It was my 21st bday… I was outside in front of a bar throwing up on a tree, and a homeless guy that was walking by asked if I had a boyfriend.

I was walking down a path in Union Square Park which happened to be filled with homeless people with the day off. It felt like a parade, because I was greeted with thousands of cat calls and a barrage of salutations in every asian language, because you know, I’m asian. Two thoughts: 1. Who knew these homeless were such polyglots! 2. I live in NYC- home to millions of of asian people. Are they screaming at people all the f-ing day.

The caption sucked you in didn’t it?  “Drive By Shooting”…it’s a sad commentary on society and the state of art when this kind of story get’s attention but that is the way our MTV, FOX, iPod, Twitter, Facebook, etc. media generated minds work now.  Back to the ‘Drive By’…

The drive south down 99 from Whistler to Vancouver was brilliant.  The sun finally pushed through the five-week canopy of cloud and the curtain opened to five meters of fallen snow in the past 24 days.  Meanwhile, I realised almost immediately that I had fallen into the three most regrettable pitfalls of renting a car. 

Number one: never get into a rental car without you sunglasses.  Granted it is November on the wet coast so a sunny drive on a day forecast for heavy rain wasn’t expected but I own a store that sells three of the coolest brands of sunglasses out there, have shades stashed in back packs, in my glove box (my wife had my truck) and otherwise scatter them in any number of places around my home and office on ledges and window sills where I meant not to forget them…but step into a shiny new Hyundai from Avis…you get the picture.  Note to self, when you get home put a pair of sunglasses in every bag.

Number two: no tunes.  No hook up for my HTC Mp3 phone (no iPod dock…not that I have an iPod), no Bluetooth, no CD’s (although the player is marked clearly ‘MP3′…even Hyundai gets that we burn them)…just the radio.  Mountain FM? God no.  I mean, yes it works, but no.  Enter XM Radio (XM2 actually…do they need 2?).  Leave it to Hyundai to add XM but no jack for auxiliary hook ups…and to add insult to injury they call it a ‘full size’?  They must be made in, well, somewhere with very small people.  XM and I develop an inevitable love hate relationship within minutes.  Every specialty commercial free station you can imagine categorized by music genre, decade, nationality, a million talk stations from comedy to sports to news, even religion (do they still have that?), every station that is except one that is playing a song I want to listen to.  Seek, scan, stop, XM Elvis, 60’s Pop, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s…end of a good song, damn! OFF!!

Finally, the third and hardest to swallow of all rental car pitfalls – especially for hardened Whistler locals like myself who drive full size 4×4, 4 door, Chevy Silverado pick-ups with one of the coolest line ups of stickers ever assembled on a vehicle and, by the way, gets better gas mileage than the Hyundai – the rest stop photo op.  It doesn’t matter how core I am or what hoody I have on or what time my meeting with Patagonia at Granville Island to see the 2010/11 winter line up is (yes, already) when I sit down in a rental car I know I will drop my camera ready to shoot in the passenger seat beside me and be resigned to stop at the first rest stop with a view and take a few shots like every other tourist and be humiliatingly recognized and at the same time welcomed as one of them.  I can’t fight it, or bother to explain to the guys in the big truck – like mine at home – loaded with sleds who are obviously local and only stopped for the call of nature that happens whenever there are more empty cans of Monster than passengers.  I give in to the urge and like a bar star who says she only smokes when she drinks, I pull over and suffer the loss of inner discipline that self righteously drives locals everywhere from interrupting their commute by selfishly enjoying magnificent surroundings like ours…dummies!

The tragic irony of the rental car is that, for me anyways, it is the ultimate excuse and licence to not be cool (except of course for the dorks in Hawaii who insist on renting the Mustang convertibles thinking they are cool).  So my pride intact, I pull up on the Tantalus view-point, grab my camera from the seat beside me, fold myself out of the Hyundai (still squinting from the drive south into the sun…no shades), dressed in my city clothes – black shirt, black jacket, black Vans – and lose myself in the grandeur of this place I am so blessed to call home.  Go ahead, I think to myself, “Screw the cool guy standard…Claim it!” (MSP, In Deep 2009)

The rolling summit due north is a scene straight out of Alaska…’click’…every rock and tree and shadow line a canvas of white beneath the pale blue sky of morning, and down the valley the snow line on the pines is churning in the smokey mist and warmth of the sunlight seen so rarely this time of year…’click, click, click’.  I love the pure imagination of it all…even the digital sound of a shutter release embedded on a chip programmed to echo from the little speaker on my camera to add to the nostalgia of my experience every time I snap a shot like I am Ansel Adams in 1930’something 3 months into a cold winter in Yosemite…brilliant.  Another car drives up and snapped back to reality I wonder for a moment what time it is, put the lens cap back in place and fold myself back into the Hyundai and stop.  I look again through the windshield at the smokey trees…and get back out for a few more…one more for the road.  I laugh to myself and think, ‘I love being a tourist’, and head on down the highway listening to Mountain FM.

