"Hey, dad." "Yeah?" "You're not concentrating on the show." "Oh, sorry." "You're looking at the wall." "Are you all right?" "Dad?" " Dad!" " Yes." " Are you..." " Sorry." "You're staring at the wall." "Oh, here's what I'm thinking, Ben." "This Saturday, what do you say you and I, we take out the old tool chest and we, um..." "Uh-huh." "Put on some beat up old clothes, and we..." "Yeah." "And we put up some shelving, some nice new shelving on that wall." "What do you think about that idea?" "That's a bad idea, dad." "I'm sort of watching a show here." "Well, I mean, I was just suggesting." "That we do this Saturday, you know." "And you want to put the shelves over the TV." "No, on that wall there, there's a totally... there's a whole empty wall there." "We don't do those kind of things." "We don't put up shelves." "We... we're not gifted in that way." "What are you talking about, we can't..." "What about the tree house" "I built you when you were a kid?" "Do you... do you not remember that?" "No, I don't remember that." "What tree house?" "When you were about six." "You don't remember me and mom." "And Lefty and Stu, we all..." "Built a tree house?" "Built a tree house." "Where?" "In the backyard, where we used to live." "I never had a tree house." "Well, you know, when you're that age, anything is a tree house." "You know what I'm saying?" "It was..." "We had a tree." "Well, it was a very simple structure, Ben, that's all I'm saying." "But for a six-year-old kid, you were in heaven there." "You..." "Why do you make up a tree house when I never had it?" "Why do you negate the wonderful childhood that we gave you?" "Why don't you build me a tree house now?" "I'll build you a tree house." "Get over here, ya..." "I'm going to build you a tree house." "Boom." "Stop the hitting!" "You know, doc, I love playing cards." "Mm-hmm." "But, you know, all the years I've been playing cards," "I never thought about this until recently." "What's that, Eddie?" "What's the deal with the royalty in the deck of cards?" "We know who the king is, right?" "We know who the queen is, but who the hell is the Jack?" "You know, there's no Jack in history." "You're never like, "I am the Jack of England."" "There's no, you know," ""I will meet with all the Jacks of Europe."" "Well..." "If I was a 10, I'd be angry." "You know what I mean?" "You're worth the same points with the Jack, but you don't get the nice clothing, you know?" ""Give me a sweater or a gift certificate." "I'm in the royal flush." "I might as well be the three."" "You know what really is." "The biggest problem with the news is?" "What is the big problem?" "They made anchor people celebrities." "It's dangerous, you know?" "These were the kids that used to get beat up in high school, and then you make them celebrities, and their egos go through the roof, you know?" "It's like, you ever notice on the news?" "Sometimes, you know, the anchorperson gets replaced by another one." "Right." "And they announce it like they think it matters." "It's like, "Hi, I'm Chris Phillips with the news." "Adam Roth has the night off."" "Who cares?" "Just read the news." "This is television." "We can see you're not that guy." "You know, we're not worried, like, you know, "Where's the other guy?" "Is he under the desk?" "Who are you?" "You're a freak." "I can't listen." "I want my old guy back!" "Nobody cares." "And nobody does that at any other job." "No one's like, "Hey, and my name's Dick Warren."" "I'm here to fill your tank with gas." "You see, John Harrison has the night off tonight." "His wife's pregnant." "I'm just working a double shift."" "See, we don't really care." "It's really... you know what's the easiest job on the news?" "The weather people." "'Cause they just point to stuff and make it up." "Yeah." "They play pin the tail on the map, and they make a million dollars." ""It's really going to be cold... here." "Now, back to you, Bill." "I've got to cash my check." "Thanks."" "You know who has the hardest job on the news..." "The weather people working their way up to be the weather anchor." "You know, the people who have to go out and cover the storm?" "They have to interview the blizzard." "When it comes into town?" "Because the rich guy, the rich girl weather anchorperson, they're in a studio, and they're pointing at stuff." "And making it up and weird hand motions, and a fake voice that's like," ""Winds out of the south-southeast." ""At a hundred thousand miles per hour." "Gusting to 5 million by tomorrow." "So