Recently Andy Rooney started one of his 60 Minutes essays talking about spinach making people sick and ended with some observations having to do with the eating of horsemeat. I’m not actually sure what he was saying in-between because I was drowning his voice out with my screams. Later I spoke to Timothy “Perfess’r” Harris, our director, and asked him to shoot me if I ever wrote like that and he indicated that in that case I’d be shot about once every four weeks.
This may be one of those times. I’m high on NyQuil and I feel an irresistible urge to lead you all on a tour of my mind.
Speaking of tours, I was watching Rick Steves’ Europe the other day, and he was touring Turkey. While my eyes were watching, my mind was spinning with thoughts of cattle swimming the Bosporus, the cow jumping over the moon, and questions like, “If Turkey can be part of Europe, then why do we have wars, and why can’t we all have vacation property on Bora Bora?”
As my questions went unanswered I noticed that Rick Steves was playing backgammon with some Turkish people on the screen, and I listened long enough to hear him say that you can’t make a bad move in backgammon when playing the Turks, they won’t let you.
I immediately thought of Sudoku, to which I have lately become addicted. Sudoku isn’t remotely like backgammon, except that it’s a game. For the purposes of my immediate thought the only significant feature of Sudoku is that you do it by yourself. Therefore the great thing about doing Sudoku, the thing that makes it so appealing for me, is I don’t have to play it with some ego-crazed spoiled crybaby sitting across from me.
You see, I used to think that I might like to play chess. But I discovered that everyone within a radius of 3000 miles of me who was willing to join me at it was an ego-crazed spoiled crybaby. Thanks to Rick Steves I now know that I only had to move to Turkey to find people who could enjoy a friendly chess game like human beings. Provided I first hid their dice from them.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with eating horsemeat. Well, one of Andy Rooney’s points, or pointlets, was that he was an American and Americans don’t eat horsemeat, and he, for one, wasn’t about to start.
Likewise, I would like to make a point, or pointlet, that I am an American, and that we Americans are by and large ego-crazed spoiled crybabies, and I, for one, have just about had it.
I’m not talking just about the lack of civil discourse evident during the current political campaigns, although that’s part of it. I’m talking about all the mean-spirited and uncivil and unsportsmanlike conduct that is revealing itself throughout our society at all levels, especially the highest, where it does the most monumental harm.
How can it be that I now have to write columns arguing against pre-emptive warfare and torture?
Last week George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which deprives almost all human rights to all non-Americans. It doesn’t prevent them from being tortured; it only requires torturers to avoid doing anything that might feel like organ failure or life threatening. So genital-electro-shock is out, thumbscrews are in.
The Act not only allows torture, it also lets the military tribunals use the evidence so obtained against the unlucky suspect. So if you are suspected of being a terrorist and they beat you or someone else into saying that you are a terrorist, then by the new rules, you’re a terrorist.
One of my former chess acquaintances made up the rule that he would always be White, because Black loses too much. I quit playing right about then. How soon before the rest of the world quits playing with America?
How long before the rest of the world catches on that our law treats them like dogs?
Showing posts with label harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harris. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Pimp and Circumstance
My goal this week is to wade into a pool of homeless activists and see what bites me. I want to discuss certain deep questions, such as “What is a poverty pimp?” “Who’s calling whom a poverty pimp?” “I’m not a poverty pimp, you are,” and “Whatever I am, you’re double that,” inspired by a couple of minor controversies which have swirled recently.
One has to do with charges out there that Real Change exploits the poor and homeless to keep our director and a few privileged others in the lower middle-class lifestyle that they were born into. I don’t have the space here to get into the details, but I’d like to offer some thoughts of mine regarding those charges.
Our director Tim “Perfess’r” Harris, stands accused of being a greedy, privileged, white, middle-aged, middle-class, Classics-loving, kitsch-collecting, testosterone-driven, quiche-eating, carbs-forsaking, couscous-hating, male. OK, I can live with that. He even has a car, and kids. How dare he afford kids! But when someone says the remaining ten or eleven of us are greedy, privileged, white, middle-aged, middle-class, males, they are wrong in every single case. That’s not the kind of sweatshop we operate around here.
