ANON
Remember, I have no name...
BLIEDEN
Right.
ANON
...and there is no me as a real person. Because workmen came to fix
something that hadn't been fixed in seven years, but they came on the day
when we were going to start this blog we were forced from my comfortable to
my less comfortable office, to my actual walk-in closet.
BLIEDEN
And you can hear now, you can hear them pounding floors above us.
ANON
You can hear them pounding in the distance but I expect the audience at a
certain point to confuse that to the rhythm of their own hearts. Please, if you've
had any heart problems, and I have had, don't think you're having another heart
attack. Ask yourself, especially as you're driving, is there anything the matter
with my left arm? And since the answer will be no, you're fine.
BLIEDEN
We are in your walk-in closet, which is hilarious to me. Part of my struggle in
the last few years is that I'm always trying to get people to tell stories that they
don't want to tell, now there's so much that we need to talk about, but I do want
people to know a couple things about you, and I feel like one of your
motivations for doing this is that you always say that you're dying. I mean,
that's one of the things that you always say, you know, and it's gotten into my
head. We gotta do this, we gotta do this because he's dying. What's your ah...
ANON
Well, all of us are dying. It's just that certain among us have had this rubbed
into us by the physicians and they're right to do so. Nothing I say is to make
you more paranoid, less optimistic, to give you less hope and I just want to say
this because it rubs my mind raw. The citizens believe that they are left or
right, but I know that they are neither left nor right, however when someone from
the left or from the right says something which is true, first of all, I take a very
large magic marker and I write it across my soul. At what I imagine to be your
age now I got cancer and you know, I liked it so much, and I had such a good
time with it and I got so much emotional and psychological mileage out of it
that a year later I said no I can't be rid of it I have to have it again. But I did have
fun with cancer, so I had it the second time. The first time they gave me
radiation which hardened my arteries, and then the second time, the really fun
time I had chemo, and chemo is exactly like what is going on in Iraq now. Your
body is the insurgency, and the special forces are sent in by the doctors.
But after that because of the radiation and just general lack of exercise, being
flat on your ass I had my first and massive heart attack. That was not as much
fun as the cancer because it was more debilitating. And then I had another
heart attack. Then I had triple bypass. I had another heart attack after that. I
had it in England. And I discovered, as I had never had occasion to think about
it before, how far British medicine has fallen behind us. I was wildly in favor of
national medical insurance and national health until I was dealt with by the
National Health Care plan and I can tell you the story if you have the time.
BLIEDEN
Yeah.
ANON
So I'm walking down the street and I'm reaching for the door of the Blockbuster
Video and I faint dead away. I don't faint, it's not as pleasant as fainting. I just,
I'm gone. Now I'm on the sidewalk, so I wake up sort of, and I'm on the
sidewalk, and of course I don't think I'm on the sidewalk I think I'm in my bed.
And I think I'm having a dream. And there's this woman who's quite like my
grandmother hovering above me except she's not speaking as my
grandmother would have spoken. She's speaking all in French and very
excitedly. And then it dawned on me...
BLIEDEN
So she's speaking, you're in England but she's speaking French.
ANON
Yeah. Yes because we're in England. Nobody in London speaks English.
They're all from every corner of the world. And she's part of a French family and
they're now all hovered around me, I just didn't notice her because she was
directly in my narrowed field of vision and she's speaking French and I'm
pointing at that stupid bracelet I used to wear, which I don't wear anymore
because it's pointless that says that says "heart attack". Of course it meant
nothing to her, and of course it's written in English, big help and these
international symbols are not international just as the United Nations is not the
united nations. Nothing is what it seems and you deal with the wrongness of
something by its label. Friends who were in the advertising game pointed this
out to me 30 years ago that when the hinge falls off the child's lunchpail in the
ad you say "sturdy hinge."
BLIEDEN
This is a huge theme in talking to you is that things aren't what they seem and
that the line that you've said to me over and over again is that "In a time of war."
I always try to do your impersonation. "In a time of war, up is down, right is left,
your friends are your enemies, and your enemies are your friends." And you
go, "In World War 2,"
ANON
Right.
BLIEDEN
"The head of German Secret Intelligence..."
ANON
Right.
BLIEDEN
Should I keep going?
ANON
Yeah.
BLIEDEN
Was a British agent. I'll say it again..."
ANON
Right.
BLIEDEN
Go ahead.
