[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] conversations with Tyler is produced by the mercada center at George Mason University Bridging the Gap between academic ideas and real world problems learn more at [Music] arcades.in conversations withth tyler.com [Music] hello everyone and welcome back to conversation with Tyler today I'm here
outside in Southwest Washington DC with Alexander the Great gr a te Alexander welcome yeah this is a the pleasant sounds of the urban center we're getting here my first name is enough syllables for first and last so first time I tell them I'm Alexander and more often than not cuz it's not the most now it's
common that's on the top I don't know how many list but in my gener generation it was not a common name so the only Alexander people are familiar with is the great so I'm sort of turning that to towards a yeah but I spell it differently because of my living situation so you'll have plenty of time
to ask me questions but if I start with the basic if I were to live outside homeless as you've done for over 40 years in the first week more than half my my life more than half your life what is the most important thing I would learn the lesson of hidden figures who had to go a half a mile round trip to find a
restroom especially now with all McDonald's and everything else the metabolic Necessities that's harder than I would think easier than I would think one thing about food insecurity okay everybody talks about that but nobody mentions toilet insecurity you know it whatever what comes in is got to go out
and and that's not readily before the Eisenhower Memorial with with a free restroom here that's a backup by the resources we needed by the way um the closest one to the area was at the Washington Monument a mile away basically you know uh so you have to be uh get resourceful and and creative and
get back to you where reptile Reptilian Brain roots and all these things come naturally whether we how are we programing so the question was what well what's the most important thing I would learn but I would learn about the rooms is what you're saying uh yeah well depends how you start there there's a
stratigraphy to the to the so-called homes population uh I I rather refer to myself as an NFA no fixed add dress you know okay I I'll get to my rant in in a bit but I knew it was coming I left some of my stuff at my aunt's house and I had heard in those days there were a couple of rescue missions downtown and I heard of those
from you ever heard of the uh radio program which sort of a dramatized version of this called out of Chicago called Unshackled and they gave life stories of redemption of of the skid roll population and stuff you know and so I learned about the mission life from there I knew there was one in it's the
Gospel Mission that was the Hilton of the missions downtown which is still there for it's a program for women or something there now but for $2 a night you get uh a double bunk two sheets a pillow and a pillowcase on a 6in mattress the Hilton of the missions yeah the next that's uh for two bucks so I I
took about two or three uh nights with that and then found out about the free Central Union Mission which was right here on Pennsylvania Avenue back then and before they moved on they're free but they only get four nights a month no sheets pillow half the thickness of the mattress so you finish your time there
and then you discover the Ci's shelters which are mostly converted elementary schools that they don't need anymore Baltic and Mediterranean I call them one was a so you get a this is a plain 4in foam mattress with a a fe a disaster blacket that's what they called it from FEMA right uh or made by prison inmates
and uh it's a I think now they're FEMA but I don't know who produced them then but and you provide your own pillow that ain't the end of it when they fill up that was six and I Northeast then they send you to 15th in Maryland Northeast that's the backup that's um Mediterranean Avenue on the Monopoly board and you don't wish you
were back in these places right you prefer wait wait wait the yeah yeah you tell me you know people asking why don't you go to a shelter oh really you're offish out shelters which one do you go to I'm asking that's that's a common question of course so there's more freedom in your current lifestyle U
people treat you better oh yeah okay it's shelter anecdote time um so from the foam mattresses and and and blankets and stuff we get to an army C so that's you see the progression down progression so that's where you where you start you know okay when you're in the shelter you you have bathroom access eventually but
um that's more on when you're independent outside when especially this in the shutdown now what what people were taking for granted the restrooms of McDonald's the holiday in all that it's a lot more problematic but that that gray dis Master blanket if you see your blanket move by itself before you get
under you know you're in trouble that night that's the biggest Revelation you get what will happen you as children they they play in in the yard they say the cooie game oh you got this came out of the generation that that saw war war I's and two oh she got cooties uh throw the cooties so it's they had
plush toys look like boies well you know what that is that is human body life prediculous humanus corporis that's the plague of the street so maybe the blanket isn't moving before you get under it but you you feel like it's moving once you are under it and uh that's one of the plagues of Egypt all right and that's a
