2011

He is a big man. He kills for a living. The more he kills, it seems, the bigger he get - and he has killed in over 40 states. He is Doug Ferrari, stand-up comic.

At six foot five, Ferrari is an imposing monolith of mirth with a track record in the volatile comedy industry that reads like the guestbook at Spago. He has performed with the best - from Robin Williams and Rodney Dangerfield to Elvis Costello and Sun Ra.

"It's [CCHH] been in trouble for so long," he said. "I think losing the Tenderloin Times was the beginning of the endS when they lost their spirit."

He has trashed microphone stands in at least four time zones and headlined over 150 venues internationally.

But today we smoke roll-your-owns in the stifling smoking room of the Episcopal Sanctuary, a homeless shelter in downtown San Francisco. In the sweltering din of the shelter, I quickly learn that interviewing Doug is out of the question. His dry, flat monotone flows as steadily and unbroken as a stretch of desert asphalt. Having a couple of questions, I search for an off-ramp.

"I'm from San Francisco, and no, I'm not," Ferrari deadpans. Born on Christmas day, 1956, to an Italian father from Brazil and an Irish mother from Canada, Ferrari got his road legs early on. While his father worked in the space program for Lockheed, the family moved numerous times before settling in San Jose. "He wasn't that high up," said Ferrari. "He was one of the five hundred guys who worked on the paint." His mom was a certified public accountant for the federal government for 30 years.

Ferrari's stage career began when he was four years old in productions of "The Sound of Music" and "The Music Man." At the age of seven, young Doug was forced to see a psychiatrist "because I didn't get along well with others," and was kicked out of the third grade for fighting. "I was a bad influence because kids wanted to beat me up."

A self-confessed television and cartoon nut, Ferrari credits as his earliest influences the films of the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy and W.C. Fields. However, his biggest comedic influence at the time was the Dick Van Dyke Show's "Alan Brady" character, played by Carl Reiner. At the time, the young Ferrari was not attracted to stand-up comedy at all, reflecting, "I didn't want to be Buddy Hackett."

As a teenager Doug performed at hundreds of children's parties. "I did bad mime, bad ventriloquism, bad puppetry and bad magic," he says.

In 1972, at the age of 16, he decided to make it official by performing at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and was duly initiated into the craft. "I bombed in front of five people," he recalls. "They put me on at 1:45 a.m. and were sweeping the stage behind me and 'dusting the keys' of the piano while I did my act."

Around the same time, Ferrari received a full scholarship to Stanford University but turned it down to follow his dream. A dream his parents weren't so keen on. "Sometimes we can get through a whole dinner without that coming up."

A year later he founded "The High Wire Radio Choir" comedy group with fellow smart-asses Kevin Aspell, Larry Hansen and Ray Hannah who, after three months, Ferrari says, tried to kick him out of his own group for "being an obnoxious little punk." It didn't work.

Meanwhile in New York City, the Not Ready For Prime Time Players were carving out a piece of history for themselves on Saturday Night Live. "If I had been in L.A., I would have auditioned for SNL, but I've never thought that far ahead. Besides, our group was more like the S.L.A. of comedy." Introduced as "Living Proof the Andrew Sisters Slept with the Three Stooges," the group found a huge cult following in the Bay area, appearing on Dr. Demento and opening for well over 50 rock and roll acts at the Keystone in Palo Alto on a live radio broadcast. Every week they would drag a member of the headlining band into the skits. "We were like the Tubes without the musicianship... We didn't try to have musical value. It was all for comedy's sake."

The High Wire Radio Choir recorded an eight-song cassette and a four-song EP that featured a song about the group's legendary crash pad, "The Highwire Hotel." "There were about 25 people in and out of the group and 50 people in and out of the house - actors, actresses and musicians. Everybody was sleeping with everybody else. All kinds of crazy shit went on there." Like the time John Belushi puked all over the driveway.

"We saved his life. We could have rolled him and left him in the woods, but we took him back to his hotel room and made sure he caught his flight. He thanked us on the air."

Belushi had just shot "Animal House" and didn't think it would amount to anything. "He was very young and insecure," Ferrari remembers. "He was talking about doing [Hunter S. Thompson's] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas movie, but said to me, 'You know, [Dan] Aykroyd's been playing me these blues records lately...'"

Ferrari's influential group finally disbanded when the individual members began to do more gigs as solo comedians than as a team. "I was dragged kicking and screaming into stand-up," laughs Doug.

Stand-up comedy crawled up out of the bawdy miasma of Vaudeville, a stalling tactic used frequently when the dancing girls were late. It is a discipline born out of steaming, sweaty swamps of desperation, where it later evolved with the guidance of comedic muses like Milton Berle and Bob Hope. For Ferrari, the transition was made easier by the creation of "Jackie Shecky," an obnoxious, eight-foot-tall banana who told dirty jokes with a cigarette in one hand and a highball in the other, thrusting his hips pornographically with a loud "A-WAKA!" as his rimshot. "Jackie was just a joke, a prank that worked for nine months. Shecky was the clown prince of the dirty joke."

sing the experience of the High Wire Radio Choir, Ferrari performed parodies of driver safety films and commercials. He did imitations of inanimate objects using every inch of the stage. His frantic, bludgeoning stage antics combined with his size left spectators breathless.

"I have the energy of any two Krokuses and Quiet Riots put together in one guy," he told Bam magazine reporter Robin Tolleson in 1985. "I ran around and did a lot of silly stuff as if I was the size of Joe Pesci. I didn't realize just how silly it looked. I never took more than a sip of beer onstage because I didn't want to stop. I wanted them to be out of breath. I wanted peoples' mouths to hurt, women going into labor, shit like that. I wanted a body count."

Some criticized his methods, mostly myopic dinosaurs of the old school. "It's supposed to be this pure form," explains Ferrari. "If you have a puppet or a guitar and you're doing some wacky character, you're not a stand-up; you're a clown. Whoever invented that was obviously someone who had a limited range."

His critics were proven wrong in 1984 when Ferrari won the ninth annual San Francisco Comedy Competition, a launch pad for great comics before him, namely Robin Williams and Dana Carvey. Ferrari was the obvious winner that year at the Kabuki Theatre, facing off against industry-savvy headliners. He was the least known comic to ever win the award, causing an uproar in the local comedy scene. "They couldn't believe that an obviously broke, poor comedian who wasn't already [an established] comedian won," he recalls.

"I attend each board meeting and I have known that there are some issues to be worked on for the Arts Program. [We will] get back to you if we feel like we need to hear from you," Thompson said. They never did.

Immediately after the competition, Ferrari headlined every venue he played, because no one wanted to follow him. The energy and momentum of his performance left audiences sapped and some of his fellow comedians intimidated. Some were openly hostile. If Ferrari liked the act that was to follow him, he would "give him the crowd on a silver platter. If he were an asshole, it would be like 'follow that, fucker.'"

One trademark bit Dougzilla was renowned for was born out of a routine night doing his shtick. While leading an audience in an a cappella version of the classic American folk tune, "Meet the Flinstones," a particularly soused individual in the front row kept screaming "Bonanza!" which, incidentally, currently has no words. Tiring of the two-fisted tirade, Dougzilla reaches over and plucks a one-dollar bill off his table, and sets it aflame while fulfilling the sot's request. The crowd loved it, and it became part of the act.

"It's funny with a one, really funny with a five, but not so funny with a ten," says Ferrari. Soon he was autographing charred currency and reimbursing waitresses across the country whenever the blackened souvenirs were left for tips.

The audience is the prime motivating force in Ferrari's act, embracing the crowd with an "us-against-them" philosophy, as opposed to the standard "me-against-you" approach popular with many of his contemporaries. "When I was finished with a show and if I said 'All right we're all gonna go out right now and trash a fucking Starbucks,' I could have got them to go with me. The crowd is almost always right. Sometimes they're wrong; there are bad crowds - and they deserve to be punished."

So far, Ferrari has resisted the sleaze and mirrors of Los Angeles, where the concept of doing stand-up is less like comedy and more like an audition.

"I'm at the Improv on Melrose. I was a regular there so they had me up every night when I was in town. It was late so there were only about twenty people there. So a guy in the front row gets up and starts to head for the door, so I go, 'um, hold on a second. Before you go, are you in show business?' He goes, 'Yeah.' So I ask him, 'What are you, a producer or something like that?' And he goes, 'No, I'm an actor.' I said, 'Get the fuck out of here; you can't do anything for me. You probably have to dig through a dumpster for a sandwich. Get lost!'"

Ferrari laughs. "I want to get in the door in LA through writing, not stand-up." Despite his talent and acclaim as a comedian, it seems Ferrari has been belly flopping in a Bermuda Triangle of comedic bad luck. Having shot a one-hour comedy/drama show for NBC in 1985, the network was forced to cancel the fledgling series after only four shows - it ran opposite "The Cosby Show." "And besides," grins Doug, "the episode I debuted in was only aired in Europe."

Then there was the "Carson" debacle in 1990. In his act, Dougzilla would say to the crowd, "You want to see me on Carson in two weeks?" The audience would cheer and he would then say, "Then write to Johnny now."

