I'll Be Your Despot

Last Friday, our very own Mayor Greg Nickels shared top honors with some Indiana dude in the 2008 Mayors’ US Conference of Mayors/ Wal-Mart Stores Climate Protection Awards Program for his "outstanding and innovative practices to increase energy efficiency... and to help curb global warming." Learning of this, suddenly it all became clear. All his strange behavior lately, his obsession with banning plastic bags, plastic bottles, polystyrene, and beach bonfires, and his pushing compact fluorescent light bulbs, was all an angle to get a Wal-Mart Stores award. What? Does it come with a Weber Grill and a lifetime supply of charcoal?

We still have the gun ban, the trolley, and the crazy drive to keep the greenbelts to the squirrels to explain. A lot of people say that if you dig deep enough you'll find that on every issue Greg Nickels is in the pocket of big business, getting both a personal hand up and a hand out, if you know what they mean, but I think there's a very real possibility that Greggers is just keen on making Seattle the bestest gleaming city in the whole wide world, and he's thinking, "gosh, I'm the mayor of Seattle, so I can get it done."

[Below: Nickel's dream for Seattle.]

So we get an order banning handguns at Seattle Center. This is an improvement to Seattle! Now, when someone shoots someone at Seattle Center, they will be guilty of violating a mayoral order. That's something they don't have in other cities.

Naturally Greg wants the greenbelts cleared of homeless people, because doing so drives them to band together in tent cities for protection, and Greg Nickels knows that tent cities are good for Seattle. He's improving Seattle by making tent cities more necessary than ever. By the end of summer Seattle will even have a shantytown called Nickelsville, actually named after the mayor in honor of all that he has been doing to endanger homeless people. Not every mayor can boast a tent city named after him. OK, some people are calling all of New York City, Bloombergville, but it's not the same.

The point is, he genuinely wants to improve Seattle, and I can't argue with that. I also want Seattle improved. We want the same thing! I'd just prefer different methods, such as transparency, constitutional governing, consultation with the people, democracy, and some other silly things like that, and I would select and prioritize improvements differently.

A few ways that I, Copyright Dr. Wes Browning, would improve Seattle if I, rather than Greg Nickels, were your despot:

There would be a Separation of Sports and State. Instead of giving sports franchises public funds, we would exempt them from taxes, as we would any other cult. Ticket prices would have to be voluntary tithes, but failure to pay could be grounds for "excommunication." We would expect a season's ticket to reasonably go for 10% of one's income during that season. Refreshments ("sacraments") would have to be free.

I have always thought that what this country needs to do is reorganize into city states, like the Ancient Greeks had. I would strive to achieve independence of a Seattle City State from the US, while seeking alliances and federation with other city states for as long as it serves our interests, and otherwise crushing competing city states, looting and burning them, and enslaving their people, especially the Redmondites and the Lynnwoodians.

Gun Control: I would arrange for only my friends to have guns. Unlike Nickels, I tell you that up front.

Environment: There's no point in improving an environment if you don't have environs. "Environs" means room or space in which to move around. Downtown should be an environs for people, not cars. I will allow my friends to shoot cars downtown.

Mass transit: Metro knows where I live (we've corresponded.) I will tell them where I like to be. They will take me there when I say, and bring me back when I say. That is my promise.

No cake! Pizza!

Superior Kachiku

I get the Seattle Times every day for the sudoku. The P-I has one, but the one in the Seattle Times has superior "kachiku" ("cattle.")

"Sudoku" means "pointless." You fill a grid with the digits 1 through 9, so rows, columns, and some 3x3 blocks have no repeated digits. When you're done, it spells a magic word! Ha! No! When you're done you have a grid filled with digits.

Also pointless is arguing with Seattle Times editors. It's like arguing with beanbag chairs that blow when you sit on them. But they blew smellier than usual last Thursday with an editorial entitled "Tent City: pointless," and the stench propels me. There are misleads and lies throughout.

In the first paragraph we're told 100 people live in the Eastside Tent City ("Tent City 4", managed by SHARE/WHEEL) "rent-free." The mislead: In fact, the residents pay rent in labor to maintain the grounds and keep them secure.

The second paragraph is a piece of propaganda worthy of Goebbels. They say the small size of Tent City 4 proves "This is not New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina." From that they conclude "there is no public emergency here."

No, there is a public emergency, with more than 2600 people unable to find either housing or shelter every night. The fact that Tent City 4 is so small is not proof there is no emergency, but more evidence of the nature of it. It would be much larger if the response to the emergency were adequate. But, just like New Orleans after Katrina, the government has failed, and SHARE/WHEEL can only do so much in the face of community opposition, such as the vicious, poisonous, lie-laden opposition of the Seattle Times.