It’s awakening to find inspiration in my own time…in my own back yard.  What have you passed by lately? or daily? Is there some place you know you’ve always wanted to stop but never have the time?  (ie. When your on your way to wait 10 minutes in the line at Starbucks or Wal-Mart or London Drugs? – sorry, no line ups there.)  It’s right there outside your window, just a step outside the comfort of your shiny metal box, yes, it’s right there.  Stop.  Just stop. 

(Aside: I would love to hear the stories of the people who just sopped after reading this…) 

Back to the ‘Drive By’…need to hit Vancouver, Granville Island by noon.  Bathroom break in Squamish, resist the ridiculously priced CD’s at Chevron even though they have a copy of ACDC’s Dirty Deeds…where will I ever find that on CD again? Answer; right there, forever…and don’t even think about the shades on the shiny spinny chrome rack thingy on the counter.  Three words, ‘Made In China’, and while I’m at it, why not add one word to that oh so familiar phrase stamped across some ridiculously growing double-digit percentage of our economy that might just sway the buying and manufacturing habits of the western world, ‘communist’.  If every second item you purchased was labelled, ‘Made in Communist China’, would you think twice?  Just a thought.  Two Mocha Monsters for $5.00, an old school chocolate puffed wheat square and I am back on the road.

The drive by shooting begins somewhere on the descent to Stanley Park on the Lion’s Gate Bridge.  I look in the rear view and see the perfect reflection of the suspension towers behind me, the city scape in front just above the mirror, wrap the neck cord of my camera around my wrist – just in case – open the window and fire off a round of black and white’s (I pre-programmed a B+W high res mode on my digi) at arms length out the window from the driver’s seat.  The first shot amazingly catches an oncoming car completely obscuring the city view above the mirror but captures a perfect mirror image of the bridge and the traffic behind.  The next two or three catch the view of downtown Vancouver between the cars, through the suspension cabling, above the tree line of Stanley Park.  Here we go.

I rattle off a few more down West Georgia; homeless guy in the soft focus silhouette of the moving trees (moving @30km/h past Burrard), big sign on the Vancouver Art Gallery, cool soft cover on the back of a Silverado like mine, the underside of the Granville Street Bridge at False Creek, a painting through a wood framed window where I parked, and think to myself, “Drive By Shooting…Drive By”.  Don’t call the MOT (BC Ministry of Transport) for an opinion on this one, don’t even take mine or think what you think I am suggesting (I accept no liability, blah, blah, blah…).  Just think of the possibilities.  We have all done it (haven’t we?).  Eaten a grape at the grocery store, pocketed some cool meaningless trinket, ridden to the store without our helmet, gone into the back country alone…snapped shots from airplane windows, on the bus or train, taken pics of funny road signs, people, other cars, vistas…this is just the natural progression of the art of every day.  It gives new meaning to ‘Street To Peak’ (ha, ha…just thought of that now!).  What better place to get it started (not that I am starting anything) than Street To Peak. 

Imagine you are a tourist today.  Yes, at home or sitting where ever you might be reading this.  How many photos did you take on your last week or two escape to somewhere else?  How many letters and/or post cards  did you write? (Better question – how many did you send?) Did you get out your journal or a pile of napkins and write? and fill more pages than you have in the past six months of the every day?  Imagine you are a geeky tourist in a rental Hyundai with no iTunes, squinting into the sun, drinking Monster Mocha, eating Fish and Chips from Tony’s (the best on Granville Island)  from a box on the passenger seat, searching for a good song on the local radio, snapping photos of the sky on a dark rainy bridge after a day of stopping a view points and rest stops just because life is good and you don’t know for sure when you will ever be here, right here, right now, again.   Imagine if that today was every day.

Where to start?  Wait a minute…before you dust off your SLR, load it in the car and hit the road, don’t miss the point.  (I can see the type A’s and OCD’s packing their sunglasses and CD’s already.)  In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”

Isn’t love keeping God’s commandments?