After many people asked him if they should really write to Johnny, Ferrari's good friend and fellow funny guy Paul Provenza had the idea to produce 1,000 blank, pre-stamped postcards with Johnny's producer's address on them. "Pick 'em up off your table, write what you want to write and mail them yourself if you think I'm good enough."

Soon thereafter Ferrari's manager in LA called Carson's office. She discovered that they had received bag after bag of the postcards - and threw them all away. As it turned out, Johnny had a stalker. His people didn't want him to see the mail because it might alarm him. Two weeks later, they arrested a man outside of Johnny's house trying to break in. Later it was discovered that the man was responsible for over 350 letters with swastikas and skull-and-crossbones on them, the contents of which stated, more or less, "I'm going to kill you."

"I waited too long," Doug laments. "I never thought Johnny would retire... That's showbiz."

Showbiz finally caught up with Ferrari in 1994.

The constant partying combined with his overwhelming schedule was a one-two punch that landed on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Booked for a three-show stint at Zany's, Doug failed to show up at the club for his scheduled act. The club's management went over to his hotel room and found him passed out in his boxer shorts with a bottle of Jack Daniel's beside him. They promptly canceled his appearance.

"I was addicted to coke and pot. It wasn't just alcohol," he confesses. "I drank to come down off of all the other shit. If I had partied that Friday night and not drank, it would have been like any other night in the last twenty years: shit, shower, shave and do the gig. But no, I'm up 'till the next afternoon and I'm drinking trying to come down.

"I was afraid to leave my room, so I ordered a bottle through room service for about seventy-five bucks. It had occurred to me for many years, 'yeah I'm addicted to this, I'm addicted to that,' but it never occurred to me with the drinking. I didn't like it. How could I be an alcoholic? I don't even like to drink."

Returning home, he sought out the aid of a therapist who had written seven books on addiction and who charged $125 per hour. Eventually, he was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder. "It was all a surprise to me," he says. He was prescribed Prozac, Buspar and Klonopin. "Y'know, on the warning labels: 'Don't operate heavy machinery?' Shit, I am heavy machinery." 'Zilla laughs.

However, Ferrari really credits his recovery to his very dear and close friend, Beth. Having known each other through high school and college, they parted ways in 1974, when Beth got married and Doug was following his dream. In September, 1993, 20 years later, a now divorced Beth saw Doug performing at the Punchline and invited him to come to Albany for lunch. "I've hit rock bottom," he says. "I can't let an old friend see me like this. I was cleaning up my act so I could go to lunch with an old friend. I literally knew that she would be scared shitless if she saw how far I'd fallen. I couldn't go until I cleaned up and had some meds and shit like that."

Doug went to lunch in May, 1994. Five days later he still had not returned home. They were married on Memorial Day.

Ferrari's battle with sobriety was a juggling act. Between medications, therapy, recovery groups and halfway houses, and now a new marriage, he dropped the ball many times.

The first six months of the marriage were fine. However, there were still issues below the surface, which eventually needed to be addressed. Beth had inherited a problem with drinking and, in her extremely emotional tirades over seemingly insignificant matters, would often trigger Doug into over-reacting.

They often fought hard and loud into the night, and between the two of them the police were never very far away. Soon the couple was evicted from their condominium. "To get evicted for noise on Haight and Ashbury is really saying something," says Doug, illustrating the intensity of the relationship.

This time he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and two-and-a-half years later began receiving SSI benefits. Beth moved in with her parents, and Doug moved into a North Beach hotel, where Beth would visit him often.

"I was eligible for disability because I couldn't work a day job and I couldn't perform and I couldn't write. I wasn't able to do much of anything. I was told I had post-traumatic stress disorder like someone that had been to Vietnam, only it was a marriage. I was a wreck, but the marriage was never better."

hen, on their fifth anniversary in 1999, the couple had a blowout that resulted in Beth walking out, and Doug finally had to make a hard but healthy decision. "After about a million fights this was the first time I've said, 'I gotta pull the plug. We can't be together.' If you break up on your anniversary, what more of a sign do you need?"

Soon after that, an altercation with the owner forced Doug to move out of the North Beach hotel.

"I basically thought my life was over. Now I don't have a career, a wife, and a marriage. Now I don't have my dog. I've never been close to my family. I've dropped all my 25 friends when I cleaned up and then I lost the other 150 friends of mine when I stopped working in the business. I'm ashamed to be recognized on the street - 'Hey wat'cha doin', where ya' workin'?' 'Uh, nowhere.' And now I just talked my way out of a hotel." Since June of 1999, Doug has done the SRO shuffle, staying in roughly 20 hotels in the Tenderloin and Mission districts in a three-month period. Finally, after a stay in the Elm Hotel [recently voted one of the city's ten worst], he realized his sanity was at stake as well as not being able to afford it any longer on his SSI stipend.

He resigned himself to trying the shelters. He is currently staying at the Sanctuary, on 8th Street. "I've lost so much shit [being homeless] that if I got a gig tonight I'd have to run around and buy a fucking shirt." Ferrari is using his time well, and is currently exploring some of his options. In my discussions with him, he was eager to tighten up the three excellent book manuscripts he has written, and to begin marketing his exceptional skills as a comedy writer on the Internet.

"I could do three shows a night starting tonight," he tells me. "It's getting the gigs. It's the eight hours a day of 'no' on the phone. It's 'can you book me?' and then 'send my demo package back to the shelter.' So that's the great sabbatical. So now talking to you and working on the book, I now have a way to ease back in."

We wrap up the conversation at Wild Awakenings, a priceless oasis of a cafe tucked away on McAllister Street. After about five cups of their stellar house blend, the coffee begins to feel like nail polish remover in my guts. Dougzilla and I decide on a light, no-cost lunch at St. Anthony's Dining Room on Golden Gate Ave. Between mouthfuls of Mongolian Beef, Doug expresses feelings about holiday depression. Our fellow diners begin to chime in agreement - being away from loved ones takes its toll on all of us, we agree. The table is quiet.

The solemn, reflective moment is broken when a patron asks Ferrari if he is going to eat his slab of chocolate cake. "Look at me!" Dougzilla roars, "Do I look like I ever turn down cake?"

The table busts up. Ferrari can add St. Anthony's to his list of kills.

Thursday, July 15, 2010;

I depend on BART to get to my job in San Francisco twice a week. My job does not pay me in money but gives me knowledge of a whole new side of media production and education and a whole different perspective of life. Although getting paid in knowledge is priceless and a gift deserving of the masses, it does not help pay the rising costs of public transportation in San Francisco. Unfortunately I am not the only person who will suffer when the public transit fare increases and the service line decreases.

“As a senior, they doubled my fare in one year. This affects me because after paying rent I only have $200 to pay bills and fast pass,” said Bruce Allison, elderly transit user. “This is a hardship.”

On June 29, 2010 community members, public transit users, public transit workers, environmentalists and poor people gathered at the doors of the Federal Building in San Francisco to protest rising costs, decreasing service lines, and decreasing employment opportunities for transit workers. The goal of the protest was to urge Senator Boxer and Congresswoman Pelosi to support two pieces of legislation (HR-2746 and S-3189) that would avoid further budget/service cutbacks and provide long-term flexibility in transit funding to give local communities the ability to meet their needs.

“I think MUNI is either oblivious or pretty much insensitive toward economic times. People can barely afford to get a ride as it is,” Marlon Crump said.

This fare increase and service line decrease is a double-edged sword for poor people across the Bay Area. Not only will we no longer be able to afford to ride public transportation or have to resort to stealing public transportation but even when we can afford it MUNI’s service lines will be cut so we will end up getting stranded on our way to our jobs, on our way home to feed our families, or on our way to pick up our children from school. In the end, this cut will leave us stranded.

“With the service cut, anytime you get on a bus you can almost guarantee feeling like you’re in a sardine can,” said Thornton Kimes, public transit user.

At the protest rally, the air filled with different chants and cries. “Stop trying to balance the budget on the backs of the workers!” “Fix our transit! Fix it now! Fund our transit! Fund it now!” “We have money for wars but can’t transport the poor!” The rally was filled with solidarity between workers, union members and the people that need it the most, poor public transit riders.

“At a time when the economy is down we need public transportation most,” said SF Labor Council Director, Tim Paulson. “Who’s affected most? Working people. Poor people. Homeless people. Students.”

As I sit at Macarthur Station and wait for my transfer to Richmond I wonder what effect the service cuts will have on people. Will the late night service line be cut entirely, leaving me stranded in Oakland for the evening? I reach in my pocket and count the last of my dollars from the day. $5 exactly. I had to worry about not spending any money that day to be sure I would be able to pay the increased toll at the Benicia bridge that night. And all I could think is would I be able to afford to make it to work the next time?

Right on! Right on! Ride on! Ride on! Save our ride!

On Friday, July 30 at around 7:45 am a long-time homeless resident of the Haight St. area was beaten by a private security guard at the McDonald's restaurant at Haight and Stanyan. His crime was asking for a receipt for a breakfast he purchased, in order to comply with the company's beverage refill policy.

Brother Nicky had just spent about $4 on breakfast and a coffee, and had asked the employee who had served him for his receipt, in order to enjoy his coffee refill on a chilly morning. He was told "I can't give you a receipt right now." Nicky sat down, finished his breakfast sandwich, and went to refill his cup. The employee refused him. As he was leaving a heavy-set security guard pushed him from behind, sending him careening down a flight of stairs, injuring his back in the assault.

