Meet the New Wes

Real Change is not a cult. New recruits are NOT brainwashed immediately, the same night they join, so that they become zombie clones of, say, me. Sometimes I think this is a pity, because zombie clones are fun to tease and make great playthings. Also, if everyone in the office were a zombie clone of me, I wouldn’t hear so many complaints about my garlic breath.

Still, though the office does NOT consist of zombie clones of me, or whoever, people who work here seem to be in remarkable agreement on one matter: if there is anybody at Real Change who could become the next internet equivalent of the chubby-lightsaber-wielding Star Wars Kid, it’s me. They all have faith in my potential to become famous for fifteen minutes by acting unbelievably weird in public. “You do it around here,” the reasoning begins. It continues with nitpicks about past behavior and my past choices of beverages.

For the record I have sworn off malt liquor entirely, and I don’t see why everyone has to keep bringing up the Bad Art Show post-party of 1997. I wasn’t the only one who said “I love you, Man, you’re aweshum” to the cat that night.

All this including the cat bring me to this point: I am currently engrossed in updating my “internet presence.” As a result I am totally distracted from most of the usual things I obsess about. I am not thinking about the war. I am not thinking about homelessness. I am not thinking about how to save the planet. I am thinking, how can I get the Real Change cat, Sidney Vicious, to do something adorable on video, so I can upload the result to one of my three new blogs, just so the billions of people in the world who will not look at any of my three blogs, ever, will have something to miss.

I just lied slightly. I AM thinking about homelessness a little. That’s because I’m trying to get stuff I’ve written in the past neatly loaded on one of these blog thingies, including an article I wrote in 1996 entitled, “So - You're About to Become Homeless.... or How to Hit the Street Feet-First Not Face-First.” This was the piece that tried to offer advice to people poised upon becoming homeless for the first time, while at the same time helping others understand how much of a pain homelessness is.

The trouble is, the article is totally out of date. For example, it turns out that the cutting edge homeless person no longer bothers with cheap voicemail, when he/she can score a cheap cell phone that has Internet browsing with email, music playback, a personal organizer, a camera, a camcorder, games, radio, and wakes up everybody in the shelter when it rings Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries at 3 AM.

The article mentions “Walkmen.” That’s Old Man Speak for “iPods and the like.” There’s a discussion of the relative merits of backpacks and shopping carts, but not one word about rolling suitcases!

The original article hinted that you could find storage spaces that weren’t actually intended for homeless peoples’ use. Those places still exist, but even to hint that anyone avail themselves of them would be inappropriate now. You can all forget about hiding bags in unconventional places, unless you like the little plastic handcuffs and answering loud angry questions for 17 hours.

The 1996 article makes me laugh when I read how it advises readers to look up crisis information on the internet. It says use a library computer to telnet to it. It’s like giving someone two sticks when they ask for a light. Ha! No, you don’t do that. Instead, you go to www2.ci.seattle.wa.us/crisisclinic/ in your “browser,” and then you “navigate” to the information you want.

And, if you want to miss seeing Sidney Cuteness Vicious, continue to NOT set your browser to the one of my new blogs that’s at www.wesrunoff.blogspot.com and find the February 8 entry.

Insert Column Here

Note to self: insert column below.

Dear Wes,

I won’t be around to help you with your column this time -- I am going to FolkLife instead. If you get stuck, why not write about the cat and bird? If that doesn’t work, you should try complaining about something again.

-- good luck, your muse, Cindy H.

ACK! Write about the cat and bird? I finally get on the cover after four years here and my own Muse says write about the cat and bird, like we’re running a cartoon series? This is my moment in the limelight, my four minutes and thirty-three seconds of fame, and I’m supposed to move over for a Siamese-Tabby with delusions of grandeur and an anti-social Green Singing Finch?

I’ll take complaining about something, thank you, it’s always let me remain closer to my favorite subject (ME!).

Now lets see what is there to complain about around here besides Musea who disappear into crowds of Hula spectators at deadline. Hmmm, hmmm, OH what is THAT I see on the horizon? Isn’t that a stadium that’s costing more than it was supposed to, and a baseball team that wants ME to pay for it?

That’s ME as in Wes Browning proud renter of a downtown subsidized apartment, who nevertheless pays rent, and rents pay property taxes.

That’s ME as in Wes Browning, who has to pay sales tax, because he just recently had to buy a pair of socks that weren’t covered by Food Stamps, and who very soon will also pay sales taxes buying a book, because he needs a book to stay sane?

Gee, when was the last time I or anyone else I know was on welfare,

and two and a half weeks into the month walked into the welfare office and said, “Hey pals, thanks a heap for that welfare check, it came in real handy the last two and a half weeks, but wouldn’t you know it? There’s been some cost overruns in the Wes (or insert name) upkeep department, so you guys will need to pay the extra.”

NOBODY does that! Even though they run out of money (AND Food Stamps) every single month before the month is up, people on welfare almost never have the bloated gonads to expect extra assistance on top of what’s already been arranged after usually weeks of dragged out applications and supplications.

Because that is what is going on here, in case anyone hasn’t noticed.

We issue welfare to people in need who supplicate before us for precisely the same reason that we publicly fund baseball stadiums when there clubs ask us to. We have reason to believe in the long-term benefits for the rest of us. Give them money now, so they can get on their feet, and we will gain down the road in increased revenues.

Isn’t that a compelling moral argument?

Come to think of it though, the cat and bird do have a certain charm that endears us all to them. Indeed they have a sort of an anti-Paul Allen appeal working for them that could make them even attractive to the Major League-oriented. Yeah, I could allow a brief discussion of their merits.

Firstly, it is impossible to be a member of the Real Change Board of Directors, and not to be made comfortable by Sid “the Real Director” Vicious. And, lets face it, that’s what being on a Board (any Board!) is all about, namely one’s comfort. “Should we do X, Y and Z?” “Well,” says the seasoned Board member, “I’m comfortable with us doing X and Y, but I just don’t feel comfortable with Z.” And, what do you know, but after the debate, if the average Board member isn’t comfortable with Z, and so Z doesn’t happen! HA! I love it!

But I digress. Sid makes us comfortable because he’s a furry beast. And who wouldn’t be comfortable while having a furry beast mark them as his exclusive property?