The Genius 2000 Video First Edition Transcript: Koros
Scene 1: Koros
Narrator: A false sense of security.
Scene 2: Entrance to the Mall of America.
Max: I'm not far back enough. I don't care though. All right. (Entering the Mall.)
Scene 3: Shot of pedestrians in Mall.
Scene 4: Half-pipe inside mall; shot of a mannequin on a skateboard.
Max: There's dude, kickin' it, whoo, whassup! (Shot of mannequin on bmx bike.) Check this dude out.
Jon Olson: (Inaudible.)
Scene 5: Approaching portrait kiosk.
Max: Yes! What's up Li.
Eli Anthony: What's up Max. (Shot of sample portraits.)
Max: What can I look at here?
Eli: Well you can look at some of the samples there, of the art.
Max: Did you do any of these?
Eli: Ah, no. I'll show you what I did.
Max: Okay. These are kind of ah, these are kinda deep dude.
Eli: Deep?
Max: That dude's doin' a picture of Jesus, right?
Eli: Yeah.
Max: I like that one Jon, don't you?
Jon: Which one?
Max: Ah, this one.
Jon: Yeah. These the ones he did?
Max: There's Jesus.
Jon: Jesus of Nazareth. (Cut to Eli's pictures.)
Eli: Dog.
Max: You did these?
Eli: Yeah.
Max: This one's awesome dude.
Eli: That's not bad.
Max: I love the dog.
Eli: The dog's pretty cool.
Max: Looks good on video dude.
Eli: Yeah I'm--this is ah, that one's mine too.
Max: Nice ah, modeling here dude. You know what I'm saying?
Eli: Yeah.
Scene 6: Ted Sawyer at Christmas party.
Max: --In human beings.
Ted: So all human beings essentially, have potential genius-energy, like rest energy.
Max: Like cognition, I mean ah, everyone has cognitive faculties. You know? I mean, for me, genius and cognition slash perception are kinda the same thing. And everyone has faculties for cognition and perception, but they're not always using 'em. You know, it's possible for them sometimes not to use them, whether it's by, you know, limiting their environment in a really severe manner, or, using some kind of drugs, or some kind of, you know, learned thought-patterns that are like really really restricting, and, you know, limiting to the, kinda the--
Ted: I mean, I think any habit can become restrictive, and limiting, you know, even if it's essentially a positive force in your life--
Max: Yeah, I mean we're animals, like we can be trained and stuff. Go to that one?
Ted: "Lesson Two. Christianity is a battle in the discussion of media control; Crucifixion is an act of protest demanding access; the Second Coming is god's final messenger; God is the ineffable union of history and individual cognition: Genius 2000." So--is this true just of Christianity?
Max: Well, I'm kinda like--I don't know, what do you mean?
Ted: Well, I'm just not sure if I know what all this means, I guess.
Max: Well it, it's kinda--
Ted: For one I'm surprised to see, ah, I mean I understand from a, from a historical perspective what you're talking about, but I don't know to what extent you see these as real events; the Second Coming, crucifixion, Christianity....
Scene 7: Shot of url http://c5.sjsu.edu/index.html
Narrator: Genius 2000 is a chaos-based, data-mapping algorithm.
Scene 8: Shot of Max in his apartment.
Max: Um, so Constantine realized that he would have more trouble governing the decrepit Roman Empire without Christianity than he would have with Christianity. He saw the sun--he worshipped the sun god, and the sun god is like the wisdom-god or the knowledge-god or whatever, and he realized that, that at that time, wisdom and knowledge were sort of overlaid by this template of the cross. It's like, that's, that was where it was at, at that time, you know? There was something about that that had an energy to it, that drew people in.
Scene 9: Alan Hooper in his office.
Hooper: --be spontaneous aspects, and, um, imperfections. You, you, don't expect everything to be in its place--(cut ahead)--Look, is this right? Does this really feel right, what I'm doing, and therefore what we are doing? And then take a little extra step. After all--(Max laughing)--the year 2000 only comes around every 2000 years. Here's your chance folks--
Max: You know--
Hooper: Do something, a little out of the ordinary.
Scene 10: Max with headphones, reading from Thich Naht Hahn's Zen Keys.
Narrator: ‘The kung-an and its function. The chinese word "kung-an" means "official or juridical document; a document of official value." Instead of kung-an, sometimes one uses the words ko-tac or teui-dao, which mean respectively, "classical formats" and "the essence of a conversation."’
Scene 11: Dinner party in southern Minnesota. People conversing.
Charlotte Herman: Oh my goodness, is that Mike's--
Max: (Max stands up, ringing glass with knife) Alright everybody um, I'm kinda wasting film here, so ah--
Guest: All right then.
