Shut Up Rick - Snap Classic

Did you ever have that one friend that you didn’t want but it turns out you really need? This week on Snap, epic stories about unexpected companionship. STORIES Shut Up Rick He’s called Shut Up Rick. Let’s hear what he has to say. Thank you Bucky Sinister and Rick Loddy. Bucky is a poet, author, and comedian — to learn more about Bucky’s work and what he’s up to now, subscribe to his substack https://buckysinister.substack.com/. Original score by Clay Xavier, produced by Zahra Noorbaksh and John Fecile, artwork by Teo Ducot. Rock Paper Scissors When the two greatest auction houses in the world – Christie’s and Sotheby’s – vied for the privilege of auctioning off $20 million worth of art in 2004, little did they know that they would be forced to engage in an ancient form of ritualized combat known as… rock paper scissors. Be sure to check out Carol Vogel’s original New York Times article. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/arts/design/rock-paper-payoff-childs-play-wins-auction-house-an-art-sale.html Produced by Joe Rosenberg The Kipling Hotel – LIVE A young, penniless student arrives at UCLA with no place to stay and is forced to improvise. Performed by Don Reed at Snap LIVE in San Francisco, CA. Music composed by Alex Mandel, performed by the Snap Judgment Players: Alex Mandel, David Brandt, and Tim Frick Snap Classic - Season 17 – Episode 46 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 00

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com. Support comes from Wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send your money abroad with your everyday bank? Choose the smart way, Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Plus ditch that "where's my money" feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise. Download the Wise app today. Ts and Cs apply.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Okay, so one of my besties, Ray, moved to London. And he and I and another friend, we're all talking. And Ray's, "Hey, it's not right. You guys haven't even visited me yet." It's a fair point. So we're like, "All right." We get tickets. And I've never been to London, so I'm excited, right? Trafalgar Square, Fish and Chips, Westminster Abbey. This is right around the time Queen Elizabeth passes away. Before I even get on the plane, Ray's sending me all these texts about how everyone in all the British colonies, from Nigeria to Sri Lanka, loved the Queen so much.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  So I better bow to her head and put some respect in my tone. If I dare mention her name, whatever, whatever, whatever, hey, hey, hey, hey. I don't know anything about the Queen of England. But I do know this. I'm not just gonna sit here and be lectured to by some guy from Michigan on the benefits of colonialism just because he happens to live in London now. No, no. So I start bad mouthing the Queen. Bad mouthing England. Ray, Ray, why are the Great Pyramids in Egypt? Why? Because they're too heavy to carry to the British Museum. Or Ray, Ray, Ray, why did the colonizer get a library card?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Because he likes to buy all things indefinitely. Stop it. Why do I do this? Why? Because I know it ticks Ray off. And ticking Ray off brings me such great joy. On the plane ride over, I arm myself for the arguments. I read Legacy of Violence, A History of the British Empire by the Pulitzer Prize winning historian Carolyn Elkins. And it's brutal. So the moment we touched down at the London airport, began our tour of all of England's loot. I'm ready. Ray tries to explain to me that any great power would have done the same thing. I'm not having a word of it.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  The monarchy is just a fancy bow on the machinery of oppression. And we squabble. Fight. Sometimes Ray gets red faced and sputtering rage through Oxford, Big Ben, in front of the bee feeders. We bicker. All in all, it's a fantastic trip. Back home, pulling some papers in order, I see a document I haven't seen in over a decade. My last will and testament details all kinds of stuff, including who gets the kids if I get hit by a bus. Yeah, it's Ray.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  And I almost feel bad then for tormenting him. I almost feel bad for all the wet willies and twist of the knife. Almost. Because if we didn't scribe, how would Ray know how much I care?

