a girl. Later, while we ate, he showed me pictures of this girl and the letters she wrote to him in prison and told me, over tears, how much he loved her, and, now with his mom dead, he had no one else in this world. The whole three hours passed by with him telling me about all the mistakes he made (drugs, theft), sharing his writings from prison (mostly poetry and spoken-word rants) and just getting things off his chest. Theron's character reminded me of that situation because both Chicago guy and she were in bad situations, much beyond their control and mental faculty. I believe both of them wanted to escape to a better life, but needed monetary help. To get money, they couldn't confess to the truth, for fear of no help at all.
There are so many people out there who have had really tough lives. But now, I don't know what to believe. You hear stories--the Chicago guy, Charlize Theron's character--and you want to help, but how much is real and how much is bullshit? Maybe they are bullshitting because the truth is so much scarier? Who knows...I don't regret what I did for this guy in Chicago because I learned a lot about myself and the world around me. But, it's so much easier now to walk past homeless people or tell them no.
posted by Brian at 9:57 PM
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