I for one have been homeless four times, and am dirt poor now. Yet even though I am on the board and a white male I’ve never been paid one single potato for the writing I do here. Some greed.
There’s also been a charge that we DO pay some of our writers. These people can’t make up their minds: so is paying good or bad? In the case of our two staff writers, paying is supposedly bad because they are *privileged*, more than, say, the whiner who came up with these charges. I guess so; they can write, if that’s a privilege. I thought it was a talent. But other than that, the charge is a crock.
Truth is, we pay staff when they have to do more than what a volunteer can bear. For the long workweeks we get out of our director we should pay him $52,000 per year. We don’t actually pay him quite that much. Please don’t anyone tell him.
The other controversy concerns “bumvertising” and one of my favorite activists, Michael Stoops of the National Coalition of the Homeless.
Mr. Stoops, like Tim Harris, has his share of detractors. It doesn’t help that at street paper conferences the two of them invariably leave us peons to go party all night at some catered penthouse somewhere, or whatever they do. They could be playing mumbly-peg for all the rest of us know. But I’m kidding; Michael isn’t a poverty pimp.
On the other hand, Ben Rogovy is proof that poverty pimping is alive and well. Mr. Rogovy has recently started an on-line poker service and begun using what he calls “bumvertising” to call attention to it. He pays panhandlers cash, food, and other goods, to advertise Rogovy’s business while they panhandle.
So homeless activists everywhere are outraged, charging Mr. Rogovy with exploiting the homeless. Michael Stoops mainly objects to the term “bumvertising” which perpetuates stereotypes, and I can agree with that, but he goes too far when he also says, "Homeless people are desperate, but they're not so desperate that they are going to be exploited by some avant-garde company that wants to sell their product."
If that were true that would mean homeless people were less desperate than all the other people who work for avant-garde companies that want to sell their products.
No, I would rather Rogovy stopped calling people bums and derelicts, especially now that he has them working, and I’d like to see him stick to paying cash, in order to empower his contractors to choose the goods they want, rather than have their goods chosen for them by the Man. But he’s not exploiting panhandlers any more than Starbucks exploits baristas.
Capitalism exploits, period. Don’t select homeless people out for this special stigma of victimhood.
One has to do with charges out there that Real Change exploits the poor and homeless to keep our director and a few privileged others in the lower middle-class lifestyle that they were born into. I don’t have the space here to get into the details, but I’d like to offer some thoughts of mine regarding those charges.
Our director Tim “Perfess’r” Harris, stands accused of being a greedy, privileged, white, middle-aged, middle-class, Classics-loving, kitsch-collecting, testosterone-driven, quiche-eating, carbs-forsaking, couscous-hating, male. OK, I can live with that. He even has a car, and kids. How dare he afford kids! But when someone says the remaining ten or eleven of us are greedy, privileged, white, middle-aged, middle-class, males, they are wrong in every single case. That’s not the kind of sweatshop we operate around here.
I for one have been homeless four times, and am dirt poor now. Yet even though I am on the board and a white male I’ve never been paid one single potato for the writing I do here. Some greed.
There’s also been a charge that we DO pay some of our writers. These people can’t make up their minds: so is paying good or bad? In the case of our two staff writers, paying is supposedly bad because they are *privileged*, more than, say, the whiner who came up with these charges. I guess so; they can write, if that’s a privilege. I thought it was a talent. But other than that, the charge is a crock.
Truth is, we pay staff when they have to do more than what a volunteer can bear. For the long workweeks we get out of our director we should pay him $52,000 per year. We don’t actually pay him quite that much. Please don’t anyone tell him.
The other controversy concerns “bumvertising” and one of my favorite activists, Michael Stoops of the National Coalition of the Homeless.
Mr. Stoops, like Tim Harris, has his share of detractors. It doesn’t help that at street paper conferences the two of them invariably leave us peons to go party all night at some catered penthouse somewhere, or whatever they do. They could be playing mumbly-peg for all the rest of us know. But I’m kidding; Michael isn’t a poverty pimp.