problem with shelters not with living outside uh unfortunately um they start at the shelters but if living outside we tend to gravitate to the same quiet spots bathrooms uh day centers stuff like that so you can't get away from it I mean it's always something that that you have to deal with and contend with and and
fight against of the institutions you're interacting with which are nicest or most sympathetic to the plight of the homeless is it McDonald's is it Smithsonian is it the homeless shelter who is it well as I said in the uh Smithsonian interview actually the mayor sets the tone and because DC is in in the eyes of
the world every time a winter somebody is found dead of hypothermia there's an outcry it's worldwide news Capital presumably the richest nation on Earth people are dying from the cold in the streets so they are I think an exception amongst some cities of amongst the cities of of of America of being solicitous and
taking care of their homeless I mean housing is a big issue for the current mayor you know and she's doing a good job and so they're very tolerant that's because they have a vested interest in Public Image and compassion one would think but multiply like New York City I don't know how sympathetic they are they
have a 10 times DEC population but 10 times that in Easy rder Country Florida California that's where Sun bums go and it's a problem you increase the uh number of Interlopers and and n d Wells enough like they say a a liberal is somebody with u positive attitude toward his neighbor until he gets mugged and
then you know you get your charity gets over it's a problem that's why immigration is such a problem that that's why one of the reasons the previous president got because the people on the on the actual border whose yards get trespassed through I've heard horror stories like that you know people
banging on doors wanting water and saying you know demanding it basically because it's a human need you know in Africa they say they they don't deny you water that's not withheld but here so you get overwhelmed the M municipalities and and the sun belts are overwhelmed and the the mindset is well this warm
hands cold Hearts yeah whereas in Boston cold hands the empathy levels higher or New England let's say uh cold hand warm Hearts so if you tried to move down to Miami and you moved into an area with other people living without fixed address they would be more hostile to you or they wouldn't want you or how
would that work socially fit in dep just a personality thing at that point um no the municipalities the police the uh I haven't they get a hard way to go cuz they're too we'd rather not have you here it's a no there's no good Indian but a dead Indian was you know we The Interlopers in the Hostile conquerors in America and and
we're trying to exterminate those that were usurping their reality from them you know so what's social stratification like amongst people in Washington DC people without fixed addresses do they hang out by age or by race or or independence by Independence or paint that picture for me okay I think it's
time for a rant here let's give us the rant please yeah and so hold that question I I say NFA euphemistically also but homelessness all right or those experiencing homeless well may I inform the world that everybody chronically EXP experiencing homeless because you are just as homeless as you are naked your
essential condition as naked as you were born otherwise why would you be wearing clothing Desmond mois Naked Ape you know and the Apes have a built-in covering so someone says are you homeless and I said well aren't you I don't see a turtle shell or a con shell on your back that's
your essential nature if you had your own shelter built in you wouldn't need an EXT shelter so everybody's homeless because any of you here including myself have some degree of shelter insecurity that's my new narrative relative states of shelter and security because none of you knows the turkey in the apartment or the house
next door was smoking in bed and burned his house down and spread to the whole block so your apartment build bu might be ashes at this point or home or whatever you know or the plane out of the sky that that happened you see that in the News That's the irony or the Paradox at least in especially
California after the wildfires tens of thousands of people with million dooll homes they were essentially personally shelterless at that point but they had a low level of shelter and security because they had backup resources it amazes me that no they say you can't understand till you walked them out
there empathy grows with experiencing the situation but but they haven't learned they're still they're cheric about this smelly grungy infestation of their nice manicured water guzzling green spaces and stuff you know so so it's not just the shelter or the home as long as you can replace it so I have a
high degree of shelter in security and I don't say shelter security everybody's shelter insecure because ultimately our most basic shelter the body we're in we're going to lose that too so everybody's ultimately shelter and secure to some degree the most you can have the most basil style mansions in
this world but uh everybody loses their if you subscribe to the personhood in in a in a separate Soul Notions and this is a temporary dwelling that you're in in the flesh everybody loses it now you're lucky if the soul is just an immersion phenomenon and after it the body dies that's kaput that's wishful thinking I I
