Anger Happens

I want to talk about surrealism this month. But first I want to present the following unpaid anti-advertisement:

The first issue of the zine Out of the Margins, a new publication of the Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project, became unavailable in stores throughout Seattle last week. Out of the Margins will not be sold at various shelters and at drop-in centers every other month.

Should any of you unwisely attempt to purchase a copy of Out of the Margins , we at Real Change intend to be highly uncooperative. We shall not return your phone calls, we shall delete your email messages to us, and we shall run from you when we see you approach on foot. But we do hope the rest of you will enjoy it.

OK. So lets talk about surreality. First, why do I want to do this? Everyone else, wherever I go in this great universe of ours, prefers to talk about reality. So: “What’s MY problem?” I ask.

I came to realize only days ago that not only did I indeed have this problem, but that so also did some of my most loved ones, in addition to others who have been subject to my globule of influence. That I did so then was due to the unselfish, caring, concerned intervention of Bob “the Other” Redmond, who is Real Change’s Production Manager, Editor Manager, and most importantly, fellow Poet Guy.

I was gazing at what was supposed to be, according to reality , the black and white computer image of a pair of male (hence blue) blue jays. The computer gave the blue jays a copper tinge. I consciously thought at the time that, if there should be any tinge whatsoever, it (the tinge) should be of the blue kind.

Gazing thusly at these nonblue yet nevertheless certainly blue blue jays, I began to declaim openly regarding their lack of bluehood. I found that I could not contain myself; I experienced a sense of urgency, a compulsion, a need arising from some one of those things that I might on occasion call whatsits. One of those things that my therapist often used to term feelings.

Nor was I alone. Fellow editor Anitra L. “Please Help Stabilize Me” Freeman was also there, and she practically precisely echoed my own concerns about the missing bluehood of the probably gay, certainly jay, bird couple.

Just as I was about to embark upon a tirade decrying the serious problem of bluelessness in computer monitor representations of gray scale images of avia generally , and the consequent need for urgent federal action, I heard the gentle voice of Bob Redmond from behind me framing the simple remark, “I can’t believe how surreal you guys are! Constantly! I mean, WOW! Like, where does that come from? Gee.”

Thanks to Bob I have looked within and I have faced my demon. I now fully understand how it is that I can be surreal all of the time.

It comes from PURE hostility! Every cell of my being rages against the real! “Are you REAL?” -- I ask that question of every stinking lousy little bit of world-stuff that comes my way, and if the wormy pathetic little stuff squeaks “yes” out of its unworthy windpipe, I say, “then, in that case: CHANGE!”

That’s right. It’s just me, Anitra, Salvadore, that Rene-Magrite dude, Barney Rubble, Ernie Kovacs, and the artist formerly known as Pee Wee Herman -- just the seven of us against all that exists in the cosmos that claims special privileges just because it IS.

For example, Blake Nordstrom IS. The Nordstrom garage IS. The Seattle City Council IS. The adjudicated unassailability of the ethicality of Nordstroms, their contractors, the City Council, HUD and the money that passed about between them just IS.

Me and my Dali Posse say it ain’t that easy. We say that it “matters” (or should we have to say it “spirits”?) that the money passed around was intended to bring relief to people in our cities suffering from a level of poverty normally associated with hurricane victims. And that those who direct Nordstroms, however inbred they may be, have no excuse for being unaware of that intention.

Just as Nordstroms just IS, likewise anger just HAPPENS.

Speaking of Nordstroms, I see that now the company wants the federal government to allow it to convert its credit services to a savings and loan! And they will probably get permission! Just so they can as conveniently as possible put people in debt whenever they can’t afford to buy their goods! Remember the savings and loan crisis? Our government apparently doesn’t. Look forward to paying extra taxes to support the desire of the not-quite-rich-enough to have the same imported shoes that the rich-enough get to have.

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?