stay in your homes and lock your door, but now let's take you out to dink loser." "Right on the water covering the storm."" "And some poor guy in a Gorton's Fisherman jacket with a big, yellow rain hat." "You see this much of his face." "He's like, "Aah!" "Help me!" "I'm scared!"" "Hey, Laura." "How are you doing?" "Good." "How are you?" " It's Ben." " I know." " I know." " What?" "Oh, great." "Hi." "What's happening over there?" "You know, things, uh, smooth?" "Mm-hmm." "Great." "Listen, I actually..." "Is my dad available?" "'Cause I've got to speak to him about a few issues." "Well, he's in a session right now." "Yeah, well can you take a message?" "Yeah." "Tell him that I'm on my way down to the hardware store, and I'm going to pick up all the things." "That I've mapped out for a..." "Wait, wait, wait, wait." "Stop." "Sure." "Are you catching up?" "Oh, no, no, I just meant stop." "Oh, well, could..." "I'm not going to take the message." "Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is, politically, I'm paranoid." "Because I really believe that, you know..." "Let's be honest about it." "I mean, it doesn't matter." "What you are..." "Republican, democrat, you know, Jewish, catholic, hindu, baha'i, Christian, you trace them all back, it's all, you know," "Viacom, ATT, Time Warner, I mean, am I being crazy?" "I'm not being crazy." "I mean, I know this is true." "I can see it's true." "You know how I know?" "'Cause I sit at home." "If you just make a little hat out of Reynolds wrap, and you just sit at home for 20 minutes a day and squint really hard, the answers come to you." "You don't need television." "The information is just floating around in the air." "It's a matter of how you pick it up, you know." "It's a matter of how you choose to do it." "Okay, so you might think I'm paranoid, but, okay, question, question." "Why you taking my name at radio shack?" "I'm buying batteries." "Do you understand what I'm saying?" "I'm buying batteries." "Yeah, so, anyway, I'm going down to the hardware store, all right." "I'm going to pick up the stud finder and the particleboard." "I'm going to pick up the shelving units, all the wood screws, the things that the wood screws go into, the little red things..." "Ben." "And the grout, and the..." "I don't really need to know this." "'Cause, you know, we're remodeling in the apartment." "Mm-hmm." "Yeah." "We're going to do some work in the living room, and things are going to get a little sweaty." "Okay, stop right there." "You know, I think I'm just going to be wearing jeans, maybe no shirt." "There goes lunch." "I mean, come on, think about it." "Think about it." "Think about it." "Okay." "Think about God." "I think most people believe in God just in case." "Mm-hmm." "You know, if there's some sort of blacklist, you know, you don't want to be on it." "You don't want to be one of those people that says," ""Hey, there's no God."" "And then die and have to go..." ""Oh, hi."" "You know, "Is there."" "Some sort of community service I can do?"" "Well, you know, I read recently in USA Today." "That a lot less people believe in god, and it had a little color graph, so, you know, it must be true." "More blue equals less people, you know what I mean?" "Why... but what is that?" "What are statistics?" "What's that all about, you know?" "Why do we believe that graph statistics, like 5 out of 15 people believe less in God?" "Who'd they ask?" "Did they ask you?" "No." "Did they ask me?" "No." "Who are they calling?" "I don't know." "Well, you see what it is, you know what a pollster is, those are those calls you get where they go," ""Hi, mind if we ask you a few questions about?"" "And you're like, "No, I have no time for this."" "Yeah." "You hang up the phone." "Well, see what it is, is that you get these guys, who are sitting at home, just sitting there, watching Jenny Jones, and the phone rings, and they're just sitting there and go," ""Oh, I wish I had friends." Brring." ""Hey, you mind if we ask you a few questions?"" ""Yes, I want to talk to people."" "You see that?" "I'm just saying, don't believe the numbers." "But let's say it's true." "Uh-huh." "Let's say people believe less in God." "I think one of the reasons is" "God doesn't seem to talk to people like he used to." "I mean, you read the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, every other day, it was like, "Abraham, this is God." "I need you to do something for me, pronto." "Can you handle it?" "Thanks." "I knew you could."" "Who's