Five Dollar Man

2009-02-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

Location: Silverlake

Attraction: Local celebrity at the Sunset Junction. He is shirtless, boisterous and boundless.

PP: What is your name?

$5: I'm the Five Dollar Guy.

PP: Age?

$5: Umm my age, i'd better not say, some people think i'm older.

PP: What age do you want to be?
$5: I'm 19.

PP: What's your dog's name?
$5: Oprah, like the talk show host, i would've named her Tyra, but she would've gotten Tyra'd of that!

PP: Why are you in Silver Lake right now?

$5: I'm trapped in a vortex. It's like this weird like, like magnetic force that i can't get away from.

PP: What brought you to LA?

$5: The weather.

PP: Where are you originally from?

$5: Chicago.

PP: When did you get here?

$5: Umm, 31 years ago...but i'm still 19!

PP: How do you want to be viewed by others?

$5: Well, I'm often mistaken for someone else. That's why the Police pull me over alot, it's profiling, they think I'm a pimp, but I'm not.

Well, basically how i feel about it is if they're telling lies or false stuff it's good. But when they stop talking about me, it's bad. Whether it's good or bad, as long as they're talking about me, that's all that matters.

PP: What’s your favorite hotspot/place you go? Why?

$5: Uhh...hotspot? The Booty! No it would have to be umm, hmm i guess it would be West Hollywood.

PP: Why?

$5: Because it's got the Booty! I'm on the neighborhood booty watch sooo..

PP: What do you think makes a good person?

$5: Well if they got the booty, and the nice face, then they're in the club! No, uh a nice person comes from being abused many years and then having the insight not to abuse your kids.

PP: What’s your passion?

$5: Goodwill. Oh, Salvation Army too, definitely-It's the ghetto look. Pimp Daddy Ghetto Look.

PP: Why is the world the way it is?

$5: Because it's round. and the problem with it being round is that what goes around, comes around, and then it goes around again, and it comes around again. It's always going 'round, and 'round and 'round and 'round, and that's why we catch things because it's always going around.

If the world were square then people would be hip. [singing and dancing] "Because it's hip to be square"

Because if you look at things, everything is round. It's really weird… If you look at molecules through a microscope, they're round, and the molecules in a proton are going around (we lost him at this point). The blood is going around in your head which is also round, and we're going around the world which is going around the planets which is going [exaggerated mumbling]

PP: Do you think that's just coincidence?

$5: Well i don't know, but in a round-a-bout way, just to 'round it off. It's kinda weird. But i'm gonna roll with it, because that's also round.

PP: What’s your favorite animal?

$5: Well in my other life I was a dog, I went to a reincarnationist. She told me I was a dog, see I have this lump on my neck, see, touch it [barks loudly]. No, I would have to say my favorite animal is a Bangle Tiger. A Bengal Tiger is majestic, beautiful, and very very awesome. There's just no way to describe it, when it jumps out of your cage it can kill you.

(Elaborates on a story about a group of kids who made millions because a Bangle Tiger killed one of their friends)

PP: What’s bigger than the universe?

$5: God.

PP: So you believe in God, what role do you believe God plays in the world today?

$5: I think umm, God's on vacation right now. He took off, he went somewhere else, and when He left, the devil came in and started doing his work, but the forces of God...You see everything that's good, is of God. Everything that's bad is the Devil. So let's just say that the Devil has an amusement park and God has an amusement Park.

Well in the Devil's amusement park, people would just be dying to get in, they would have free alchohol and rides you would get killed on.

In God's amusement park there would only be soda and cotton candy and rides that no one would get killed on.

Yeah, so, so yeah.

PP: Which Amusement Park do you want to be in?

$5: Well there's alot of good and bad, but there's only one bad thing about good, you know what that is?

Too much of good thing is bad. So naturally, the Devil's Club.

PP: Who was your first crush? What happened?

$5: Neil Morphite, he was a basketball player, he was soo cute, oh my god, i saw him in the shower and i almost died. I used to go by his locker room between classes just to see him.

PP: So, you believe in reincarnation?

$5: Ya.

PP: But you believe in Jesus too?

$5: Uhh, yeah. Sometimes.

PP: Sometimes you believe in Jesus?

$5: I'm a cross dresser. So...

PP: So What?

$5: Well i mean i think we're all here to do something good, and umm the one with the most pyrotechnics will be remembered, because i mean look at Hitler he did alot of bad, but he was a good person.

PP: How is that?

$5: Have you seen his artwork? He was an accomplished artist!

He wasn't even from Germany, he moved to germany and took over and then almost conquered the world. Same thing with Napoleon Bonaparte. But the reason i think Hitler was a good person is because if it wasn't for Hitler i wouldn't be here.

PP: What do you mean by that?

$5: My dad was married to this lady in Boston, MA, and when Hitler declared war he was a paratrooper to England. Where he met my mother in a bar, and he knocked her up and badda-bing badda-boom. So if my father never went to England, i might be sitting in an english pub right now talking like this (in a british accent).

And so if it weren't for Hitler i wouldn't be here, and that's why he's my mentor.

PP: You said everyone was on the earth to do something good, what is your "good thing" to contribute to the world?

$5: Basically, i'm doing everything backwards. I retired young, i'll work old. So when i get old, i'm gonna get a job.

I kick back, i walk my dog, i go to the beach.

PP: So what job do you want when you're older?

$5: Oh you know, just like flipping burgers or something.

(Goes on about modern society being workaholics with no lives and hummers)

PP: Okay, we're going to say 3 words and we want you to tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.

$5: Word association. Ok!

PP: Love.

$5: Hate.

PP: Money.

$5: Something weird, like evil.

PP: Sacrifice.

$5: Jesus.

Parti Pris

Five Dollar Man