Story Archives 2011

June 2000

I had the honor of meeting Trent Hayward at the community newswroom in the offices of Poor Magazine. I was impressed as he claimed the persona of the Chief Justice of the High Court when issues of poverty were discussed. Trent's presence not only empowered everyone in attendance on that afternoon, but the unpretentious contribution he brought to the newsroom made him an instant friend to me.

We only had one occasion for social interaction, which offered me some of his insightful thoughts. I only wished there could have been more. I will carry his trove in the recesses of my heart.

So long, Trent.

June 2000

Time takes a cigarette
Puts it in your mouth
You pull on a finger,
Then another finger,
Then, cigarette.
The waterwall is calling,
It lingers, then you forget:
Oh, no, no, no;
You’re a Rock and Roll suicide.
You walk past the café,
But you don’t eat
When you’ve lived too long.
Oh, oh, oh, oh;
You’re a rock and roll Suicide.
--David Bowie: Rock and Roll Suicide

(from the album Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars)

June 2000

I got to know Trent James Hayward in a journalism course at Media Alliance in San Francisco.

I had the privilege to work with him, the best writer in the group, for a couple of stories. He was always a source of fun and professionalism. He tought me a lot about writing and talked to me about his mother and family living back east.

Trent will always have a place in my heart.

My Name is Trent, which is an River in England. I'm The first born, of The first born, of The, of The first born, And Also 1st Fuck-up In my Family.

I was The Great Great Son of The Black Family, with close ties/Marriage To The Grants. Yeah, Ulysses; The Famous Drunken Pres. And The Gov. on The North who Quelched The Civil War. Maybe I'm A Relative of Shirley Temple, But I Don't Know the words to "Good Ship Lollipop". I'm Also Irish (O'Connell): My GRANDDAD on my mother's side (her dad) who chose to live in a cave in Torrey Pines Ca. He CARVED EGYPTIAN MOTIFS AND mythical IMAGES into THE Stones AND LEFT A Guestbook For Fellow TRAVELLERS TO Sign. No one Trashed his House. NO ONE DEFILED THE SANCTUARY. HE WAS AN ARTIST, AS IS MY MOM.
HE DIED IN 1992 AND IT ALMOST KILLED me. THEY FILLED HIS ART WORK AND SANCTUARY WITH CONCRETE, DESTROYING A LIFETIME OF WORK. HE WAS OFFICIALLY CALLED ÔTHE HERMIT OF TORRY PASS'. THAT WAS MY GRANDFATHER... .

Central City Hospitality House (CCHH) is a shelter and a social service provider with a long history in San Francisco. Founded in 1967 at the onset of the Summer of Love, it was a safe haven for the multitudes of youth that flocked to the city chasing the dream and finding the Tenderloin. In the early years, Hospitality House was committed to a nonjudgmental and nontraditional approach to social work. The outfit offered sandwiches, referrals to treatment programs and a place to sleep - as well as publishing a neighborhood newspaper, the Tenderloin Times, and an open arts studio for poor and homeless craftspeople.

This community center built to serve those who have hit the skids has fallen on hard times of its own in recent years. Last year, financial woes forced Hospitality House to axe its entire youth program, including Orlando House, a 12-bed home for street kids. The closure left some 30 staffers looking for jobs, and hundreds of homeless youth looking for help. In the process of a city-ordered reorganization, the agency has acquired its fifth executive director in as many years. Paul Boden, executive director at the Coalition on Homelessness, as well as being a past resident of the program and a former staff of Hospitality House, recently was asked to serve as board chair and take on the task of restructuring the troubled nonprofit.

"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."

A Raising Our Voices investigation shed some light on CCHH's troubles. An inspection of the nonprofit's financial records found the statements of CCHH and outside parties to be noncorroborative, showing either negligent bookkeeping, gross financial mismanagement, or, in the worst case, white-collar crime.

Problems with arithmetic

The agency is funded in large part by government monies: federal, state and city funds accounted for 80 percent or more of $3,237,936 in operational assets for fiscal year 1996-97 (the last year available), according to forms filed with the IRS. But a close look at the books shows that CCHH must have had a problem performing simple arithmetic. The Raising Our Voices investigation has disclosed the following: v CCHH does not acknowledge any funding from the Roberts Foundation in 1990 and 1991. But Roberts Foundation IRS filings show a total funding of $103,050 in those two years.

In 1994 IRS filings, the agency claims to have received $1,300 from the Leanne and George Roberts Foundation. However, the Roberts Foundation IRS filings report funding CCHH a sum of $101,300. v In 1995, CCHH told the IRS it received $54,000 from the Roberts Foundation. The Roberts Foundation reports funding for $88,500. Where did the money go?

The annual report filed with the State Attorney General for FY 1996-97, fails to report $400,000 received from the CCSF. It also fails to report $52,672 received from the San Francisco Department of Public Health of a total of $561,473.

"I don't know enough to say for sure," said Boden. "So far I haven't seen any money that was stolen, but I'll tell you right now if money was stolen, whoever stole it is gonna have to deal with me as president of the board directly coming after them."

Were poor artists underpaid?