he talking to now?" "I don't know." "And then I realized maybe it's those guys you see." "Walking down the street, talking to themselves." "You know those guys who are just like, "I can't."" ""No, I can't." "No, I can't."" "Yeah." "Maybe the other side of that conversation." "Is God going, "You're the new leader."" ""No." "I can't."" "They're not crazy, they're reluctant prophets." "So did you get that, Laura?" "Mm-hmm." "Could you read it back to me just to make sure that's..." "'Cause I want to be specific." "Uh... sure?" "Uh..." ""Dr. Katz, Ben called."" "That's fine." "That's okay." "I don't mind that." "Homelessness very..." "It upsets me very much." "You know, but I really..." "On some level, you know," "I can only do what I can, you know what I mean?" "You know what I'm saying, doctor?" "Sure." "That's all any of us can do." "Yeah." "And I was walking through this neighborhood." "You know, most big cities, they have, you know, there's a part of most big cities that's sort of like this 24-hour, round-the-clock homeless renaissance fair/flea market." "Because there's a never-ending ecosystem of resalable garbage in most cities, and they have the market cornered." "I'm not knocking homeless people." "I just..." "I usually don't need any Bee-Gees 8-tracks" "Or gas-powered answering machines." "But the thing is," "I was walking through this neighborhood, right?" "Mm-hmm." "And I had a very human moment, you know?" "This guy walks up to me..." "This is true." "This guy walks up to me." "He's got no shoes on." "Mm-hmm." "He's wearing pants." "He looks like he's been sleeping in for weeks, okay?" "And he's holding the board game "Sorry!"" "You know?" "And you see... you know..." "I really didn't know what to do, you know?" "I'm looking at him..." "I think I'm a good person." "Yeah, I didn't know what to do." "So I just said, "Well, set them up." "Let's play."" "You know, I mean, "I don't want to buy the game, but I'll spend some time with you, my friend, and that will be quality time."" "He probably didn't..." "Probably didn't really want to play "Sorry!"" "No, I played with him." "He beat me two out of three, and there were no pieces, you know." "Yeah." "But, you know, I..." "What I learned from that, is that, you know, sometimes in this life, you know, you just have to play along, you know, because it's the right thing to do." "Sometimes you just have to say," ""Yes, it is your turn again," you know?" "Yeah." "And then other times, you have to say," ""Hey," you know," ""Quit following me, buddy," you know." "Julie, listen to this." "Stanley, you know this one?" "What?" "What did the zen Buddhist say to the hotdog vendor?" "What?" ""Make me one with everything."" "That's a great joke." "It is." "And it makes me hungry." "Ha!" "You know, my dad insisted on driving me here tonight, Julie." "Really?" "Makes a left-hand turn from the extreme right-hand lane." "I said, "Dad, you're trying to get us killed."" "He said, "I thought you were driving."" "Ha ha!" "Laugh." "I couldn't stop." "He couldn't stop." "Let me ask you this, doc." "Mm-hmm." " Yeah." " If you owned a company..." "If you owned a big company, and you had no competition, and everybody needed your service, would you spend a lot of money in advertising?" "No." "Not if everybody needed it." "So then why does the U.S. postal service advertise stamps on television?" "You know, for two years now, there are commercials on TV, they actually end with, "Buy U.S. postage stamps."" "Yeah." "You know, maybe it's just me, but my whole life, all I've ever bought was U.S. postage stamps." "You know, 'cause you try scotch taping 32 pennies to the envelope, and it never gets there." "It's too heavy." "Because you use easter seals instead, and they come right back to your house." "Of course we're going to buy U.S. postage stamps." "What idiots." "You know how expensive it is to advertise on television?" "If you're the post office." "And you have a message for us, well, put it in the mailbox." "You're going there anyway." "It's like having a commercial for air, you know?" ""Air... breathe it in, breathe it out." "Air, brought to you by the oxygen people."" "Mmm." "You know, the weirdest one of all of them?" "Why do the yellow pages advertise on TV?" "We don't get our choice of what yellow pages we want." "We don't even know when they're coming." "They show up at our house, you know, once or twice a year in a plastic bag, and those are our yellow pages." "There are no yellow pages shopping