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Today on Snap Judgment, stories of friendship. We're calling it Shut Up Ray. No, no, we're calling it Shut Up Rick. The name of the episode, it's Shut Up Rick. My name is Lynn Washington. Don't be like Ray, who after my trip to London absolutely refuses to listen to Snap Judgment.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Now then, friendship can be hard, especially when you're going through something. That long last comedian and writer, Bucky Sinister, he thought he'd finally found his tribe at an AA meeting in San Francisco. The road back from addiction can be a hard one. And because of that, today's story does touch on drug addiction and references a death. And as Bucky began his journey, there was one guy, a tattooed, loud mouthed ex-con who Bucky would do anything to stay away from. Snap Judgment.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  You know, I had this little private ritual time of about an hour before the meeting started where I would go to a Pete's that was about to close down for the day. So I'd be the only person there. And I would just get this iced coffee and sit outside and watch the traffic. You know, it's just a little island there of non-existence. I could have my own little time. And then Rick started showing up.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  We called him Shut Up Rick because we had to tell him to shut up a lot. He was kind of horrible. He said a lot of things that even for us were in bad taste. And we would have to yell "Shut up, Rick" in unison until he started just introducing himself as, "My name is Shut Up Rick and I'm an alcoholic." And it became his name. But I didn't really know him.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  At this point, I guess I'm about 10 years sober. And I had these two guys that I always went to meetings with. We always rode home together and we got really tight. And then suddenly, one of them died of just this kind of random heart attack. And, you know, I'm sharing about it at this one meeting. And Shut Up Rick comes up to me and he says, "I'm sorry about your friend." And he's like, "I used to have this pet rat and I loved that little rat. And I used to feed it whiskey off a spoon. And one day that rat died and I was really upset. I said, 'God, why'd you let my little rat friend die? And then one day I realized that rat was so cool that maybe God needed a rat in heaven.'" And then just slapped me on the arm and walked away.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "That is the dumbest thing anyone could tell me right now." And it was like his best way. I mean, it was genuine. I think he kind of, by his logic, he's like, "Well, this guy's down a friend. Maybe he's got space for me," you know? Which is kind of right because I did have a big hole in my heart.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  So, you know, I kind of treasured this time that I was like, "Hey, there's nothing else to do but sit down and read a book." With a nice big cup of iced coffee here at my favorite Bay Area coffee place. And then Rick started figuring out that's where I was. And he would just show up. And the first time he did it, you know, well, you know, this happens sometimes. Someone comes here while I'm trying to read a book or do some writing or whatever it was I was doing that day. And it happened again and again. And it takes about three or four weeks before I realize, "Oh, this guy's gonna show up here every week. He's intending on being here."

• 8:29Speaker 02

  And at first, I'm just like, "Hey, this is my time. I'm a little bit perturbed." But here's the thing. I started thinking like, "Well, this guy's called Shut Up Rick because everybody's telling him to shut up. What if I spent this hour just listening? Let's see what he has to say."

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Shut Up Rick liked to talk about a lot of things. First and foremost was conspiracies.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Dallas, Texas, November 22nd, 1963.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Did the mafia kill JFK? Did the CIA kill JFK?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Oswald didn't act alone.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Did the, you know, aliens build Stonehenge? Did the aliens build pyramids? If you take the location of the Great Pyramid as a coordinate... He loved to show Ancient Aliens.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Are these markers left for aliens?

• 9:20Speaker 02

  He said, "Hey, did you see the episode last time?" I'm like, "Yes." And then he would, you know, describe it to me for the next hour. You know, I was like, "I know, I saw it." You know, sometimes Rick would talk at me and sometimes it would be a back and forth conversation. I usually just talked about my family and my childhood. And then sometimes I talked to him about how horrible people were to each other in the office where I worked. He would think it was kind of funny. He just couldn't believe that people would act that way to each other. And he also knows that, like, you know, Rick, a lot of times didn't feel like he fit in either. And this is a common thing with a lot of recovering drug addicts. We're kind of between worlds. Like, Rick wasn't a criminal anymore.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  You know, he was a good dude. Rick spent a lot of his time volunteering. A lot of halfway houses, a lot of sober houses, anywhere he could. One time I asked Rick why, you know, he volunteered so much at other places. He's like, "Well, I'm trying to outdo all the bad things I've done. How many good things do you think I have to do?"

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Wow. You know, how do I answer that?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  There were a couple of moments where I kind of realized that Rick and I were becoming better friends.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  After six months or so, I can't wait to see him. I'm going down to Pete's and if it's like 10 after 6, I'm kind of looking up the street. I'm like, "Where is this guy?"

• 10:54Speaker 02

  The most distinct thing about Rick was his walk, really. He had his gait that no one else really had. It's kind of bouncing in his walk that made him really easy to spot from far away. There was one time Rick told me that there was some skateboard company in LA that he wanted to be sponsored by. Rick's goal, growing up, was to become a pro skater. And he said, "If I skateboard down to LA, will you sponsor me?" And I'm like, "Yeah, sure." So Rick gets a backpack, an extra pair of socks, an extra pair of underwear, a bunch of crackers, and some peanut butter, and a big old sack of weed. And he started skating.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  And he skated down. There's this one moment where he hits this place down in Southern California where it's downhill for like miles. And he says like, you know, "I sparked up this big doobie." It up, got really high, and I just coasted for seven miles straight.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  And it was the most beautiful time of my life.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  And when he talked about that, it was just really like his best moment. Really like, to know your best moment is kind of something. And if I asked you to think of your best moment, you'd have to think a while. And I honestly had to think a while too. I don't know what mine is. But Rick knew his. Rick knew what his best moment was. And it's just the moment he most loved being himself and where he was in life. And it's such a beautiful thing.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  The whole world doesn't exist. You know, the world's just gone. We've created this temporary autonomous zone around us. We're like this little bubble of reality. Like, what exists here is me and Rick and two coffees.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  And that's the thing. It's like, here's something in my life I needed. I needed a friend like this. I needed someone like who's just a nice escape for me. You know, this condition-free friendship. You know, just like, he just wants to hang out. You know, it's just really kind of pure and nice.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  But, you know, there was one time he, he's like, "I need some money." And this is always a dangerous thing when you're talking to people, especially with people with heroin histories. When they say they need some money, like, it's a bad sign. So I got very concerned. I don't know if I want to give him this money because I can't risk this guy not being here. But I thought about it a whole lot and I could just see the way he looked at me and it was like, no one else believes in this guy. And maybe I'm the only guy who's going to believe him here. I got the money out of the ATM. We got the exact change together. And I loaned it to him.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  And he got his new glasses.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  He would tell everybody after that, "Oh, man, I got these new glasses and they're awesome. My homeboy loaned me the money so I could get them."