ANON
His name is Admiral Canaris and funny thing, he didn't care for Herr Hitler. He
didn't think he was the best possible person to be running the German
government. And I wasn't there, this all happened before I was born, so I'm
guessing, that's what history is. A guess. Napoleon said it was a lie agreed
upon. And that's sort of true, but it's more often a guess that is asserted loudly.
A friend of mine wrote me a letter, a fundraising letter. A letter for me to send
him money. We were both broke all our lives so this worked and he said, and
this is the reason I sent him money. He said experience is not the best
teacher, but it is the most insistent. It has the loudest voice.
BLIEDEN
I personally forgot what we were talking about so I want to get back to
something else which is that I want to get into what you did for a living when
you were working. You're retired now. Try and give me an overview.
ANON
Well I wouldn't say I'm retired now. I'd say I'm just too sick to do anything, but
it's very important that our listeners know I am a total fraud. And I did
practically nothing my whole life except hold onto life by my fingernails. It is
very interesting that we're doing our first broadcast from this walk-in closet. It is
not a huge walk-in closet.
BLIEDEN
No. It's pretty tight.
ANON
You couldn't put on the Ice Capades here. It is just barely big enough for two
people to get two chairs in here, but since we're in a closet I'm going to say
what I've never said before. I have always been a transaffluent. That is a rich
man trapped in the body of a poor one. But because I know how important
social class is to other people I have always pretended, all my life to have
dough. And when I got very very sick this act saved my life.
BLIEDEN
So you weren't born into a wealthy family.
ANON
I was not born into a wealthy family, however, it got poorer.
BLIEDEN
But you have studied the ways of the rich.
ANON
Well I was, I never have ever used this term before, but I'm going to use it for
the sake of simplicity, I gave people my stupid political advice. Others would
have called me...
BLIEDEN
Oh now you're talking about your career.
ANON
Yeah. Others would have called me a political consultant but I never used the
term because I predate the term. But in any event I was in several political
campaigns before I really can say, and the first one that I remember, he was
already elected, is I worked for Lindsay and I'll tell you why. I was home and I
got an envelope from the mayor of the city of New York. And I opened it and
there was my library card. And there was a little note. It said "I found this on
one of my walking tours of Central Park. Please try to be more careful with your
library card in the future. John Lindsay." And that was a little note from John
Lindsay to me. I don't know how old I was. 12. He wasn't trying to recruit me
as a volunteer or he wouldn't have said "Be more careful with your library card
in the future." He would have said, "Since I have returned your library card,
wouldn't you like to return the favor by passing out literature for free for the next
couple of years. Which I might have said, yeah sure.
BLIEDEN
Well let me...we'll pause at this point in your history. Do you think that every
kind gesture in humanity is in its essence a political act.
ANON
Well sure it is. Of course it is. I'll give you what I think is a great story. There
was one of a series of bullshit racial incidences in New York. One could not
date that. That describes a long era. But at a certain point the citizens get to
recognize this as something that exists within press world. There's our world,
and there's press world which is a tiny subset of our world.
BLIEDEN
Press world meaning newspapers. The press.
ANON
The nonsense world created by the press. The bullshit world of the press
which they don't take seriously, and we are not to take seriously, unfortunately
many of us do take seriously. We really believe it.
BLIEDEN
So there was this bullshit racial incident.
ANON
Some bullshit racial incident. Now I'm on the subway. I don't remember what
the line or what it was but I was on a subway and this kid came by. He was 15
years younger than me. Black kid and didn't know New York. I didn't know
where he was from. I didn't place his accent but he asked directions and I
simply didn't know. And I went to the motorman who was, you know, three
cars away. I found out. I came back and I told him where he needed to go.
And he was amazed. Just amazed that this total stranger would take the
trouble to go up to the motorman and tell him. He thought I might know and I
might tell him off the top of my head but I certainly wouldn't go and find out.
Anyway, we got off at the same stop which was 14 street. And at 14th street
there is a long long walk to the gate. And because he was quite a bit younger
he got there first. But he didn't hold it for five seconds, he had to hold it for over
one minute till I hobbled over to where he was holding the gate. The both of us
were, without any preconceived notion telling the other "we are not part of the
racial horseshit that is being written about in the newspapers." We were
notifying one another we are not the assholes. But that's the sort of thing that
the citizens do every day to subtly say "We're not part of the horseshit."