Fearing another attack, and with gravity as his only witness, Nicky defended himself by liberating the contents of his now lukewarm coffee cup into his assailant's face. The bull-headed security guard responded by punching him in the face four times.

On his way to the park police station a well-to-do patron who had witnessed the brutality offered Nicky his own breakfast and coffee. "What I just saw sickened me," he offered to our bruised but grateful hero.

Brother Nicky made it to the police station at around 8:10 and described the incident to the desk sergeant who told him he would send an officer right out. After waiting a half hour for the cruiser, Nicky returned to the cop shop only to be told the same thing, with the obvious result.

When Nicky came up to the Coalition on Homelessness office, I found him to be a bright, gentle guy; the kind of guy I could not see being thrashed by anyone for anything, least of all for making an obvious request that any patron has a right to make when spending his hard-earned cash. He still seemed kind of shocked and even a little hurt and bewildered at the abuse he had suffered as he related his story to me.

Brother Nicky only wished to hold McDonald's accountable, because, as he told me, "That woman who spilled coffee in her lap got $2 million for her suffering. What kinda money do you think I could get for getting beat up?"

I told Nicky that what is right is not always policy, and that I would help him any way that I could. I set up an interview with Policewatch for him and asked him to call me when he had heard their assessment. He called me the next day to tell me excitedly that Policewatch thought it would be hard to prosecute, due to a lack of witnesses (Nicky didn't ask the gentleman in the SUV for his name). Then he told me that one of his friends went back to that same McDonald's, and that the security guard that threw his civil rights down the stairs and pounded his face had been fired. I asked him if he felt vindicated and he said he did, but he wanted to send a letter to McDonald's about the incident.

What a nasty bastard, huh?

Harpo Corleone

--

Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco 468 Turk St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
vox: (415) 346.3740
Fax: (415) 775.5639
coh@sfo.com|
http://www.sfo.com/~coh

The Metaphor Exercise is one of many creative writing exercises we use in the multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-generational Revolutionary Journalism Class at PeopleSkool.

These are the beautiful pieces of prose and poetry that came from the 2^nd class of the 2011 winter session.

La Alfombra

By Julio Chavez

 La Alfombra Azul como el agua del oceano.

Y las paredes a; rededor.

Decoradas con imagines de heroes que seguramente

Los libros de historia no van a mejorar.

Pero que nostros no debemos y no tenemos olvidar.

En un futuro sercano. NUestras fotographias pueden

Colgar y contra la verdada y hacer la historia  con poder.

Shoes swathing-  By Michael

Shoes swathing across an aged petroleum carpet, insulating the office with painted incensed oil-spill. Landfill bound attaching it’s decay to yet another thirsty forest, from painted panels encasing writers to the county debris pile, choking the dirt itself from it’s seeds.

La Metafora De alfombra

By Ingrid DeLeon

Soy un techo como este cuarto

Pues asie siento pero si no tubiera

Pero si  yo no tubiera bacea me cairia

Y dejaria de ser un techo

Seria un piso donde todos caminaran sin berme

Pero tengo 4 bases que me sostienen y no me dejan caer

Como esas 4 paredes que sostienen este techo

Asi son mis simientos o mis bases que no me dejan caer

Estas bases son mis  4 hijos

Que son tan fuertes como un hierro

 Juntos somos fuertes como un roble y nadie no bensera

The Rug Became Water

By Libah Sheppard

    THE RUG BECAME WATER AND WALLS BECAME MOUNTAINS

    THE WATER FLOWED THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, THE  AIR OF CITRUS FRUIT SURROUNDED MY NOSTRILS, AS THE CLOUDS RAINED OF COINS THAT FLOWED DOWN THE RIVER SURROUNDED BY MOUNTAINS, AND THEIR I STOOD AT THE OTHER END OF THE RIVER RECEIVING ALL THE BLESSINGS FLOWING INTO MY SOUL.

World with No Borders

        By Muteado

        World with no borders where I sit with my brothers and sisters,

        Blue sky surrounds us,

        Holding us

        In her hands

        Surrounded by Glyrophics

        Of who we are

        On top of green grass

The Room is like a Field

By Toby Kramer

`The room is like a field with papers and chairs growing out of it like shrubs and tufts of grass. The walls are huge trees and the ceiling is  the canopy of the forest. Books and boxes perch on the branches of the trees like forest animals in their burrows.

POOR Magazine poverty skolaz, Po Poets and welfareQUEEN's travel to Detroit for the Allied Media conference and US Social Forum and to xchange skolarship with Detroit families and folks!

Monday, June 7, 2010;

Allied Media Conference:

Saturday, June 19th

4-5:30

(Incite) Mamaz Truth-telling

Sunday, June 20th

10:00am

Challenging Media, Akkkademia and Research PeopleSkool workshop

11:50am

Makeshift Reclamation -

US Social Forum

Wed, 06/23/2010

10am

Childcare(Familycare & the left) (with POWER & child care collective)

Wayne County Community College: 340

3pm

Poets in poverty ReSist- welfareQUEENs and poetas POBREs perform

Amphitheater

TBA

welfareQUEENS @ World Court on Poverty

Friday, 6/25/2010

10am

Peoples Forum on Language Theft, Language Occupation, Linguistic Domination, Resistance & Reclamation

Description:

Throughout the history and herstory of oppression of indigenous peoples and peoples of color in poverty, the worlds of academia, research and media have successfully dominated, silenced and colonized indigenous voices, voices in poverty and voices of color, resulting in the loss of our native languages and an accepted and fixed notion of literacy and scholarship,i.e, who should be heard, who is a scholar and what is considered a valid form of data collection, media production and research. In this forum/workshop, the poverty, race, disability, youth, migrant and indigenous scholars of POOR Magazine's PeopleSkool will challenge the racist and classist concept of literacy, and how some languages have functioned as active tools of oppression and enabled the intentional exclusion, separation and silencing of voices in poverty, indigenous voices, youth voices, elder voices and voices of color to be heard, recognized, integrated and powered.

Detroit Community-wide:

4) WeSearch Camp @POOR - poor people led media and research outside the USSF and in street corners and neighborhoods across Detroit - please invite us to your community or struggle for a truth Voice

5) Homefulness POOR Magazine knowledge xchange posse- poor people led/indigneous people led sweat -equity co-housing project to give landless indigenous families access to permanent housing, arts and multi-generational education, localized food production, micro-business and equity not based on how much is our pockets- read the Manifesto for Change to understand the whole project- Please suggest/invite us to communities in detroit we should see /speak with

The Coalition on Homelessness and four kick- ass local bands linked claws on a Saturday night in August at the Hotel Utah in a joint effort to buy shopping carts for homeless folks.

If you have never had the pleasure of seeing the sun gleaming off the black, chitinoid armor of a Free Kart rolling down past the tourists in U.N. Plaza, you have not yet truly lived. If you can for a moment imagine a cross between the Stealth bomber, an angry dung-beetle and the Batmobile, you'd be getting close.

The "FREE KARTS" program was originally conceived and birthed in April of this year as an art/activist collaboration between POOR magazine and the C.O.H.

Willy, an artist out of Oakland affiliated with POOR magazine was in large part responsible for the savage, heart wrenching beauty of the flagship five carts given out at the April 27th press conference at City Hall. A large part of the predatory beauty was due to him spot welding two steel fins to the frame of the Kart itself.

The original concept was to supply our homeless friends, brothers and sisters who use carts for either their property or for doing recycling work "street-legal," privately owned carts that the cops can't legally touch.

All of this was and is in response to Supervisor Amos Brown's "Cart Anti-Removal Program," a proposal as silly and uninspired as its name would suggest. The real impetus behind this is to continue terrorizing homeless people through the confiscation of their personal property, via making local supermarkets responsible for their carts under the threat of imposed fines. This would result in even more instances of freelance cart Gestapos being paid on a cart-by-cart basis to physically threaten and harass our poorest citizens.

In case you don't already know, Amos (shit, not again!) Brown has tried on more than one occasion to treat people like they were bi-pedal cattle by herding them up, branding them with stigma and nasty misinformation, and corralling 'em up to stockyards with names like Mission Rock and 850 Bryant.

If you've never heard this self affirming "man of god" (yes, he's a reverend!) bleat out his hate sermons before, he comes off sounding crazy and not just a little bit scary. Amos spits hate with the authoritarian delivery of a righteous preacher, and we are not talking about a great man like Dr. King here by a long shot, folks.

After telling loads homeless folks that they could probably get in for free and to park their carts in a diagonal fashion on the sidewalk outside of the Utah, and that hey, if you show up I'll buy you a beer, The door guy said to me, "As long as you're 21 and not hygienically offensive, you're in!" I thought that was pretty cool of him, since he was backing up my big mouth.

The bands were really good. Slow Poisoners were a kind of space-rock-psych outfit that I thought were as hilarious as they were talented. I especially dug the guitar/keyboardist's chops. M. Headphone were great as well, I felt myself floating away a coupla times with them but maybe that was in part due to a large quantity of cheap beer. Heavy Pebble, with Erika their stellar presence on the bass and vox started to make me more than a little homesick in that they reminded me a lot of the circa '86 Pixies.