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And that was really like when he started like referring to me as his homeboy, or his buddy, or his friend to other people.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  At some point, I realized I spent about 250 hours sitting with Rick. And I tried to think of who else in my life have I spent this much time with? I don't think anyone. And it was that realization of like, "Oh, my God, was Rick my best friend?"

• 14:51Speaker 02

  And I think he is. What would I do without this guy? You know, I don't want to lose him. This guy's important to me.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  I started noticing Rick wasn't showing up. And usually he called me when he wasn't showing up. And I did think, "Well, it's possible he relapsed, but probably not." But one of the things that he would do sometimes is that he would go off his meds. And he would not hang out when he was doing that. So I figured, "Ah, he's off his meds, or maybe he's between prescriptions." Call him, and his number's not working. And a lot of times he always had these burner phones. And sometimes they just stopped working. And I was like, "Okay, well, he doesn't have a phone, that, you know, probably means he just doesn't have a phone."

• 15:44Speaker 02

  I was worried mostly about Rick doing some kind of crime and getting locked back up because that would be the last we'd see of him. More than anything else, I kind of, that was my worst-case scenario for him. But I was so preoccupied with myself, I couldn't really think about why Rick wasn't showing up too much. And I didn't, I definitely didn't have time to go look for him.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  I did have aspirations at the time of being a stand-up comic and maybe being in some movies and TV. So I decided to move to Los Angeles. I had a condo and it was at the peak of the market, so I could sell that and just get a bunch of money. So I was really kind of only thinking about myself the last few months I was there. I would pack or, you know, just move stuff out of my house. And I was like, "Well, whatever he's dealing with, he'll figure it out."

• 16:37Speaker 02

  I kept trying to look for him best I could, like through other people. I was trying to call all the San Francisco buddies, trying to figure out, like, you know, "Have you seen this guy? Like, you know, what's going on?" Finally, one of them does touch base with me and I've moved to LA. And someone says, "Hey, you know, this guy with this halfway house told me that Shut Up Rick died."

• 16:57Speaker 02

  And I said, "I don't think he's dead, you know. I think he's either relapsed or he's in jail." You know, he's done something. He's just sitting in county. We can find out pretty easily by calling the medical examiner. "I'll call you right back." So I call the medical examiner and I said, "Hey, I'm looking for Rick Lottie." And they said, almost immediately, "We have a Richard." And I was like, "Ugh."

• 17:29Speaker 02

  I said, "Early 50s, lots of jailhouse tattoos, missing most of his teeth." They're like, "Yeah, that's him. He died of pneumonia in August." So he died actually like right before I left. So I said, "Hey, you know, do you want to, do you need help trying to locate his next of kin?" The guy said, "Oh, we called them." And they refused his remains.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Maybe his family didn't have the money for it.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  And that tore me up.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  I just didn't want him to be alone.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  If you're in this situation, they basically do an autopsy and then cremate you right away. And then the county will keep you for a certain amount of time. And if no one claims your remains by that point, you're just buried in a mass grave.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  I said, "Well, can I claim them?" And they're like, "Yeah, you just have to reimburse the county for the cremation cost." And in my mind, it's like, you know, $75. And he goes, "$1,040."

• 18:44Speaker 02

  $1,000!

• 18:49Speaker 02

  The deal to sell the condo had just actually closed like the week before. So I'm like sitting on this almost embarrassing amount of money. I'm like, "Well, guess I know what my first big purchase is going to be."

• 19:03Speaker 02

  And I said, "How do I pick this up?" "We'll mail them to you."

• 19:09Speaker 02

  And he says, "Hey, there's one more thing you could do for us. Like, if you could help us fill out the death certificate, we'd really appreciate that." So they sent me what they had. There was a blank on the death certificate for occupation. And I put "professional skateboarder."

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Because that was his dream. So I figured like on the records, he made it. You know?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Congratulations, Rick, you made it. Uh, you're a pro.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Six weeks after Bucky gave Rick the job of his dreams, he received a package with stickers all over it saying, "Human Remains." They were Shut Up Rick's ashes.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  And I still have them, of course. I, I thought about spreading them, but I was like, you know what? I don't want to. I kinda like having this guy around, you know?

