Last week, a reader, who refers to himself as Tarl Cabot, and was recently released from a corrections facility in the Western United States, contacted me with some ideas for the site. He was miffed at being incarcerated for smoking pot and growing a few plants of his own. He had some feedback for me concerning my nonfiction work, which quickly became a tangent.

“If it comes from the mind they don’t want it; Oprah won’t get behind it. I’m crashing with two Iraqi war vets who are all messed up from killing people to keep the world safe for rich bastards who don’t want me to be able to get high. My one roommate killed nine people—he was a sniper, with three purple hearts. Now, that he’s back here, and haunted by what he’s been through he can’t even get medical treatment. So man, I’ve had it with this sick government and its sick rules. But nobody will listen, not unless I sit in my cardboard box and write my thoughts in my own blood with a plastic fork.”

Tarl and I had a pretty involved discussion about the viability of being a blood-writing homeless box prophet. I eventually offered him an outlet here for his well-considered angst, as opposed to writing in his blood with a plastic fork on the wall of his recyclable home, and then have to deal with the logistics of folding the thing up and mailing it to Oprah without ruining the script. The conversation ended on a high note.

A week later [this past Saturday 1/4/14] I received the following text from Tarl Cabot:

“…For an abundance of wisdom brings an abundance of frustration. So whoever increases knowledge increases pain…”

I have had dealings with five Baltimore area bus prophets. Tarl strikes me as much more of a philosopher. But since Tarl is texting his wisdom to me I’m inclined to wonder if he might just be the next W.D. Fard, only by way of Amsterdam rather than Afghanistan.

If Tarl Cabot texts it to me, I will post it on my blog.