Prophet Jack

I see, I say, you pay!

Pretty simple guy. In Life or Something Like It he is a homeless man on the streets of Seattle who stands on a soap box and yells visions of the (near) future for all the busy business people to hear as they scramble off to work. As people pass by and hear something useful, like news of a traffic jam, or a market surge in the tech sector, or even football scores, they drop a donation for him. The main character in the movie is doing a TV news interview with him when he makes a prediction that she is going to die in the coming week. Later she asks him for more “visions” so that she can judge for herself how real he is. He says very simply, “I see, I say, you pay.”

He then explains that sure, if he could then he would predict the lottery numbers and hit it rich… but that’s now how it works, he sees whatever he is meant to see… so, “I see, I say, you pay.”

Now I’m thinking, maybe we’re getting screwed here in the Bay Area. Is there a Prophet George up on Market St. in San Francisco that I just don’t know of? If so, I’d hook this guy up with a cell phone and buy him lunch 5 days a week if he would just answer the phone once a day and tell me ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. It sure would beat listening to the radio for news. Hell, let’s make it lunch 7 days a week, and a breakfast burrito on Sunday.

01
January 15th, 2004 6:25 pm

You’d be lucky if your prophet was that coherent. Remember trying to make requests from Rick Starr, the Famous Lounge Singer?

BRIAN: Sing “My Way,” Rick!
RICK: FEEEEELings… nothing more than FEEELings…
BRIAN: Dammit Rick!
RICK: Don’t be intimidated by my fame!

I think you’d really need a scribe for him too, since it seems unlikely to me that he could remember all the things he’d say during the day…

maybe a sidekick runaway, like that Marin punk who used to hang around “Hate Man,” who people called “Hate Boy” for about 2 weeks.

Leave Your Comment

Name*
Mail*
Website
Comment