I cannot say enough about not only how cool these guys all were in their respective musical soups, but also individually in talking to them. In my experience playing in a bunch of bands back east, it's more of a you-gotta-pay-to-play-kinda deal, you do pretty good when you can get some beers after the show and maybe tip the sound guy something decent, so to have these guys donating not only the door but t-shirt and CD cash to keep the concept and acquisition of Free Karts alive through their sweat was really freakin' cool. Kinda like finding a diamond in a turd. After all was said and done, KA$H FOR KART$ raised roughly $700.

Keep your eyes trained on the streets. Free Karts are comin'!

Harpo Corleone

--

Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco 468 Turk St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
vox: (415) 346.3740
Fax: (415) 775.5639
coh@sfo.com
http://www.sfo.com/~coh

It happened under their noses, noses of different angles and dispositions; noses shaped and molded by uncalloused fingers leaving imprints of corporate logos, collegiate acronyms and other indentations.  One such nose belonged to my supervisor, the blonde, who took more than her share of oxygen whenever close by.  I would hyperventilate, overriding my breathing’s natural cadence, gasping for something I couldn’t see.  She would breathe—inflating herself with the vigor of a fitness instructor and lung capacity of a bullfrog—training me on policies and procedures she’d written—reviewing each item (100 in all)—breathe in…breathe out.  Our training “get-togethers” would sometimes last more than 2 hours.  I’d look at the round-faced clock on the wall.  It said, “You should have been out of here a half hour ago”. 

The blonde would eventually leave me to breathe on my own.  I’d sneak to the bathroom and look at my nose. I’d look at the bridge, the cartilage that sloped in a downward angle.  I wanted to find the Filipino or African parts of my nose, the parts that took in air and blew them out—on toilet paper, handkerchiefs and, occasionally, into an imaginary indigenous nose flute that was, in reality, my snoring--on those nights I was able to sleep. 

I am a door attendant, or doorman, or—as some folks would say—concierge.  Prior to this I worked as a security guard for three years, employed by 2 different companies with nearly identical uniforms but different arm patches—one showing a raccoon, the other a bear.  The security company dispatched me to a newly built high-end apartment complex in the city’s Richmond District.  I sat and greeted high end people in my guard uniform.  In several days I observed that some ends were higher than others, for even in the high end world, ends come in varying degrees, like a good steak—low high end, high low end, medium high end, high high end, and no-end-in-sight high end.  I greet these souls with a “Good morning” or an occasional “Buenos dias” for flair, and other requisite pleasantries one must use when encountering people whose monetary worth, when compared to your own, puts you into the status of a dwarf.  All this takes place from the vantage point of my “New York style hotel front desk work station”.

The property management somehow liked me and, it so happened, had an available position for a door attendant.  I applied and got the job. I turned in my security guard jacket with the raccoon patch and told my father in Hawaii the good news via text message:  Hey dad, I got a house Negro job paying me 3 dollars an hour more than I was getting as a security guard.  Ten minutes later I got my father’s response via text message that seemed to have drifted across the pacific on a gentle Hawaiian breeze: You ain’t got no house Negro job…you got an uncle tom job…congratulations. I was given a new uniform--a pair of tan dockers, a baby blue long sleeve shirt, a blue jacket, tan shoes and a sweater vest.  The sweater vest bothered me, but i was happy it did'nt have an argyle design.  Sweater vests make you look paunchy and soft--giving the impression that you have basically surrendered your manhood, dignity and residual bits of revolutionary spirit.  I hate sweater vests.

As the front desk Uncle Tom, I am becoming acquainted with my duties, not the least of which is cleaning my work area.  As part of a long lineage of custodial artists (janitors)—namely my father and uncles—I am aware of the need for cleanliness.  I greet bottles of assorted cleaning products and grab a rag.  The place is spotless and I would assume, free of any virulent microbes that could invade this temple of the high end.  I spray and wipe constantly.  The countertops, windows, windowsills, doorknobs, marble walls—even the chandelier--all cry out “Please, no more…it hurts!”  But I ignore the pleas, the screams, scrubbing and buffing, getting it cleaner than clean—so clean that I begin to cry from the stinging in my eyes.  I prop and re-prop the pillows on the couches next to the fireplace, I neaten the stack of newspapers—of the proper variety—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and SF Chronicle (One morning I placed copies of the Bayview and Street Sheet on the table which were promptly whisked away, by whom, I have no idea for I was too busy cleaning to notice) and I begin to think of Mr. Rogers and how he loved his (high end?) neighbor.  “Hey Uncle Tom” a voice calls out.  I look and all I see are pillows upon a couch devoid of people, a window without reflection and a variety of surfaces cleaned to extinction.  Then a whisper: “You are on sacred Ohlone land…this building was once a hospital where people endured many sufferings”.  I looked at the fire place and pillows and lobby area.  There was no one.  Then another whisper: “Take back your life”.  I stop scrubbing and go back to the front desk. 

One by one they pass me on their way out, the hedge funders, the marketing consultants, the CEO’s, the medical professionals—most, if not all, newly arrived to the city.  I open the door and they whisk by, leaving a bit of high end air for me.  I go to the kitchen area and make coffee, making sure the pots are gleaming and that the proper amount of sugar packets, creamer and wooden stirring sticks are displayed. 

The environment is a strange one, corporate and detached, yet in the pores of everyone within it. All is contrived and controlled; laughter and anger—the emotions that make us human—are only accepted in forms that are sanctioned by the corporation.  I look out the window.  I see the neighborhood I grew up in, the street where I delivered papers, the street where I was hit by a car while delivering papers, the street where grandma and grandpa could not rent an apartment because Grandpa was black and Grandma was white.  I see the street where my Filipino Grandparents walked on after being evicted from the Fillmore to make way for redevelopment.  I am jolted out of my dream when a resident drops their dry cleaning off at the desk.

While I’m opening doors and calling cabs and scheduling dry cleaning deliveries, there is this guy who works at the residence, the janitor, Marco.  We hadn’t exchanged a word for about a month into my employ yet I noticed him; something real, something familiar about him.  He pushed his mop bucket, its wheels rumbling across the cold floor—the sounds coming from some deep place that can only be felt.  He walked over that floor that had been scrubbed until blue and he told me he had worked at the residence for a few months; before that he had worked as a janitor at an Indian casino up north. One day he told me he was Filipino—on his mother’s side.  I was half Filipino too.  Slowly we began to talk like Filipinos, laugh like Filipinos, and our bellies grew with Filipino hunger.  Soon that sterile floor, that sterile environment seemed different.  The microbes that were banished returned and laughed along with us. 

Marco told me that he’d been to the Philippines and had met his mother’s relatives.  I told him that my grandparents had come to America in the 20’s and that I’d never visited the motherland.  He spoke in measured tones.  I sensed that this was a side of him that he had somehow been made to feel ashamed of.  But slowly I felt that shame die as he swept and mopped.  He spoke about his favorite Filipino foods.  I got hungry.  I told him I’d make pork adobo for our lunch one day in the week.  He mopped with more vigor. 

The smell of adobo filled the break room that following Friday, breaking through with a spirit of community, breaking whatever was designed to break us; permeating the walls and sterilized floors, swirling and rising through every inch of that former hospital until the spirits rose and came to life, sharing their stories, songs, tears, fire; the pork and vinegar and chili peppers spread like fire on our lips as we spoke of our families, sharing brown people words and brown people thoughts—the rice sticking to our fingers and corners of our mouths like memories that refuse to die.

I just got my first probationary job performance review.  As usual, I got average/below average scores in all categories except for attendance and punctuality.  I sat while my supervisor spoke with corporate sanctioned words and sanctioned emotions.  You have to be more of a team player and orient yourself with more high-end businesses in the neighborhood to recommend to our residents, she said.  As she spoke, I heard nothing.  I took a deep breath and smelled the fragrance of my community—of the adobo that Marco and I shared—that was now in the floors and walls and ceiling and could not be scrubbed off or erased. 

My supervisor finished my review, signing and dating the review under her eyes.  But she had no idea that while she was doing that, Marco and I had taken back our lives, its sweet fragrance undetected under her nose.

Friday, October 23, 2009;

Ingles sigue

I’m not currently homeless, but with the fickle stoner landlady that my partner and I have, that could change at any moment. We don’t want to be homeless again. If we lose our place here, we can’t afford another one here in Austin.

I’ve been homeless on and off since 1992, when I left home because my mom just refused to get along with me. At first I lived off my savings, but when that ended, I started crashing with friends and occasionally sleeping with guys to have a place to stay for the night. I smoked pot and dropped acid, so I don’t really remember much from 1992 to 1995. .

At the drop of a hat, if I ended up with some money from a little job, friends, or church, I’d decide to go off to Austin, Nashville, Dallas, or some other town. I’d work there for a while, but never could save enough to find a place. .

I met a guy with a lot of privilege and we dated all summer. I guess he liked having a little street girl to fool around with for a while, until his rich psychiatrist daddy freaked out after I got pregnant (I found out later that Daddy-O paid for my abortion.) Then my boyfriend literally dropped me off in front of a teen homeless shelter. Two months of depression and drug use ensued. .

