Moses: spreading love downtown this holiday season

William Najger as Moses, hanging out at Vance Monument.

William Najger is spreading his message this week in an unusual way: He’s dressed up as Moses and hanging out at the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville, channeling his inner McConaughey and telling people to just keep on L-I-V-I-N.

The Asheville native said his Moses stunt started with him going to Hollywood in the past few months to pitch a movie script to studios, a script that was 15 years in the making (“Thou shalt read my script,” he says of his Moses approach.)

“I was out there in front of all the studios, with the full Moses getup, trying to get their attention,” he said. “Most people say buying a costume and camping out front is just not the way you do it. People said ‘They’re not going to listen to you,’ and it’s like, OK, if they don’t, it doesn’t matter, it will get out no matter what. Part of life is trial and error.”

He did get their attention, and an assistant came out to grab a copy of his script, The Revelation, which he describes as sort of a spiritual take on The Matrix.

“Someone goes out and a voice starts speaking to them in the wilderness. He’s telling him the secrets of the universe, and they travel around, and (spoilers) the guy never knows if it’s a dream or not,” he said.

The status of the script is unknown at this point, but it counts as a win for Najger, who now plans to take his Moses act on the road as an inspirational performance. He formerly was in the natural foods business, then started the script 15 years ago.

“People come up to me and ask me, what’s the meaning of life? I say, ‘You just answered the question. It’s life. It’s living. You’re having the experience to be alive, it should be your No. 1 goal above everything else,”‘ he said. “Love is the answer to anything, you being loving, kind and compassionate in the act of any decision making, and it’s gonna be a good decision.”

Najger’s next project involves going down to Miami to pitch a new twist on the phrase going viral: “Going Genesis.”

“That’s when you have a very positive idea, and it gets shared by a lot of people at the same time via social media,” he said.

Najger said he’ll be out at Vance Monument in the afternoon spreading love as Moses this week, and loves posing with people for pictures.

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About Pat Barcas
Pat is a photojournalist and writer who moved to Asheville in 2014. He previously worked for a labor and social rights advocacy newspaper in Chicago. Email him at pbarcas@gmail.com. Follow me @pbarcas

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