"There are always people with private emergencies, and we help them with shelter beds." The Seattle Times is a newspaper. It reports fact. The Seattle Times editorial staff has the job of reading their own paper. Their own paper has kept them informed of the fact that there are shelter beds for only half the homeless in Seattle. I know they do their job well so I know they know that. So when they say, "and we help them with shelter beds," they are purposely lying. Shame.

"We don't need to use tents — and nobody thought of it until some political activists at SHARE/WHEEL devised Tent City eight years ago." The Seattle Times editors don't need to use tents, I'm sure, but when they use the editorial "we" in this case they are knowingly (they're writers!) and deliberately implying the public "we." It's a propaganda technique designed to divide those who do need tents to survive from the rest of the public. It goes along with defining their emergencies as private.

SHARE/WHEEL didn't invent tents. They were needed long before Tent Cities were invented. SHARE/WHEEL brought them together to help each other be safe, first and foremost.

[Above: Maybe Mathew Brady invented tents.]

"The point of it is politics. It is to have homelessness in the face of well-housed people to make them feel guilty." Politics to call attention to an emergency is no vice. The people need to do politics to be heard. The powerful, like the Seattle Times management, would silence the politics of the oppressed. The purpose of Tent City isn't to create guilt but to educate and inspire further action. AND to survive.

"Now... There are shelter beds. There are opportunities for work." The majority of Tent City residents are employed, and still can't afford rent. There are NOT shelter beds enough. (To the Times: You keep on repeating lies, and we'll keep on repeating the truth, and we'll see who wins in the end.)

"Itinerant tent camps are not acceptable in a modern city." Homelessness is not acceptable in a modern city.

Questions To Question By

1. "Why don't you say what you mean, Wes?"

2. "Kachiku?"

3. If homelessness were private would it be homelessness?

4. Exactly how are private and public opposites?

Talk About Unfunded Mandates

Toby Nixon says he knows what it's like to be homeless. Thirty-five years ago his dad took him, age 11, and his two younger brothers to a new town, and they didn't have a place to stay until some government agency found them an $8 per night motel room. Toby doesn't say how long they had to wait to get into that motel room. It could have been all of one afternoon. But in his opinion piece last Friday in the P-I Toby does say that for him and his brothers it was all an adventure.

Arrrgh! It was an adventure for him, but he "knows" what its like to be homeless? No, Toby, you don't know. Nobody knows until they had to do it long enough that it wasn't an adventure anymore.

I hear this sort of nonsense all the time: some college kids decide they're going to write a joint term paper on "what it's really like" to be homeless. So they gather up tents and sleeping bags and live outdoors in city parks for a few days or maybe even a couple of weeks. Then they write that it wasn't so bad. It was "all an adventure." "It was nice not to have to do chores for mom for a change."

Now I don't want to disparage anyone's experiences, but when it comes to listening to people say "I know what it's like to be homeless," I have a little rule. I call it the Eight-Week Rule. The rule is simply that if you haven't been continuously homeless for at least eight weeks, I'm not listening. I know the rule is arbitrary. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I draw it at eight weeks. It's based on the theory that it takes eight weeks for some people before they hit "The Wall." I'll explain what "The Wall" is some other time.

But right now I have to talk about HB 1585. The whole reason Toby Nixon, a state legislator, wanted us to know that he knew what homelessness was "like" was so he could justify introducing HB 1585, a bill that would require tent cities which get any public funding to meet standards in line with the state's standards for migrant worker housing. HB 1585 would require, among other things, 7-foot ceilings for all the tents and ceiling-type lighting in each "housing unit".

Sounds great, except for one little catch. The bill establishes standards without providing the means to achieve them. It doesn't say that public funding has to be increased sufficiently to achieve those standards. HB 1585 in fact defines homeless people as temporary workers, even if they are unemployed, and what is the worst, defines the managers of a tent city as equivalent to the landlords of migrant farm workers. No additional funding is provided, the tent city "operators" are supposed to provide the improvements.

But, guess what? Existing tent cities in the Seattle area are self-managed! So Toby Nixon's law requires the homeless to supply themselves with better housing!

What freakin' genius!

I've just learned about some other brilliant legislation being contemplated by Toby Nixon and his Republican friends:

A bill inspired by Toby Nixon's memory of how hard it was for his next door neighbor when she didn't get a pony for Christmas, which would require all 12 year-old girls to save up their lunch money for however long it takes and buy themselves ponies. (For the purpose of this bill, 12 year-old girls will be defined as "farmers.")