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Like, I'll, I'll take him to like a little coffee shop with me. I'll take him to Starbucks or whatever and sit there and have, you know, have a little coffee and, and, you know, remember, you know, it's like, I'm never lonely. Like, I'm never without a friend, you know? It's just really sweet.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you so much to Bucky Sinister for telling us this story. And rest in power to Rick Loddy. Want a shout out to all of our friends in the recovery community, please keep coming back. Bucky, the poet, author, comedian, we'll have a link to his Substack on our website, snapjudgment.org. There you can keep up with all that Bucky is up to. The original score for this piece was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Zara Norbosh and John Fasil.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  When we return, a friendly game turns not so friendly when the stakes are high. When the Snap Judgment Shut Up Rick episode continues, stay tuned.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. Now, there's a difference between being friends and being friendly. And large amounts of cash tend to reveal those differences pretty quickly. Joe Rosenberg brings us a story involving a Japanese businessman, $20 million, in those ancient and honorable form of ritualized combat.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  So our story is gonna start with this guy.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  Good Lord, I'm practically making love to this microphone now.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  His name is Jonathan Randall.

• 22:16Speaker 05

  I'm a deputy chairman of Christie's in America, who spent a lot of his time in the late 80s, early 90s, selling material to Japan.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Material, meaning art.

• 22:28Speaker 05

  And in the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, going back to Japan to get everything back that I'd sold to them 10 years before. The extraordinary thing was, you'd go to a trunk room,

• 22:43Speaker 05

  which looks like that last scene in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, there's things in boxes going on forever. And open a box, and in the box would be a work of art or several works of art. And you'd pick the object up and you'd look on the back of it and you'd find your handwriting from 10 years ago.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  That's so surreal. It really is like, kind of this weird ebb and flow of prestige between people. And, and so long as you're the middleman, you know, you'll be all right in the end.

• 23:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. The beauty of the bubble market.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  But of course, Christie's did not have this wonderful pie all to itself.

• 23:20Speaker 05

  It's a market that is really a duopoly between two auction house giants. There's Christie's and then there's the other place.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  You, you mean Sotheby's?

• 23:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  It's like saying my opponent instead of, yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 05

  No, that's actually how one normally refers to it, the other place.

• 23:38Speaker 05

  So it's sort of a friendly-ish rivalry. I wouldn't say it was entirely friendly.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  In Sotheby's and Christie's, you see, there was one collection they both had their eyes on.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  The Masprodenko corporate collection was a, was a jewel in the crown. It had everything that one wanted to sell at that precise moment. You know, the, the Cezanne, the Picasso, the Van Gogh, their, their trophy names.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  And, most importantly?

• 24:12Speaker 05

  It was $20 million worth of business.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  There was just one problem. Mr. Hashiyama, the CEO who had founded the collection, he was really chummy with Sotheby's. They'd known him for years. If Christie's wanted that $20 million worth of business, they were going to have to win him over.

• 24:34Speaker 06

  It was very, very hard job for me, Mr. Hashiyama.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  This is Kanai Ishibashi. She worked at Christie's Tokyo office alongside Jonathan. Just think of her as the client whisperer. She'd been paying visits to Mr. Hashiyama since almost her first day on the job, but he'd been proving tricky.

• 24:52Speaker 06

  He really doesn't sort of talk about, um, business. We talked about art and music and, you know, his great passion for dinosaurs, you know, we, we, we could spend hours laughing. So he told me that when his company was listed in, in a stock market, which was a very, very important incident, he chose the insurance company by throwing dice.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 06

  Yes. So, I, when I heard that story, I was, I found it really funny. And, you know, he, he's a bit sort of eccentric and all that, but we couldn't really read where he, his mind was.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  First of all, how many, how many, over how many years were you doing this?

• 25:36Speaker 06

  I think we'd spent six years.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Six years?

• 25:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, meeting with Mr. Hashiyama before the auction.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  That's incredible. And meanwhile, though, um, you, you're not the only person meeting with him, I, I would take it.

• 25:51Speaker 06

  No, no, no, no. So, Sotheby's, they were there all the time.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  And after both houses had finally given their big presentations on why Mr. Hashiyama should choose them and not, you know, the other place?

• 26:07Speaker 05

  She came back with this extraordinary request.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  I received a call from Mr. Hashiyama in the office. And he said, in order to determine which auction house to handle collection, I would like both of you, Christie's and Sotheby's, to play the game Rock, Paper, Scissors.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  Yes, you heard her right. Mr. Hashiyama wanted the two biggest auction houses in the world to play a $20 million game of Rochambeau.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  I, I think there was a moment, a moment of silence and surprise. And then...

• 26:57Speaker 06

  What?

• 26:59Speaker 06

  That's it. I, I, I didn't really reply back to him. I couldn't really answer him, like, why are you doing this? And, you know, we, we can't really do that. I, I, I couldn't believe it.

