The Very Strange Train
The story of that strange train ride is almost impossible to convey in full. It’s easily the strangest conversation of my life, and, if it’s half of what I remember it to be, it might be one of the strangest conversations ever to take place. Period.
Rendering the whole conversation in linear order has taken many hundreds of pages when I’ve tried it in the past, and I’m not really sure how to break everything up as I go forward here, attempting to transfer it to a readable web format. But, suffice it to say, the key components that I’ll need to touch on were as follows:
The two people I spoke with initially introduced themselves as “Josh” and “Tamara,” and presented as two strangers who just happened to be headed to Boston withe me that morning. I eventually caught on that they worked in TV, for Paramount, but it took me a few hours. We talked nonstop. Or at least, I talked nonstop, from the moment they sat down next to me at the train station to the moment we got to Boston, several hours later.
Based on everything that has happened since then, and based on looking up the available information, photos, and videos, of the employees of the assorted shows, I believe that these two people were Matt O’Brien and Jen Flanz, producers for The Daily Show. Worth noting, it would also make sense for them to have been CBS reporters, but I think O’Brien and Flanz make more sense, and they track with my memories of approximately what they looked like.
On this train ride, I proposed this whole crazy investigation into what it’s like to be labeled delusional. I felt wronged by what had happened earlier that morning at CBS, and I felt furious on behalf of others who were wrongly labeled delusional.
I followed up on my idea about the new format change to The Daily Show, and I insisted that Stewart’s return out of retirement would be a fantastic way to implement the format.
I suggested that John Oliver should offer Clarence Thomas one million dollars a year on a personal services contract to retire from the Supreme Court, and I told them that CBS or John Oliver or any of the shows could have that idea for free, no attribution required.
I suggested that we could use a late-night show to run someone responsible and ethical for the Oval Office. Specifically, I suggested Jon Stewart as my preferred candidate—though I ultimately did say that I’d be willing to do it, if he wasn’t up for the job.
I told these two TV producers absolutely everything I hated about myself, and everything I was afraid would come out if I ever took on a public life. Every skeleton in my closet. Every nightmare. The deepest traumas of my life, and the things I thought could be used to destroy me.
I told them every damn other thing about myself that I could think of, or which casually came up in conversation, or happened to be tangentially related. We talked, as I’ve said, for hours.
Well, that barely begins to do it justice, but perhaps you can see why producers would act on such ideas, when a person consented to such wild stunts in advance. (Or why reporters for CBS would relay these ideas and records of the conversation to their networks’ shows and affiliates.)
I shall have many tens of thousands of words on this subject, going forward.