centers." "There's no kiosk at the mall with all the yellow pages." "And here's the most ironic thing:" "Look in any yellow pages under "Yellow pages,"." "There are no listings." "So what kind of piece of horrible reference book is this?" "I find it very helpful, actually." "I'd rather call information than use the yellow pages." "Because the yellow pages, although it's a great idea, it's like going on a scavenger hunt through hell, trying to find out what words they decided to use." "For the stuff we normally call." "I'll give you a true example, you know." "I wanted to find clothing in the yellow pages, you've heard of the word "clothing," doc, right?" "Mm-hmm." "Clothing is..." "I'm wearing some right now." "You know what it says under "clothing"." "In the yellow pages?" "What?" "Nothing." "Nothing!" "Not "Clothing, see something else."" "Nothing." "Like there's no such word as clothing." "Yeah." "You know, and "Apparel."" "Who, since 1903, has used "Apparel"" "in a regular sentence?" "You know what it says under "Apparel"" "in the yellow pages?" ""How the hell did you find this?"" "Dr. Katz's office." "Hey, Laura, it's Ben." "Hi." "How're you doing?" "Fine." "Listen, is my dad around?" "Because I'm at the hardware store, and I'll tell you something." "This guy's giving me a hard time about returning some items I got last night." "And, you know, it says, "refund," but he said, "no."" "I can't argue with him because you can't argue with "no."" "Ben?" "And I think what I need is my dad here because it's his credit card, and he has his name on it, and I forged his signature last night." "And now they're saying, "Oh, you're not this guy."" "And I'm not, but that's not the point." "So I'll have to have my dad..." "Is my dad there?" "Mm-hmm." " Can I talk to him?" " No." "You see?" "It's happening." "People saying no." "Hello?" "I'll give you another example." "You want to find "Bar" in the yellow pages, it's under "Tavern."" ""Tavern"?" "!" "I want a drink." "I don't want to meet Davy Crockett." "What year is this?" "Who works at the yellow pages?" "Don't they interact with other human beings." "And find out how we talk?" "What, do they sequester them like a jury." "And feed them 19th century novels and say," ""Only use these words, please."" "Dr. Katz's office." "Um..." "Why'd you hang up?" "I just wanted to talk to my dad." "I didn't hang up." "Listen, I'm having a hard day today." "I'm at the hardware store." "That's hard." "This is a difficult day." "I can't..." "I'm having a problem." "I need to talk to my dad." "Could I do that?" "I'll give you another "recycling."" "I want to find out when I have to get my stuff ready, so I look in the yellow pages." "Under "Recycle centers."" "You know what it said?" "Nothing." "Nothing!" "Not "Recycle center", see something else." "Not a picture of me, bent over a stump." "With a guy kicking me in the butt." "You know, dancing around." "Nothing." "I look under "garbage."" "You know what it said under garbage?" "Nothing!" "Nothing!" "So now I've got to start thinking like an SAT test." ""Clothing is to apparel as garbage is to..."" "I looked under "Sanitation."" "What?" "You know what it said?" "What?" ""See rubbish." I'm getting closer." "I just want to call information." ""Excuse me, you have a synonym for perfume?" "It's my mom's birthday, and I can't find a damn thing in your book!"" "Hey, dad." "Hello, Ben." "I'm glad you called." "I wanted to remind you to return." "That thing you bought at the hardware store." "The nail gun." "Yeah, actually I'm at the hardware store." "Oh, great." "Thank you so much..." "Yeah, well, there's a..." "For taking care of that." "Because, while I was annoyed," "I knew it could be easily resolved." "Well, it was a little too expensive, and I..." "You know, maybe I got carried away." "There's a slight problem." "Okay." "Yeah." "Well, they won't take it back." "Why won't they take it back?" "He said it's messed up." "He said..." "How could it be messed up?" "It's in the box." "Yeah?" "It is in the box." "So what is the problem?" "Well, last night and this morning and this afternoon," "I took it out of the box, and I might have used it just to see if it worked." "You don't remember me saying anything about that, do you, last night?" "You said, "Don't use it."" "Right." "Why would you do a thing like that?" "What do you mean, use it?" "Yeah." "Fun." "Look, it doesn't matter." "It's in the box, it's in perfectly good condition, and there's no reason in the world why you can't