Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
BENJAMIN SMYTHE: I do this thing where I live with people for
a week, and now I'm living with Teala, and we wander around and
do whatever people want to do. I have a You're Perfect sign, so I
hold that on the street, play with the kids, made scrambled eggs
this morning, and do some chores. I'm on one of those trips, I call
it a week of life, but I do it in Europe, I've done it in America, I'll
go to Australia, New Zealand next month.
TRIP: Benjamin looks like he is on a trip, all right. I was lit up a
couple of days ago but I think you are lit up all the time. Are you
alive with…?
BENJAMIN SMYTHE: I'm as alive as you are. What are you
talking about? [Laughs] Well let's see who exists a little less in the
room. No, no, everybody exists equally, damn.
TRIP: Okay, so the sign, that's cool. Talk about the sign, how did
that come about?
BENJAMIN SMYTHE: In 2005 I had a really crappy day and I
went out on the street and made a sign that said You're Perfect,
thinking it would make me feel better to make somebody else feel
better. But I wasn't even looking at people then, and I just sat on
Lincoln Avenue near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and in 10
minutes this woman pulls up and she's crying and she's says,
"Wow, thank you so much, I really needed to see that". And at that
moment it was something that I got a little contact high off of that
ability, the simplicity of being able to make somebody's day with
something really benign as a sign like that. Then I held it for a
little bit more, and then I moved and then it went into my window,
and then in 2008/2009 I started holding it regularly as much as I
could for the most part. I don't force myself to do it, but I
definitely do it a lot.
TRIP: So there's a conventional life happening back in Berkeley
where you have a job and stuff like that?
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