“If you love me, keep my commandments. Blessed is he that keeps my commandments, and teaches men likewise; but cursed is he that breaks my commandments, and teaches men likewise. He shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”

If keeping God’s commandments is the essential factor in love and loving God,then it is central to God’s salvation plan; and if the Jews reject the false Jesus being presented by the Roman controlled Gentile Churches, and keep God’s commandments, they believe in Jesus and are saved, even though they don’t know it.

It is not essential to say I believe in Jesus; but it is essential to do it…  I will show you my faith by what I do, said James the apostle!  It is the works of charity that fulfill all the commandments and the prophets.  Love is being your brother’s keeper.  If your brother comes to you naked and destitute and you do not give him his daily needs, your religion is worthless.

I don’t care what name you claim to believe; that’s the bottom line!  Jews don’t have to learn to care for others, they are doing it, but just look at the mess the Gentiles have made in the world.  Those are their brothers and sisters who are poor and homeless.

Where are the billionaire Gentile Christian Churches?  Take a trip to Israel.  I defy you to find homeless in the streets.  Don’t worry about the Jews being saved, worry about the Gentile Christians and their converted blind Messianic Jews!!!

My advice to you Jews, who struggle with whether Christianity is right or wrong, forget it, search your Bibles to see how to live your lives in peace with the world and your brothers.

My advice to you Gentiles, whether you are Christians or not, is to leave the Jews alone, and raise up your Messianic converts to teacher status.  Then listen to them or get ready to receive your consequences, which is the only reason Jesus is coming.

My advice to you Messianic Jews, who are sure that God called you out from amongst your nation Israel to become a bridge to the Gentile world:  Your sole purpose is to bring salvation to the Gentiles, and not the other way around.  Wake-up from their hypnotic spell the Romans have cast upon you, by using sorcery, intrigue, and murder.

The Gentiles have stolen our Jewish heritage, which is the kingdom of God Jesus brought to Israel.  Your Jewish Messiah Jesus, your Jewish Bible, and the good news Jews possess, have been taken from you by the Gentiles who have trampled them under their feet.  They are the thieves that have stolen your rightful heritage.  Leave the non-Christianized Jews alone.

My advice to Gentiles, who are neither Christians nor Jews, is to give up the lies pushed upon you by your perverted religious leaders and get the truth directly from your Bibles, concerning your fellow man and how to love God.  When you hate anybody on this planet, you’ve crossed over the only boundary God placed around the heathen.

For not all Israel is of Israel; neither are all Christians of Jesus.  For it is not whom you follow, or what you say you believe that will save you; but what you do that will save you!

To be continued…

Cartel Homeless

Hasta el próximo 20 de diciembre puedes visitar gratuitamente en Sevilla Homeless, una exposición del escritor de graffiti Axel Void. Esta obra refleja desde la imagen de un indigente la actitud de la sociedad ante la cultura del graffiti. De esta manera, Void ubica a un indigente en la galería Montana, ubicada en la capital andaluza, espacio en el que “tendrá su chabola y podrá intervenir con el espacio exterior, que para él es el interior de Montana”.

Este trabajo nace de una reflexión personal, según la cual Alex Void concibe que la sociedad trata al indigente del mismo modo que al grafitero,  “existe un separatismo propio del público ignorante que existe en España. Fuera del país, aprecian más este arte. Tengo un sinfín de anécdotas que prueban la relación que se suele tener con el graffiti, desde pintar un mural con mis medios en los jardines del Valle, participando en un concurso del Casco Antiguo, y que me lo tapen al mes; la policía nos quita los botes…El problema es que Sevilla es muy conservadora, fuera del cliché del turismo, flamenco y Semana Santa se lo comen todo. Está relacionado con la imagen de la ciudad”. A pesar de todo, considera que Sevilla es la “capital del graffiti por sus artistas, que son muy buenos pero están menospreciados”. De ahí Homeless, un auténtico canto a esta manera de hacer arte que tanta polémica genera.

Lugar: Montana Shop & Gallery. Pasaje Mallol, 10 (Sevilla).
Fecha: hasta el 20 de diciembre de 2009.
Horario: De lunes a viernes, de 11 a 14 h y de 17 a 20:15 horas. Sábados: de 11 a 14:15 horas.
Entrada gratuita

Fuente: sevillaclick, tertuliaandaluza y smsevilla.