On the other hand, Ben Rogovy is proof that poverty pimping is alive and well. Mr. Rogovy has recently started an on-line poker service and begun using what he calls “bumvertising” to call attention to it. He pays panhandlers cash, food, and other goods, to advertise Rogovy’s business while they panhandle.
So homeless activists everywhere are outraged, charging Mr. Rogovy with exploiting the homeless. Michael Stoops mainly objects to the term “bumvertising” which perpetuates stereotypes, and I can agree with that, but he goes too far when he also says, "Homeless people are desperate, but they're not so desperate that they are going to be exploited by some avant-garde company that wants to sell their product."
If that were true that would mean homeless people were less desperate than all the other people who work for avant-garde companies that want to sell their products.
No, I would rather Rogovy stopped calling people bums and derelicts, especially now that he has them working, and I’d like to see him stick to paying cash, in order to empower his contractors to choose the goods they want, rather than have their goods chosen for them by the Man. But he’s not exploiting panhandlers any more than Starbucks exploits baristas.
Capitalism exploits, period. Don’t select homeless people out for this special stigma of victimhood.
Thursday, January 8, 2004
The Kiwi Is Surprisingly Stylish, Itself
Before I get started I want to make an announcement from the News You Can Refuse Department. On January 20th at 11pm RCTV is scheduled to have its first airing on community access television. That's RC as in Real Change, but it will be created, produced and hosted independently of Real Change by Steve Schrock.
Now, a couple of days ago Steve came by the office and taped interviews with yours truly and fellow editor Anitra "On Whose Kitchen Floor I Have Sometimes Slept" Freeman. I'm afraid those interviews may form the basis of the first show, even though I might have let slip some things about my sordid love affair[s] or what I may have initially thought of Timothy "Our Glorious Founder" Harris, and even though Anitra may have discussed whether I have ever been infested with invisible insects.
So what I'm saying is, this is News You Can Refuse. If you get the community access channel, you don't HAVE to watch RCTV that night. No, you can watch the Daily Show on Comedy Central instead, in spite of the fact that they rerun it the next day at 7 and it wouldn't hurt you to watch Jon Stewart a day late for once. Or you could watch, say, News at Eleven on Eleven 'cause you were too busy watching Whose Line reruns to see News at Ten on Thirteen, but you still have to get your news fix. Hey, nobody's holding a gun to your head, you know? Sheesh.
Speaking of me getting started, in our last column I ranted a bit. I know that ranting isn't pretty, so I thought I'd get ahead of the game and warn people what sorts of things start me up. In other words, let's talk about MY pet peeves!
1. People who just discovered Mars. "Mars is sooo interesting! Did you know that Mars was closer last year than it ever was in 60,000 years? Isn't that AWESOME? Don't you want to go look at it right now?" No, I want to chew beef jerky in front of a space heater. Go away for another 60,000 years.
2. Repetition. For example, her/his very clever joke at my expense was hilarious the first time I heard it and mildly amusing the next 20 times but after the 100th time she/he could be replaced with a neurotic self-abusive parrot and the world would be a far better place.
3. DSHS caseworkers. What are these people paid for? They don't know anything. They don't have any evident education into the challenges that their clients face. They don't even know how DSHS works. If you want to know a rule and ask three different caseworkers about it, you'll get three different answers. Paris Hilton knows more about poverty than these people.
4. Overused rhetorical devices. "Can you tell me what a rhetorical question is?" Well, I know that choking can prevent them.
5. Script speakers. These are people we have all known that compose and rehearse the conversations they will have with us, expecting us to follow their scripts even though we haven't seen them and don't care anyway. No matter what people like this say, I like to turn the subject to flightless birds or traditional oceanic art, or both. "I had a great time this weekend." "Maori depictions of Kiwi were rather stylized." "Don't you want to know what I did this weekend?" "The small repeated triangle is seen most often in Micronesia." "Aren't you listening to me? I thought you would ask about my weekend." "Emus?"