Max: I'll just start my, um, story; I, I don't want, ah, you know, other people to miss their turn to tell the story, so ah, I just, um, I wanted to, um, tell my story first off about how ah, Mike, one time he told me, that when ah, we, I was was little boy, I was three years old, he said I came to visit 'em, and he said that we, ah, just had a conversation, and we--it was at the other place, I think out in, ah, Maplewood, or near there, and--
Guest: Maple Grove--
Max: We walked down to the lake, and there was a lake, and, you know, we just had a conversation--
Mike Mikkelsen: Potter's Pond. (Group laughter.)
Max: Yeah. Potter's Pond, and ah, and anyway, you know, I took that as kind of inspirational because I felt like it was ah, you know, it's a nice thing you hear about yourself, and it's kind of interesting, you know, whatever. And ah, so anyway, I was gonna tell my story about how, ah, we were drivin' up here tonight, um, and we started talkin' about Robert Pirsig who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Guest: Hmm mm.
Max: And, you know, it's just chit-chat, we've discussed it, oh, time and time again, but, um, we basically got down to the situation where we were talkin' about intelligence, and what good does it do you? What good does it do you to be smart, and intelligent. And, um, Dad--
Scene 12: Al's Breakfast with Carah and Charlotte Herman eating.
Charlotte: Oh, you know when you were out the other night there was a program on genius on channel two?
Max: Really?
Charlotte: It was so interesting. Yeah.
Max: What was it--
Charlotte: You've got to show us how to tape, Max.
Max: Who ran it?
Charlotte: It was on channel two.
Max: It was about genius?
Charlotte: Hmm mm.
Max: What do you mean? Like a genius?
Carah: Someone else was saying they saw something like that--
Charlotte: No. It was about--
Max: What it means to be a genius?
Charlotte: --the concept of genius. Mmm hmm.
Max: The concept of genius. Now isn't that what I, what I was talking about?
Carah: Yeah.
Charlotte: Um, but they also--
Carah: Someone else was saying they saw something like that.
Max: Don't tell me the show was called Genius 2000.
Charlotte: No. (Laughs.)
Max: 'Cause I'll be out of business.
Charlotte: You'll be sued.
Max: I'll be S.O.L.
Charlotte: But it talked about the different areas of genius, as defined sort of academically, (inaudible)--
Carah: Somebody else saw something about genius--
Charlotte: So, they, they divided it into cat--in eleven categories, and there was, oh, mathematical, linguistic, musical, athletic, um, sort of inspiring the masses as a form of genius--
Max: Yeah, that's what I'm good at.
Charlotte: And that--we hope.
Max: No, I'm, I'm pretty good at that Mom. (Cut ahead)
Charlotte: Well, that's the point. And they said that most often, genius is defined historically, so that many geniuses in their lifetimes aren't recognized, like Van Gogh for instance.
Scene 13: Alan Hooper, in his office.
Hooper: Now this--the problem I have with genius is as it is sometimes applied to an individual; that is, this guy is a genius, therefore--this person is a genius, he or she knows, is wiser than anyone else, and therefore everyone else is certainly less wise and probably dumb. And therefore we should listen more to the "the geniuses." Um, first thing to think about is that ah, the people who are anointed as a genius, um, that's a, that's a selection. They have to fit a certain mold, and it's usually the mold established by the major culture, or economy. So it's the major political unit; it's, in our days, it's the people that control publishing; ah, so it's the economy. It's the, it's the majority-styled economy that's going to say "we anoint these people geniuses, and one of the things about them, by the way, is, is that they are tending to talk about the things, from a perspective we agree with. Those other people, who are pretty smart, but they're, they are way off the wall. Those aren't really geniuses, you see." You're the anointed geniuses; now this includes university professors of course.
Scene 14: San Francisco club, the morning of January 1, 1999
Woman: --Great--
Max: Now we're taping.
Woman: --that you have a camera because, I was thinking, how am I going to spread myself around and make everybody in the world happy? There's only one me. That's fucked up.
Friend: Now there's a videocamera--
Woman: But now there's a video camera, and technology, I mean, God knows what could happen. I mean, world peace, fuckin', I mean the human race--it's endless possibilities. Right or wrong?
Friend: Right. (They kiss and give the camera the finger.) No pictures!
Woman: Questions? Anything? Anything?
Friend: Dude, you can not be filming us right now. I'm not into being filmed right now--(Max hands Genius 2000 cards to Woman.)
Woman: (Holding the cards under her chin) I'm a genius. Genius 2000. Two and two right back atcha.
