Xenos

[Applause] yeah well thanks a lot I had no idea why I was invited because this is about food and I don't know anything about food else then if you eat something it and it doesn't get up again it hasn't done you any harm and he says no but it's about guts and I said yeah guts entrails I don't know anything about entrails and he said no guts like courage and I'm like yeah and he said yeah guts like the courage to be honest and I was like okay let's talk about that and then when we talk about the C of being honest I don't mean you know like just saying speaking out like like oh you're ugly you got a big nose this tastes like [ __ ] that's not being honest that's being rude and disrespectful and and we have a saying you know you should hear honesty from from uh children and and and drunkards but but that's not honesty I mean when you wake up the day after with with moral you know what have I done you you haven't been honest you've just been stupid that's that's not being honest but when you talk about the cour of being honest it's being honest to true to yourself and true to your your ideals and your Ambitions and and really not just keep just holding on to them and when we talk about death I mean and food I mean there's no food suffices but the food of death and and I'll try and and tell you a little story about a guy called cenus I met but we have to have a prologue and I have to to be very quick about it uh you see I I was born a long time ago on a small Danish Island in 1960 and I mean when it it was so empty there there was nothing it it was a little village when the sun got down when the sun went down you got your eyes picked out that's how dark it was there and in that Darkness I Heard a Voice singing father sha that was the voice of my mother and she happened to be German which is a very bad idea dear you know and I grew up understanding that I was the German swine she was hitless [ __ ] and and I was greeted with C Kyle and I was a bastard now now the thing I had was of course the language and I had my grand grandmother in Germany in Frankfurt where the German poets waited for me I had to learn to read Gothic letters to read them and and there I read the German Romantics and when I went home I went through the fields of of of sugar beads and reciting German poets in the darkness and I remember when I was about 13 years old I was down in Frankfurt again and just around around the corner there was a publishing firm uh you probably won't know it uh but it's called insul Fel it's the most renowned German publishing house there is they published rhina Maria hug Hoffman's tal the [ __ ] and when when you see when you're little you do something which you don't know you you have ideals and I swore to myself one day I'm going to get published there and I know that when I get published there I'm home because I didn't have a home I was socially excluded so I swore to everything I will get published there and at that point I ruined my life because they don't publish Danish authors they not when they're alive you know they they they publish three persons hence Christian Anderson ham and bang and EP yakobson I ruined my life and so I wrote poems and I started literature and I did that until I was 35 and I had studied 17 years at the University and I had cut nowhere I ended up photocopying my articles my poems and I sold them 10 Crona a piece on the street which is ridiculous which meant I had lost I had lost it I only knew one person who ever got a job which was in advertising and I asked him can I get a job and he said but can what what are you capable of nothing and he said then advertising might be something for you and and uh and well thanks we we don't have any time because this is only the prologue and um and and what happened is of course that instead of writing poetry I now made made made I was an Advertiser copywriter and I did well and after four years I was head of the biggest Danish advertising firm there is with half a billion cron a turnaround and I was feeding 250 people with ideas every day and I never left my my office because I'm I'm a person they they they you know there's a type of person called insecure overachievers that's me you know and I'd earned a lot of money for the firm not that money for myself one day the telephone called and that was last from Tria our director and he said can do you want to be in a movie and I said can I have some drugs also and he said no no no you just have to play yourself the movie is called the idiots and and and suddenly I was standing you know I mean four years after being at the end of the world I had nothing I was a social loser I suddenly earned a lot of money and I stood on the red carpet in Ken and I looked over the the the palm trees and the Mediterranean Sea and I I thought this is ridiculous Satan gives me everything but the one thing I want writing poetry and getting published at Insel and I could see my star was was starting to fade and actually I was clinically depressed I had to buy a new suit every week because it stank because I never um my home was one big wreck I had closed the kitchen door even the doves had come in and made made their nest there it was stinking the the the whole apartment it was filled with with animals and and it was horrible and and one day at I I took at at the M Millennium I took to Iceland where B had her New Year's party we all had to be dressed in white she was a clown and i' i' I remember standing there in the world world's most expensive bti shoes yeah that's another story but but I it was