6. Pedestrian tailgaters. You get on a bus and someone gets on right behind you. Not only do they follow too close, but apparently they think your plan is to walk all the way to the end of the bus and walk out the imaginary back door at the very end, because when you stop to sit in a vacant seat it comes as a total shock to them and they run into you.
7. Weapons of mass destruction and the people who create and use them. Regarding weapons of limited destruction, many earnest people have told me that those have military uses, and that's a qualified Good in the Face of Evil. But weapons of mass destruction target civilians, including innocent children, an unqualified Bad. So people shouldn’t have them. Hello? That means us.
Now, a couple of days ago Steve came by the office and taped interviews with yours truly and fellow editor Anitra "On Whose Kitchen Floor I Have Sometimes Slept" Freeman. I'm afraid those interviews may form the basis of the first show, even though I might have let slip some things about my sordid love affair[s] or what I may have initially thought of Timothy "Our Glorious Founder" Harris, and even though Anitra may have discussed whether I have ever been infested with invisible insects.
So what I'm saying is, this is News You Can Refuse. If you get the community access channel, you don't HAVE to watch RCTV that night. No, you can watch the Daily Show on Comedy Central instead, in spite of the fact that they rerun it the next day at 7 and it wouldn't hurt you to watch Jon Stewart a day late for once. Or you could watch, say, News at Eleven on Eleven 'cause you were too busy watching Whose Line reruns to see News at Ten on Thirteen, but you still have to get your news fix. Hey, nobody's holding a gun to your head, you know? Sheesh.
Speaking of me getting started, in our last column I ranted a bit. I know that ranting isn't pretty, so I thought I'd get ahead of the game and warn people what sorts of things start me up. In other words, let's talk about MY pet peeves!
1. People who just discovered Mars. "Mars is sooo interesting! Did you know that Mars was closer last year than it ever was in 60,000 years? Isn't that AWESOME? Don't you want to go look at it right now?" No, I want to chew beef jerky in front of a space heater. Go away for another 60,000 years.
2. Repetition. For example, her/his very clever joke at my expense was hilarious the first time I heard it and mildly amusing the next 20 times but after the 100th time she/he could be replaced with a neurotic self-abusive parrot and the world would be a far better place.
3. DSHS caseworkers. What are these people paid for? They don't know anything. They don't have any evident education into the challenges that their clients face. They don't even know how DSHS works. If you want to know a rule and ask three different caseworkers about it, you'll get three different answers. Paris Hilton knows more about poverty than these people.
4. Overused rhetorical devices. "Can you tell me what a rhetorical question is?" Well, I know that choking can prevent them.
5. Script speakers. These are people we have all known that compose and rehearse the conversations they will have with us, expecting us to follow their scripts even though we haven't seen them and don't care anyway. No matter what people like this say, I like to turn the subject to flightless birds or traditional oceanic art, or both. "I had a great time this weekend." "Maori depictions of Kiwi were rather stylized." "Don't you want to know what I did this weekend?" "The small repeated triangle is seen most often in Micronesia." "Aren't you listening to me? I thought you would ask about my weekend." "Emus?"
6. Pedestrian tailgaters. You get on a bus and someone gets on right behind you. Not only do they follow too close, but apparently they think your plan is to walk all the way to the end of the bus and walk out the imaginary back door at the very end, because when you stop to sit in a vacant seat it comes as a total shock to them and they run into you.
7. Weapons of mass destruction and the people who create and use them. Regarding weapons of limited destruction, many earnest people have told me that those have military uses, and that's a qualified Good in the Face of Evil. But weapons of mass destruction target civilians, including innocent children, an unqualified Bad. So people shouldn’t have them. Hello? That means us.
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Thanks For All The Beer
Last issue (North American Newsbriefs, July 10) we read about beerforthehomeless.com. Those are the people in Chattanooga, TN, who are collecting donations to pass out beer for the homeless.