wish that were true but I've been exposed to Too Much Theology and and and Christian aspect and stuff to I'm hedging my bets and taking what they say literally just in case it sounds pretty convincing and we had 2,000 years of people maintaining this point of view but tell me about stratification amongst
the homeless there's higher class lower class homeless or who thinks who is not good enough for whom how does that all work but has it sunk in that you're ultimately shelter and secure absolutely I've read heiger I completely agree with you all right so that's cumbersome to say so I'll tolerate homeless or
whatever NFA is easier I also have no fixed address by the way I travel pre-co at least maybe a third of the year or more I'm in hotels a lot that's another version of no fixed to but that's high shelter security or low shelter insecurity sure yeah it's you don't have to worry about where you're going to stay the night yeah you know
but who looks down on whom oh you're making a presumption here well tell me if it's egalitarian tell me I'm curious yeah even though there is some of that because what we need is a good flla bario around the circling the inner city you know I mean that I if it weren't for more need for heat I you can make your
own tin r roof Shanty there or Hut or something until somebody gets murdered and the police clear you out and burn everything down you know so some of them work their way out become domestics or something like that and as soon as they get a little better means and live in a become poor as opposed to destitute I
say you can quote me poverty is the pipe dream of the destitute I'm not at the bottom of the batt under the battel that's what I call the underclass so when they get become poor at least they have potential for inre and saving and getting a better life so I've heard stories of they look down on the people
that they left out in the bar or the rest of it you know so I stick to my own little my pattern even since high school I had a few close friends or Intimates that I socialized with at lunch hour and stuff like that but I wasn't the uh athletic most popular on campus kind of person you know that live for their
their codery the social that these days with the social networks and all that the local social network so I just had a couple friends during lunch hour and maybe after hours so I reprised that on the street now okay when I found the soup kitchen on Capital Hill which it lasted about 30 years they've gone about
5 years they're offline now Church of the Brethren okay it's it's a anabaptist Peace church basically even went to their peace lecture ships and stuff so you see if you're a peace activist you're activist in in other areas that that are prescribed in the Beatitudes and stuff it's there doors open 11:30
you get classical soup kitchen you know and whatever else that we get donated bowl of soup and whatever sides so that became my main state after a couple years I discovered this place I sat at a table and there was a guy there we're talking about 83 or something it started then as it was I only talked with a
couple people I knew at the shelter and I knew their names because they they call you have a name tag on your your bag they take your shoes by the way so they don't run off in in the middle of the night you know you bag everything and in the morning they call your name to recover your bag so you can't keep
your name a secret the couple people I met there was uh we went to that soup kitchen and uh so another guy at the table I heard him he had discovered the free pages in like the city paper and the weekend section in in the in the post and I contribut I said oh did you know about there's a community calendar
in the local living section for DC I said no so I got his interest so I was able to contribute to his uh knowledge of uh free things to do this would be like concerts movies stand by that was the beginning of the Capital Hill freeb finders Fellowship all right where it's free there will be why because we were
all sober we had something to do to occupy our time if we had some substance Habit to take care that's where your focus is almost any them you know what you you want to get a couple of bucks to get your your Thunderbird for the day or your hit of something you know but we had to do something to to fill our the
spaces of our sobriety to satisfy our mind as well as a entertainment and and keep our mind alive besides the soup stuff you know so here's the segue that's the time we discovered four to five free mo classic International movies a week at the Mary pick for theater Library Congress which is three
blocks with the soup kitchen and that's where Jim comes into this we're with James Deutsch just to make that clear he's a scholar of nfas and renowned for his work with the Smithsonian and has done other things as well and uh he was one of the first people to write about Alexander the Great yeah and with other
interviews that he used in presentations he's done so I'm I'm worked with Jim for a while you know coming down the lobby and stuff we make some points about the the movie and I said Jim oh five more minutes unless it's an Amtrak let's see what it is how many minutes does the Amtrak take it's only at most 13 cars
can anybody see the train can you tell from the sound if it's an Amtrak well no in a minute it's gone to it sounds like it's leaving it was it was short train yeah uh seven to eight cars great yeah so by the way we're in the wrong side of the tracks here and uh the next Freight 100 car freight train come the trash coming
down from New Jersey no no offense new newor that's where I'm from so I understand very well but DC got to be there too we we not trashed last year what's your favorite movie by the way uh good grief the one that's free and have subtitles if I if I need them we're getting to the list the Lany of goodies