Thanksgiving was a busy day in household kitchens around Petaluma. Given the overwhelming public response to the plea for Turkey donations (See Petaluma Fills The COTS Turkey Gap!), I decided to slip out early to visit the staff and volunteers at the Petaluma Kitchen to see how they were doing.

At 8:30 a.m. they were more than busy–preparing to serve 180 complete turkey dinners with all the trimmings, plus pie.  COTS Food Service Coordinator, Don Louvier advised that the Mary Isaak Center was also preparing to serve 100 turkey dinners.

I managed to squeeze in and get a few photos without disturbing (I hope) their efforts…

SOME (BUT BY NO MEANS ALL) OF THE STAFF & VOLUNTEERS

Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver has launched a new campaign entitled, Homelessness is over.

The site implores Canadians to write to our very own (styling) federal minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley.  The message reads as follows:

Dear Minister Finley,

I am adding my name to the movement to end homelessness in Canada.
Canada is the only G8 nation without a national strategy to ensure everyone has access to quality, affordable housing. The result? A growing homelessness crisis that the UN has described as a “national emergency”.

Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, would help put an end to this national shame.
I am asking Pivot Legal Society to carry my voice to Ottawa and demand you do your job and create a national housing strategy NOW!

* Remember – all letters to Parliament Hill do not require any postage.

Hon. Diane Finley - Hill Office

B Stacks is a homeless emcee from the Chi-Town with a big dream. He can spit for hours but most of the things that come out of his mouth don’t make one bit of sense (don’t mind the trout haha).

My children are with their father for Thanksgiving. I WISH they were with me. My brother, sister-in-law, neices and nephew live about 14 hours away. My best friends are traveling or at their local holiday invite destination.

My neice sent me an email wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and asking me what I was thankful for.  So, I wrote back that I’m thankful for my children, her dad (my brother), her mom, her, her brother and sister.

I’m thankful that I finally found a good doctor by chance after nine years. She’s enthusiastic about being a doctor and interested in her work. When I question her, she enjoys the conversation. How utterly refreshing. Come to find out it was food that was making me soooo sick! I’m finally on the mend.

Speaking of food, did anyone watch Julia and Julie? How I laughed when they showed the guests and relatives eating TUMS! Granted I didn’t have a Thanksgiving Day dinner today, but I enjoyed years of gourmet cooking growing up and what did we have in the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms?  Yup, that’s right, TUMS! But the funniest part about the TUMS, is, I’m going to dare and say, my mother lived by Julia Child’s recipes.

Some of you are rubbing your bellies at this point.  Some are in agony from over-indulgence! I on the other hand am doing neither. I’m reflecting on the fact that years back the doctor and nurses lost me once on the table in the hospital. They didn’t know why. Reflecting on the endocrinologist telling me this summer that he has no idea how I’m alive today.  Oooo Oooo! I know the answer.  It’s called the will to live. He said I should have been dead 20 times over. 

I’m not saying anyone can live through anything by willing themselves, but it can make a difference. You wouldn’t be reading this right now, if I didn’t will myself to live. 

When life has been bad for so long and extreme devastation has taken place, if you think about it, you can still find something you’re thankful for, even when spending holidays alone. 

I welcome comments

My children are with their father for Thanksgiving. I WISH they were with me. My brother, sister-in-law, neices and nephew live about 14 hours away. My best friends are traveling or at their local holiday invite destination.

My neice sent me an email wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and asking me what I was thankful for.  So, I wrote back that I’m thankful for my children, her dad (my brother), her mom, her, her brother and sister.

I’m thankful that I finally found a good doctor by chance after nine years. She’s enthusiastic about being a doctor and interested in her work. When I question her, she enjoys the conversation. How utterly refreshing. Come to find out it was food that was making me soooo sick! I’m finally on the mend.

Speaking of food, did anyone watch Julia and Julie? How I laughed when they showed the guests and relatives eating TUMS! Granted I didn’t have a Thanksgiving Day dinner today, but I enjoyed years of gourmet cooking growing up and what did we have in the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms?  Yup, that’s right, TUMS! But the funniest part about the TUMS, is, I’m going to dare and say, my mother lived by Julia Child’s recipes.

Some of you are rubbing your bellies at this point.  Some are in agony from over-indulgence! I on the other hand am doing neither. I’m reflecting on the fact that years back the doctor and nurses lost me once on the table in the hospital. They didn’t know why. Reflecting on the endocrinologist telling me this summer that he has no idea how I’m alive today.  Oooo Oooo! I know the answer.  It’s called the will to live. He said I should have been dead 20 times over. 

