While wandering around Union Station in DC yesterday, looking for where to pick up my will-call Amtrak ticket, a strange man approached me with some kind of story about him and his wife being stuck, and the police not helping them, and some kind of elaborate claptrap about something or other and a forlorn look on his face. I ended up giving him three dollars and wishing him luck. I don’t always give people like this money. In fact, it’s pretty uncommon. Although, actually, now that I think of it, I did it one other time during my trip as well.

Anyway, I forget who told me this, but it’s a philosophy that I sometimes like to adopt. That if somebody is in a situation in their life where they feel like they need to go up to strangers and beg for money, well then there’s a good chance that they really do need that money. Shit, maybe they don’t “need” it; maybe they’ll blow it on something retarded or bad for them. That’s not really the point, and I think it’s kind of dumb to try to live somebody else’s life for them.

Like I said, I don’t just give money to everybody who comes along though. Basically I just do it completely on gut reaction. I’ll pretty much only do it for people who strike some kind of chord. And it really never has anything to do with what they are saying.

On a semi-similar note, I received basically the equivalent of an unsolicited press release from a woman who teaches Advanced Film Composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Her name is Ruth Mendelson, and I basically don’t know anything else about her except that she put together some kind of CD about jellyfish and healing, or something along those lines. Frankly, I don’t know what it’s all about, but she claims that people are using it for like pain reduction and some kind of healing and other stuff. I don’t know.

The point I’m trying to make is that I can’t vouch for this really, but since she asked for a plug, why not? It doesn’t really take anything out of my life and maybe it will help her out somehow.