I met a British space physicist and had a semester-long affair with him, once again ending up pregnant. This time, I was not going to terminate my pregnancy. I was able to find a supportive midwife who moved me to North Texas, where I gave birth to Maya in 1996.

I returned to college in 1997,but it only lasted a year. My parents and I had reconciled by that point, so I ended up moving in with them in El Paso. I was able to find a good job as a telephone operator, but once again, depression reared its ugly head, and I got fired. .

My parents told the State that I was not fit to care for my daughter because of my mental illness, so they took her from me, promising me that they would give her back when I was more stable. Then the State charged me with child endangerment because some anonymous asshole reported that I had left my child alone and didn’t feed her. I got probation, but pissed it away after my mom told me not to see my daughter. I ran off to Houston in 1999 after CPS refused to assist me in obtaining mental health services. .

I got pregnant again the next year after a fling with an eighteen year old. I went off to San Francisco, but returned to Austin after six weeks. I moved in with some friends from the LGBT community, and gave birth to Ethan in 2001. .

I had odd jobs and help from friends, and that’s how I survived with Ethan then. We traveled around the country, but the grass was not greener on the other side. We always returned to Houston. .

In 2004, we were living in a mentally ill group home in Houston when I met Todd, a fellow resident. We quickly fell in love and got our own place, but that didn’t last long, because I was so afraid of CPS and the State coming to get me. I left for Austin that summer, and Todd followed me a few months later. .

I became pregnant and we moved to Albuquerque, where we stayed until Zen was born in early 2005. We returned to Austin, where we stayed at the Salvation Army for six months until we qualified for a housing program. We moved into our own apartment in a nice area and Ethan began school. Almost immediately after moving, I once again got pregnant with Serenity, born in 2006. We spent that year moving from one apartment’s “$99 move in special” to another. .

Todd got a part-time job in 2007 and we moved into a house. Unfortunately, he became physically disabled in addition to his mental illness, so we lost the house. We spent most of 2007 going around the country trying to find him better health care for his neurological disorder, caused by the negligence of his psychiatrist. .

In September of 2007, we moved back to Austin and briefly stayed in the Catholic Worker house. Unfortunately, the woman there didn’t like Todd and threw him out, so the kids and I left the next day. Unbeknownst to us, she called CPS on us. .

We got help from the School District to move into an cramped apartment in a bad area of town. To help pay the rent, I started stripping, but fell back into drug abuse, so I just wasn’t able to take care of the kids like I should have. Todd was basically bedridden at that point. CPS came, but they saw nothing wrong, so they closed the case. .

March 2008 was when the shit hit the fan. Our apartment complex was sick of fixing our windows broken by the neighbors playing soccer, so they threatened to evict us. The next day, I received a call at work from CPS saying they were removing my children because of neglect. My house was a total pigsty because I was too depressed to care, and the police were called. They discovered my warrant for probation violation, arrested me, and sent me back to El Paso. They sent Todd to the mental hospital. .

After I was sentenced in El Paso, I was arrested for child endangerment again in Austin, and was transported back. The whole time I was incarcerated, I only got one visit from friends. I ended up serving my sentences concurrently, and was released from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in December of last year. .

Todd and I went to court and had our parental rights terminated and so our children went to foster care, then adoption. It is still very hard on us ten months later. .

I finally was able to access mental health services and chemical dependency treatment, and now I am receiving Supplemental Security Income as well as Todd’s. Unfortunately, it is hard to locate affordable housing in Austin nowadays, so we rent an RV month to month. We don’t know when our college student landlady is going to flake out on us and want us to move. I don’t know what is going to happen then, but I am a survivor, so I know I’ll make it through.

Trent

Bent to that
demon wind
blowing from within
and without.

Without a home
curled tight to the needle,
cops slide you in to the
bag like you weren’t.

Man,
you were a great voice whose
words we so badly needed
to hear:
Here;
haven’t got enough
words
to cover this hole in my gut.
Feel it rotting too,
one step behind you
buddy man.
I don’t want us to go there
all of us
together alone
narcotizing
the pain-joy
of fear-success.

Was it the shadow of Doug’s
rescue?
Celebrity charge to the front page
and outside
the paper
lying on the cement
you’re dead.

Trent man,
why you went out that way
curled round the needle
on the street--no back
flat on it and hurting
medicated in to no-land;
other land;
over.

Blue land, blurry blue of better wombs
I can’t dare to cross it
I’m burnin blurry here.

I remember the way you transcribed that interview getting it down word by word word for word but

I don’t know the sound of the tape that was running inside you at the brink of extinct:

link to who we really are.

Margot says you wouldn’t have died like that in Cuba no homeless heroin-heros bunked down on concrete.

I remember the way you packed that pack every night: loading a tome from the library--was it Whitman?--after a day of pecking words on our whizbangnew G4 speedsters while you sleep out.

Fucking city without.
Demon wind without
10,000 out
every night out
staying warm with blankets,

booze, needles, and shared stories.

Trent
you told us story: Your grandad in hiz crazy
cave with the carvings how can you be gone?
You can’t be gone.
You are still here inside me
making me look at my demons
that could kill me slowly
or quickly.

+++++++++++++

Trent Hayward aka Harpo Corleone.
Died on the Street: June 3?2?, 2000

Like cracks within the dry, humid, red dirt, scratches cover your hands... callouses are like the rough, dry patches of red dirt... yet when I touch your earthly hands it is like the softest cloud and the silver lining is in our soulful eyes... that brings us overflowing joy as the constant gushing river that is the bloodstream of Mother Earth. It is not everyday I meet a person and feel that I’ve known their soul forever. A person whose spirit and heart is the opposite of what people assume that they are. A person who had everything I did not. A person who has suffered horrendous grief, hurt, and pain but, like Tupac’s rose that grew from the concrete this person is the Ute rose sprung rezcrete. Meet the rose named Louis C. I met Louis in a Ute beardance ceremony, and he was one of the beardance singers. Right when I saw him, I looked at him as if I knew him. When I danced with him it was as if I knew his soul without saying a word. We did not have any conversations, and yet had a deep spiritual connection. While I was stunned with what had just happened, he left. A week later, I met Louis again at a different Ute beardance, and I picked him again to dance. After the beardance, I decided to find out more about Louis. We talked about two-spirited people, energy and how it heals people, and sang traditional songs. We found out we were even both semi deaf in the same ear. That night, I found out about some of the breakdowns in his life. I couldn’t believe that he had those breakdowns in his life and I saw him in his greatness of who he truly is. I have never lost that vision of Louis living out his greatest potential. While growing up, Louis ended up going to different boarding schools, and decided to drop out of high school and went back to his reservation in Utah. There he went through many ups and downs in his life, but one thing always secretly sustained him, his art. As a survivor of rape, abuse, and torture, I knew how important literary art was to me. I would keep a journal that no one else knew existed and write out my hearts desire. There I let out my pain on paper instead of cutting myself again and again. One day, I showed a teacher at the reform school I attended a poem that I wrote. They told me how good it was and so for the first time I let someone keep my poem. The teacher ended putting it in the yearbook. For the first time ever I felt validation as an artist. Just like how I was in high school, I came to find out he is an artist who kept his art to himself. Many people draw what they see but these drawings came from inside his heart and third eye. He would always say this about his artwork, “I just look at the paper and it shows me what to draw and the colors just pop out.” His artwork reminds me of pop art mixed with traditional arts. I am wowed by every time I see his art, it is as if I am looking at his art for the first time and I learn something new about myself. I started to see a transformation in Louis based on experiences and trainings he was going through. I saw a young man who was heartbroken, hurt, and feeling alone turn into a courageous, loving, intimate man who was as vulnerable as a ballerina. He told me his vision was to go heal and help all the people he had hurt in his lifetime. That is the most courageous act a person can do is face themselves and the hurt they have caused and transform into being the source of healing for the same people. Louis’s spirituality speaks through the energy he creates and sends out to nature. I remember one time him sitting outside on a cloudy day and he told me “I just kept thinking for the sun to shine through the that cloud.” Then a hole appeared in the clouds and the sunshine through. That day became sunny and brought happiness to all the creatures in nature. One night I was with Louis and my stomach started to cramp. I was in a great deal of pain and tearing from my eyes. Louis saw me in pain and all of the sudden he put his hands on my stomach and just within a few seconds the pain was gone. Louis’s art was affected and popped off the paper, canvas, or walls even more while he was going through his transformation. He came down to the reservation I live on and supported a youth mural project. This mural project was part of my vision for about 1 year. It is the only youth graffiti tobacco abuse-free mural in this county. He painted the Uintah and Ouray Mountains and animal tracks from his reservation after the kids would leave for the day. It was his first time ever on a public mural project and stated, “I am just so lucky to even have this opportunity to work for the youth to have some of my art on this wall.” Louis taught me the value of silence and being in it. Just to be silent with nature and to listen to what it is saying. He told me, “Too many people are so busy talking and forget to listen to the silence. Why can’t they listen to the silence?” He would take me on road trips where for hours we would sit in silence and he would every now and then point to an eagle, hawk, deer, elk, or another animal. He taught me to be comfortable with the silence that surrounds my life and to let it heal me. While I am writing this article I am evoking Louis’s silent spirit by being surrounded by silence and for the first time in a long time finding pleasure in the silence and not having fear associated with it. So many times we honor people after they died and they never know the impact they make on our lives. We thank them in their death for what they have done for us. I choose to honor a young man named Louis for all the things he taught me about his journey, art, and spirituality. I honor him for the greatest potential he is and his commitment to standing as the source of positive energy. Life is too precious for me not to honor an indigenous scholar such as Louis, and to honor his mother from whom he came from. As my friend Tiny says, “Without her (Mom) there would be no me”, this is true of Louis and his Mama. She raised a loving, spiritual, lucky young man. Thank you Debbie, for raising Louis to teach me lessons as he gives his gift of art to the world.