A bill to provide health insurance to all citizens. It would do so by defining the term "insurance company" to include all individual citizens. If you're a citizen, you are your own insurance. It's not magic, it's Toby-ic!

A bill to solve transportation problems in Washington State. It would define "Washington State" as Sherman, Nebraska, and "transportation" as a big fat goose. You can eat your transportation, Washington!

Like Nipples on a Dude

Let's take some time off from News We Can Use and have us a short helping of Useless News!

I enjoy useless news, and what could be more useless than learning that, recently, a homeless 17 year-old Kenyan found a more than 5000 dollar treasure hunt prize while urinating in a Nairobi park? Evans Kamande found a small box, with a piece of paper inside, between the forks of a cactus. The paper turned out to be a voucher for the prize, which Mr. Kamande later collected from the local radio station that had been conducting the treasure hunt.

What possible use could we get from that? Maybe if we played the lottery we could conclude that we might be better off urinating in city parks. But, realistically, what are the odds that a Nairobi radio station would leave a voucher for a cash prize in Denny Regrade Park? So all we get is an excuse to use the word "urinating" repeatedly. But we could have done that without the excuse!

Here's some useless news from Graz, Austria. Professors from the Karl Franzens University there are taking part in a project to bring the news to the homeless of Austria's second largest city that laughter is the best medicine.

That's right. Frolicking, happy-go-lucky, Austrian university professors are spreading the word to homeless people in shelters and drop-in-centers that if they would just laugh more their immune systems would work better. Here is an actual translation of an actual hilarious quote from the "act" of one of these professors: "Phrases such as laughing yourself sick should actually be turned around to read laughing yourself well." STOP, I'm NOT in stitches! I'm well!

Sure, it would be useful if homeless people learned to laugh better. It might also help if they got plenty of sleep and avoided sweets. But how about getting them shelter?

OK, that brings us to news concerning world-famous Australian architect Sean Godsell. This guy designs cheap housing intended to shelter the homeless. His works include a converted shipping container that has been on display at the Smithsonian design museum in New York, and a bus shelter house – a bus shelter by day, a homeless shelter by night.

How does that qualify as useless news? Well, ask yourself, why are these things always in museums and never in use? In order for a shelter idea to be useful, people have to permit it to be used. What good is a bus shelter house when every transit system in the world is so hostile to the homeless that they not only wouldn't want to install Godsell's creations but they would furiously destroy existing bus shelters wherever homeless people rest at them?

Godsell also has designed a park bench shelter. It's a park bench by day and a safe home out of the weather for someone at night. They say the only problem with it is, no city will have it. And when cities don't want something that tends to be the end of it. Except for homelessness itself, of course. That, you can't legislate away.

Which brings us to the least useful news of all. No more useful than that the sun will rise tomorrow. No more useful than that George Foreman has a kid named George. No more useful than my left nipple: knowing that the neighbors N don't want a shelter in neighborhood X. (X can take on any value in the universe of all neighborhoods, and N can be any subset of the residents of X.)

Like, duh.

Guess what, some Kirklanders don't want Tent City 4 in Kirkland! Wow. You could knock me over with a feather. A twenty-pound feather with a three-foot handle.

Useless: "Not in my neighborhood." Useful: "What can I do to help?"

Useful is rare, useless is everywhere.

Wes and Kirkpatrick Kissing In a Tree...

A couple of days ago fellow "editor" Michele "I'm Back and I'm Bossy!" Marchand suggested that I write about that film City Without a Home that Adam Holdorf reviewed last issue. I saw City Without a Home myself (I like to call it Film Without a Clue) and Michele and I are in absolute agreement that it would be a good thing if I derided the film in a civil and thoughtful manner.

Unfortunately, in order to do that up right I would have to recap for you all what the film is about. I would have to tell how the filmmakers lived at Tent City 3 for eight days and interviewed a bunch of residents there. Then I would have to get all detailed and picky about why I thought the treatment was biased beyond belief. This would entail my remembering that fact to myself and raising my blood pressure.

I've done that too much lately. My whole last column was written in a pissy fit. I need to talk about something that amuses me. So, let's talk about recent constitutional amendment proposals!