Friend: Please, dahling--
Scene 15: Max being interviewed by Tim Sawyer Jr. at a Christmas party, 1998. He sits in a large stuffed chair with a fireplace in the background.
Max: Well it's kinda like conceptual art, and I think conceptual artists, ah, are sorta trying to work with the material of ah, um, like perception maybe, but that's not really--I don't, it doesn't sound like a good answer. When I--'cause when you ask me about motivation I think about greed.
Tim: Mmm hmm. Well what are your, what are your reasons for doing this that don't have anything to do with greed? Are you interested in art?
Max: Yeah, I like art a lot, ah, and I think it's um, sort of a battered institution. You know, it's being torn apart by scavenging forces like Nike, and ah, Microsoft, and all my favorite songs are showing up on commercials, ah, I think Michelangelo is sort of a poster boy for, ah--
Tim: Apple Computers.
Max: Sort of the web--the web as culture; and ah, I like rock and roll so I like the kinda in-your-face, ah, you know, exuberance of um, you know, mere self-assertion, and um--
Tim: Kind of like Camille Paglia or the Rolling Stones, or--
Max: Yeah.
Tim: Something like that?
Max: Yeah, I, I like ah--
Tim: Self-promotion, Norman Mailer--
Max: Yeah, I mean the whole thing is the nov--history as the novel, the novel as history, and advertisement for myself, I mean those, you can add those together and, um--
Tim: Sounds like--
Max: What, I, I'm looking, I--in a way I'm looking for, I think what a lot of artists are looking for, although they couch it, and they kind of camoflage it, they couch it in different terms, is you know, I--I'm sort of looking for a, a community of sorts, you know, a world of sorts. Um, and I'm kinda trying to articulate the um, you know, like the covenant, you know, like for some little colony, ah, you know, not--not like geographical colony, but you know just a mood or whatever, you know, like the Bloom--Bloomberg or whatever you call it--
Tim: What kind of people would be in your community?
Max: Well, I think artists have a pretty strong um, marketing, ah, responsibility now, um, because culture is primarily, ah, created through the market and people live in a world that's, you know, built around the market, so um--
Scene 16: Man on street in Berkeley, standing in front of a mural of fish.
Man: --And what do I think about the year 2000? Um, I think, I don't know, to me it's kinda just another year, it doesn't really have any bearing on how I'm living my life or how I plan to live my life at the time. It seems like there are a lot of people who think that it's going to be a time of great change, or disaster, or catastrophe, but personally I think it's just gonna be another year and a lot of people are going to be really disappointed.
Max: Ah, do you think it could be like a really huge event though?
Man: I think it will be. I think it will be kind of a ah, I think, I think people have a pretty strong connection to numbers, and I think it will be kind of a cathartic experience for people to feel that they've gotten through this century, where so much has happened and, and started the next one, you know. It, it may be a time when philosophy and, and intellect and thought will have a great rebirth.
Max: What do you think about like the Second Coming you know, all that mythology? I, I assume you don't believe in it but--I mean I don't.
Man: Well I have a hard time thinking that any sort of event of that magnitude would be honed into a particular date.
Max: Uh huh?
Man: It just seems like it would--I don't know, the world--everything seems too chaotic to be, to be dependent upon this one time that was based on a date that no one really, that was just a guess anyway, you know. How do I know Christ was born at that time? That could be just some yutz saying that in a book and it's wrong.
Max: Right. 'Cause I sorta think that like it's definitely possible that ah, some kind of something could happen. And not to say that it would be like anything supernatural, more like just a sort of a general mood among people, like something really could be different, you know.
Man: Well I can see that--
Max: I don't know what exactly it would be but it could be something.
Man: I think there's an expectation, in a lot of people, even I guess myself to a degree, that something could happen, and usually when people are looking for something they're gonna find it.
Max: Yeah.
Man: So, there may be a perception of that, and--
Max: It won't be from external, it won't be from like a cosmic event--
Man: No, I don't see, I don't see you know, a Messiah rising up from the ocean to damn and save us, and I don't see--
Scene 17: Bar in Berkeley.
Man: Ah, in my belief what it takes to be a genius is an acceptance of a certain inherent paradox: the fact that you need belief--(Max turns on camera light)
Max: Is that too irritating?
Man: Oh wow, no that's cool, go for it. You need belief--
Max: Man, it looks bad. (Turns light off.)
