Not the final rendition of the story, but a decent version derived from a recording Mr. Eubanks made for me especially for this project. I first Kevin tell this story at the Esri User Conference in July of 2017
I was invited to a conference called On Cue, and it was run by a gentleman named Tony Tjan. I was there to present with the great Herbie Hancock. I was so excited, Herbie and I played a song, and it was a long day. A lot of presentations. It was really great.
At dinner, I went into the dining area, where you were supposed to pick your number, and you - that means you get to sit at a certain place at a certain table. I was so hungry, and I was there kind of early. So I'm sitting at the table by myself. Eventually, people started filing in, and sitting down, and it was cool. Herbie sat at the table, and he started talking to some people, and then everybody else started coming in. And it was taking a long time. And I just remember, I was really hungry, and I didn't know anybody, and I was kind of shy, and I didn't.. I'd never been in this place before.
So I just started looking around, looking around at the table settings, because I didn't know what else to do. And I look around at all the plates on the table, and each place was set with the thing, the triangular rack that pool balls are in. So there's a plate sitting on each of the racks, in front of each place at the table. So I'm looking around, because I didn't know what else to do. I'm waiting to eat.
And I turn and look over at the person at the head of the table… and I look at the other place settings… and I notice that everybody else's plate was white except for this one guy. He has a black plate. So I look at the black plate, and I look up, and this guy's staring right at me. And I looked at him, and I looked at the plate, and I just started looking elsewhere. And he said "hey, why are you looking at my plate?" And I said, I'm not really looking at anybody's plate, just looking around. Just hungry.
RSW and Kevin Eubanks at the Esri User Conference in San Diego in 2017
And he said "no, you're looking at my plate, and you know it's because it's black. Would you feel better if you had the black plate?" And I could feel a little bit of stress at the table, and I said "hey, I'm just waiting to eat. I wasn't implying anything, I was just looking around." And he says "here, why don't you just take the black plate, if that makes you feel comfortable."
And the table got a little bit more quiet then.
And then the conversation started to pick up again. So now I don't want to say anything. And finally, they start serving food. And then he goes "Hey!" And I look up, and he's talking to me. And he goes: "you have a problem."
And I look up, and he's talking to me. And he goes: "you have a problem."
I don't know who this person is. Never met the person before. I don't know anybody at the table other than Herbie. There's a woman sitting next to me. There's a guy sitting to my left, a woman sitting to my right. People started looking at me.
And I said "excuse me?" And he says "you have a problem, and I'm going to tell you what your problem is.".
People started getting a little nervous. People started eating, and people started getting up from the table. And every time a seat was empty, he would move over a seat, and it just made everybody nervous. Sitting next to me was the great computer scientist Ping Fu, on one side, and Moshe Safdie, the great architect, is on my other side. There's a guy sitting across from me who is a physicist, who learn to play pool just from following the angles on a table. Nicholas Negroponte is there. So anyway, this guy just keeps getting closer to me, and finally Ping was so nervous she finally got up and left.
And he comes and sits next to me he says, "you know, you have a problem."
"You see all these people? They like you. They love you here. You and Herbie played great. They like you, and you don't even notice it because you're too damn comfortable. You don't want to contribute anything else. You're relaxed, and you're calm just floating through life and you're not contributing what you should be contributing."
And he says that's just.. that's just “shameful.”
And people started noticing it. And he just keeps getting closer to me, and he says "you don't know me do you?" I said no. No I don't. He says "well, look, I want to talk to you, but I don't want to talk to you here. So you call me tomorrow before 5:00 o'clock. And if you don't call me before 5:00, I'll never speak to you again."
I'm like, who is this guy? Why is he being like this? Who is this? Everybody had left the table by now. It's just me and him there, and he says.. we just started talking. He goes, "you know, you should listen to me. I have a mansion. Can you swim?" And I said yeah, I can swim. "Well, I have a pool, and you should come to my house." He then pulls out his phone, and shows me pictures of his house, this mansion in Newport, with a pool inside, and a pool outside.
What?
Who is this guy? I'm listening to him, and looking at all of this stuff on his phone, and I'm nervous: I guess I should look, so I'm looking. Nobody's approaching us. It's just feeling weird. And he says "call me before 5:00 or I'll never speak to you again and come to my house. Have you ever been to Rhode Island?" I said, I'm going to play the jazz festival there. And he says "I'm not going to come to the festival, and never go to those things, but I'm going to give you my number, and you call me. I'm not going to come see you. And if you come to my house, we'll hang out. You can go in the pool, and if we don't get along, then goodbye."
And I said OK. All right. I still am not aware of who this this person is. And so he gets up from the table, and many he turns around, and he leaves. He says "you're too damn comfortable," and he just walks away.
I don't know what to do. I don't know anybody here. And as soon as he leaves, these people start coming up to the table and saying "wow, I never saw Richard speak with somebody that long, how long have you known Richard?".
I said Richard. Yeah.
"How long have you known Richard?"
And I assume this Richard was the person I was just talking with, and I said I just met him. And one person just started laughing and says "look, I want Richard to help me out on a kind of a small conference. And I wonder if you could pass this card on to him." Somebody else came in and said "I'm a sculptor and I want to ask him about this and about that." Six or seven people started asking me to contact Richard on their behalf. Richard Wurman, which I found out then.
So my head is spinning now, and everybody's coming up to me because I'm hanging out with Richard. Everybody thought, you know, that I just knew Richard and that was their way of getting in touch with Richard was through me.
I found out later that it was Richard who made the choices for arranging where everybody sat at the dinner, that was at that table. He sat me at that table, and I didn't know that.
So all of this happened. It all came together. I called Richard the next day before 5:00. I did a jazz festival. And I went to his house and we've been really good friends ever since.
I've met so many people from hanging out with Richard. It's kind of funny that we met that way, but it just was completely natural, I guess. So whenever I go to these conferences, and people say well how do you know Richard, how does Richard know you? What circle did you guys connect in? It's not unusual for people to ask, "how did you and Richard meet?" And I tell this story.