so I said why don't you come and join the the bums banquet well that's another when we're not doing soup kitchen or even afterwards that's a whole issue right there food collection free food I love to be in America the food is free in America if you know where the the tourists are where there's people
there's going to be food you know the guy the charter member with me of of capital trip F his name was Lawrence when we got settl the routine during the summertime we go down to the uh to the mall this is about Springtime actually when every school group in the area is coming to DC for nation's capital tour
school buses loaded with kids carrying bag lunches and excited or on the trip eating maybe one of their Oreos and a bite out of their sandwich and what happens to the rest of the lunch summertime and the living is easy folks are luning and the food is piled high I mean overflowing every can
and this is fresh stuff this always is disgusting who would eat that it was Mother's Love in in in her kitchen that morning you know fresh clean stuff trash liners ordinarily changed too that's antiseptic right there so be sure if you're hungry enough and you see some what looks like edible food
your hand will go out and hit your mouth before your brain knows what it's doing all right we haven't seen real famine here well not in this generation anyway the other place of the world so we'd uh spend the afternoon there and come back what lawen used to call two hands heavy that means three plastic grocery bags in
each each hand we had enough food to feed a dozen people and so you've partaken with us there for the the more the less a climatized to this lifestyle but no you you fit right in you're a homeless immigrant basically foodwise I'm not even the digital immigrant I'm an alien altogether but he's fit in fits
in well he's adopted well he's an honorary home as I call him what's the best food you end up with like where is it from what's an A+ for a food day oh have you into my classification system have you let's hear it absolutely I'm a food okay you're jumping around too let me TR one TR point of the podcast we
jump this is the jumparound podcast yeah but at least let's conate one thought at a time some there's some cool stuff here I mean at least fun stuff so all right that's the beginning of the bums banquet and for those that are not fully climatized we had a classification system this is a class A hasn't even
taken out of its H rapper Class B maybe there's one by Ty trim your own you know we found a submarine still rapper double A would be from the hand of the person donating a to us AAA would be still hot you know what's a d c minus only the rats know that lot of forks here I have a heavy one but we we'll keep it to the
general stuff first after hours at the picnic tables of the of the Madison Building that's where this happened 8ft diameter tables okay so we could fit 10 people around there so that was a continuation of the freebie finders and the bums banquet and all that but one more thing about the uh the lunches you
know we're the overfed population the a society are you really hungry three times a day you know I it's a luxury to have that me I mean when people have to have to hesitate boy what am I going to eat now I truth to tell I don't really need it I it's become a tradition a tradition of the affluent so we don't
need to eat as much as we do it's more habit than anything but the kids the Junior High kids and throwing their lunch away they didn't know that the bottom of the bag there mama left a napkin with a stick figure on it saying hi hope you're having a good time in DC love mom Mother's love comes along with
the peanut butter sandwich yeah but under the napkin is up to $2 in change or bills for drink money so he get cash is Left Behind there too you know all right let's go back up a few a few tangents here the most thing oh oh man you had a lot of things out on the floor here a lot of things going balls being
juggled yeah jugg you're juggling them not me right yeah I hope you're keeping track in case I lose a ball most favorite well that's quickie eating stuff we're talking about around here food trucks Hot Stuff direct donations Jose Andre World Central Kitchen those are marginal means and the street people
and stuff how are they going to eat they took care of us you know they just been Distributing I haven't seen much around now for most the year they were Distributing hot lunches and dinners to whoever they can find as well as to schools and and shelters and stuff like that so this is real food uh but sometimes you get I think the most
memorable time I've had in the past year uh a guy that worked a late shift at popey's at 2:00 in the morning he I I can't let all this stuff go to waste I'm going to see if I can find somebody downtown so for couple of weeks anyway he and another guy well that was mentioned yeah all right the guy under
the bridge we call him he sto there first and then uh I go to see what what was happening and uh put me in on this distribution and vegetarian stuff well the other guy got the box I'm going to mention you at some point you're the ultimate disposition resource here so Jim's partaking of this too the box of
two dozen breasts or something chicken parts and things you know but I got all the sides every side dish macaroni and cheese mashed potatoes and gravy spiced rice so I was eating all night that's the most memorable freebie food experience that I remember you know that's why I cut to the my little click