I’m not saying anyone can live through anything by willing themselves, but it can make a difference. You wouldn’t be reading this right now, if I didn’t will myself to live. 

When life has been bad for so long and extreme devastation has taken place, if you think about it, you can still find something you’re thankful for, even when spending holidays alone. 

I welcome comments

My children are with their father for Thanksgiving. I WISH they were with me. My brother, sister-in-law, neices and nephew live about 14 hours away. My best friends are traveling or at their local holiday invite destination.

My neice sent me an email wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and asking me what I was thankful for. So, I wrote back that I’m thankful for my children, her dad (my brother), her mom, her, her brother and sister.

I’m thankful that I finally found a good doctor by chance after nine years. She’s enthusiastic about being a doctor and interested in her work. When I question her, she enjoys the conversation. How utterly refreshing. Come to find out it was food that was making me soooo sick! I’m finally on the mend.

Speaking of food, did anyone watch Julia and Julie? How I laughed when they showed the guests and relatives eating TUMS! Granted I didn’t have a Thanksgiving Day dinner today, but I enjoyed years of gourmet cooking growing up and what did we have in the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms? Yup, that’s right, TUMS! But the funniest part about the TUMS, is, I’m going to dare and say, my mother lived by Julia Child’s recipes.

Some of you are rubbing your bellies at this point. Some are in agony from over-indulgence! I on the other hand am doing neither. I’m reflecting on the fact that years back the doctor and nurses lost me once on the table in the hospital. They didn’t know why. Reflecting on the endocrinologist telling me this summer that he has no idea how I’m alive today. Oooo Oooo! I know the answer. It’s called the will to live. He said I should have been dead 20 times over.

I’m not saying anyone can live through anything by willing themselves, but it can make a difference. You wouldn’t be reading this right now, if I didn’t will myself to live.

When life has been bad for so long and extreme devastation has taken place, if you think about it, you can still find something you’re thankful for, even when spending holidays alone.

I welcome comments

They sound relatively similar but at a closer look, the two terms have some differences. Sure they have the same words, but different meanings.

“Giving Thanks” means to give thanks for anything or anyone you are grateful to have. It’s an action that emphasizes the importance of the things you have versus the things you lack.  I can give thanks for life, loved ones, and  my accomplishments.

“Thanksgiving” is an idea that has been overly commercialized with turkeys and gluttony. Thousands of families crowd around a table full of food while millions more starve, as they do every single day of the year.

Thanksgiving is not about the turkey and delicious stuffing. Then again, it shouldn’t be. Sure, it’s great that family members travel far and wide to reunite under the same roof, sharing laughs, memories, and a good meal.  It’s about being grateful once a year but  every day. Every Thanksgiving, text messages are sent nationwide sharing one’s appreciation for whatever or whomever they choose. Sadly, only a few recognize the true meaning behind the holiday. It’s about people coming together at the same table, setting aside their differences and recognizing the importance of unity and family. For most families, this day and Christmas are the only two opportunities when the family will be reunited under one roof. All of the words and fights mean nothing on those two days. Why can’t it be that way 365 days or 366 days (in a leap year)?

I challenge you to say thanks each and every day for your many blessings.

Today, I am grateful for another day. I am thankful for rest and peace. I am thankful for knowledge and loved ones. What you grateful for?

so i know it’s american thanksgiving today, not canadian.
(we had our hay day a few weeks back when the october days were still lit.)

but i never got around to posting what our thanksgiving looked like, so i thought no better time than when the holiday is at least being celebrated somewhere.

since neither emily or i was going to be around the matheson dinner table in edmonton, the holiday could pretty much be whatever we wanted. 

turkey on the beach sounded awesome, so that’s what we did.

we went down to granville island that bright sunday morning to pick out a lucky chicken (when turkey decides to be a non-dry meat, maybe i’ll convert back) and some fresh vegetables.
upon arriving home, we fired up the oven and a few hours later, out came our feast. yams, beans, stuffing, o my. 

our good friend ellie, another thanksgiving orphan, came to snatch us from our apartment and after a stop at the gas station to get some firewood, we fumbled our way with bags full of trimmings down the trillion steps to wreck beach.

we scoped out the perfect spot and there we sat.
on english bay.
stoking a fire and eating our homemade glory. we even had whipping cream for the pumpkin pie.

about 20 minutes in this homeless dude came over to warm his hands. we offered up a plate and he joined us for dinner.
half hour later, after the sun had retired, a bunch of his homeless friends joined us and we all got to talking over empty pots and a half empty bottle of wine.

it became something we didn’t expect, but what a blessing. to be talking about life with dudes who had called the beach their home for years. i think one guy counted a dozen years. a dozen years.

if you let it, life can be something significantly greater than what you thought.

so here it is, the thanksgiving photo reel:

almost all photo cred goes to the beautiful ellie koning.

happy thanksgiving!