return it, why they can't credit it to my card." "It's jammed." "You mean you can't get it back into the box?" "There's..." "I think there's a problem with the compressor." "What do you think is wrong with the compressor, Ben?" "There's, uh..." "There's some nails in it, dad, from when I put them in." "You put them in the compressor." "Yeah." "Okay." "I also put a tack in." "This is not making me happy at all." "And it's making me..." "I feel like I'm aging right in front of my own eyes." "It wouldn't fire the tack." "Might have jammed it." "You know dad, though..." "I really feel like I learned a lesson, and that is: "Don't nail your shoes to the floor."" "So it doesn't have to, you know, you don't have to be able to hold a dictionary for a shelf to be a success, you know." "Yeah, I mean, uh... it..." "I think, it was..." "It's a success." "We just have to find a different purpose for it." "It's just that they're not, you know..." "St-straight." "Cock your head like this to one side, Ben." "Yeah." "Okay." "You see what I'm saying?" " Oh, yeah." " So..." "Let's not think of them as bookshelves." "It's more like..." "Let's think of them as a place where we leave..." "For outgoing mail, for some pamphlets..." "Right, right." "Um, you know, we just have to be careful." "That we don't put anything fragile on there because it's going to slide right down to the other end." "It still feels good, dad, you know, I mean having done something..." "I'm a little tight." "Ben, I feel..." "The blood was going." "The belt's tight." "You know, it's nice to use those muscles." "Very rarely do I get to use the upper leg, lower back." "It's been, you know, since college." "That I've used those muscles." "You worked on a commune, didn't you?" "Yeah, we had a bulletin board that I put up." "But didn't you build it." "Didn't you help build a barn?" "A whole..." "Well, it was an a-frame." "It wasn't really barn." "You know, we lived in an a-frame, 18 of us." "That's tough living, huh?" "We grew our own fungus." " Wow." " Yeah." "But damn it, it feels good, doesn't it?" "Oh, man." "I know I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight because..." "You worked so hard today." "You work with your hands, and you sweat." "I'm not going to sleep." "I know it's only been 25 minutes, but..." "There's something about taking a thing." "That exists in nature, you know, in this case, particleboard..." "Yeah." "And just molding it to suit some kind of selfish purpose." "I do love the belt, dad." "I mean, you know, they come in all types of earth tones." "Really?" "This isn't the only one." "This is the light tan." "You're kidding." "I didn't realize that." "You know earlier, dad, on our third or fourth break, when I was just standing there, and I was..." "And I was sweating..." "Mm-hmm." "I felt like a man, you know." "I was sort of hoping that..." "Yeah." "Someone would see that, you know." "That feeling will pass." "What?" "The feeling about..." "The feeling like a man." "I go through that once in a while." "Yeah, but it's just a phase?" "Yeah." "You know, Marc, I think that you." "Need to focus less on the world around you." "Oops, wait a minute, e-mail." "What?" "Yeah." "Huh?" "Here we go." "E-mail." "Do you have a computer, doctor?" "I do." "Yeah." "I am totally dependent on one." "Really?" "I have not got to that point yet." "I can't seem to make the evolutionary step into the screen, you know." "I mean, I got this friend, he's constantly bothering me." "I mean, I have computer, but I just..." "I use it to write." "I don't... you know, I use it to write." "This guy's constantly bothering me." ""You got to get on the net, man." "You got to get on the Internet." "You got to get on the Internet." "You got to get..." "Get into the future." "Get on the net, you know."" "This guy spends eight hours a day playing, you know, computer games with a guy in France." "You know, and he's always telling me like," ""You know what?" "The computer's a tool."" "And I'm like, "No, it's not." "It's a toy." "You're a tool." "It's using you to get to me."" "You know, so finally I just said," ""All right, let's go." "I want to get on the net." "I want to get on a global chat board." "I want to talk to people all over the world."" "So, you know, we boot into his computer, we're on the screen." "I'm sitting there, I'm prepared," "I'm ready to engage, and I'm watching the screen, waiting for a transmission." "Here it comes." ""Do you like dogs?"" "Whoops, you know what the music means."