here Bas the freebie finders yeah the freebie finders was an answer to social hierarchies correct that's all I I stick with my primary codery basically this all happened after I graduated from the elementary school shelters okay I was 15 months at those places how did I join the Great Society input screening is um
you you put all your clothes away they give you a a leftover hospital gown from Howard University surgical Department waiting for dinner everybody's W dressed in white surgical gowns the homeless so they said wow one the stute party of the doctors and professional here you know some economists I know have promoted the idea
it's called Universal basic income and it's something like every person would get $10,000 including nfas it's a good idea save that for that because I'm going to ask you okay time you can ask me your question now but also just indicate if you think that's a good idea bad idea I I want to ask ask but just
just the answer national debt this is before all the multi-trillion dollar relief bills have been signed to law by the president all right a progressive algorithm no doubt but I don't know if they'll factor in the 5year plan for the $5 trillion and it'll add a trillion dollars automatically to this amount but
it's pushing uh $30 trillion which is what 8 so you you can scan this quick $84,000 for every uh man woman child in America so you're a fiscal conservative I'm just OB an observer at this point the point is I see this number I see a Sword of Damocles hanging over the economic head of America what a lot
of it's built in and so forth but theoretically if all this came due catastrophically overnight do we have a plan we couldn't pay it we have no plan we're all homeless as someone I know would say so I agree with you right uh what's the gdv what if everybody gross domestic value beyond the product what
is everybody worth if you TI it all up from zero to basos just as a guess what total National wealth I would estimate 120 130 trillion but that's a very rough guess it's hard to find market prices to Value these it your GDP is about a half of that right think of national wealth as 6 to eight times GDP on average but
we have a lot of durable structures in this country so maybe I was a little on the low side but you can't just grab it all to pay off the debt overnight it's like stuff being used that's the problem sell have a fire sell to China or something you know we already did that we're like after that fire sale right
really oh that's another okay so taxes will go wa for the podcast on that one we'll have to cut back our consumption at some point in the future we may or may not be around to see it but there will be a serious economic problem I think from this day yeah so I think you're right to be concerned I don't
think our world will fall apart tomorrow but we have spent beyond our means but do we have a plan B at least probably several in the works for restructuring of the global economy which which your basic allotment is built into that you know a SE change a radical change in the world economy to make for a little more
stability I mean as if plan a or C really it would do it the hard way like we did with this virus as we've done everything else since humans have been on this Earth was it Mike Tyson who said like everyone has a plan until someone punches them in the face right right it reminds me of the Lucy episode remember
where she's pregnant and that's a perfect example Ricky says this plan is calm everybody practicing you know honey I think it really is time and they go into a a Cuban FR I mean after I'm the want to be you know my daughter's pregnant there's even some chance she's having her baby today I
don't think so but look it could be any time right yeah so I I understand this logic what else do you want to ask me that was the uh the main thing that would it be easier to rework the global well you got to get consensus of course we can play with our economy all we want I suppose but but is there a scenario
for global system of equilibrium that every everybody can tie into you know these governments don't agree on much of anything right only the most trivial points yeah but you're on the Forefront of theoretical financing and so forth you know I'm sure the lot of scenar is being baned about right of course okay
but they remain on paper I would say yeah until your punch in the face okay I got now you're NFA buddies when you're with them you're all chatting what is it you talk about mostly I got used to where your mind works first of all you know I'm pretty maniacal but you're called a polymath well all this poly's
got to come in and assert itself at some point I suppose well which brings back the question what are the freebies that you do movies lectures concerts talks tours okay Lawrence it's time for the reading of the list so he's compiled he spend most of his day compiling everything that's possibly
free within a 15 mile radius of DC okay you remember this after the bums banquet that's say it's time for the reading of the list and he would go on for several minutes and saying the National Gallery of Art has a movie tomorrow the pcta theater has one uh on Thursday there's a free concert at the Library of Congress
there's a talking head lecture he would call it that's is boring to him you know he liked the the music and any movie in It's Heyday it's Poss is it possible to get stress syndrome from too many freebies available I mean that before it's called the internet ex yeah right well I got enough just on foot I'm glad two years ago I