This is the second shelter we’ve been in, and it’s not been easy. The first shelter was just awful, there were six women there including me and my mother. For a hot second there were seven. It was a night shelter so we had to be out by eight in the morning, and check in by six. We had to be back by nine. It was clean…but then again it was an old and run down place, right smack dab in the middle of town, and all the women had stories…some were sad, but some I just didn’t want to hear. And there was no system to help any of them, help any of us. The woman running the place, Jennie as we’ll call her, was a little less the pleasant. To your face she was a sweet old grandma type, but she just plain refused to help my mother. Making any excuse not to give any form of help to her. One ladies was suicidal, one wasn’t going anywhere with her life, one person was old and clearly enjoyed being a part of that ‘homeless crowd’ (had been homeless and on disability for 12 years) and your telling me you couldn’t find a little cheap apartment somewhere? The last woman was just an unfortunate woman, with an abusive past.

All the ‘Hosts’ as they were called, were anything else. You see, every night a set of people would ‘over see’ the shelter. It was a range of people, from college students to ‘Grandma Moses’ as my mother called one. There was an unusually large amount of ‘Barbie’ type women, who had a picture perfect American Dream family at home, with their star-studded husbands. They were there doing their charity to the community.  They nearly disgusted me with the way they seemed to always be looking down on us, even while striking up a conversation and smiling. They said “We offer breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Breakfast was a sandwich bag with a juice box, a granola bar, and a cup of fruit. Lunch was a juice box, a granola bar, a cup of chips, and a cup of fruit. Dinner was anything from dried up ravioli, to a day old box of pizza. Luckily we had food stamps, so we were never hungry.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have a place to stay, but if I could help it, I was sleeping at a friend’s.

Eventually we accepted someone’s invitation to stay at their house. Little did we know that it was a short-lived invitation. We stay with her as long as possible, but Mommy said she might have to stay in a shelter a few nights to perhaps speed up the ‘helping’ process. All of her help fell through though. She thought she was putting me in a good school, but it was ghetto as hell, as well as the education was just terrible. It was anything but good. In fact everything she tried to help with only got worst. Not long after she made it quite apparent neither of us were welcome. So we both ended up in a second shelter. Granted, it was much cleaner, and more structured then the first, but “It’s still a fucking shelter.” As my mom so bluntly put it.

And it is, oh it is. Sure here, we get breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a snack halfway between every meal, but that doesn’t consulate for the maggots we found in the granola bars, nor the fifty billion rules we have to abide by in hopes of not getting kicked out. They have a point system, where when you run out a points, you no longer have a place to stay. Rules include, no walking around barefoot, or in just a tank top. No cellphones, food, drinks, mp3 players, or laptops in the ‘dorm’, kids are to stay with their mothers at all times. Be dressed by 8, up by 5:45 during the week, including days off. Be in bed by 8:30 if you’re a child, 9 if you’re a teen, and 10 if you’re an adult.  If you take your medication without checking it into the office first, you get an automatic out. No changing in the dorm, no leaving your baby unattended, or letting it sleep in while your get ready in the morning. Those are all the rules I can think of right now, but there are more. You can’t breath wrong or you lose points, and get that much closer to getting a outdate.

They don’t really care because they don’t have to eat here, they don’t have to sleep here, this is a job to them. Some of them care, and some of us just think of us as Business Transactions. That is who, no what we are when we walk in the front doors of the “Piece of Heaven.”

Doesn’t matter if we don’t have a place to stay, in or out, your matter very little.

"Tough love" is what police officers have to show when they move on rough sleepers in Manchester, a police chief says…. From BBC News. Full story

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Thursday November 26, 2009 By Kevin Morrow

So I hit the freeway early Wednesday Morning headed to Las Vegas. A mini road trip for the thanksgiving holiday. The night before I left I came into the possession of two packages of those tuna and cracker kits. I ate one that same night. I usually eat two of them. Something told me to keep the one for the road trip.

To me it really isn’t a road trip, driving to texas is more of road trip to me, but anyway I was on the road and it was a “trip.” I was in the car with family and we had only a few cd’s. Micheal Jackson’s bad album,Toni Braxton, some type of workout mix, and some others. I really only remember the bad album because that’s what was in the cd player the most.