One constitutional amendment proposal was recently in the news as California Governor Schwarzenegger backed the movement to allow foreign-born people to be president. Now, I'm all in favor of such an amendment, in spite of the fact that if it had passed in 1963 it would have allowed Barry Goldwater (who was born in the Gadsen Purchase) to have become president and I might not have enjoyed that. But if Schwarzenegger really wants the amendment to be passed, shouldn't he lie low about it? Does it really advance his cause to scare everyone with the prospect of a President Schwarzenegger?

I say let's annex Austria BEFORE we let that happen, OK?

But the amusing amendment for all time has got to be the one you knew I was going to bring up. That would be the amendment, currently being discussed in the House, intended to ban same-sex marriages. That would be the amendment of which arch-conservative James J. Kilpatrick has said, "This mean-spirited and bigoted resolution spits in the face of freedom." Me and James are in bed together on this one, ready to pick out a ring. OK, Anitra, just kidding. But seriously, I am a conservative today. Is that amusing, or what?

The amendment, in the form it is being considered in Congress, is called the Musgrave Amendment after its sponsor, Republican Congressperson Marilyn Musgrave. Its authors include lawyer Matt Daniels, who grew up with one mother and no father and doesn't want that to happen to anybody else and thinks this gets him somewhere with that, and Robert Bork, who might have been a Supreme Court Justice if the Senate hadn't freaked when they found out what a fruitcake he was. We now get to see just how right they were. That was some bullet we dodged.

You know your constitutional amendment sucks when legal scholars already can't figure out what it really means, not a hundred years after enacted, but even when it's proposed. Here it is: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

The authors say the intent in the second sentence is not to ban civil unions but only to keep courts from mandating them, while allowing state legislatures to decide the issue. But in fact what they have written allows local officials everywhere to defy state laws altogether!

Let's say this amendment passed and say I ran for mayor of Seattle and won. Know what my first act in office would be? Quoting the Musgrave Amendment I would ban all marriages in Seattle. If gays and lesbians can't marry, I would say, then in the interest of equality nobody can. And the Musgrave Amendment would grant me the right to do that, because it says no state law can require marital status to be conferred on anyone who isn't already married!

Q. What reason does Marilyn Musgrave give for opposing same-sex marriages? A. None! She says she's a representative, not a minister, so she shouldn't discuss that! Is that a hoot, or what?

Electric Juju Miracle Man

"He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher," Walt Whitman said. Walter, like Emily Dickinson, had a knack for saying things in a way designed to raise eyebrows on a dead man.

What teacher? I was lucky in school in that I was never assigned poetry by either Emily or Walt. So when I see that word "teacher", I don't think of some high school English teacher. Instead, I think of Walter himself in his own natural teachy-ness, being as Zen as he ever could be. (As in If you meet the Buddha on the Road, kill him.)

If it weren't for a sprinkling of quotes like that, you could definitely get the idea that Walt Whitman was deeper into himself than Donald Trump. In fact Walt was a whiz at selling himself.

"Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, /When I give I give myself." After reading that, don't you feel guilty for not giving Walter more of your time?

He sang the body electric. Now you have to put that into its historical context. Back in Walt's day electricity wasn't the thing more common in households than bleach. In Walt's day, electricity was almost synonymous with juju.

Walt said, "Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle." Translation -- "I got juju."

Walt said, "The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual." Translation -- "The juju stops here."

Walt wrote, "This is no book; who touches this touches a man." Translation -- "I got juju to spare, some of it's spilled into these poems."

My own favorite Whitman sample: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)." Translation -- "I am mass juju, I cast juju shadow."

Speaking of selling and persuasion, experts agree that there are six basic factors that influence humans to comply with requests or give in to sales pitches. These are reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority, and scarcity. I could illustrate the use of these six factors with any successful advertising campaign, but this column isn't about Madison Avenue. So instead I will show you how to use these factors to sell NIMBYs on Tent City.

To the friendly, caring, people of Seattle:

You have probably heard many appeals on behalf of Tent City [social validation], but have you heard of the great benefits that Tent City has to offer to your community?

Yes, there is only one Tent City in Seattle [scarcity], and it can be yours! The homeless people who make up Seattle's Tent City are the cream of the crop [scarcity], the hardest working 2 percent.

Listen to what Dave, a good-looking well-groomed white [liking] policeman [authority] has to say about Tent City's homeless people. "I encounter homeless people everywhere. But nowhere have I found more cheerful [liking] and energetic homeless people than at Tent City. And they are so clean!" [liking]

Cynthia R., a happy, smiling, independently wealthy [social validation, liking, authority] housewife, is typical of many who have been fortunate to live next door to Tent City. She says, "Those homeless men were great! The way they scared off prowlers, my! We had almost no crime in our neighborhood the weeks they were here. And they were so sober, what a good example to our children. If only we could repay them!" [reciprocation]

Seattle has so far provided Tent City with 17 sites in one year. [consistency] That shows just how popular Tent City has been. [social validation] Now isn't it time you invited Tent City to live next door to you?

