Hard to Do Good to....

There are days when the topic presents itself, when the island outdoes itself in some species of lunacy or illogic that the post virtually writes itself. Today?

Well, I started out trawling for an interesting story. I can therefore tell you that there is a guy, Patrick McConlogue, who observed a homeless person living down by the Hudson River in New York City. McConlogue thought there was something interesting about the guy—he didn’t seem crazy, he wasn’t talking to himself, he was reading and writing. So McConlogue, who is a software engineer, devised a test—he would approach the person and offer two alternatives. The first, he would give the guy $100. The second alternative was a laptop computer, three books on Java script writing, and lessons every morning for three months.

Guess what? Leo, the homeless guy, chose the second offer. And it developed that Leo is a sharp guy—he’s particularly passionate about the environment…but let McConlogue describe it:

It turns out Leo is a genius particularly concerned with environment issues. As I sat there becoming increasing stunned, he rattled off import/export prices on food, the importance of solar and green energy, and his approval for “efficient public transportation initiatives [referring to NY’s new Citibike]”. He is smart, logical, and articulate. Most importantly, he is serious. It’s up to him if dedication is also his gift.

So he returned the next day with the following stuff:

      Samsung Chromebook with 3G (access to code academy etc).

            Beginner: “JavaScript for Beginners”

            Intermediate: “Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja”

            Advanced: “Javascript the Good Parts”

            Solar charger for the laptop.

            Something to hide the laptop in. (Anyone have ideas? Email me: pmcconlogue[at]gmail.com)

McConlogue then went on to write a blog post entitled (infelicitously) “Finding the unjustly homeless, and teach them to code.”

Vitriol exploded across the Internet. Were there “justly” homeless people, critics demanded? Was McConlogue really suggesting….

One guy tweeted, “I hope the homeless guys takes the 100 bucks, just to mess with this condescending dick-face.

Guys? This guy is a software engineer, not a public relations expert. Of course he was suggesting that some people deserved to be homeless. Oh, and remind me again—what are you doing for the homeless?

“It’s so very hard to do good to people,” Margaret Mead once said. You want to help—but is that money you give some homeless person going for food or drugs? And will Leo—despite his brains—be able to stick to three months of learning Java script?

My gut tells me that Leo is very likely bipolar and is currently exhibiting no symptoms—but what do I know? At any rate, it’s an interesting experiment—and I hope it works.

So that got me thinking about The Soloist, Nathaniel Antonio Ayers, Jr.—the former student at Juilliard whom Steven López, an LA Times reporter, befriended. Ayers dropped out of Juilliard when he had a psychotic break—and he never quite got his life back again. So López got involved, got Ayers an apartment, contacted Ayers’ sister; he did a mammoth job of helping a person who…

…was not always easy to help.

What do you do when you convince a landlord to rent an apartment to a psychiatric patient, and then the tenants start complaining—why is that guy in 4D walking around outside the building all night?

He’s pacing because he’s hearing voices and he’s scared to be in his apartment. Or he attributes some magical power to a ritual in which he must walk nine times around the building, saying a talismanic series of phrases. And if he gets it wrong, he has to start all over again. Or maybe….

You get the picture.

OK—so Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. made a film—also called The Soloist in 2009. And what’s up with Ayers now? Now that the book has been written, the movie filmed? Anyone still concerned about Ayers?

I’ve looked. Ayers’ sister has a foundation to help artistically gifted people who are suffering psychiatric illnesses, but there’s not much info on Ayers there. So the most recent info came from Pat LaMarche in Huffington Post from April of this year. Here’s part of what she wrote:

Ayers wants to change what people call him. He wants to be Tony Ocean. He has emblazoned the new name all over his violin case; his trumpet case hasn't yet been monogrammed.

Ocean says "his" reporter made him a household word: "I have a reporter. His name is Steve Lopez, from the LA Times. He made me famous. I went to the White House. I was in the China Room. I flew Alaska Air. They made a movie about me and about his book." It seems this fame is the reason Ocean has dumped his old name. "I threw the other one away. I want to be Tony because I like the food there." Ocean took the menu for Tony's lunch counter out of his trumpet case to emphasize the name change, "and because my mother liked to call me that. I picked Ocean because I like the sound of the ocean. I like the rolling sound as it comes and goes."

Ocean likes the sound of the music he hears on Skid Row too. "I was a Cleveland-born person. I decided to move here because the center of town has Beethoven. And you can get food. They have a pot full of beans and they will give you some," Ocean explains without mentioning exactly who "they" are. Then he referenced his audience as a reason to stay, "And Steve Lopez says, 'you were playing your violin for your friends.'" And that's reason enough for Ocean to stay on Skid Row.  

Well, most people make their choices in real estate based on something other than where Beethoven is. And those people who do, like Ayers?

Not easy to do good to….