To me I arrived in Vegas in record time, there was no traffic since we left so early, and we floated all the way there. I exited the freeway on tropicana and ended up waiting forever at the light. I see this homeless gentleman who looks really down and out. People just keep passing him as if he isn’t there. He has a sign in his hand but I couldn’t read what it said.

Without even thinking I look down and see the tuna and cracker package in between myself and the passenger seat. I roll down the window and ask him if he wants something to eat. He looks confused like he doesn’t understand but he walks over to the car and I hand him the package. It’s all I could give him at the moment, but I felt like it was more than he had in a while.

It’s hard for me to imagine that with all the food in Las Vegas at the buffets and such, that this man for whatever reason was not able to eat. It bugged me to think of this, but then I remembered that I did what I could with what I had. I always hear people say “to see a change in the world be the change.” So maybe today I started off in the right direction.

It appears to me that I will be used more in the future as an avenue to help those who need it. I accept that openly.

After that I headed to UNLV where I pretty much fell in love with the Thomas and Mack Center. I can see myself playing in that gym in the near future. For whatever the reason may be. School or whatever, I know the NBA plays there in the summer time. So it’s up to me to believe in myself no matter what the circumstances may appear to be.

I never personally went on a recruiting trip to a college, so as I was at UNLV I decided to take my own tour. They have some really nice facilities. In fact I would most likely spend most of my time in their fitness area. The gyms on the upper level were calling my name.

It was a good day, I met some cool people and returned back home in time to play practice a little basketball at the gym. I just wanted to share that story, not much else to say.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!!!

Wow!  I just can’t fathom that it’s Thanksgiving already.

 Is it just me feeling the slow march of time, as in a lot of years lived on this earth creeping up on me faster and faster – putting the calender in higher and higher gear?   Whatever it is, or isn’t,  it’s still  Thanksgiving.  For many of us it’s just “turkey day.”  Time to hang out with the fam and maybe, if we’re able, or even lucky at this point, gorge ourselves on a lot of food and watch football, or enjoy other holiday traditions.

Sadly, for an increasing number of us who might be displaced, dispossessed, or homeless, it’s a rather depressing day.  I spent a lot of Thanksgivings away from my family because of military obligations, and later, television news schedules in the various markets I worked.   Since I was single, and wasn’t working anywhere near my hometown, I always volunteered to work Thanksgiving or Christmas, or both.  While in the military, if I was deployed, or away from home, I always volunteered to visit an orphanage. Lord knows in too many of those countries there were enough orphanages to visit every single holiday.

In the news biz it was far different, as you’d expect.  There was always the “typical” thanksgiving day story – the  food banks and shelters, or something related to it. Hell it got to the point where reporting those stories became disturbingly similar to painting by numbers. “Bam,” show up, get three or four soundbites; write the narrative , do your live shot(s) and go home.   But one particular thanksgiving in Indianapolis  in 2000 really left me teary eyed.

My photographer that day, Steve, and I felt ambitious. We decided to go out early that morning. In the military you’d call it  ”o-dark early,” like around 4:30 am.  It was a cold day. Colder than usual, even for near-winter Indiana as a fierce wind blew across the Indiana plains through Indianapolis carrying a bone chilling 28 degree mercury reading with it.  We braved our way into one of the not too easily concealed homeless camps on the edge of downtown.

As you’d expect we were met with a mixture of jeers, hostility, curiosity and, surprisingly – affability, when we told everyone we’re going to ensure they would all eat some good turkey-day chow.  It was a promise we intended to keep, as we convinced the station to significantly up its allotment of humbly, as in institutionally-catered thanksgiving meals they bring in for the holiday staff, so we’d have at least 25 extra servings for these homeless folks. And, that was a mildly conservative estimate.

But, we wanted to realistically, without resorting to the typical local news reporting, as in  bombastic hyperbole, chronicle Thanksgiving on the cold, unforgiving streets.  We really, sincerely, aimed to provide a humbling juxtaposition for the majority of our comfortably ensconced viewers enjoying the voluminous bounties of our land.  Bounty that is, if you aren’t homeless and make a salary considerably above the poverty line.

