A few years ago the studio gave me a car and a driver to get around in while we were shooting Midnight Run, because it was a brand new sports car, I wanted to try it myself and told the driver to stand down, I drove the car around LA and soon ran out of gas, Only to discover that not only did I not know how to put gas in the car, didn’t even know where the gas lid was on the auto. I was so deep into my ‘Yaphet Kotto’ mode of existence I had forgotten how to get around in a supermarket; I had allowed assistants, secretaries and security people to get so deep into surrounding me in a gilded protective cage I had lost completer contact with reality. So when some suggest that there’s certain things I could have done to prevent what happened at the Hong Kong terminal, I can only answer thank you for the advice, but its advice that goes without saying. Today I live a balanced life, I try to do a lot of things myself but there are some things I cannot do. I have to get to where I’m going not stand around signing autographes trying to cross the street. The point is all the arrangement were made by my secretary and Jill Bronson to get where I was going, but after you talk to airline reps it’s out of their hands. My experience at the Hong Kong terminal the other day was a comment that might be said about practically everywhere these days. There seems to be a coldness and selfish attitude in the public. Many people, not everyone seems to be in attack mode...”Just us four and no more” attitudes. Many places you go, hostility, anger, bitterness, coldness. People seem to get off on having others have disaster and trouble their way, almost welcome it, and love dishing out hate. .Possibly in some places people may be like this, but I dont think this is the case everywhere...Sometimes it is our own perception and just what we choose to see in others...I am beginning to think it’s because we have too much information these days that we don’t know what to do with it. Many of the people who did not answer me at the airport I felt sorry for because they are dealing with thousands of people each day, so I wasn’t angry with them, I in fact felt sorry for them. Because they too are human beings like myself and they too are affected by the news, internet, books, newspapers, we all absorb a certain amount and we are, affected, how we think, how we feel, and behaves...Many times we don’t not even know we are angry, or why we are, or what we are angry about. And we explode. I am into the third act of my human performance as Yaphet Kotto, and I would not want to be trying to get somewhere as a young person today, just with all the pressure Madison avenue puts on them, the government, the television, the advertising, making us feel there’s something we don’t have, that we need to get, the expectations of education that parents and teachers, and society really has for everyone..Its almost like, there’s an invisible force saying there’s no reason for you not to be educated or not know what’s happening anymore. This pressure is not fair, especially for the younger generations, it is not fair to them at all...When I’m on the road, I get to meet a lot of young people who have seen my films and know my work and man there are a lot of angry young people out there. In my youth there was boo bullying, or fear of hostage taking in the catholic schools I went to as a child, I never experienced racism and I went to all white catholic schools, Saint Augustine, Holy Cross, Saint Anthony of Padua, James Monroe the one public school I had to quit to go to work and the three white kids who ran outside the school and begged me not to quit, saying at least get your diploma, you need it for your future racism. It may be this was in fact happening when I was young, but we never had any access, like we do today, to all of the information and news, that we most all have, and all around the world...What we did know that so many of our uncles and cousins and brothers were being killed in the war…How many wars can each of our generations take...road rage, airport terminal rage, lack of patience rage. I stood in hotel in Toronto one day and watched the traffic during mid day; I watched at mid night and checked on it in the morning. They same amount of a traffic jam cold are seen day and night…where are all those cars going day and night, milllions of automobiles, in every city, every town...where are we all going? And when we get there will we take it out whatever’s bothering us on others...I hope not…we’re all in the same boa…t will I go through Hong Kong airport again…Yes indeed…There’s no way will I permit delusion to win…well, these statements are just my opinion…have a good day guys, take care of yourselves, I love you all...
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 00:06:57 +0000
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