2KfVXV2IjYQ.txt

Speaker 1:          00:01          I'll tell you a little story. This is in my book, so I had this landlord in Montreal. He lived next door to me and he was an ex hell's angels biker. He'd spent a lot of time in prison and his wife had borderline personality disorder and she committed suicide when I lived there and was a rough guy and he was at Caa Quebec law and he spoke to you all, which I could hardly understand. And uh, he didn't really know what to make of me and I didn't really know what to make of him, but we got along, you know, and I was very careful talking to him as, as you might imagine, but, but I, I was, it was very. And we went over to my wife and I went over there and we had a spaghetti dinner one night and we sort of communicated and I bought a poster from him because he made these wooden posters that had neon on them.

Speaker 1:          00:45          And that's how we made a living. He'd Kinda trained himself to be a bit of an electronics guy. And so we made these things and he was trying to quit drinking and we talked about that. He was a lot older than me. He was like 20 years older than me. I was about 25 at this point. And uh, we got along pretty well. But every now and then he'd go out and get a drink and he could really drink, you know, like he was one of these guys who could drink like 60 beer and you think, well no one can drink that much and you're wrong. I studied alcohol for like 10 years, some of my subjects, father's drank 40 ounces of vodka a day and had been doing it for 20 years so you can drink a lot and he could drink a lot.

Speaker 1:          01:21          And what would happen? He was trying to, not drink, but he'd go out and go on a binge and then he'd be gone for like three days and he drink up all his money. And then we'd hear him out in the backyard howling at the moon with this little little ugly dog he had, you know, and he'd hold him, the dog would hell. And he'd haul them and the dog would haul and, and it was a rather unsettling and made my wife nervous and what worse, you know now, and then he'd come to the door like three in the morning, hey, and he'd knock on the door and he'd be standing there and I don't know how much experience you've had with rough guys who are alcoholic and who are drunk, but it's, they can be upright and unconscious at the same time. And so that was the state that he was in, you know, he'd be just swaying and he'd asked me if I would like to buy his toaster or his microwave because he needed some money to keep drinking. And you know, I didn't really want to buy his toaster or as microwave. But when the x hell's angel, you all speaking 60 beard, drunk Quebecois biker shows up at your door at three in the morning. And the offers you to sell offers to sell you his microwave. The easiest thing is to say I really need a microwave.

Speaker 1:          02:43          So, so you know, I bought the microwave and toaster and some other things. But then, but then my wife talked to me and she liked my landlord, you know, even though she was afraid of him, she liked him and she said, you can't buy any more, any more appliances because it's not good for him. And I thought, Huh, that's an interesting problem. So what the hell am I going to do about this because no, I don't want to buy your microwave just doesn't seem to be the right answer at three in the morning. So. So one time he took me out on his 7:50 Honda and he put me on the back of it. He wanted to show me his layer, I guess his hangouts and I got his wife's helmet on but it didn't fit it just sit on the top of my head and he said, I go to the bike and he said if the cops chase us, we're not stopping.

Speaker 1:          03:44          And then away we went and we went to these, like these bars downtown on south of the road. They were very rough places and he got into like four fights that night because he was a rough guy, you know. And these kind of punk guys would come up to them and sort of challenge them and act stupidly around him and he was very skeptical and if you were acting stupidly around him for any length of time, he just hit you because he felt that that's what you deserved. And perhaps he was right, you know, so. So I had a firsthand opportunity to observe him. So anyways, he sure enough, about a week or two after we had this conversation, he showed up at the door, knock, knock, knock, you know, opened the door and they're standing there with his eyes half closed and he was swaying and he had, I don't remember what the appliance was this time, but he wanted to sell it to me and I said, I'm not all I can buy this.

Speaker 1:          04:37          I'm not going to buy this because I know you're trying to quit drinking. And if I give you this money then you're going to go and drink it up and it's not going to be good for you. And what else did I tell him? I think I told him as well that this whole thing of him coming to my house at like two in the morning was scaring my wife who we liked and that it had to stop and believe me, man. I was thinking about what I was saying because he was watching me like a rough guy watches you and a rough guy watches you like this. He thinks if you say one thing that indicates contempt, you're going to bloody well pay for it. And so I was finding my words like, you know, I was crossing a swamp and trying to look for the, for the rocks underneath the surface.

Speaker 1:          05:24          And I said what I had to say very, very carefully. And he looked at me for about 15 seconds and that's a long time to be looked at at three in the morning. And he left and he never came back to sell me anything again. And we got along fine. But that's a good illustration of this issue with regards to truth and success in the strange land. Because I was in the strange land when I was talking to my neighbor, my landlord Dan and I managed to say what was true carefully enough so despite the fact that he was a very violent person and that he was very intoxicated person and then he had every reason to be suspicious of me and we couldn't communicate very well and I didn't do what he wanted, that he took it and he left and there was no problem and life went on just fine after that, and so we don't want to underestimate the utility of establishing this bounded relationship with the ideal and attempting to live with some nobility in truth while aiming at the highest ideal. There's nothing about that. That's anything but strengthening and positive and it's exactly what you need to set against the catastrophe and uncertainty of life.