Ben Ali, Tunisian fascist dictator, is gone!

Egypt’s 30-year fascist dictator (and U.S. puppet) Hosni Mubarak is about to go!

We are seeing with our own eyes – at last – real people’s power in action. We are seeing the working class joining hands, the police and security forces included. It’s so exciting, exhilarating!

Nevertheless, the world’s peoples must register their support and make this a world revolution so that the imperialists won’t be able to fuck it up – i.e., reverse the revolution with their guns and butter.

This could very possibly be the beginning of a global revolution that would free the people of the world from the tyranny of the 1 percent who own 80 percent of the world’s resources – and initiate real democratic self-determination.

We – the children, women, men of the world who comprise the overwhelming majority of the global population – WE must demand our human rights NOW. Our right to live. Our right to land, bread, housing, health care, child care for working parents, education, justice and peace.

As Frederick Douglass noted: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” We must collectively and globally demand our human rights, human equality.

All power to the people! People of the world, unite!

Long live the Egyptian revolution!

(The above pics are Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigates men sexually assulting disabled women)

Hate hate hate
It seems like every day
State to state

I was profiled in New York
Fredrick hung in Mississippi
Disabled women assaulted in LA

Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Protect & Serve
Black & Blue shot shot shot

Wheelchair user with a knife
He was a threat to public safety
As a Black man I never feel safe

Getting hot in December
Nothing new in a new year
Brothers & sisters

Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Life halted
Break out your cell phones

Get everything on video
Sell it to ABC, NBC, and CBS
Doesn’t spell justice for the victims

Budget cuts
Lead to hate
So we all bleed

Dig deep to the seed
Pull out the roots
Changing our attitudes

Things don’t change
Until it happens to you
But that is way too late

Politician was shot today
Rich & poor are getting hot
Time for radical change

Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Can’t see the bigger picture
When the media’s frame is crocked

Don’t need a band-aide
Beyond reform
We are all in this storm

Will we reach out for that hand?
After all of this still can’t understand
Why disabled people are still
Hung, Shot & Assaulted

By Leroy Moore Jr.
1/9/11

Note: according to US statistics a person with a disability is 4 to 10 times more likely to be a victim of a crime than a person without a disability. 60% of women with hearing impairments, 59% of women with visual impairments, 57% of women with learning disabilities, and 47% of women with mobility impairments will be physically abused in their lifetimes. 81% of people with psychiatric disabilities have been physically or sexually assaulted. Research consistently finds that people with substantial disabilities suffer from violent and other major crime at rates four to ten times higher than that of the general population. Estimates are that around 5 million disabled people are victims of serious crime annually in the United States. There is no figures of national rate of police brutality against people with disabilities but October 22nd Stolen Lives Project put out a book including people with disabilities.

“Mama, will I ever see you again? Whispered by a child in the hills of San Marcos, Guatemala

“Without child care we won’t be able to keep our jobs,” spoken by a mama of three struggling to support her children in Oakland

“We don’t work with Indians,” yelled at an indigenous elder in San Francisco by San Francisco Housing Authority worker

These are the voices of survival radio-keep our media access or we will die radio – keep us on the air or we won’t stay alive radio- Up from the streets, shelters, jails, borders, hip hop beats, youth and elders teach, indigenous-people-led thrival radio. These are the voices of PoorNewsNetwork/PNN radio & PNN- TV – a revolution of media access by any means necessary. Radio, video and stories written, produced and edited by migrante workers in poverty, indigenous elders struggling to keep their land and homes, young folks of color being criminalized for the sole act of being young and of color, African peoples resisting profiling and po’lice murder,  mamas and daddy’s struggling with the myths of the budget cuts and the edges of false borders. Radio, video and written journalism launched by a houseless/landless indigenous disabled single mama of color and her daughter, me.

Taking Back Our Voices

“You and your mother are trash,” Without looking at us, our West Oakland landlord of two years mumbled his opinion of me and my mama, while throwing an eviction notice in our face.. After he dropped the papers he walked down the narrow pathway from our ex-home  to the street. At least he didn’t throw me up against the wall like the two previous landlords had done.

After living through three illegal Oakland evictions in a row, I had written a story about our struggle to get and stay housed in dot-com era Oakland, I sent the story to two east bay media outlets and two “independent radio broadcasts”. All of them said different variations on, “This isn’t news, this happens everyday in the US”

“How long have you and your mother lived in your vehicle,?” A strange amplified voice  seeped into the tape covered rear view window of our car, it was followed by a threatening, glass shattering knock on the remaining glass of our window. It was a knock that always meant police. And yet the voice didn’t fit the knock. I looked up from my crouched frozen position on the frayed vinyl seats of our old Ford Fairmont, only to find a small framed white woman with a large padded microphone in front of her. She was standing next to a tall po’lice officer who glared down at me, while she maintained a seemingly harmless smile. After multiple gentrification and poverty inspired evictions my mama and I ended up living in and out of our broke-down hooptie for the duration of my childhood and teenage years in the Bay Area facing criminalization and profiling and eventual incarceration for the act of being homeless in Amerikkka.

“ Tell them to get the F** out of here,” my mother slapped the back of my head to get me to move, it was barely light on a cold Saturday morning in Oakland. I quickly brushed myself off and came out of the car, still wearing two blankets on top of my clothes.

When I got outside the car  I found out the seemingly nice lady was a reporter doing a story on families  living in their cars. To do this report she felt it necessary to travel with the Oakland Police department. The first thing I  told her was that my mother and I were not ok with being recorded or having our pictures used for a story. After I spoke to her the police officer reminded me that it was illegal to park overnite in the city Of Oakland, but that he was letting me off “this time”.

The following week we were one of five families pictured in an “expose” on  people sleeping in their cars, billed as Crimes of the Underground. 

Since the inception of media production and academic research, people with race, class or economic privilege have received thousands of dollars from places like The Ford Foundation, a philanthropic organization one of many that exist in the US, with roots in the genocide and slavery and stolen wealth of poor and indigenous peoples as well as pure race science like eugenics, to create elaborate filters through which the voices of poor people of color can be “heard”.

From research fellow-ships and ethnographic documentaries to anthropological surveys and studies, our voices are fetishized, deconstructed, studied and discussed; we are spoken to and talked about- and we only “have a voice” if our documentors deem them important to the goals and outcomes of their projects or our voices inclusion is required by the grant guidelines.

We don’t need to be “given a voice”

To be perfectly clear, we don’t need to be “given”, a voice, we have a voice, millions of multi-lingual, multi-generational, beautiful, complex, loud, expressive, angry, intelligent, powerful, amazing, voices, speaking in thousands of unrecognized dialects, unheard poems, un-recorded songs and street-based beats. What we don’t; have is our own radio transmitters, television and radio broadcasts, TV stations, dominant languages, libraries, publishing companies, digital access, and servers. Or like my sister in revolutionary media partnership at the Bay View, Mary Ratcliff so eloquently put it, “ People know of some censored stories through the powerful Project Censored out of Sonoma State university, but PNN is the voices of people that are Never Heard,” Her comment spurred me on to create a new ironic re-mix for the voices of us poor folks: Project Silenced

Media equity sharing

So how are the voices of poor mamas, migrante workers, youth of color in poverty, incarcerated peoples, disabled peoples truly heard, with our own stories, our own author-ship, within a dominant society that actively works to silence us. This is the revolution that is PoorNewsNetwork, The Bay View Newspaper,  the Block Report and other truly revolutionary, community located, poor people-run media and art projects.

It is accomplished at POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PNN through a complex web of poor people-led education, organizing, consciousness growing,  and decolonizing about the myths of linguistic dominance (deconstructing literacy, etc)  in  media, education and art. As well it includes the sharing of media and resource access which are quantifiable forms of equity, by people  with institutional access, such as the web designers who volunteered to help POOR Magazine lost in digital apartheid for 13 years into our new 2.0 digital home at www.poormagazine.org, with skills and tools that are inherent in the lives of people not worrying about when and where their next meal is coming from.