ridiculous when I came home I had forgotten to turn off the base uh the so they had to get into my apartment and suddenly they saw where all the animals came from from my apartment and and so I came home to a little letter they had photoed all my apartment I was thrown out and I thought this is it I'm finished nothing ever came to anything and and I wrote an article which was the first article ever published by me where I told them how we cheated bodm for 80 million croner uh which of course meant I was fired the day after and and and and I thought this is great and I sat on a bar and I drank myself to death the funny thing is that when I emptied the bottle I drank the novel I hadn't written the wife I didn't get the children I didn't get life that never worked out and when I went came to the bottom a g girl came in with a violin and of course she was the door out of that now I sat down on my my my my chair and I wrote the novel I should have done long ages ago it took me three years of 10,1 night yeah with closed eyes I wrote this fine and good now before when I met her uh we lived in a small apartment and I was invited to an exhibition here's the story um called um money Without Borders and I knew exactly what to do I was going to make advertising about the thing I feared the most most social exclusion I always was afraid I have no family I had no social network I always thought someday I'll end up on the streets so I phoned a social organization saying can you help me I want to buy all the stuff of a homeless person you know when they walk around with a with a card or the I always wondered what's in the shopping bags and they said okay and I met him uh in front of Ron uh at the 22 of December yeah it was there was snow people were buying stuff and and it was night evening and I saw him coming up the street with his with his shopping cart filled with stuff and he had a long Gray beard and and and he was an old man long hair and he was you could see he was Greek he had this nose he was T and he nearly didn't say anything but his accent was Swedish Greek something yeah he was a foreigner and and I said well I want to buy all your stuff don't ask me why and you can get all I've got I've got 10,000 croner left from advertising I give you that you give me your stuff I can't give you more I'll give it to tomorrow when the bank opens and he said tomorrow doesn't exist and I said well I can only give you 4,000 now that's what I can get from the uh the the the bank thing yeah and he said half and I said half 2,000 Crona and he said half and I said th000 Crona and then something in my in in me stopped me and I said no no no this is wrong and I said I can give you 4,000 you'll get 4,000 ,000 not one croner more not one croner less so I gave the money to him and then I asked him excuse me I don't want to interfere but how did you become homeless is there anything I can help you and he said can I thought you bought my things I didn't think you bought my story I said sorry but I will tell you one thing can my name is cus do you know what cus means I said I studied 17 years no and and he said Cena is Greek it means stranger I am the stranger I walk like a ghost through the streets I don't exist here and then he was gone and I went behind his shopping chart what is it called this wheel thing and it's really like a ghost because if you have no money everything is relationship is money something for something if you haven't got anything you're not in a relationship with anybody you couldn't go anywhere you couldn't you had no relation then I went and I opened the chart which is something you shouldn't do because you're being this doesn't work you're being nosy and you're uh there you're looking into misery you're not supposed to to do this you have to have your morals on the right side if you do this the horrible thing is that there was nothing in there but stuff for keeping him warm there was no personal things not a picture not a pen nothing that was only like like uh his trouses his his Darkness his darkness and and sweet potatoes and tea and and this is yeah this frying pan and this is for you know when you when you uh your entrails are getting out and um and like that and and it was horrible and after 20 minutes it stank you couldn't breathe in the room and it was the stench of being poor of not having anything now what I did was I called my friends colleagues and advertising the last time and I said I make one last campaign and so we took photos of his things the most beautiful product shots you can't see it here and then we made an ad which you can't see here but it it was like so beautiful you could have put it into vog Italia yeah we we took his name and made a logo which was like gold yeah it 24 hours of of rendering cenus then I called a guy who helped me making stuff for very uh expensive stores and we made something in steel and glass green with his name on Cenas just the green button the green button oh cool and it's beautiful it doesn't matter but you have to make it work at last um here you see some ad and we made this look like this and um and I put his logo on and then I and and the people and they they were like angry they thought I was going to show him show his misery show you make a huge heap of his stuff and make an human exhibition like a human Sue nothing would be more more foreign to me no what I wanted to do was to make him beautiful and make him give him something do make him expensive yeah because he couldn't be commodified that's why he was nothing he was worth nothing because his