Man: Okay, better? You need belief in yourself to become a genius or realize your full potential as (switch to night vision) a quote "genius." But at the same time, in our culture, belief has been proven to be the crutch of fools, of, a way of leading the sheep, into, you know, whatever, you know, consumerism, or whatever dominant paradigm is out there. So, the real--really the only key to being a genius is the constant urge to learn, the constant urge to realize that you're a fool, that you know nothing, and that you've got to keep moving. It's the only chance that you're ever gonna have to achieve it. Um, whether I have it or not I have no fucking idea. But, um, it takes a shitload of fuckin' strength, I'll tell you that, especially with this entire world aimed at shuffling you into those boxes of production and consumerism and so forth, that it feels necessary.
Scene 18: Max behind bar with camera. "Where Does it Come Down" playing in the background. (A Max Herman original written immediately after Mark McGuire's 62nd home run of the 1998 baseball season.)
Max: This is turning out just how I wanted it. (Shot of Lesson Two on bar with a dollar bill.) You know what money--you know what money is for? Money is made to inspire us. "Wanna tell you one thing I heard." Here, listen to this, see if you can hear the lyrics. "I don't know if I can believe a word; they'll tell you that there's a time and a place where you gotta make your mark and you gotta save face--"
Bar guest: Money's god. "Well I ain't ever seen it yet--"
Second guest: This is the guy who does the commodities. "I ain't even smelled it, no, no, but I know that it's out there son, I'm gonna get it right, I'm gonna get it right now." (Max turns the camera in a long close-up of First guest's face.) "Where does it come down; where does it come down--"
Second guest: You got a smoke? "Where does it come down."
First guest: What's up Max. (Staring into camera.)
Scene 19: Max and some young children in the warming house at Bryant Park, Minneapolis. Pat is taping.
Pat: Say hello. (Girl mouths the word "hello.") How are ya? (Girl says "fine," barely audible.)
Max: I'm good. My game went pretty good.
Pat: Allright, good. How'd your game go?
Max: Oh, you weren't even talkin' to me. (Laughs.) Sorry. My bad.
Pat: (To other girl) Hi. How are you? (Girl waves, says "good.")
Max: Get that ah, get that painting over there dude.
Pat: There's the painting. (Shot of a painting on wall.)
Scene 20: Pat at a table in coffee shop, holding a card up to camera. The card reads "The Genius 2000 Project, Interactive Multimedia Art and Events, www.geocities.com/~genius-2000, [email protected].)
Max: Zoom in on it. (Shot of card.) Allright. Okay here, ah, he says ah, he predicts a resurgence of compassion. Do you think that's kinda wishful thinking?
Pat: Yeah.
Max: I mean--
Pat: Well, it's kind of ah, probably ah, self-serving. I've got a feeling he's probably of the baby-boom generation, and they love to kinda view themselves that way--
Max: Right--
Pat: Perhaps, maybe.
Max: 'Cause--
Pat: That's kinda--but you never know, maybe it's true.
Max: Compassion? I mean he says he's a trend guru, so compassion will be a trend?
Pat: He maybe is hoping for ah, a self-fulfilling prophecy--
Max: Yeah--
Pat: Um, but whether people are--well, I don't know.
Max: Maybe, maybe he's just sayin' that so people will listen to him.
Pat: Maybe the trend is like to talk about how people are getting compassionate. But I don't, maybe, you never know. I mean--
Scene 21: Hooper in his office.
Hooper: You know, the--getting back to the second coming and the savior. Um, it's logical to ask what is this savior going to save us from? And I think for most people, it's hopelessness, isn't it? I mean, you have, you have this pyramidal society, and the, the people at the bottom, some of whom are just desperately, it's a desperately low bottom, it means they're facing death or death of their loved ones as a very common experience; um, in a sense, if they are cons--if they are always aware of that reality, they'll, they'll go crazy. They'll be insane. How can you live, if you know that your life is hopeless?
Max: All animals that ah, are made captive act out obsessive behavior.
Hooper: Sure. Yeah. And part of that is just despair. Um, so what you find the media doing is, is two things. It simultaneously, through, through ah, dramatics, reinforcing a mythology that says some people are inherently capable of being only, of being at the top to this pyramid, and some people are inherently capable of being at the bottom. We are sorry about the latter, but there's nothing that can be done about it. So the other job the media has, in addition to saying that, is to try to make it easier for them by providing entertainment. I guess that's a very simple way of expressing it.
Scene 22: Max reading. (From the Gospel of Thomas.)
Max: "When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty."
Scene 23: Woman in loud bar.