Give yourself mass juju!

Bread and Putter

While we at Real Change are celebrating the first birthday of the current avatar of Tent City, we are also trying hard to understand why some people don't appreciate it as much as we do, so that we can be on the cutting edge of persuasion, as we change their minds, and so make the street papers in other cities jealous, and steal their women.

I mean, getting to the persuading part, the bottom line is, there aren't enough shelter beds, and affordable housing hasn't happened. Living together in tents is just the safest alternative to sleeping in doorways. Ya'll don't want people sleeping in doorways, right?

I know this is hard for some of you, so let me run that at you again. Raise your hands, everyone who wants the homeless who don't get into shelters to sleep in their own front doorway. Hmmm, I thought so. Next, hands from those of you who want them sleeping in your neighbor's doorway. Better. Now lets see hands for people who wants them to sleep isolated from each other in public parks. OK, not bad. Now how many hands do we have for them sleeping in tents somewhere together?

Hello? You in the back! It's the last alternative! You have to raise your hand sometime, because these people are going to sleep somewhere! You don't get to just sit on your hands like the problem will go away. People need to sleep!

Speaking of human needs, just before I sat down to write this masterpiece I noticed I was puttering. A lot of you will say I am still puttering even now as I type, especially those of you who know what the word means.

to putter, v, to busy or occupy oneself in a leisurely, casual, or ineffective manner.

Yes, I was puttering. And I noticed! And it occurred to me that I rarely notice when I have been puttering, I normally just putter about obliviously, but that in reality I must spend two-thirds of my waking life puttering, and have always done so, even when I was gainfully employed. Although of course we generally called it something else then.

We called it paper clip stuffing, or arranging our files, or fulfilling personal directives, or sorting priorities.

Suddenly I had an epiphany! I became aware, as I had never been aware before, of the extent to which puttering is a human need. I now realize that puttering is a need right up there with food and shelter and safety and moist towelettes. No, seriously, I realized that the need "to putter", in your Maslow hierarchy of needs, must precede all the noble sounding ones, like the need "to art" or the need "to science", or the need "to make lame jokes", or even the need "to mention moist towelettes repeatedly." Moist towelettes.

It explains so much. It explains for instance, why I am so fond of things that explain things. It explains why most men can't grow a beard, they trim it to death. It explains couch surfing. It explains cubicle art.

You know what I'm talking about. Cubicle art is the greatest contemporary American folk art form. Not Cubist Art. Cubicle art. You have a cubicle at work. You decorate it with stuff. That's it. All you get is the one cubicle. It's similar to hanging fuzzy dice in your car, only now it's a cubicle, not a car.

Or it could be a car, too. People still express their puttering need through their cars, even though cubicles have become the more popular medium. And what's the most popular medium of all?

The home, of course.

I have a dream. I dream of the day when every man, woman and child of this great nation of ours has at least a cubicle, or the equivalent, to putter in. I dream of the day when that puttering will be recognized, not only as leisurely casual and ineffective, but as the very stuff of life.

I dream of a day when people will be valued not for the size of their homes, or whether they have one or not, but for the puttering that they can do, when given the chance.

Moist towelettes!

Mayor's Job Is Just Politics

I'll bet you all think I'm going to crab about the election. I know what people expect of me, I get fan mail. That's right, people write to me and say things like, "Dear Dr. Wes, All you ever do is complain, you carping bilious nattering freak… " Everyone thinks I'm a big whiner. Well I'm not going to do it this time.

Instead let me share a letter from a satisfied reader:

Dear Dr. Wess,

I here u have rit thet I am ilitable illitu that I'm not gud with wurds. Aktuelly I didn’t here it my bruther red it and he told me. He sez u also sed I am not as compassionate (didn't no I cud spel lik that did u?) as I hev sed I am. I wil show u how gud I am with wurds. I even rote this pome witch u can stik in your crabby colum.

So u think I'm not compassionate?

When I ain't dun nuthin yet?

Well I'll have u no

u libral so-an-so

yore sociopolitical (I can soo spel, see) band-ade-applyin

muny-flingin and freedum steelin and while I'm at it

deth row-inmate-sparin

Anti-ballistic-missile-not-buildin (hah!), baby-killing, and

2^nd-Amendment-Rights-takin-awayin (take thet!)

pfhilosophy

is all wet.