stuff couldn't be commodified his person couldn't be commodified which meant he was excluded from society I wanted to include him again by putting using the poison as medicine so I made this and I said you can buy it for 75,000 CR H and I waited for the woman who would understand and have a rich man and they bought it oh [ __ ] this was not what I wanted and um they bought it I gave the money to the organization now what happened is this that when I uh I published my novel everything was good I was married I got children life it I succeeded yeah now after this many many years after I walk on the street with my children and my my wife and suddenly she says oh look there's cenus and he was again walking there and I went to him and I gave him a Haw and said cenus I'm so happy to see you and and look I've got a daughter and and it I I did it I did it I did it you know and he said congratulations can you showed them you showed them and I like what yeah you your novel you did it because my novel had become a huge bestseller but more important than that it had become published by insul fan as the first Danish living person so my star was was on the that's not the point um and I said [ __ ] did you read this he said yes canode and it is good and I thought if I had knew that he would read it I would never have had the courage to write it and I said cus I don't have the time now tomorrow after 12 go down to the bookstore there's a signed copy for you now I've got small children and what happens is you can't do stuff I couldn't get down there so what I did was horrible because he went he did I he went into the store and said there's a noble for me no there isn't sir please would you leave it was horrible and my Consciousness I I'm I'm a bit you know I'm I'm I don't when I [ __ ] I have sinned God you know my karma this is horrible and I tried to find him he hasn't got an address he hasn't got a phone number I went around with a mobile soup kitchen I couldn't find him I couldn't do good it was horrible now what happened is that you have to write your second novel which is horrible especially if you got small children and and you have to have an income you have no time so I started drinking and drinking and drinking I always had a drinking problem I've taken any drugs on Earth and and I started drinking more and more and I didn't have time and my wife went you should do this do that and I said shut up give me time I have to ride and the less time I had the more we argued the more I drank the more we argued and at last she went to our doctor and said he has to come to like an antibus in Denmark it's called an anonymous alcohol uh he has to stop else I will be divorced and I said oh come on you idiot you know I can stop whenever I want just give me time to write and I'll stop and everything will be good now and here comes the point I was then walk walking with my my children uh and then suddenly who comes there seen us now not with a shopping cart but actually and I I it's the truth with a baby's thing filled with his stuff and I went like cus I'm so happy to see you I'm so sorry I'm so sorry please have you well have you got time for me and I said time and I said come on yes and and we walked and I mean they must have looked at us like I don't know what we went on the street he didn't want to get in he didn't want even a glass of water I took the novel I made the longest dedication for him ending up with for you senena because I'm a stranger too now the the the extreme thing is that when we walked on the street he stopped at a church and he looked at me and here's the point of courage and honesty because if you're honest you might learn something because he asked he said to me cane are you drinking and I said yes of course I'm drinking the French are drinking there saiva you know a bottle a day and I'm a writer you know and it's part of the job description I I drink two bottles a day because I'm a poet I'm a very good poet I drink three bottles a day and I want the Nobel Prize I'm drinking four bottles a day you know and he just looked at me and then he hit his liver and went like this and when he left me and I had signed the novel suddenly my liver hurt and it hurt like hell and suddenly I understood because I don't believe in God but I do believe in people and this guy just gave me a hint as big as a church Tower and the the strange thing is the moment he he was gone I knew I would never ever drink a drop of alcohol or smoke or do any drugs ever again and I suddenly I understood that if I had uh negotiated and if I said oh I can only give him 2,000 1,000 if I had wanted to keep the money for myself to some person who hasn't got anything I would have been the last shittiest person on Earth but doing an a relation which was one to one and honest we could actually meet which meant that he 10 years after could give me the greatest present of all because he's homeless I don't know how he ended up on the bench I only knew that if I kept on drinking I would end up on the bench beside him so the beauty of it is that if you are honest somebody might tell you something you will need the correct information if you lie and if you are a hypocrite you can't get the information so this is and I have actually never shown anybody this is why this was wrong but this is the first time I show him and I don't really know if I'm allowed to because he hasn't asked me to and I hope I'm not now doing something horrible and there's one thing you must know and that is that I'm not only honest but I'm also a writer cheers [Applause]