PNN Revolutionary Radio

Since 1999 when my mother and I walked tentatively into the KPFA radio building to begin a broadcast that was originally slated for once a week, forged from the KPFA protests of 1999, with the goal of being inserted into the very clean, very NPR-ish Morning Show at KPFA

From that first day in the station we began pushing the limits of media inclusion and resisting media exclusion with stories written, produced and reported by folks living in shelters, working in low-wage or no-wage day labor, incarcerated and profiled African peoples, peoples with disabilities, poor mothers and fathers on welfare, youth of color in poverty and resistance and on and on. We honored our removed and displaced ancestors and elders, our houseless and poverty scholars and consistenty re-ported and sup-ported on our comrades in struggle. We were constantly told we were including. “too much Spanish” from our Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia reporters. “Your reporters don’t speak right, or were too inexperienced.” Because they struggled with “literacy problems”,  learning disabilities or differently-abled speech patterns.

Me and my Mama Dee, Joseph Bolden, Ingrid Deleon, Ken M, Leroy Moore & the Krip Hop Nation, Silencio Muteado, Queenandi, Bruce Allison, Ruyata Akio McGlothlin, Vivian Hain, Jewnbug, Tony Robles and many more poverty, disability, race and indigenous scholars continued walking into that building remembering it wasn’t about how bad they made us feel, but rather that this one channel of media access must remain open, by any means necessary.

“With the widening gap of the haves and have-nots- digital apartheid is an everyday reality that PNN is struggling against- it is media at its purest- and the closest representation of what media is supposed to be, “ said Tony Robles, Revolutuionary Worker Scholar and co-editor of POOR Magazine

For Mama Radio

In 2006, my African-Boricua indigenous, ghetto fabulous mama passed on her spirit journey. Two hours before she left this plain, she was writing a short commentary about a small homeless puppy who had happily been living with a houseless guy in his shopping cart in Oakland until he was adopted (read: taken) by a “kind” yuppie who took pity on the homeless dog, but then eventually became annoyed by the puppy and gave him up to the SPCA “I know they are going to try to edit this part out,” My mama chuckled with her hilarious sense of irony that got us through all of the bad times we lived through together, was certain that the  revelation of the myths  of the well-intentioned is sometimes to hard to hear by well-intentioned academic researchers and middle-class producers of radio and media, “so let’s get ready for a fight…” she concluded.

In 2011, our voices are in more struggle than ever, for housing, hellthcare, non-existent jobs, against racism, profiling po’lice terror and criminalization in Amerikkka., for unseen art, unheard music, constant resistance and a poor people revolution created by the poor people who experience it first-hand Tune in to PoorNewsNetwork radio & PNN-TV for the truth voices, the peoples voices- published weekly , experienced daily to stay alive voices-

The Fight continues mama….

1. Madness, Metaphors, and Mud In Yer Eyes, Oh My!

In 2010 we were "treated" to the stunningly obvious and madly maddening, information that there is a failure-to-graduate-from-high-school rate of 40%+ for Black youth in Amerikkka.  We also heard, just as the college/university basketball championship tournament known as March Madness was getting underway, that many prominent colleges and universities have an equally (or worse) record when it comes to graduating Black basketball athletes; some schools of higher larnin' have problems graduating many athletes period.

Black hole.  Padded room.  Pick your metaphoric image.  The news went "thud!" and the response was a muffled silence, or the cheering of crowds that wanted to see their fave team just win, baby!  2011 is upon us and March Madness looms large again in the minds of sports fans.

2.  A Little (Personal) History, part 1

I guess everyone thinks they live in a place where sports seems like the true religion practiced.  I like to joke that Texas, where I grew up, is definitely one of those places.  I didn't become a fanatic, but I did get socialized into enjoying (watching, mostly) sports.  I loved the 1970's Dallas Cowboys, and several other teams.  My baseball addiction developed the same way--I (usually) follow the teams of the cities I've lived in, though that has been tough to do in places like San Francisco and Seattle--places where it has often seemed that good players get trained to go somewhere else (like the New York Yankees...) to get paid ever more outrageous sums of money.

September 11th, 2001, did more than change some of the ways we live in Amerikkka now.  When the interrupted professional baseball season got back in gear, and the playoffs began, it was clear that the national (news) media had decided The New York Yankees were "America's Team", they "deserved" to win because of what happened to New York City. 

The televised playoffs included many tv camera close-ups of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, which was incredibly annoying since many people seemed to want to forget his Po'Lice-friendly policies and his very public hatred of any art that wasn't safely innocuous and easy to love.  The camera close-ups ended, I think, because the network covering the play-offs got complaints.  They certainly got mine.

Results?  I'm a mild-mannered Boston Redsocks fan.  Never thought I'd say that.  I sort of pay attention to the NFL, the end of the Michael Jordan Era led to a deflation in most of my interest in NBA basketball.  It's hard to ignore local (and other) college sports when something big happens--but there's so many more college/university teams I've never been able to wrap my tiny little mind around following THAT mess.  I loved pro tennis and golf for years, but, even though he has been the Mr. Big of golf, the only way I can get excited about golf again is if Mr. Woods returns to being Dr. Doom on the links.

3. A Little History, part 2

"Back in the day" (aka "back in MY day", not entirely true in my case since i'm not a Greatest Generation elder...) professional athletes had to work other jobs in their off seasons.  Their sports paychecks weren't big.  The pipeline for new guys coming up to replace the older stars was both the college/university-track athletes, semi-pro leagues, baseball's minor league network of teams, etc. 

How things have changed.  For Amerikkkan football you've got the Pop Warner young kids football leagues that train the kids that have potential to play well in high school and beyond.  That system has become a major cog in the machine of sports in this country, spitting out kids and spitting out kids that can go all the way to the NFL if they can ignore all the usual distractions, plus the ones that children in poor neighborhoods deal with daily. 

Basketball has the Nike Camps.  I met a teenager going to a Nike Camp when I was a laundromat attendant in Seattle.  My clue was the sheer massiveness of the amount of sports clothing, and socks.  My ghod, the socks.  The Nike Camps, sponsored by your friendly seller of gazillion dollar designer basketball shoes, are where potential NBA stars go to become better basketball players. 

If you're a kid from a middle class or higher family, the pipeline includes your own family's connections.  For poor young athletes, having potential and being good is about the only thing they've got, despite all the ranting and raving going on all around them about the importance of a good education.  Lip service on steroids. 

As has been said by someone, education ain't a Race To The Top, it's more like the steady tortoise beating the flashy wabbit, but what do "they" know?

4.  Why are Haiti and the Dominican Republic In This Article?

Haiti is in this article because The Dominican Republic is right next door on the island.  There wasn't much news from the DR after the earthquake, mostly stuff about how this or that person or organization that wanted to help could only get into Haiti via the DR.  Why relative silence from the DR?

Silence usually means the government is doing a good job of keeping the disgruntled, the dissenters, from being heard.  The Dominican Republic might as well be called The Baseball Republic.  It is where MLB (Major League Baseball) players from the DR, as well as some homegrown Amerikkkan players go to play "Winter Ball" between the end of one MLB season and the start of Spring Training and the next season.

Another pipeline for MLB is the DR, and other Caribbean nations, where children play street ball, get enrolled in the belly of the beast of the national/international obsession for the game (not to forget the intense desire not to be po' no mo'.  Those big paychecks the stars make are...magnetic); some of those children get exposed to fame early, traveling to Amerikkka for the Little League World Series. 

The drive to get out of poverty leads to doing whatever it takes, By Whatever Means Necessary.  Disputes over the age of young players are common.  Scandals over the age of older players happen too.  One of the relief pitchers for a team that got into the 2010 MLB Play-offs was unable to go pro for several years because his visa was suspended in a scandal over a real or imagined plot to get players married to Amerikkkan women, get green carded-up, etc.

5.  Whazzup, Doc? part 1

If there's more "there" there for young poor athletes, how did we get to this 40%+ national non-graduation rate state of affairs for Black Amerikkkan youth?  How do we fix (I have some ideas on that, which require another article.) what's broke? 

When I was a teenager in the 70's I hated hearing talking heads talk about education being about "training young people to be good workers".  I guess the old chestnut about "well-rounded educations" "well-rounded individuals" (or citizens) has been tossed on the bonfire of the buzzwords.  Capitalism needs workers, so all I hear is a-good-education-is-necessary-so-we'll-have-good-workers!  Yay. 

Several of my facebook friends post oldie and new songs on their pages.  I listened to one particular hip-hop/rap song I liked, posted it to my page, then deleted it--I liked the beat, but the lyrics drove me nuts.  Still, one of the other major paths to some sort of success that has been walked by many young Black men and women in Amerikkka is still spitting out new artists and songs, much to the on-again, off-again chagrin of Conservative White Amerikkka.

More of this might slowly, or quickly, fix some of the broke stuff.  At least one POOR Magazine person wants to produce a music CD, and the recent Mercado de Cambio saw the welfareQueens struttin' their stuff and rappin' hard and very conscious.  Vivian Hain is, as always, an amazing, intense performer, but all of the Queens spat some good stuff and I very much hope the welfareQeens make some beautiful music soon. 

Hey, POOR has POOR Press.  Why not a POOR Records label?  The Mercado was also host to various friends, allies, and extended POOR Magazine family rapping, blowing my mind, having fun.  "Charles Pitts and the welfareQueens" (or any reasonable alternate name you want...) anybody?

6. Whazzup Doc? Big money Capitalist sports must shrink!

I once had dreams of being a professional bowler, but quit competing when the competition got more interested in getting part-time jobs so they could afford to date girls.  The competition kept me focused on something I enjoyed.  Somehow, I managed not to think about joining an adult league for, well, competition to keep me rolling.  My bad.