-- Anon Anun I'm not telling u my name

I really appreciate input like that, Mr. Name, and be sure to keep your brother reading!

While we're talking carp, our glorious Mayor Schell is beginning to look more like a candidate for Bush's cabinet. What else could explain this recent exchange with a Beacon Hill resident (quoting from Schell's monthly talk show on KUOW.)

["Chris"]: "We have a very small business district that's being badly affected. What are you going to do about Tent City and when?"

[Mayor]: "I absolutely agree with you. I don't think living outdoors in a tent is acceptable conduct. And I do think it is by and large a political statement."

OK, Mr. Schell, the honeymoon's over. I've been nice to you so far. I didn't say hardly a word about you the whole first year you were elected except to wish you a happy birthday and offer to help you with your arithmetic.

Did I complain much about you last year? Yes, but who didn't? You had your WTO, what did you expect. But I wasn't the one who said you looked like Uncle Fester from the Addam's Family. I could have, but I restrained myself, because I was being a nice guy.

No more. You've made me mad now.

SO. Our Mayor thinks living outdoors is "unacceptable conduct." What a coincidence. To most of the people living at Tent Village on Beacon Hill having to live outdoors would always be "unacceptable," particularly in winter. But since they don't have the kind of power our Mayor has, they accept it anyway, as the alternative, more shelter beds, isn't happening.

So far, reading Mayor Schell's comment all we have is the usual failure to grasp the fundamental facts of homelessness which we here at Real Change have come to expect from a Mayor who thinks the homeless should just retire to their villas in France and leave him alone.

That's not what has us fuming. What has us fuming is Paul Schell's little deprecation of political statements of the homeless.

Are the homeless of this city not entitled to make political statements? "Chris", Beacon Hill resident, can call into KUOW every month to complain about Tent Village, but when the homeless complain about a lack of any alternative it's just politics?

Last month I was invited to speak at a Shoreline Community College philosophy class. They wanted to hear about the politics of homelessness, in that ethics is an important branch of philosophy, and politics is the sub-branch of ethics that concerns life and power in the cities.

Maybe Paul Schell could benefit from a course in ethics. He might learn to give proper respect to political statements, which are after all only statements about what is right.

Meanwhile, since when is sheer survival a statement of any kind?

Space-time Keeps It's Shape

A Poem Regarding Humor’s Essence,

Or Opus I Lost Count, Can I Get Back to You on That?

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Some say the essence of humor is hostility.

I say it’s clown squeezings.

Extra virgin clown, first cold press.

Some say comedy is always ultimately cruel.

I say, here, have some grated Bozo.

Or, clown-ka-bob, made from tenderized marinated clown.

Or, crushed clown with chives, clown croutons,

or filet of clown, minced mime,

chipped clown on toast,

mime pâté, or clown à la mode

Yes, these are all excellent, I admit,

but I still say the essence of humor is

clown squeezings.

I think it is high time to give credit where credit is due to some of the many wonderful people who help make this paper the constantly changing reality that it is. I don’t know what that has to do with the poem above.

No, wait! Yes I do! I wouldn’t feel so generous if the Real Change weren’t “featuring” me this month. I am feeling heartily squeezed! And look out, I am about to squeeze back! I’m a little garlic, and I’ve got some juices!

I’m being “featured” because I went to Portland. Imagine that. Think what would have happened if I had went all the way to Walla Walla! Or Boise. Or San Jose! Especially since I don’t know where San Jose is. Do you know where San Jose is? Never mind.

As usual I digress. I also exaggerate. I had another reason to think of talking about other people besides me — Stan “two r’s, two s’s, eight lines” Burriss, glorious editor person, remarked in his official editorial capacity last Wednesday, at an official editorial meeting, that he didn’t have a clue where Tent City 3 is anymore, and hadn’t for 4 days.

Let me put this in perspective.

We are talking about Stan Burriss, former president of SHARE (Seattle Housing And I forget what the R and the E stand for. SHARE. You know. Look them up in the phone book. Homeless organization. Runs self-managed shelters, Tent Cities, stuff like that. We’ve written about them three hundred times.)

This is the man who for the last five years, every time there has been a Tent City, of any number, has said to me, “Say, Wes, you know, it wouldn’t hurt you to go up to Tent City and look around. You just might learn something. And you could write about it, and educate people.”

Every time he has said that, I have said, “What? I’m a teacher now? I’m writing a humor column! Knock, knock, is anyone home?”