took advantage as much as possible the Main Stays the trifecta freebies the Smithsonian institution the National Gallery of Art oh make it four actually the archives and Library of Congress they all have independent programs so on a good day and especially the week all just a the National Gallery film program
had the the weekend you could start with a kitty matina at 10:30 in the morning and go to a a 5:00 Romanian film in the afternoon about four or five movies Alto together but here's where the stress comes in the environmental Film Festival yes but they're they're doing packed movies every day for a week at the at
the Natural History Museum and then there's a an nime festival at at the uh Freer gallery of Asian art this takes some serious traveling salesman Paradigm you know how do I get to here to there and running time so you have to keep all these jockey all these times and stuff in so you get a good workout not just
one venue but several simultaneous pregnant venues on the weekend otherwise if you can catch a freebie in the evening the primary reason for this cultural event in rare exceptions is this is some classy comfortable shelter right okay or winter all day at the National Gallery plush seats and some
kind of there something for everybody entertainment you know you said in in that interview that uh you keep busy dur in a day and once in a while you might catch on evening no that's the focus the evening freebie that's what's critical you know what am I going to do between bedtime such as it might be uh whatever
it turns out to be and the last Church closing or soup kitchen or something like that you know a film from Korea or Hong Kong or or something at the Freer Gallery it's an education it's also basic shelter at the same and luxurious shelter at the time so I'm I'm operating at 10% 5% of of the Before Time you know
so this whole thing so the one four-letter word for this is law everybody you know all all the Comfort counselors are in on that 10 topics removed that's the answer to to the categories for those that uh and there a couple not more than a handful of other obvious homeless people at these venues
you know and you know them all when you see them or you can tell by looking at them by S so one of the ladies after the shutdown the one I'd SE on a regular basis I think it it's she it's in the front row there that had to climb over you know sit on the end I don't know why people do that that's Universal I
suppose so there are a lot of people that I have not seen before roaming the streets a lot of competition between the rats and other bums uh I'm I'm scraping now more than usual when the tourists see me foraging and lady gave me from Ohio or something gave me the sandwich from the food truck they didn't E I said
welcome back to DC America you know good to see you putting aside Co over the last 40 years that you've been living here for you what's been the most important change in Washington DC I can only quote what's in the paper the regentrification and how does that affect you though better for you worse
for you easier harder yeah the warf is killing me or or I have to be careful now not to be too specific all right in my uh whereabouts and locations and stuff because remember Alex from Target Supermarket clerk in Florida he was set getting so much good vibes psychopaths in the country were sending him death threats all right why is he
getting the attention not me he was actually getting did you read that yeah hate mail and death threats because he's such a nice guy so I don't know what kind of reactions one might get Comet Ping Pong come across the the country the power of deception delusion conspiracy well there's a lot more
traffic since the warf has opened up but now since this my museum is at the plaza people are on their phones and there's a sidewalk on the far south end here before the freeway which is full of parking meters and you can hardly get one and a half people side by side I see people calling that that way on their
phone on on their Google Map and I'm saying hold it you're not going to be able to walk side by side before breast of course you know if if they're 10 in a group they're going to take up the whole sidewalk that way it's a constricted sidewalk some people thank me and but most Google's telling me this I'm going
to have to I'm going to go this way but I think more it's because there used to be the quietest spot around for me and now I have a an invasion of the uh location grubbing hordes trying to find the the tourist trying to find something is there no feedback to Alexa Google has not been here it doesn't know how you
know take it from a native and don't deserve my peace essentially Unspoken You know so that's how it affects me as far as the large SC look at the news you know I Southwest especially every square foot is accounted for every church has been propositioned tell you what I think you need help paying the bills tell you
what we'll give you give you out you have a lot of Maintenance and stuff the infrastructure your your old buildings breaking down we'll give you a brand new church just sell us your property one church after another is doing that you know you can see it everywhere the church on I Street the Jazz Church
actually I won't mention but but everyone Southwest knows that people are saying they're selling out but it's tough in in a postchristian some people say America to keep up attendance up you know so they got to find some shtick I mean every square foot they recently built a building between HUD and lant