There are many people in this country who play in amateur sports leagues.  Minor league baseball is popular because it's affordable entertainment.  You don't have to get a bank loan to take the family to a game! 

Making sports more community oriented, more indigenous to neighborhoods, smaller rather than larger, makes sense.  Especially when you have Tea Baggers and others ranting and raving about red ink, among other things. 

I'd much rather see more people playing baseball in the Summer--at the field (in San Francisco) on Turk Street between Gough and Laguna, near where I live--see more money spent on that sort of activity than what gets spent on the Bay-To-Breakers foot-race marathon and other "Bigger Is Better" entertainment events.

Maybe that should be part of the debate over what money should or shouldn't be spent in the coming "here we go again" Budget Brawl In City Hall.

I never realized how bad it was until now.  I grew up here and have seen this place transform over the years.  My best friend used to live behind me.  We would tap on the wall to communicate with each other.  I have seen the good bad and the ugly in this neighborhood.  Freedom West Homes sits in the Western Addition, a very expensive piece of property as it sits firmly near City Hall , the Opera House, a school , fire department, transportation, Japantown.  Three hundred units holding people of different religions, ethnicities, economic, and educational backgrounds. 

Every Family has a history.  I can tell you the history of almost every hardworking family that has lived on my block and outside my block.  Europeans, Africans, African Americans, Asians, Latinos all live in this co –op; some feeling victimized and hopeless with limited English skills and a lack of housing advocacy and resources.

Hundreds of shareholders of Freedom West Homes Homes (Bethel Housing Corporation) are going to have their homes taken away from them.  Freedom West Homes is a 300 unit shareholder complex, likely one of the biggest housing projects that still exists.  The piggy bank is up for grabs and this cooperation has been purposely mismanaged by Alton Management. 

About a month ago all shareholders were sent an “Amendment to Occupancy Agreement Carrying Charge  Increase”  The rate increase was not the main issue, however, the amendment itself used wording that suggested that we were residents and not shareholders.  The Amendment also suggested that we paid rent and not a rate.  As a result a meeting amongst only 20 – 30 residents out of the 300 units attended.  So we all crossed out the amendment  and made minor adjustments. We went to the office to turn them in with our checks and discovered that the offices decided to close down early.  We left our payment and “Re Amendment” inside the payment box and  a couple of days later our amendments and checks were returned to us.  The amendments were VOIDED and we were given ten days eviction notice by Alton Management of Oakland to pay the rent  without re-amending the amendment.  David Tse , who spearheaded the movement to save Freedom West Homes helped arrange a meeting with  San Francisco Board of Supervisors Ross Mirikarimi, as well as Supervisor Board President David Chiu. Ross Mirikarimi and David Chu.

David Tse (470 board director of freedom west
you are hereby required, on or before January 20, 2011, to pay said rent in full, or to deliver up possession of said premises to the undersigned or legal proceedings will be commenced against you to recover possession of said premises, to declare said agreement for possession forfeited, and to recover court costs and attorneys’ fees for the unlawful detention of said premises.  The undersigned elects to and does declare a forfeiture of the lease, rental agreement or tenancy under which you occupy the above premises if the rent is not paid in full on or before the above specified date.  You have ten (10) days within which to meet and discuss with the Administrator this Notice and the proposed termination of your tenancy.  Please be advised that you may only be evicted as a result of a judicial proceeding and if a judicial preceding for eviction is instituted you may present a defense at the trial.

As for those who were intimidated and excepted the amendment we don’t know what the legal ramifications will hold for them in terms of their shareholder status. Signed without  proper legal counsel and fear of eviction and  kept it.  Then Billy Hutton from Alton Management tried to charge everyone a  $20 late fee.  The same guy that held up all the checks. 

In addition to this, word is out that by 2012 this federal funded coop is supposed to be fully paid or the the co – op will shut down it s doors to its residence.  Alta management is going to be audited to see if they have been compliant with the federal funding of Freedom West Homes.  There has been so much mismanagement who knows what is going to happen after the audit? who are coming from Washington D.C.?  The Federal Funds we are trying to pay back  This is why the federal government is involved. 

Over the past years Freedomwest Homes has been unstructured and unmanaged and has failed HUD inspections.  Several units are falling apart--plumbing, mold, worn down cabinets, bad carpets, etc.  Everything is coming to a termination point where the federal bond is ending meaning HUD pulls the plug on us allowing a developer to come through and buy up the property.  We don’t even know if we will be compensated as shareholders.  If Freedom West is bankrupt who will pay us?  People are going to be homeless or the developer  will have to pay us for our share.  We are one of the biggest federal funded complexes in San Francisco, if not the biggest.  So by putting pressure both on federal and local levels. The biggest issue is to get Alta management out due to mis-management.
 
So far San Francisco Board of Supervisors David Chu and Ross Mirikarimi have been approached by residents of Freedom West and have agreed to look at the situation.  Nancy Pelosi’s office has also been advised.

For updated information please see David Tse's blog at freedomwestdave@blogspot.com

Another excellent Freedom West story in the Bay View
 

Will George Gascone, the new District Attorney of San Francisco, increase the number of arrests for 647E (the Illegal Lodging statute)?  This law goes back to Gold-Rush times, originally intended to stop people from claim-jumping someone elses gold mine.   

The law, as written, can hurt people--especially poor or completely destitute people.  They can be charged and serve up to three months in jail for a first offense, for the crime of sleeping in public.  A sleeping bag (with cardboard beneath for insulation from the cold) is being considered "lodging".   

Taxpayers get to give $600 a day, per person, to house anyone found guilty of 647E--or any other infraction that gets them "three hots and a cot" in the city/county jail.  When cities and states talk bankruptcy, they must be more creative options for housing.  Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms are $60 a night--doing the math, that's $600 in one month instead of $18,000 a month per person!

This also cycles the money back into the community that is coughing it up. 

Dear District Attorney Gascone:  This poverty scholar doesn't like wasting money any more than you do.  It's about time you got out of the fascist mentality that has been bankrupting San Francisco.  This idea isn't new, Dianne Feinstein did it when she was Mayor (1980)--giving vouchers to people to get into SRO's.  I hope you like this idea instead of believing 647E will magically solve all your problems. 

This is the Loyal Opposition, a.k.a. Bad News Bruce Allison.  You could have more allies than you would believe if you did this.  Hospitals and psychiatric units are being overwhelmed, realtors are leaving 30,000 units vacant.  Where do you expect people to sleep?   

If you want to respond, this poverty scholar is willing to talk--at the poormagazine office.

RIP to my uncle Eddy
he always kept it steady
and nobody s ever ready
he had a woman named Betty
she was never ever shady
he was a boss who paid the cost
even when he was homeless he'd floss
he was a man with kids across the land
from his homeland Mississippi
to out here's bay of San Fran
another man in my life who helped me know I can
he left behind my cousins Edward and Evany
they running businesses and selling things
in colleges graduating
everyone loved him at his office on Fillmore n Haight st
my fathers best friend, they both had Ford Granada's matching
he was loved and had alot to give
Nobody wants to die but he taught us how to live
RAM 

Press Release Berkeley, CA. SF Bay View Newspaper & Poor Magazine in conjunction with Krip-Hop Nation Presents: Black Disabled Artists, Authors, Activists & Friends for Black History Month 2011. San Francisco, CA February/2011 Krip-Hop Nation celebrates Black Disabled Artists/Authors/Activists & Friends for a weekend (February 18-20) of readings, music, discussions and panels all highlighting the artistic contributions of Black disabled artists/authors/activists and those who support them of yesterday and today focusing on music and literary.

On February 18th at Modern Times Bookstore 7pm Krip-Hop Nation will have an Author panel of new books by Black disabled writers & friends including - Toni Hickman of TX Adarro Minton of New York, Allen Jones of San Francisco and friends of Krip-Hop Nation, DC Curtis & Bones Kendall of LA. All of the above authors have recently published their books from poetry, fiction, to non-fiction.

Hip-Hop artist, Toni Hickman publish her own book, Chemical Suicide, Death by Association , professor, poet/fiction writer, Adarro Minton of New York no b.s. book, Gay, Black, Crippled will leave your mouth wide open; author Allen Jones of CASE GAME, is philosophical, bringing people into the 21st century in the areas of race, sexuality and ability with true stories on how he believes God has assisted him in challenging out dated thinking. Friends of Krip-Hop Nation DC Curtis & Bones Kendal of LA has wrote a dream of all Krip-Hop youth and that is to be on stage, on MTV with a record deal but in their fiction book, Truth & Pain starring the Gangsters & Retards in... The Mystique-cal Person-a of MC Cripple Crip that follows a group of disabled youth has a twist that will make you laugh, think, cry and sing. This group of authors coming from Texas, New York, LA and San Francisco will krip your mind and limp your stride as they spread their words and love.

Where: Modern Times Bookstore 888 Valencia St. San Francisco

When February 18th

Time: 7pm but get there early and buy books and look around

Sponsors: Modern Times Bookstore, Krip-Hop Nation, San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, Poor Magazine & I.D.E.A.L. Magazine