So do you all see what an amazing turn of events we have witnessed here? If Tent City has had to move so often that Stan Burriss, of all people, can’t keep track of where it is, surely the foundation has moved under our blush and highlight, so to speak, hasn’t it? Or anyway, that’s how I feel about it.

There is another man who is deeply involved with Real Change whom I’d like to talk about. I am speaking of a man who I have known for many, many minutes, nay, days, Scott “SXN” Nodland, Real Change Board Member, once and probably future Treasurer of the Board and Real Change Landlord.

Scott once told me (this is an exact quote) “I want all the money!” That helps explain why those of us at the Real Change affectionately refer to Scott as “our Real Change Yuppy-Scum Landlord.”

Don’t misunderstand, we love our landlord. The expression Yuppy-Scum is just our way of acknowledging that Scott makes both Frazier and Niles Crane look like trailer trash. If there’s a Yuppy in Seattle who can kick Crane butt it’s our Scott! You want to talk Brie? You better know your French provinces buddy, ‘cause our guy is fully armed!

Anyway I’ve gotten carried away again, and have failed to explain that the reason I should be calling attention to Mr. Nodland is that he has somehow managed to become some kind of housing director or other at the Low Income Housing Institute, aka LIHI, aka, some other organization we’ve written about a half zillion or hundred times.

The way I see it, I live in the best of all possible worlds. Tent City keeps finding places to move to, not only faster than the city can follow, but also even faster than Stan can follow. The Real Change maintains a presence on LIHI. Meanwhile, space-time retains it’s shape, as I was sure it would.

One Man's Wrong, Another Man's Oopsy

Yesterday, against my better judgment, yours truly and a Duck of intimate acquaintance walked into the evil McDonalds. If you know downtown Seattle and you know your local McDonalds, you probably know the one I mean already.

I'm not talking about the lawyer's McDonalds that only operates during lawyer's hours. I'm not talking about the visiting businessmen's McDonalds that has the exotic fish and caters to the traffic between the Westin and the nudie palace. I'm not talking about the tourists' McDonalds, the one built where the revolving restaurant will land when the big one finally happens.

No, I'm talking about the really evil McDonalds, the one that has the country-western music piped in all day long in spite of the fact that probably not one in 10 of their customers ever heard Merle Haggard, or would care if they did.

Not that there's anything wrong with country-western, mind you. I love a good yodel or a nasal whine or some pale guy with a severe iodine deficiency pitching a bitch and a moan now and then. Such things keep me alert and functioning in a way that, say, Jimi Hendrix never could. While it might make sense to book Willi Nelson at the Apollo for one show or even two, or hell, even 30, you ought not to make it a permanent engagement. You ought not to say to HELL with what the regulars want, EVER.

So there we were. Ducky orders a #6 and says "supersize it, please," and Cashier (actually the Manager, it turns out) taps at the pictures on her cash machine and says, "that'll be 11 dollars," so Ducky says, "No way!" so Cashier says "Way! Read my register!" and so Ducky says "There must be a misunderstanding" and Cashier says, "No there is no misunderstanding, you're just wrong."

Well, guess what? It turns out Cashier was charging Ducky for TWO supersized #6's. Whoops!

After Cashier was empowered to realize this fact, via repeated emphatic assertions during which I offered to teach her arithmetic for free, she excused herself by saying "It was just a misunderstanding." [Italics added for the purpose of drawing attention to the mega-irony of it all, i.e., her mega-duh-ness.]

At this point I'll bet you're all thinking, "Wes, you've really lost it this time, what could any of this have to do with homelessness?" and "What's the name of your Duck, and is she anyone we know?"

The answers to these questions are very simple. Consider for example the first question (since I don't feel like answering the second) for which the answer is merely Tent City and live-aboards.

See how that ties in?

OK, I'll spell it out. You've got the city saying to the Tent City people over and over again, "You are wrong to think that you should have the right to sleep outdoors." You've got the state saying to the Lake Union live-aboards over and over again, "You are wrong to think that you should be allowed to sleep in the boats that you are already allowed to moor on Lake Union."

City and state say: "You are wrong, wrong, wrong." "Look at the register." "We added it up, and according to the way WE read the law books, you're WRONG!" "So go away, wrong-goes!"

Meanwhile, the Tent City people are just saying, "Look, there must be a misunderstanding here, we're alive, we need to sleep, we've got to sleep SOMEWHERE, so where will it be?" And likewise the live-aboards are saying "Look, there must be a misunderstanding, there's no law that prohibits people from sleeping on their boats; if we can moor our boats here we should be able to stay on them. If we can stay on them we can sleep in them. We haven't made a mess of the lake," etc., etc., etc.