We love this idea. We (I mean I myself of course) have been saying for years that homeless people have as much right to decide for themselves whether they should imbibe alcoholic beverages as homeful people do.
What we really delight in is this information from the FAQ page at beerforthehomeless.com: "… the fact is that less than half of the homeless we visit accept our beer." Bearing in mind that they are only talking about Chattanooga, nevertheless someone has finally succeeded in finding a way to substantiate our long stated observation that most homeless people aren't alcoholics, they're just people who don't have a proper place to live at the moment.
And what a straightforward method of proof it is. "Let's pass the stuff out and see who takes it!" To think that researchers have probably wasted tens of thousands of dollars for years trying to figure this one out with pencils and surveys.
The website also gives me hope by reminding me that there are decent generous people out there who really get it. It makes me want to acknowledge all the great generous folks I have encountered and benefited from over the years.
Yours truly (like most homeless people!) has never panhandled. Partly this is because I always found things to sell when I was broke. For example, there was the day I sold the naming rights to parts of my body. I started the day out with nothing. I charged one dollar for the naming rights to each body part. My first customer was this rag's founder Timothy Harris who paid a dollar to name my liver "Intrepid." Altogether I earned twelve dollars doing that.
But I have also found that if you just go about your life and do nothing unusual money can be pushed into your hands even AGAINST YOUR WILL!
For example, early one morning I was pacing back and forth in between St. James Cathedral and the Rectory. I was pacing because I was early for an appointment and had nowhere else to go, being too broke to go to a café or anywhere else. I wasn't panhandling, I didn't have my hand out, but along came this tall guy in a suit smoking a cigar and wouldn't you know it? He walks right up to my face, whips out a twenty and stuffs it into my shirt pocket, saying, "A friend told me to put this in the poor box, but I'd rather give it to someone who looks like they know what to do with it."
Another time I was in Belltown and on the street, so I visited the Denny Regrade Park at Third and Bell to relax a while. Right after I sat down in the park, two strangers sat down next to me and struck up a friendly conversation. They were openly passing a beer back and forth and generously offered me some.
I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that, OK, maybe most homeless people aren't alcoholics, but Dr. Wes has a liver named Intrepid and for sure he's a lush and there's no way he would turn down free malt liquor in the park.
But there IS a way! For one thing, I hate the taste of malt liquor. I prefer lager, thank you. For another, I can't enjoy drinking any alcoholic beverages openly in a park with police looking over my shoulder. I told my new friends that they were at risk of being busted. Sure enough, only a minute later two security officers pedaled up and poured out the bottle. So the guys decided to leave the park and I tagged along so we could continue talking.
We were not twenty feet out of the park when an older guy with a torn T-shirt saw us and said, "You guys look like you could use some beer. Here, take this ten and get yourselves a couple of pitchers."
Yes, there is hope for humanity!
We love this idea. We (I mean I myself of course) have been saying for years that homeless people have as much right to decide for themselves whether they should imbibe alcoholic beverages as homeful people do.
What we really delight in is this information from the FAQ page at beerforthehomeless.com: "… the fact is that less than half of the homeless we visit accept our beer." Bearing in mind that they are only talking about Chattanooga, nevertheless someone has finally succeeded in finding a way to substantiate our long stated observation that most homeless people aren't alcoholics, they're just people who don't have a proper place to live at the moment.
And what a straightforward method of proof it is. "Let's pass the stuff out and see who takes it!" To think that researchers have probably wasted tens of thousands of dollars for years trying to figure this one out with pencils and surveys.
The website also gives me hope by reminding me that there are decent generous people out there who really get it. It makes me want to acknowledge all the great generous folks I have encountered and benefited from over the years.
Yours truly (like most homeless people!) has never panhandled. Partly this is because I always found things to sell when I was broke. For example, there was the day I sold the naming rights to parts of my body. I started the day out with nothing. I charged one dollar for the naming rights to each body part. My first customer was this rag's founder Timothy Harris who paid a dollar to name my liver "Intrepid." Altogether I earned twelve dollars doing that.