Looking back on it, it was kind of easy for us to hang there and form an easy rapport with the homeless rank and file.  We were both quite used to roughing it.  I had recently re-deployed from an active reserve tour in Bosnia where I had to deal with my fair share of mass grave discoveries – the gruesome aftermath of war gone completely, unabashedly, mad.  For his part, Steve was one of the station’s hardiest and most danger seeking videographers.  He was the guy always out  chasing tornados, of which there are many in Indiana.  He mostly worked solo, because he had this crazy tendency to get really, many would say, sickeningly close to them.  He  invariably scared the crap out of a lot of, unsuspecting, rookie reporters who didn’t know what exactly they were in for.

I know first hand, because my first month there that unsuspecting rookie reporter was me.  And, man, let tell you, you haven’t lived until a tree hurtles across your windshield, while the vehicle is rolling back and forth like a ship on an ocean with the angriest, darkest, fiercest-looking funnel cloud flirting disastrously close with your ass.  It was that moment, though, Steve and measured each other and bonded in a way Soldiers, or a news crew knee-deep in life threatening danger, often, and quite easily do.

So, hanging with some homeless folks, even those who invariably have significant mental health issues, was really no big deal.  But, we approached our work with an altruistic heart and a sincere journalistic desire to inform; telling the story of those who really are powerless to advocate on their own behalf.  This, even though we were vividly aware of the fine line we were walking.  It’s easy to accuse journalists – especially television journalists of crass exploitation. Hell, that’s what a lot of  TV reporting is based on after all.

In short, we produced a tear jerker of a piece. Our goal was to make our viewers stop and  take pause. At the very least, we wanted them to take inventory of not just their lives, situations and blessings, as well as those of the people orbiting around their personal circles, but of the general state of society.  We wanted them to consciously ponder, while they were stuffing bite after bite down their throats, how in the greatest, so-called wealthiest country on earth, hundreds of thousands of other human beings, regardless of the circumstances that made them homeless – and hungry, could live like that. Live in that sad and dangerous state of deprivation, on a holiday that not just represented great bounty, but unashamedly celebrated it.

I know what it’s like to be that way… Not just for the six or seven hours we spent “living homeless” that cold morning.  You see, I was homeless once in my life . I was a naively obstinate 17-year old punk kid who ran away from home in my senior year of high school.  I was fed up and disillusioned.  I was sick of the football and track coaches. Sick of my school. Sick of my teachers and sick of the students, 98 percent of them white South Jersey hicks, who nick-named my bohemian, mixed race, ass “hippie nigger.”  And, above all I was sick of my mom and dad who, in my adolescent, hormone-jet fueled psyche, had the audacity to move ME from my cool, familiar, environs in THE CITY, to hick-ass, pine tree laden, South Jersey, as in Ocean County New Jersey. And, yes, it wasn’t far from the coast and beaches which are kind of cool for the East Coast.  But, to me I might as well had been moved down south – like Dixie South.  Well, eventually my parents got sick of  South Jersey too, since they moved to Seattle afterward. But, not soon enough for me.

After what was probably my upteenth tantrum, and whining about not being near New York, my dad uttered those now immortal words, “If you don’t like it, then go!”  So, I did, actually.  That was two weeks before Thanksgiving.  But, I remember that  Thanksgiving all too well.  Homeless, scrounging for food and shelter on the cold hard streets.  Damn!  An education for sure. One you can’t buy, but simply you have to live.  

But, it didn’t stop there. I spent Christmas on the run too, but wound up with a friend I met who took me home for a week. He told his parents I was a college student from California who couldn’t afford to go back for Christmas break. They eventually got suspicious when, after their incessant prodding, I refused to call my parents for Christmas.  They wound up calling the police and I was soon on my way back home to South Jersey.

That experience obviously stayed with me, and helped shape the person I eventually grew into, for good and for worse.

So, as I sit here and reflect on my bounties this Thanksgiving, I realize I have so much to be thankful for.  I have my health, and I survived a substantial military career, several rough deployments and a war, in one piece.  My beautiful daughter married a very cool guy.  My parents, though with my dad in questionable, if not slowly failing, health are still here on this earth.  I have three great sisters and two wonderful nephews who are becoming men in their own right.

My Soldiers, in the unit I was placed in charge of before I left the Army, successfully completed a long tour attached to Special Forces Groups in Afghanistan. This, despite some harrowing incidents and firefights – they’re home and moving on with their lives, goals and careers.

I have a radio show and I continue to help people, and journalistically advocate for those who aren’t able to do so easily on their own.

So, here’s to you!  Happy Thanksgiving. May you be thankful for what’s really important to you.  And, may you share your bounty, whatever it may be, with the world around you.