Plaza over the freeway you know I mean that's a land assessor really on steroids that finds every square foot and everything is up for grabs or at least they have a mind for everything I have two final questions for you and our last five minutes oh really yes first one if you had a lot more money it's
actually been 55 minut wow yeah time flies when you're having fun that's why you're okay that's why you're jumping around at light speed correct so first question let's say you had a lot more money than you have now maybe you won the lottery would you give that money to other NFA people when they ask for money
oh I do that they don't have to ask because I'm totally impecunious totally out of the monitor I tell people I've been disabused from the monetary system well you know I mean when I say foraging I do what the squirrels do I just follow them I tell people and uh people's mirrror neurons kick in and say well
your brain is fooling you into thinking that you're doing forging and the overflowing receptacle to euphemize everything here so automatically your your higher functions are saying there's no need for this I don't have to do this through my mirror neurons what do I do obviously I take the money out of my
pocket and go to the nearest shop to buy so that's what they do with me they they they say hey buddy they a lot of people command me go go get you a lunch I have a this beautiful platter more or less vegetarian you know rice and Aros the construction workers during the middle of of shutdown they were the only
business around for big construction projects Memorial there and Space Museum this building buildings here so the H construction workers and most of them Hispanic beautiful V I mean they eat their shishka babo off their platter and leave the beans the rice the salad I said what is that that looks like I
sniff it I say that's green rag based paper I'm not a goat I don't e paper look this is real food here don't you recognize real food it's like it's say I we eat by concept you know until we learned otherwise so what was the original question on this one uh if you had more money I give it to other n people yes yes so you would but hold on
I I do it automatically if they insist they stuffing in I'm not going to arrest them when they're stuffing the 20 in my pocket but if I see the 20 and I say um oh sorry but my my uh minimum donation accept I'll accept that if you can uh add nine more zeros to it at 20 trillion maybe I can help with a national debt
that's ties into that you know that's my minimal donation better make that 40 now cuz we go a trillion a year you know so have a little hedge on that so 30 to 40 trillion it's my minimum donation everything else I either give it the poor box the last one I got was $1 and I put it on lip of the trash can some a
lot of competitions there half a dozen people going over the same cans you know but uh I still manag to feed myself and my fellow omnivore here okay last question question let's say the DC city government puts you in charge of developing a new program to help NFA people what would you recommend what do
you think should be done I I've kept the focus on on my myself my local uh contact you know a lot about this area correct Tyler they're doing the more than what the average municipality has been doing so they're very proactive I I really can't complain their heart is right even though they're still still 10
cities what the count is like 1,400 loose individuals not counting families you know the families is priority they took care of them first that's a tough population to deal with or the last on the line the specific question was what would you do to what would you change what should be done in
Washington DC that would be better for you and the people you know all right I can speak for myself and the or the few of like mind I know I got my eye on all these empty off Office Buildings that they keep building and there's no especially now estimate how many people you think are actually going to remain
teleworking that were not before percentage wise 20% I think we'll keep on doing it at least at least yeah all right so that's 20% more office space and they're still building phase two of the war is still being built should they invest more in quieter trains no I've been tempted to getting a a quart of
grease and sparing on the tracks I wonder what that would do the propulsion system of the thing you know so the family shelter it doesn't have to be a fancy office building horror stories for families kidnapping and all this stuff so they mve the families out but I say if you give me a partition in this open
Bay I'd love that that's the one didn't ask about the Mitch Schneider shelter that she he twisted Reagan's arm to to refinance and all that I was there and talking with Mitch and the planning and stuff and he was $200,000 short of having individual partitions right the way I left it it was remembering it five
people two double bunks in a in in a common space PDS personal differentiated space that is the bottom line preferably in community that would that's my optimal all right you have your own space but you have access to an immediate Community you have best of both they're learning that in senior citizen housing
now now you know give them their own rooms and their private bathrooms but there's a beautiful social space with common Wi-Fi and and cable and everything else in the living room you know that's a perfect setting you can satisfy both needs of men thank you very much Alexander the Great and also James
Deutch wow time flies when you're having fungus [Music] I'm thanks for listening to conversation with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the [Music] show