Homeless Czar Piddle

Lately I’ve been reading about the mental stress of being homeless and how it affects people in the long run. Naturally I take everything I read about that subject as I do any other, namely deeply personally. It’s the habit of a lifetime. No matter what the subject, it’s really about me. I know it.

I’m not paranoid! It’s just that everything is always about me, because the being-about-me-ness is an inescapable fundamental part of the nature of all things in Nature. For example, french fries are about me. They’re telling me I’m fat. They scream it, actually.

Boneless buffalo wings are about me. They're telling me that the makers of boneless buffalo wings think that I, Dr. Wes Browning, am so stupid that I'm going to believe they de-boned the wing of a buffalo and fried it for me, instead of just pounding some chicken breast to a pulp, frying it, and calling it a boneless buffalo wing. Whereas, in fact I know that A) buffalos don’t fly and don’t have wings and B) if they did the wings would taste like cow, not chicken.

Even when I’m specifically not being talked about, it’s about me. "I’m not talking about you, Wes! I’m talking about Christian self-flagellators among the 14th century Flemish," you’ll say, and I’ll say, "What are you saying, I couldn’t flagellate myself? Are you saying I’m not a bit Flemish? I could too be Flemish. And don’t even think of telling me I don’t have any 14th century in my blood. I’ll get 14th century on you right now and see how you like it."

Studies about the long-term mental stress of being homeless are about me. They tell me what a mistake it was for me to have been homeless all those years. They tell me I should have belonged to a different economic class. They tell me I should have lived 150 years ago, and built me a log cabin. They tell me that when insurance companies start offering insurance for mental health care I won’t be eligible to get any.

So I was reading about a study done on the mental stress of homelessness that talked about some ways long term stresses of homelessness screw you up. That’s not exactly what it said but I’m simplifying it so that I, Dr. Wes Browning, won’t have to write down a lot of technical garbage that doesn’t have anything to do with the point I am planning to make.

That point will emerge after I tell you that, in this study as well as in others that I’ve seen, a distinction is implied between the general class of the chronically homeless and the subclass of the now housed chronically homeless. The study found that the housed chronically homeless had much better prognoses than did the other chronically homeless.

And I ask myself, who are the other chronically homeless, who are not the housed chronically homeless? They’re the homeless chronically homeless, that’s who! And realizing that, now I know everybody in the world wants my brain to spontaneously liquefy and pour out my nose! Is there no stupidity people won’t force on my poor overtaxed neurons? Talk about your long-term mental damage!

I distinctly recall warning the world that something like this was going to happen, right after Philip F. Mangano (Bush administration hotshot on homelessness) started promoting the hell out of the concept of the chronically homeless. I said then that it was an idiotic concept that lacked any precision and fooled people into thinking they were saying something when they were saying precisely piddle.

Well, it’s getting piddlier. Much piddlier.

And while we're at it, sticking the word "the" in front of a nebulous concept does not make it less nebulous. Of course those who use the phrase "the chronically homeless," in particular Philip F. Mangano himself, know that. He just does it to annoy me, ” Dr. Wes Browning.

A Ruggedly Handsome Mind?

Spoiler alert!

I've seen A Beautiful Mind, and I can't resist talking about it. I'm even going to tell you how it ends. So if you haven't seen it, save this paper, go see the movie, come back, pick this paper up again, finish reading. All right? Get going. I mean it.

Those of you who know I once was a research mathematician before I went a little "funny in the head", and who recognize that as the basic plot of ABM, will understand why I might relate to this movie personally.

Of course, John Nash, the protagonist of ABM (played by Russell Crowe, whom I am, by the way, as handsome as) was already a little funny in the head as the story of the movie began. But in truth, I was also noticeably odd prior to graduate school. They didn't call me Weird Wes for nothing. As far back as kindergarten. The thing is, in both cases we got way weirder after graduate school. Right after.

The main difference between Nash and I, besides the fact that I won't ever win a Nobel prize, is the diagnosis. Nash (whom, in real life, I am as handsome as) was certifiably paranoid schizophrenic. I was a something else wrapped up in a Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. In practical terms this means that I didn't believe MY hallucinations. But mine made up for that by being more mystical.

We've been having a little fun here at Real Change speculating as to the title that my movie will have, if ever Hollywood should get around to twisting the facts of my story. Tim "Perfess'r" Harris (whom I am as handsome as) has suggested A Perverse Mind. Anitra "I've Got Your Writer's Workshop Right Here" Freeman likes An Esthetically Challenging Mind, or A Beautiful Id. Or (she's telling me these as I write) A Nicely Dimpled Mind. Or A Mind with A Great Personality. No Really. A Great Personality.

I can't decide which I like best. Those are good ideas, but I also like A Beautiful Right Cheek, or A Beautiful Gut, or A Mind Only A Mother Could Love. Or, My Other Mind Is A Rembrandt.

"So, Wes, when are you going to get polemical?" -- some of you are probably asking. Well, I'm gearing myself up to it.