The Art Studio is the most renowned component of Hospitality House, offering a creative and productive outlet for low-income people to find a voice in self expression, and a diversion from the realities of life on the street.

The agency sells some of the artwork that low-income artisans create in the CCHH studio. The nonprofit claims that the artists receive a 60 percent commission on their pieces. But IRS documents for the last three fiscal years show an average commission rate of 18 percent. CCHH officers consistently misrepresented themselves to potential donors and clients in their advertising and brochures made available for fundraising purposes.

In a 1992 edition of the Tenderloin Times, Board member Cheryl Ward quotes a 60 percent commission to the artists, while in a sales brochure of the same year Art Director Sharon Tanenbaum quotes 50 percent. "The fact of the matter is, they never even paid one third of thatS and they didn't bother to match the numbers," said an artist formerly with the program. "Sending a CCHH card makes a difference for those who receive it as well as those who created it. Funds from card sales support our artists, who earn 40 percent of the profits from their designs." - statement quoted from a 1993 brochure.

In an interview in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Jed Emerson, director of the Homeless Enterprise Development Fund at the Roberts Foundation, publicizes $250,000 in sales of Christmas cards produced by artists at CCHH's Art Studio in 1995 and more than $500,000 in total funding. In the book, New Social Entrepreneurs, CCHH shows only $100,000 in sales. Where did the money go?

"From 1995 on, Hospitality House got smarter and they didn't mention an exact commission rate," said a former craftsman.

In an April, 1997, letter to AFL-CIO Local 3, CCHH Director Kate Durham attempted to avoid a picket at CCHH's annual anniversary and fundraising event by citing "the difficult financial situation currently facing CCHH [and the need to] eliminate our debt," as her excuse for the shortchanging, while at the same time, spouting charity rhetoric praising CCHH's mission in helping the less fortunate.

Durham also ignored clients' written complaints, and the air of secrecy surrounding the agency left the artists suspecting this as a sign that the nonprofit was being run by an administration with its own agenda. At this time, Durham did not complete proper tax returns, and when asked recently if she ever had any involvement with CCHH or the Orlando House, she denied her position of three years. "No, not that I know of," Durham said.

In February, 1998, the CCHH Board of Directors decided to shut down the rent-free store at the Crocker Galleria where ceramics and paintings were sold. Meanwhile, Executive Director Michael Bala also implemented a 50 percent cut in the artists' commissions. In a written response to the artists' concerns, Bala attempts to justify the cut by giving as his rationale: "The longstanding financial issue and [the need to] reduce our expenses and reduce [the] costs of the arts program." Bala also stated, "Hospitality House has an annual audit performed every year. When the audits are completed you are welcome to review them." Both statements, the artists felt, became landmark examples of blatant falsehoods. In a March, 1998, "Town Hall Meeting," 26 craftsmen in person and in writing requested to review Hospitality House's financial records. They were met by a wall of harassment and intimidation.

In retaliation, Arts Program Director Kathy Gernatt banned the use of the program to at least two artists: Randy Sizemore and William Bacon, who openly criticized the program and its policies. Gernatt claimed in writing that the clients' request to view the public records "makes for an unsafe environment for everyone." She resigned soon after the artists repeatedly charged her with "fostering an environment that oppressed, devalued, disempowered and frustrated the clientele."

Demonstrations and lawsuits

In April, 1998, a group of donors and artists demonstrated at the annual fundraiser. Hospitality House staff were confronted - but without any positive result. In May, 1998, another group of clients wishing to express their grievances to the CCHH Board were denied entrance to the meeting room. Chair Khristine Bailey proceeded to misrepresent herself as "a volunteer that helps out with the [Central City Hospitality] house," while physically blocking the door. Bailey and fellow board members Elizabeth "Suzy" Cain, and John Thompson then began to remove the protesters from the building.

"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.

Also that May, then-CCHH Executive Director Gemmie Jones forced a group of clients to turn off a video camera in a Town Hall Meeting called for the express purpose of hearing their concerns. In the next Town Hall Meeting in June, Jones brought in the S.F.P.D. to intimidate clientele and witnesses. "I have received death threats on the phone," Jones told officers on the scene. The clients saw it as a pathetic attempt to save her job and to protect her fellow board members.

By the end of the summer of 1998, CCHH Chairperson Khristine Bailey, Elizabeth "Suzy" Cain, two additional board members, and several high-ranking employees resigned.

In March of 1999, a cascade of lawsuits were filed by the independent craftspeople to recover unpaid commissions withheld by Hospitality House's Arts Department. In accordance with the city's Sunshine Ordinance, nonprofits utilizing more than $250,000 of city funding are required to hold two board meetings per year that are open to the public. In February and March of 1999, the artists filed suit in small claims court and made formal complaints to the city, forcing Hospitality House into holding a mandatory public meeting. The artists, then and now, feel that the August, 1999, meeting was held in an "unusual location" - in direct violation of the ordinance. The "public" meeting was held at the Art Studio rather than at the usual location, the administrative offices at 290 Turk Street.

