A Wise Old Inmate
Character: An aging man walks the street of West Los Angeles speaking to himself.
Charles Bronson.
I was watching a Charles Bronson movie… Just like him, I wanted to a kill a guy with a pair of socks with rolls of quarters inside. Remember? He used to put two rolls of quarters in his socks and whack you in the head.
The Latino song came on, and the whole movie started clapping.
The right mix and the proper proportion, It has to be. Different views at the right proportion. Not too much, not too little.
When you get people out of their thinking, they call it “comfort zone” or whatever, they have a name for everything. When you shake people’s views - When you write a little short phrase.
Like yesterday, I was thinking, “Love has no direction or reason. ”You can’t reason with love. You can’t put a direction or end to it. You don’t end love. Why do I love that? Why do I want that girl? No reason; direction, or end. Love knows nothing of.
“I know, when I know.” Who said that? I know when I know? One of my favorite characters… Muhammad Ali.
Once we went to visit a monkey, remember? Moe the Monkey was owned by Senor Davis in Covina, California.. Michael Jackson used to visit that house to visit the monkey. Cause he had bubbles… the gay monkey.
I’m assuming now… but we found David Jackson.
A news reporter that had interviewed every president in on every world.
Since he was born; every president, every world.
I asked a few questions to him, in front of my kids...
Remember?
I asked, “You’ve met all these interesting Presidents and Kings, and rulers of the world, Prime Ministers, tell me, who has been the most interesting? Name two.”
And he looked at me, looked at my kids, and he was forced to answer because my kids were their and he told me, they were not Presidents. I repeated, “I didn’t ask you who they were, just name two.”
He paused and looked at me. “First”, he said, Muhammad Ali.
I asked, “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t conduct the interview, He did it. He made all the questions and the motherfucker took my tie. That’s how good he was”
Then he stopped, and I asked, “Ok, Two right? You’re at one?”
Suddenly, he didn’t want to answer.
His eyes were a little teary, I thought, “Alright, what’s going on?”
He continued, “I was waiting to interview Henry Kissinger, for 6 months. Finally, I had a shot to go to LAX, they called me and asked to interview this religious little being, called Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I did a little research, her name wasn’t Theresa, and she wasn’t from Calcutta.” David said “I’m not even religious, I don’t even believe in God. I was so pissed off”.
He continued, “And then after, she was late, for over an hour!” Which he was ready to die cause he had to interview Henry Kissinger. And then he said,
“When she walked inside the room I was on my knees, trying to do something I forgot how to do…pray. What my Irish grandmother tried to teach me as a kid. I was trying to pray, and I don’t know why I was crying. She came and out of all these hundreds of people, she came to me and touched my forehead… and I felt something that I hadn’t felt since… something warm. Something warm… some light. The whole woman was shining.”
David was close to choking in tears, so I told my kids, you know…. This is one of the moments that I treasure.
That you don’t seek, but they come to you.
That was a great, great day.
Since then I did a little more research and studied about Muhammad Ali and Mother Teresa.
Two of the greatest. And what do they have?
Humbleness. Both of them.
One day, I saw when Muhammad Ali in Barcelona inaugurated the Olympic Games. Everybody expected Muhammad Ali to come running in the Colosseum… and he came barely walking. I had to contain myself not to cry though, to see the greatest boxer in the world - When I used to stop in the middle of Peru- anywhere! We were sometimes on a road trip with Grandpa and we’d stop at the gas station where hundreds would watch, not even in black and white, it was in purple and white, and we’d be watching the fight. This guy…
This guy would fight in places like Uganda. When Idi Amin Dada, was the president. A known Cannibalist that used to eat people’s hearts. He went there to give Africa a name and part of his taxes. Muhhamed Ali. One of the greatest. I like to read about great people.
Or General McCarthur… McCarthur once said, “The only way you can really show power is by controlling your emotions.”
When he said that, I thought, that’s all I have are emotions. I’m emotion Driven. But when you control them, and I’m learning everyday, control your emotions; show control. You don’t answer to the girlfriend, you don’t kick your friend’s ass, you refrain from saying the things you don’t want to say. That’s real power.
Or Winston Churchill, when he said, “What is really success?”
Courage.