But I have also found that if you just go about your life and do nothing unusual money can be pushed into your hands even AGAINST YOUR WILL!
For example, early one morning I was pacing back and forth in between St. James Cathedral and the Rectory. I was pacing because I was early for an appointment and had nowhere else to go, being too broke to go to a café or anywhere else. I wasn't panhandling, I didn't have my hand out, but along came this tall guy in a suit smoking a cigar and wouldn't you know it? He walks right up to my face, whips out a twenty and stuffs it into my shirt pocket, saying, "A friend told me to put this in the poor box, but I'd rather give it to someone who looks like they know what to do with it."
Another time I was in Belltown and on the street, so I visited the Denny Regrade Park at Third and Bell to relax a while. Right after I sat down in the park, two strangers sat down next to me and struck up a friendly conversation. They were openly passing a beer back and forth and generously offered me some.
I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that, OK, maybe most homeless people aren't alcoholics, but Dr. Wes has a liver named Intrepid and for sure he's a lush and there's no way he would turn down free malt liquor in the park.
But there IS a way! For one thing, I hate the taste of malt liquor. I prefer lager, thank you. For another, I can't enjoy drinking any alcoholic beverages openly in a park with police looking over my shoulder. I told my new friends that they were at risk of being busted. Sure enough, only a minute later two security officers pedaled up and poured out the bottle. So the guys decided to leave the park and I tagged along so we could continue talking.
We were not twenty feet out of the park when an older guy with a torn T-shirt saw us and said, "You guys look like you could use some beer. Here, take this ten and get yourselves a couple of pitchers."
Yes, there is hope for humanity!
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
Guest Column by Anitra L. Freeman
This is Anitra, Upon Whose Kitchen Floor Wes Has Sometimes Slept. Wes has a bad cold right now, which he says is my fault (because he's sleeping closer to me than the kitchen floor these days), and therefore I have to write his column for him.
Wes says I am starting out very well, staring at a blank white computer screen. He then gave me a tip to get started:
[insert column here]
Wes has just left the room, leaving me clear to talk about him with Cindy, Muse of Few Words. I ask Cindy, "I want to structure this column like Wes does, in the form that I have called a Wessitur: an apparent sequence of non-sequiturs that sneaks up behind a political subject and bonks it on the head. How do you suggest I start?"
Cindy says, "Say something about Wes now."
Wes was skinnier when I first met him (he also says that this is my fault, in spite of the fact that he does most of the cooking.) We were both homeless at that time, in October 1995. Wes attempted to teach me the use of acrylics, at StreetLife Art Gallery.
He still attempts to teach me math. I retaliate by singing sea chanteys at him.
Soon after I started going to StreetLife Gallery, Wes drafted me for the Real Change Editorial Committee. I retaliated by starting StreetWrites, to help more homeless and low-income writers develop material for publication. Wes said, "Okay, I'll attend, but you have to do the work."
How am I doing, Cindy? "At about this point, Wes says something else."
Speaking of something else, last week I attended the Seattle Police Department's first organizational meeting attempting to put together a Homeless Advisory Council. I was unhappy to see that I was the only person there who was a "community member" (still counted as low-income and formerly homeless) instead of a service provider or public official-- and I was only there because Timothy "Editor-God" Harris, Director of Real Change, was in production crunch on the paper. Tim made me feel a bit better by explaining that invitations did go out to SHARE, WHEEL & HOP -- but they went out very recently. Membership-driven grassroots organizations need more lead time to make decisions than top-down structured organizations. Adding in that the strongest memory most homeless groups have of such advisory councils is the sensation of having one's butt turned to rubber with the raised words "Whatever You've Already Decided" lettered on them, then pounded up and down -- and caution lengthens the lead time.
Speaking of caution, caution lengthened the lead time in the relationship between Wes and I. Within weeks of meeting each other we were spending large amounts of time together -- we were both officers of StreetLife Gallery, both writing for and editing Real Change, and we just hung out, because we made each other laugh, we sparked ideas for each other, I could say one sentence and he instantly knew what I meant, cutting my tendency to discourse at length and earning the undying gratitude of thousands.