The homeless and the live-aboards are all saying that there is a problem her, something needs to be worked out. The city and the state are saying that there is no problem, that they (the city and the state) are in the right and the others are in the wrong.

It's not about who is right or wrong, it is about solving problems.

When the courts have finished with it, I guarantee you that the city and the state will say: "We said what we said because, you see, it was just a silly misunderstanding. Ha, ha, ha, we thought we were right and you were wrong. It was just a natural mistake."

Now I don't want to start giving governments advice – I'd much rather ridicule them. But wouldn't it be a good idea to look ahead, see how things are going and try to skip the boring parts to get there?

Just a thought. Please don't just tell me how wrong I am.

Let My People Be Exploited

Well, that August was some month wasn’t it? You had your Monica blah blah Bill blah blue dress etc. blah, you had Tent City II & hearings, you had terrorist attacks and counterattacks, you had a big rally about the Nordstrom garage, you even had your local celebration of Newt Gingrich’s birthday, complete with the gray-haired pudgy-fingered salamander himself.

And what have those of us here at the Real Change been therefore talking about all month? What has been the almost undivided focus of our attentions?

Answer: Montreal.

That’s Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as in “What is the largest French speaking city in the world besides Paris, Alex?”

You see, last year, when the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) held its lately annual conference here in Seattle, it was decided that this year’s conference would happen in Montreal, where it would be hosted by L’Itinéraire, NASNA’s Montreal member.

Try to picture this: almost everyone taking part in putting out street newspapers in North America or around the world has been homeless in the past even if they aren’t homeless now. But because we’re accomplishing things, we are able to get financial grants to help carry out the business of organizing, such as flying to Montreal and then staying in rooms for three nights on grant money!

Is that cool or what? Can you see how it might affect perspectives?

Monica who? Or..., after just four days total in Canada, someone gave me USA change for a purchase, and for a moment I thought I was getting funny money.

Most interesting revelation in Montreal: Quebec apparently has one of the most youthful homeless populations to be found anywhere in the developed world. Most widely offered explanation: uncertainty about the future political status of the province leaves the youth (and those who would potentially invest in them) less able to envision their own futures.

Most interesting homeless person in Montreal: a young man seen pantomiming the squeegying of automobiles, waving a stick in front of their windshields instead of actually cleaning them, and getting paid for it! While I watched, nearly every other driver paid him something for his “work”. My theory: they paid him out of gratitude. They hate squeegy-guys even more than they hate mimes. (The alternative theory is almost too awful to contemplate -- they’re Quebecois, and they like mimes. Eeeew.)

Everyone’s favorite quote from the 1998 NASNA Conference, from the chief editor of Le Voir, a Quebec weekly, regarding that blue dress: “I heard there was a second shooter... ”

Most interesting street paper represented at the 1998 NASNA Conference in Montreal: L’Itinéraire itself. Interesting, because it had its beginning as a cafe specifically catering to the homeless -- good food priced within reach of the poor. It was only after the cafe was a success that the paper was developed.

Again, that could be a Quebecois thing. So people there eat in cafes.

A thrift cafe would be bound to succeed.

But I think the experience of L’Itinéraire is more universal than that.

Naturally, I said so at the conference. Specifically what I said was that after having been homeless in the last twenty years more times than I can now remember, the one thing I remember most missing in all those times that I was homeless was not food, not sex, not shoelaces, not even a home, but being exploited.

Whenever I was homeless, businesses here in Seattle turned their backs on me! I still had money -- not enough for Seattle rents but still some green and silver and copper USA money just like everybody else -- but BUSINESSES HERE DIDN’T WANT MY MONEY!

Nobody wanted to exploit me!

Meanwhile three thousand miles away in another country people got the idea that providing food to poor people at prices they could afford might actually be, well, at least sustainable. Sustainable enough that they could build on it. (The cafe is now a successful cyber-cafe.)

I don’t want to have to leave the country I was born in to have my money be taken seriously. I want to be exploited right here in the good old USA. What is the matter with American capitalists that they would ignore the opportunities that US homeless have to offer?

Eventually, I want to see even American real-estate developers figure out how to exploit the homeless. Come on, guys! You’re on the A-TEAM!!! Billions of welfare and minimum wage dollars are going to waste that could be being spent on your properties.

Thank you all for your attention. Next month: how comfortable is Nordstrom’s garage at night?