• 27:12Speaker 05

  You know, we didn't know what to do, but it was very clear that it was, it was a very serious request from the client. And so when a client asks you to do something, you just get on and do it.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Here's how it would work. Each side, Christie's and Sotheby's, would have the weekend to come up with their choice of quote unquote, weapon. Then, on Monday morning, they would meet at the Masprodenko offices in Tokyo, and there, they would duel.

• 27:42Speaker 05

  This was one game. And Kanai's job was to write down one word on a piece of paper. And that word had to be either rock or paper or scissors.

• 27:56Speaker 05

  So we started compulsively playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, trying to work out, how do we win this? Is there some secret to this? How bad are you gonna feel? How idiotic are you gonna look in front of your, your colleagues when you've lost a collection for, for a child's game?

• 28:17Speaker 06

  I don't really remember those, those three days. I mean, I was, I was under enormous pressure to think what would be the best strategy. But my struggle was always that I, I knew that there is no strategy, because it's, it's just a pure chance. So constantly, whenever I had some moment on a train or walking in the streets, I, I suddenly sort of thought about Rock, Paper, Scissors. I had to contemplate between choices. I think it's paper. No, no, no, I think it's rock. Then I said, no, no, no, no, no, I, I shouldn't do it, because there is no answer. There is no answer. Let, let, let's stop. But then, even though I tried not to think about it, I couldn't really forget about Rock, Paper, Scissors from my mind.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Do you think Mr. Hashiyama, do you think he was like, just like, sitting back, rubbing his hands together, like, mischievously?

• 29:07Speaker 06

  I, I, I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  And meanwhile, of course, she was getting all kinds of advice.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  Every time I walked past Kanai, I was constantly like, why do we go with rock? You know, it's the, it's the strong thing.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  And then, there was this guy.

• 29:22Speaker 07

  Uh, my name's Nick McLean.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Her boss at the Christie's offices in New York.

• 29:26Speaker 07

  Where we ran the Impressionist and Modern Art Department.

• 29:31Speaker 08

  Did you have, uh, an opinion about which to choose?

• 29:34Speaker 07

  No, but obviously, the first thing I did when I got home, I was telling my wife about this. And my daughters.

• 29:45Speaker 09

  I'm Flora. I'm Alice.

• 29:46Speaker 04

  They were 11 then. They're 20 now. And the fun fact about them is?

• 29:50Speaker 09

  We are twins.

• 29:51Speaker 08

  Are you identical twins?

• 29:53Speaker 09

  Yeah, very identical.

• 29:55Speaker 07

  One's left-handed, one's right-handed.

• 29:56Speaker 09

  Mirror twins. And we were in the kitchen of our home in New York, and he was saying, I've got a bit of an issue. Sotheby's is gonna get the steal. We were like, oh yeah, we hate Sotheby's.

• 30:06Speaker 07

  And they came back to me quite promptly and said, yeah, Dad, everybody knows, you start with scissors.

• 30:15Speaker 09

  Yeah, scissors is the pretty standard move.

• 30:19Speaker 07

  So I said, well, how does that work? And they said, well, most people like the idea of going with rock.

• 30:27Speaker 09

  But because they were like super clever, Sotheby's were like, oh, they're gonna bluff.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  So Sotheby's would choose paper.

• 30:33Speaker 07

  But you then double bluff by getting scissors and scissors cuts paper. And I said, all right, that sounds good. I said, what if they go scissors? They said, you go scissors again.

• 30:43Speaker 09

  Because that's what I do. Yeah, you just stick with scissors and see what happens.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  At which point Nick called up Kanai.

• 30:50Speaker 06

  And he said, Kanai, scissors, I think scissors is a thing.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  And at that point, we get into the theater of the absurd. You know, we're about to do this massive piece of business and we're listening to the advice of 11 year olds.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Would you have been willing to go with Alison Flora's choice regardless of what it would have been? Would that have struck you as like a?

• 31:14Speaker 05

  At least I'd have had someone else to blame if it was wrong.

• 31:19Speaker 06

  But I wouldn't feel with my gut that scissors are the best choice. Or rather, I would say, I reached to the point where the situation got beyond my capacity. I think I didn't quite sleep for a few days. But on that Sunday evening, I slept for a few hours. And then suddenly my husband came up in my dream. He said, Kanai, and he told me what choice I should come up with. Then I woke up and I saw the window and the sky was beginning to light up. I didn't look at the time, but I felt really sort of refreshed.

• 32:01Speaker 06

  Somehow, my husband's voice really struck me and I didn't even think about, you know, right or wrong. But I felt that it was a choice for me and I would go for it.

• 32:19Speaker 05

  So Monday morning, the car comes to pick me up with her in it. And we start driving off towards the Masprodenko office.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  And did she tell you what she decided?

• 32:30Speaker 05

  No.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  She didn't?

• 32:33Speaker 05

  Nope, she was keeping her cards very close to her chest.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Did you prod her like, oh, come on, Kanai, just tell me?