But first, I was staying in shelters and he was Camping Out on Fern Hill (the exact location of which he still keeps secret in case he might have to use it again.) Then I got housing but Wes didn't; he could only visit me three nights a week at The Union Hotel, where he really did sleep on my kitchen floor, and we talked for several hours each night like kids at a slumber party. It was July 21st, 1997, at 4PM (I got the date and time from Wes) that Wes walked into the Real Change and handed his last pack of cigarettes ever to Tim Harris because I had mentioned that I wouldn't get intimate with a smoker's mouth. Then he didn't sleep on my kitchen floor any longer.
Speaking of lengthening, we were both divorced. Wes had a history of severe child abuse and suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had a history of relationships disrupted by my bipolar disorder (manic depression). We were both used to being prejudged, misjudged, and making bad judgments about others. A lot of reasons for caution on both sides. We're now regarded as the happiest couple in the Union Hotel, mainly because we come in about 3AM each morning laughing manically over such things as the application of the policy of Harm Reduction to late-night transit.
Maybe homeless people and the SPD will someday be cracking jokes together, working comfortably side by side, hanging out together. Also the physically disabled, and those with mental health / chemical dependency / developmental issues: other groups that the SPD is hoping to have new Advisory Councils for. If there's enough common ground; enough support; enough patience. If someone gives up their cigarettes, or whatever other habits are in the way.
How did I do, Cindy? "You left out poetry."
Haiku for Wes
He sleeps on my kitchen floor
while I check my email.
I need no Valentines.
Write On!
© Anitra Freeman 2002
Sunday, September 1, 1996
Chicago
Speaking of Hygiene Center slogans - this gem turned up at the first North American Street Newspaper Conference held in Chicago last month, attributed to activists in Atlanta. It was too precious to pass up:
Pee for free with dignity -
like Jesus did in Galilee!
Yours truly, even though still homeless, attended the conference as a guest of the Real Change and it's director, Timothy "Big Spender" Harris.
The conference was replete with Poetic Moments. Here's another, which shows that I was not the only one struck by the irony of our presence there.
This is a very close rendition of an actual conversation in a Chicago cab. Tim, myself and two other conference participants were present. Our Polish immigrant driver spoke first:
"So, what, you are with big homeless paper meeting?"
All: Yes, we are.
"But you have places to stay, you are going eating?"
Absolutely.
"You are not from here, you come from all around?"
The U.S. and Canada.
"What do you do? You take train? You take Greyhound?"
We came by plane.
"I am KNOWING IT! I am STUPID! I am IDIOT!"
"They all say go America, work hard, you will be making it!"
"I come America, I get taxi, I drive TWELVE HOURS a day"
"NO MONEY! I get off work I want taxi - I can't pay!"
"You - YOU - HOMELESS in AMERICA, you take plane, taxi, stay
hotel!"
"NOW I SEE! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN HOMELESS - I call back to Poland,
that's what I tell!"
Tim: Yes, homelessness been very, VERY good to me...
"But - HOW YOU PAY? YOU HAVE GRANTS? YOU GET WELFARE?"
Me: Well, we're paying YOU today with Food Stamps.
"Yes, YES, OF COURSE! Don't fear, it's OK, I tell no one
anywhere!"
PS: No need to report us - actually, Tim paid cash (and a tip for the entertainment).
Unfinished business regarding July's "Homeless Gourmet" article:
After talking to Mel Jackson, director of the Millionair Club, I now know that napkins are usually provided at meals. They just ran out the day I was there. Clearly, more donations from the public would prevent such shortfalls. Let's get on it, people!
Meanwhile, Anitra, fellow editor, who lets me sleep on her kitchen floor, wants her one dumpster rating retracted. Since the cornflakes,she has served omelettes, avocados with cottage cheese, and salmon ravioli, among other delights. Her food is REALLY QUITE GOOD and actually rates zero dumpsters.
That's ANITRA, who lets me sleep on her kitchen floor. I am not being extorted in any way.
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