Courage, is not the absence of fear, but the ability to keep going; to be resilient. To go from defeat to defeat, without losing enthusiasm. That’s courage, Not the absence of fear. It’s the ability to bounce back. He never said not to go down, but, to keep fighting without enthusiasm. Another note about Winston Churchill is, a rich lady in British Parliament addressed him “Mr. Prime Minister, If I was your wife I’d give you a cup of coffee with venom in the morning.” Without losing composure, Winston Churchill turned and said “Distinguished Madam, If I was your husband I’d gladly drink it.”
You know? Meaning in plain English, “F*ck you bitch”
(Beat)
Life. You don’t start living - I don’t care where you’ve been born - you don’t start living until you really live in life terms. When you stop fighting.
In addiction they say, “QUIT, QUIT!” But quitting is what?
In world time, you cannot quit.
Quitting is not being defeated, its joining the winner’s time.
It’s time to stop letting your views of life, try to rule life.
One must live life, in life’s terms.
This is life, I’m going to live it, now I’m going do my contribution.
Now I’m going put my two cents into it. But not by changing, just by living.
You never swim in a river against a river, not even with the river, you let the river take you and put direction towards one of the shores. Flow, let the river take you. Use the energy of the world, don’t try to change it. Every time, you’ll be unsuccessful.
Why? That’s the greatest question of all. Why? Why am I hurting myself? Why am I doing this? Why am I so beautiful? That’s the way it is! Don’t look at the ugliness, we all have it. Look at the beauty in you.
There is so much to give, I don’t want to take anything, I want to give everything. When you give everything in your life, you own everything, because you gave it. Technically it’s still yours, it was yours right? So just give it, give it, give it.
At the beginning they were clichés to me, like, “You don’t have nothing you don’t give away.”
(His thought is interrupted by a beautiful car)
Look at that Shelby, I love that Shelby. Carl Shelby, 103 years old I believe. That’s a cobra See that little snake on the side of the fender? That’s the sign of the most expensive Mustang ever.
Look at the cars we’ve seen…. We saw a Ferrari, a Pantera, we saw a Shelby… all in the same day. And I’m happier in my clunker. When I park my car next to people, some people move their cars and park further away from me.
And I love that, I used to drive a Mercedes Benz… I remember people used to treat me different. I was 22 years old, living in El Monte, California driving a nice ass Mercedes Benz, cops would stop me and ask. “Who’s car is this?”
And I’d say, “Your’s motherfucker, you saw it first.”
I remember when they used to imply the car must have been stolen because it was mine.
I remember those days. Today, cops stop me - Last week, a cop stopped me in the middle of the night, and before he opened his mouth I said “Sir, tonight is the wrong night to fuck with me.”
Shocked, he looked at me, as if I was crazy, and said “What did you just say?!!”
“Oh sir, I need to rephrase, you can fuck with me all night but… I’m just saying - tonight is the wrong night”
He didn’t even ask me for a drivers liscence, he laughed and said “Just fix your tags.”
When your clear with the world, the world is clear with you.
There is no in between.
The truth is not the truth, until you express it. If you don’t say the truth, its not a truth. Its nothing… like Love without action. Nothing.
Somethings have to be said, somethings have to be never expressed.
But I have a hard time saying the things I shouldn’t say… because then they wouldn’t be the truth.
My truth and your truth.
No one owns the truth, but I have mine. And that one I own. My truth, not yours… Let me be! Why do you want to change me? Why do I have to be like someone else tells me I have to be?
A six-piece suit, the 3 Mercedes Benz, the nice ass house where I’m going to entertain people that I don’t give a hairy rats ass about and I’m going be in my garage smoking a joint just to be able to be with them.
Why? I’m free! I have none of those things.
I know I’m going to eat tomorrow, I don’t know where or how, but I know I’m going to eat.
And one thing is to believe in God…. And one thing is to trust him.
I believe in God, really…. But do you trust him? I believe in God really, but do you trust him.
When you start trusting in God… your God… whatever, whoever, how you see it… YOUR god. Maybe a door handle, if that’s your God I’m OK with it. But once you start trusting God… now you can live without worries. Don’t they say, “Cast all your worries on me?” He said.
I have no worries, why am I going to worry about it if I’m not going to change it?
If I have no power over it, why am I going to worry about it?
And if I can change it, its been changed already; to the limit.
I have no limits
It was a race right?
All balls out.
If in doubt, just gas it.
You make it happen.
Fear is never going to stop us.
I have no power over it.
Every animal kills to eat, we kill; for pleasure.