• 32:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course, but you know, you try and get a secret out of her, she won't tell you.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  At that point, would you have?

• 32:47Speaker 05

  Happily got out of the car and walked away, yes.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  Why would you want to walk away, though? I feel like the tension might be unbearable, but how could you possibly not want to be there in that room?

• 32:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it might be like watching a kitten being steamrolled as well. Because if the pressure was big on me, it was absolutely massive on her. So she had prepared herself and was sort of entering a semi zen state.

• 33:13Speaker 05

  So we arrive, we're shown to a waiting room. Then the two people from Sotheby's arrive.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Do you recognize the two people from Sotheby's?

• 33:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, I knew who they were.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  But it's hardly the moment for, you know, hi, how are you?

• 33:31Speaker 05

  More sort of a grunt. So we sit one side of the table, they sit the other side of the table. And there are two accountants and a fax machine.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  And somewhere on the other side of the fax machine, Mr. Hashiyama himself, waiting for the results.

• 33:48Speaker 05

  And we're told to write down the word.

• 33:50Speaker 06

  And Jonathan actually looked at me and beneath the table, he showed me rock with his hand. And his eyes were very sharp.

• 34:04Speaker 06

  And he nodded to me once, I think in order to make sure that it was a good decision.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  And she's just saying nothing, so?

• 34:12Speaker 05

  Nothing, nothing. And she goes ahead and writes down a word.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Can you see what word she wrote?

• 34:20Speaker 05

  It's in Kanji, I don't read Japanese. But looking at the face of the accountant, holding the piece of paper, you could tell nothing. He was totally inscrutable. He looks at it for what was probably 30 seconds and your heart's in your mouth.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  And then Maspro person opened the envelope and he said, Sotheby's, paper, Christie's, scissors.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  And then they look at Kanai and say, you won. And it was like a huge, a huge weight in Jonathan's shoulders.

• 34:56Speaker 06

  But after we went outside the building, we screamed.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  Saved by Kanai, completely saved by Kanai.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  Would you be deputy chairman of Christie's if you had gone for rock?

• 35:13Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I suspect I might still be there, but I probably wouldn't be quite where I am now.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  Really, it really would have had that kind of effect?

• 35:20Speaker 05

  It would have been, it's a huge career blog. You just lost a great big deal.

• 35:25Speaker 09

  Obviously, he should have come to us first. You never go paper. Paper just sounds that it's not gonna win. It's a weak move.

• 35:32Speaker 10

  Wait, why not paper? Because the other person's gonna stick with scissors?

• 35:36Speaker 09

  It's just a weak move.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Whether Mr. Hashiyama himself would agree with that, we don't know. But Kanai would meet him again at the art auction in New York.

• 35:46Speaker 06

  And normally, you know, clients, they demand the very best restaurants in New York. But he said, well, I would have a steak. So we went to the real sort of New York steakhouse, having crumb chowder and steak together. And it was a very simple dinner, but it was very nice.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  Did he ever talk about rock, paper, scissors again? Or did you ever bring it up?

• 36:10Speaker 06

  No, he never brought it up and I didn't talk about it. But two years later, Mr. Hashiyama passed away. And that was the last time I saw him.

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Today, Kanai Ishibashi has quit the auction business entirely. She now runs a music school with her husband in Tokyo. And as for Nick's twin daughters, Alison Flora? Shortly after the art auction, Time Magazine ran a section called Quotes of the Week.

• 36:39Speaker 07

  The Pope was there, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I think the president, and Alice McLean.

• 36:47Speaker 09

  She has it framed. Yep, it's framed in the house.

• 36:52Speaker 10

  What was your quote?

• 36:54Speaker 07

  Everybody knows you go scissors.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  A special shout out to Carol Vogel over at the New York Times, who first reported on this story back in 2004. For a link to her original article and more, check out our website, snapjudgment.org. That piece was produced by Joe Rosenberg with sound design by Leon Morimoto.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Now when Snap returns, a young college student has a chance encounter that changes his life forever. Stay tuned.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Glenn Washington. And today, we're digging into the nitty gritty of friendship. Next up, Snap storyteller extraordinaire, Mr. Don Reed hits the stage for Snap Judgment Live.

• 38:08Speaker 11

  I grew up on East 14th in Oakland, California.

• 38:15Speaker 11

  When I was like 20 years old, I got recruited to UCLA on a speech and debate scholarship, a partial scholarship. But nobody told me that partial scholarship loosely translated actually stands for not enough money. Yeah, I was suffering bad, bad. I was really excited when I first headed off for UCLA. I hopped on a plane.

• 38:45Speaker 11

  Landed in LA.

• 38:48Speaker 11

  Starry eyed and realized I didn't have nowhere to live.

• 38:54Speaker 11

  I hadn't quite thought that part out yet, right? So what I did was every day after class, I went to a different dorm room and I partied. Went to a different dorm room and partied every night, party, party, party. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:12Speaker 11

  Dancing white to fit in.

