The Scary Guy uses his intimidating appearance to fight hate and violence. He describes a 7-day challenge to stop negative speech and his work in schools across multiple countries, though many have resisted his message despite its intent to reduce harm.
Hi, this is CJ contributor Joe Domeno in Kansas City, and recently I ran into a friend from years ago that I read about in the local paper, and I was thinking that his story needed to be presented in some kind of fashion or way to a mass audience. And in particular, it seems as though this individual that, that I'm going to get to very quickly here is doing something on the basis of shock, but he's actually not. What he's trying to do— his name's The Scary Guy— is he's trying to put out a message in an increasingly hostile, violent world that we live in.
A 7-day, 7-night challenge, just like this. For 7 days, 7 nights, don't say one negative word about another human on the planet. For 7 days and 7 nights, don't call another person a name other than their own, even if you think the names you make up for people are funny. They're not. Gotta be well over 100 million right now that have actually seen a little bit of what I do, and it's not on a regular basis. I'd say on a real basis, on a physical level, it's probably more like 7 or 8 million people worldwide have actually seen extensive programs of what it is we do. And quite frankly, it's not enough. The mission is to teach other people how to do this mission. In their communities, 'cause one guy ain't gonna work. Well, I wish I could tell you that I planned the gig, you know, that, you know, 15 years ago I went, wait a minute, in 2008, kids are gonna be killing each other over their differences, okay, wait a minute, I gotta tattoo my whole body, I gotta look like I'm gonna come in the room and murder you, all right, kill you, I gotta look like a wrestler, I gotta look like a criminal, I gotta look like a drug dealer, and I gotta look like this just to get their attention and deliver this message, see? But that ain't how it worked. How it works is this is a culmination of who I am, and it just seems to get the message through. I'm really happy that I found out who I was and what I'm supposed to do in my life, because it's not a job. This is my life. I don't get up in the morning going, "Oh, I gotta go to work now." No, no. I go to sleep, that's who I am, thinking about it, and I wake up, and the minute I wake up I'm thinking about, "Who can I go out there and work with and help today?" I was beginning to get busy before 9/11 as far as the hate and the violence and the calls. After 9/11 and the aftermath of all of these heinous crimes on mankind perpetrated on all kinds of people, my business has gone through the roof. I get 2,000 requests a month from people in 75 countries. This year alone in 2008, I will work in 10 countries. Well anyway, the principal's calling me on the phone and says, "Scary Guy, we got bad news for you." I said, "What's that?" He says, "You know, we can't do this." I said, "Why?" He says, "Because the board met and they voted on whether or not you should come to talk to the kids in the high schools, and they voted no." I said, "Why?" He says, "Well, here's what they came up with: the message is good, the messenger's wrong." Design systems and programs to help empower children teach children how to teach other children, become teachers, how to take full responsibility for all their words and actions. Let's see, I've been called, um, Warrior of Light, Prophet of Peace. Check that out, you know, that's gonna irritate some people for you right there. Prophet of Peace, check it out. I didn't come up with the gig, okay? Urban Dalai Lama.