Woman: When I first thought about the question, I thought from a kind of elitist point of view; like geniuses either produce great works of art, geniuses produce great music. But I think we don't count for like genius in smaller ways, like maybe a carpenter's innate ability to see a piece of wood and say "oh that's six feet long" without measuring. We don't count for like genius in what people do every day. Sometimes people have these amazing inherent talents that we just don't give credit to. And so I think, I think having a type of view that you have to leave the system to be a genius is very elitist, and doesn't help for like the everyday person, but--
Friend: Supply and demand of genius.
Woman: Yeah, but I don't think you have to leave they system to be a genius. You can work within and find it in small ways.
Scene 24: Tim Sawyer Jr. and Jeff Jenkins at Christmas party.
Tim: I had the whole world in my hand.
Max: Hey, ah, do you think this room kinda looks like Stanley Kubrick-ish?
Ted: This room?
Tim: (Takes a drag off imaginary cigarette) I am an artiste.
Scene 25: Ted Sawyer and others at Christmas party.
Max: --But like ah, I think when they first started with monotheism, this is where I was kinda tryin' to bring it all around, is that ah, you couldn't say the name of God--
Tim Sr.: Can we have a time out by any chance? We're trying to close down the house for the evening--
Ted: Damn! Just when we were getting into the grand unification theory of monotheism and how it relates to marketing?
Guest: And Nike is like the pinnacle--
Tim Sr.: I write marketing.
Jeff: Just say Michael Jordan.
Tim Sr.: I am a marketing writer among my other duties.
Ted: You have to write about marketing?
Tim Sr.: No, I don't write about marketing, I do marketing newsletters for our portfolio.
Ted: Omigod.
Max: So Ted you didn't give me your answer.
Ted: About what?
Max: Well I wanted to get you to go on the record as to whether, um, you feel that ah, that to have the word like "Yahweh," remember--
Ted: Yeah.
Max: You couldn't say it, you could only write it. Yeah. You could only write like "YW, YHWH." And it was like the unspeakable word, you couldn't speak the word of God. Because they wanted your associations to be totally like on fire, you didn't want to reduce it down to a word. So I think basically monotheism was based on a marketing concept.
Guest: Yeah--
Max: And that's, and because they used the new media of the written word to be the most effective marketing tool for like the human mind, and like, you know, what it can do, things like that. So they're trying to organize your thoughts by giving you this weird mysterious symbol that you will think about and struggle with and so forth. But it's basically marketing.
Ted: Have you ever read "The City of Glass"? By Paul Auster? It's about that. But I think you're right--in part.
Scene 26: Max and Rick driving across Bay Bridge, night.
Max: I'm making the deadliest movie ever in history bro.
Rick: Yeah?
Max: It's the deadliest. It's the baddest.
Rick: How's that? I mean, how deadly can that shit be, I mean really though.
Max: Man, fucking deadly. Over. Fuckin' over man. Over. Year 2000 motherfucker! Year, fuckin' year 2000 man! Fuck that shit!
Rick: Ain't a damn thing stoppin'.
Max: You know all the fuckin' writers of the twentieth century were writing about me?
Rick: Are you the incarnation?
Max: They were writing about me doing this. They're the fuckin' prophets man, put 'em in a Bible, the new Bible, that I'm writing. That's all I'm sayin' man. Fuck it.
Rick: How loaded are you Max?
Max: I'm the--it's fuckin' over man, fuck it. Dude man, I fuckin'--
Rick: I'm getting good footage of you.
Max: Let me go off on a monologue dude. Where you can get the audio.
Rick: I got you.
Max: I'm the fuckin' baddest. It's the baddest man, it's the best--
Rick: When you see him, execute him.
Max: It's the baddest motherfuckin' thing! And you know what? You know what man? Fuckin' people figured it out before the year 2000. They figured it out before the year 1999 came. So they can think about 1999 while they're fuckin' in 1999 man.
Rick: I used to watch this program called "Space 1999," and that shit used to be hella crazy, and I used to trip about the year 2000 comin', and think that that shit would really be like the shit like spaceships and futuristic shit, but here it is, right on the horizon, and I'm thinkin' that all the covert shit they have, like Area 51, the government keeps that to themselves and shit and we as a populace we'll never see that unless there's a total revolution as we see it--
Max: Hey man, let me add, let me add somethin' in bro.
Rick: --Against the powers that be. Because I mean shit! I mean really though, I mean, the only thing we have about the year 2000 is a lot of medical shit, and the internet. But all the real shit, like the aircrafts--
Max: Oh dude, we got the internet! We got the internet man! That's what it is! (Pointing to camera.)
Rick: But there's got to be more to it than that though. There's got to be more to it than that.
Max: No! That's the internet! That is the fuckin' internet man--
End of Koros Section
Copyright 1999 the Genius 2000 Project
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