• 39:18Speaker 11

  Alright, how are you? How are you doing? How are you? How are you?

• 39:22Speaker 11

  And crashed in a different dorm room every night. But they caught on to me. So then I slept in the movie theater. And they caught on to me. So then, I got a brilliant idea. To sleep in the girls restroom at UCLA. They have those little couches, you know those little period couches? Those little, "It's my time of the month, you might back up, I might choke you" couches?

• 39:49Speaker 11

  I sleep in those. Now, the building where the speech team met had a lot of those couches. Kinsey Hall, built in 1929 with words of wisdom etched in stone over the doorway.

• 40:01Speaker 11

  But I never read it. So I sneak in there and sleep, but I never got good rest, because I didn't want anybody to walk in on me. So I kinda slept with one eye open all night, like...

• 40:13Speaker 11

  I didn't want some girl to walk in and say, "Suzanne, Suzanne, there's a negroid in the women's restroom." Alert the authorities, right? I knew I needed somewhere to live, I needed a job, so I went to the classifieds and I found an excellent opportunity. Seeking neat, clean college students to serve breakfast to the elderly in an upscale environment. Beverly Hills Hancock Park adjacent, the Kipling Hotel for your busy, friendly, happy retirement. I waited tables some up here in the bay, I'm like, "I gotta get this." I caught the bus over there. It was almost as if classical music was playing in my head. As I passed luscious lawns and stunning mansions. This was gonna be the next level of my life.

• 41:00Speaker 11

  We rode by a golf course, people waved at me, I was on the bus!

• 41:06Speaker 11

  But the bus went way, way past all that and I [BLEEP]. And I ended up in a nasty area with trash on the ground. Heard errant gunshots, "Paw pow, pow, pow pow pow, woo." Police helicopter.

• 41:24Speaker 11

  A little scroungy dog ran by, "Woof woof woof." Looked like he gave me the finger.

• 41:33Speaker 11

  How do you give the finger with a paw?

• 41:37Speaker 11

  I stepped off the bus, "Shh." And there was the Kipling, in all its non-fantasticness. I walked into the lobby, and I was immediately met by the scent of urine and log cabin syrup.

• 41:55Speaker 11

  Kinda nasty, but kinda sweet.

• 42:00Speaker 11

  I went through the interview, it went well, they told me they'd let me know. They did let me know, I got it. Serving breakfast to the elderly for room and board. Now, every day after you finish your shift, you had to kinda rush through the lobby, because the old folks would be camped out in the lobby, and they try to capture you with a long-ass boring story. The kind, the kind that destroys your soul. The kind that, while you're listening, you go, "Am I dying as I'm listening to this? Did you just reference Custer? How long have you been on the planet?"

• 42:32Speaker 11

  So you had to do this little move where you kinda jog through the lobby and point your watch, like, "I got things to do, I got things to do." But sometimes I just slowed down, and I got to know some of them. I got to know this one old guy named George. One day he was standing in the dining room. You know, kinda Catskills-type dining room with a green linoleum floor and cheap curtains that wanted to be much nicer.

• 42:59Speaker 11

  And George, standing there, five foot two with his little dead finger. He's like, "Don, Don, hold on just a second, I wanna talk to you for a second, Don, I wanna talk to you, I have a situation. And you're a smart guy, you serve me my breakfast each morning, I wanna know if you think what I'm thinking about doing is a good idea, okay, Don, okay? Look over here, okay? Look right there, that's my seat, every day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, everybody knows that that's my seat." But now there's this new guy, this new guy, an old guy, he just plops in my seat, he just plots, he plots in my seat. He's giving me the spiel, 'cause this guy, this guy's giving me the spiel, okay? "Okay, I'm thinking about doing something, I wanna know if you think it's a good idea, okay?" I'm thinking of going up behind him and stabbing him in the back of the head with a fork, you think that's a good idea? To stab him in the back of the head with a fork, you think, "Look at him, watch him, look at, watch the son of a... Watch him chew, watch him chew, watch him chew."

• 43:44Speaker 11

  I hate that guy. I'm too old for this, I'm 92 years old, okay? My wife died 25 years ago. Every night I say my prayers, I say, "Dear God, when I wake up, please, let me be dead." I wake up, damn it, still alive.

• 44:01Speaker 11

  So how are things going for you?

• 44:04Speaker 11

  I said, "It's going pretty good, George, but I'm having a hard time staying in school financially, and I really just wanna be a comedian." He said, "You could do that, you could go to school and be a comedian. You know, people can make it through anything, people can do anything, they're resilient, trust me." I've been through a lot, I've been through a lot.

• 44:26Speaker 11

  Let me tell you a story, Don, okay?

• 44:30Speaker 11

  I used to live, um, I used to live overseas.

• 44:36Speaker 11

  And, um, one day, they marched into our area and they say that we're gonna be prisoners of war. We're like, "Okay, we're gonna be prisoners of war, right?"