In the one place, we know that in real life Nash was not a poster child for anti-psychotic meds. Nash's condition improved after he stopped taking meds. Given the impact of the movie, I think this can't be stressed too much. The movie doesn't come down hard enough on this fact.

Lately I've been sharing my drug life in these pages. To correct a possible misunderstanding: I survived the worst of my Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome without drugs. Without even alcohol. The drugs I take now are only fine tuning a cure that already came about the way Nash's cure came about: long time dealing with the problem directly, with my mind, and with the help of truly beautiful minds (a therapist, friends, and some other people who had been where I was.)

In the other place, I just cleaned my apartment. I haven't felt so non-homeless in years. It took days to clean a 200 square foot room. It was a joyful necessity.

What does cleaning my place have to do with A Beautiful Mind? Good question. Answer me this: What does the CIA have to do with aliens?

I rest my case.

The Truth Is Way Out There

Well, here we are again. It’s deadline time and I’m stuck, as always. I ask Cindy and she suggests “Write about why you are stuck.” I think, “Do I really want to talk about the X-Files here?” But I have nowhere else to go.

As I write this, Anitra L. “Net Mama” Freeman, fellow editor and proof that I am not the world’s biggest nerd, tells me that she wants me to get the following message printed.

“Mulder is a dweeb. He is a lovable dweeb, but he is a dweeb. And YOU, Scully, are an admirable woman in many ways. But you seriously need to enroll in a co-dependency program: ‘Woman Who Love Dweebs.’”

Apparently, how Scully conducts her life is very important to Anitra, and Anitra is certain that her advice will reach Scully. The theory seems to be that some paranoid schizophrenic will read the above paragraph and pass it on to Mulder (all paranoid schizophrenics have Fox Mulder’s unlisted phone number - it’s a union privilege), in the belief that it contains a coded message. Mulder will then show it to Scully, in the hopes that she will be able to decipher it. She will.

But that isn’t what is making it so hard for me to write this month. After sharing my problem with Anitra, she is very alarmed. She says I mustn’t talk about that in public. There are people, she tells me, sad, unfortunate people, who haven’t seen the movie yet! She pleads with me not to spoil it for those miserable people who might nevertheless still find the seven bucks to see it, someday, in a theater.

I’m sorry. Tell you what though, I’ll give you all a warning - WARNING, INFORMATION ABOUT THE END OF THE X-FILES MOVIE FOLLOWS.

OK, you’ve all been warned. So here’s my problem. There they are, BOTH of them, lying in the ice and snow, IN ANTARCTICA, at the edge of this huge crater made by the unexpected take-off of a previously buried tremendously huge alien YOU-KNOW-WHAT. The snow tractor that delivered Mulder to this site is somewhere nearby, BUT IT IS OUT OF GAS. The evil conspirators who brought Scully to this chunk of ice ARE LONG GONE.

So how did they get off Antarctica? What’d they do, thumb a ride on the back of a passing penguin? Walrus, walri? In the very next scene they’re doing their almost-but-not-quite-kissing act in DC, under blossoming cherry trees! What?! Did Mulder dial up the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise on his cell-phone? “Hey, it’s cherry blossom time! Beam us to the Capitol, Scotty!!?” On a continent that does not yet have cellular phone service???

Oh, but THAT can’t be. I forgot that Mulder’s cell-phone would have been in outer space at this point, since he had carelessly dropped it inside the alien YOU-KNOW-WHAT.

SEQUEL ALERT!!: ALIENS have Mulder’s cell-phone! The fun only starts there!

Speaking of evil conspirators...

Let me get this straight... Paul Schell deeply CARES about the plight of the homeless, so long as they aren’t visible? So long as they don’t put up tents? “I LOVE you homeless guy, cause you sleep outdoors without any shelter and you will surely die at that rate, but thank you anyway good buddy! - for not putting that nasty protective tent up!”

Once again, Anitra gets into the act. She wants me to “remember the hamsters”, whatever that means. I remind her that Mayor Schell is on our side. Yeah, really! This is a man who would never beat a dead horse - he LOVES dead horses!

Maybe Paul Schell would like to negotiate with SHARE and WHEEL et al to agree that they may put their unhoused people on the continent of Antarctica. Just so long as they don’t put up any unsightly tents that might offend the eyes of those who may have voted for Mr. Schell, or that might do so in the future, or that might be artichokes.

“Tents are not only ugly, but they are a fire hazard. Snow is much safer.”

And, surely those homeless wimps can’t complain about being isolated, by being put there in Antarctica. For one, they’ll have evil conspirators everywhere around them to keep them company. For two, they will be able to get to DC within minutes (at cherry blossom time).

For three, Mark Sidran himself, renowned humanitarian, is prepared to provide the initial transportation at no cost to the general public (he can write it off as a campaign expense.)

Great, now my spell-checker is telling me to change “unhoused” to “unhorsed”. Some things make no sense, others too much. How’s a guy supposed to concentrate?