• 44:49Speaker 11

  But, what they did, Don, is they, they took us to this camp. And then they tell us that we're, um, we're just gonna be held.

• 45:04Speaker 11

  Don, you, um, you see these numbers on my arm right here?

• 45:11Speaker 11

  He pointed to some numbers tattooed on his forearm.

• 45:18Speaker 11

  They put those on me there.

• 45:21Speaker 11

  And so one day, a soldier walks in dressed in all black, and he says,

• 45:31Speaker 11

  "It's time to take a shower."

• 45:36Speaker 11

  Now, we knew some folks that headed off to these showers, we don't quite remember seeing them again, didn't know if they were transferred, confusing.

• 45:45Speaker 11

  But we changed clothes.

• 45:49Speaker 11

  We get in line, it's almost my group's turn to walk inside these showers.

• 46:00Speaker 11

  And allied soldiers, British, American, I don't know, they show up and pop, pop, pop! They shoot the guys in the black, pop, pop, pop! They shoot the SS guys in the black.

• 46:15Speaker 11

  And they freed us. And that's why you'll never hear me say an ill word about a soldier that's fighting for good. They try to say all soldiers are murderers, they're all killers, but sometimes, you gotta do that.

• 46:32Speaker 11

  Sometimes you gotta fight when someone's trying to wipe out your entire culture. You gotta fight.

• 46:42Speaker 11

  You better fight.

• 46:46Speaker 11

  You gotta fight, Don.

• 46:50Speaker 11

  But, um, you don't have time to listen to all that stuff.

• 46:56Speaker 11

  You're real busy and you got a lot to do.

• 47:02Speaker 11

  I said, "That's okay, George."

• 47:10Speaker 11

  He said, "Don, did I ever tell you I had a beautiful wife? She was beautiful."

• 47:22Speaker 11

  She had this song, well, I sing it to her. I sing this song to her, go, "Da, da, da, da, hold on, I got it, hold on."

• 47:32Speaker 11

  "You are the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world. You are beautiful girl."

• 47:44Speaker 11

  It's a short song, I made it up.

• 47:49Speaker 11

  But, Don, I tell you, I've lived a good life, I treat people well, I keep my word, that's a big thing, you gotta keep your word, you gotta keep your word, Don.

• 47:59Speaker 11

  But I've lived too damn long. 92 years old, every night I still say my prayers, "Dear God, when I wake up, let me be dead." I wake up, damn it, still here. And you know what, Don? You know what they still give me? I'm 92, you know what they still give me? My driver's license.

• 48:20Speaker 11

  You better watch out for me, I'll run you right down. I'll run you right down.

• 48:26Speaker 11

  I lived and worked at the Kipling for five years, serving breakfast to the elderly, and they served me stories. I left the Kipling, and things went very, very well for me. Many, many years later, I got a big project, working with a huge star. Her name rhymes with "mopra."

• 48:55Speaker 11

  I wanted to remember being hungry, because things were going so well, I wanted to remember being really hungry, so what I did, I swear to God, I went back to UCLA, to the very building where I used to sleep in the girls restroom. The very building. While standing outside, I looked up and I finally looked at those words of wisdom that were etched in stone over the doorway. They say, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true." It's a quote from a scientist, Faraday, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true."

• 49:30Speaker 11

  And guess what's etched in stone? Over the doorway of the Kipling Hotel.

• 49:40Speaker 11

  Not that. I think it scratched me with a butcher knife, it says something like, "Lick my nuts," or something like that. But, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true." It could be my old buddy George, who grew to 92 and beat the Nazis, he beat the Nazis. And finally, happily, woke up dead. Or, it could be me, who grew up in Oakland, headed off to college, was homeless for a while but battled through, and ended up here with you on this wonderful night. Or, something like that.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Don Reed, that story was performed at Snap Judgment Live in San Francisco by Don Reed. Music performed by the Snap Judgment Players, Alex Mandel, David Brandt, and Tim Frick. See the full video of this performance in all its technicolor glory, along with countless other amazing performances of Snap, on our YouTube channel, Snap Judgment Films.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  There and back again, that is what it's all about, and you know what's better than hearing a story? Giving a story. And you can give the gift of story by sending your friends and your enemies a little taste of the Snap Judgment Podcast. They will love it, I promise. But I mentioned Snap Judgment's evil twin show, Spook, it's available everywhere. Snap is brought to you by the team that never takes their friends for granted, except for the Uber producer, Mr. Mark Listich. He actually lets my phone calls, my phone calls, go directly to voicemail. It's outrageous.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  There's Stacy Lopez, Pat LaCuny Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Giorio, John Facio, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Marissa Dodge, Bo Walsh, David Exame, Regina Berriello. And this, this is not the news, no way it's the news. In fact, you could travel all over a country you've never been to before, loudly debating the country's history with a person just as ignorant as you are, and you would still, still, not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is P-R-Y.