"If Hospitality House owes money to poor people from the Arts Program that they have not paid that money out to, those debts would go to the top of the list," Boden asserted. "My thing will be when Hospitality House can print its budget in the new Tenderloin TimesS and pass its budget out to volunteers and paid staff.

"And if you're running an organization and that makes you nervous, and you feel that you can't do that amongst your own people (or) the people the money is for, then you got a serious problem in your organization. And so I feel that Hospitality House went full circle and came back around when we can do thatS There's a lot of time and resources that go into lying, which Hospitality House has been doing for about seven yearsS That's an incredible thing to maintainS The lies change with each new personS You can't operate that way."

The peril of fast growth The years between 1987 and 1988 were the times that would decide if Hospitality House would survive. The little neighborhood center with the bad coffee and single cigarettes for sale was about to lose its soul. At this time, Executive Director Robert Tobin received a leadership award from the Chamber of Commerce and the United Way; meanwhile, the McKinney Act was passed by Congress in 1987 and that money started to flow into San Francisco in 1988.

Being the darlings in the eyes of the mayor's office and the United Way, suddenly CCHH's budget doubled in two years, from roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million. Boden said he believes that an explosive growth in a short time destroys the infrastructure of an organization. "People that were qualified to be a director when you were a funky little center now aren't even qualified to be the fucking janitor now because you are a big fancy center."

This cultural shift is directly related to the influx of McKinney money in 1988, and is reflected in the attempted purchase by CCHH of a building on the corner of Leavenworth and Golden Gate. Hospitality House wanted very much to be the big kid on the block, but after about a year they settled on the property at 290 Turk Street. Also around this time, Hospitality House's Mission Statement changed, from referring to themselves as a "Neighborhood Center" to a "Homeless Program."

" For any neighborhood center to change its mission statement is a really bad sign," Boden said. "Neighborhood centers tend to be incredibly effective when they're small and healthy and old and have been aroundS Hospitality House has that kind of history."

Robert Tobin left Hospitality House in 1994. "When Robert Tobin left," Boden recalls, "he didn't leave stuffin' his pockets with moneyS I know for a fact that he didn't steal the money; he fucked the money up." In 1995, Kate Durham was the new executive director of CCHH, the year that San Francisco assessor's records show that CCHH defaulted on the building at 290 Turk Street, the location of the main offices as well as the Youth Program.

CCHH then became the defendant in a lawsuit brought by American First Federal Inc. over the loan to buy the building. Meanwhile, taxpayers without knowledge of the financial difficulties involved kept bailing out a nonprofit that was using public money to defend itself in court. On July 6, 1999, the Public Health Commission requested a "financial restructuring within this [CCHH] contract agency," and recommended "the provision of technical assistance and a 3 month renewal on the current contractS" September of 1999 saw the closing of Orlando House shelter for youth and the Youth Program at 290 Turk Street.

An attempted sell-out

At this point in time, Hospitality House was trying to pull off a fast one, with the sale of Orlando House on the "open market," a move that would be lucrative enough to dig CCHH out of the hole it had been using public money to dig for years.

"So Orlando House I heard was being sold, and it was being sold as a way to bail out the organization and it was being sold on the 'open market,' and I thought, 'well okay, these guys just don't understand,'" said Boden. What CCHH did not appear to understand is that when you receive federal funding for a program or to serve a population, and then purchase and provide services, you must continue to do that for the population the money was earmarked for.

In response, Boden called up Supervisor Tom Ammiano's office and called a meeting to specifically address the laws affecting Hospitality House that were governed by the federal Housing and Urban Development. HUD, the Mayor's Office on Homelessness, the Mayor's Office on Children, Youth and Families, and Ammiano and his staff met with CCHH Board Chair Kelly Walsh and CCHH Executive Director Phil Clark.

Recalls Boden, "I was pretty pissed offS and said something like, 'You can't fucking sell it on the open market so you can bail yourself out like Orlando House is the goose that laid your golden egg.' And the room got real quiet."

Steve Saks from HUD agreed, saying "me and Paul often phrase things differently, but that's a pretty good description of the law, [and] of the situation you're in right now."

Boden's next move was to call Larkin Street Youth Services - the only youth program he believed that, with an infusion of city money, could pull Orlando House out of the fire so they could continue to serve the underrepresented street youth population in the future.

"It had to happen right away," he said. "It had to involve city money in order for them to be able to buy (Orlando House), and the only youth program set up to handle that kind of infusion of program and money and changing shit around and not going under was Larkin Street."

Larkin Street Youth Services offered a special loan without interest for $250,000 to bail out CCHH, and the City held special negotiations with HUD to sell Orlando House and get the funds needed to make up the CCHH debt. Escrow closed on the building at 290 Turk on March 17. The building is now owned and operated by Larkin Street, with Hospitality House receiving some $475,000 to offset their debts.

Larkin Street will continue to operate as a transitional housing program for youth. "At least 18-21-year-olds in the future will have 12 other units that they can play musical chairs in, because kids don't have fucking shit," said Boden.

In this new incarnation of Hospitality House, funding will come primarily from the City. The largest allocation will go to the Tenderloin Self-Help Center, which will receive $500,000 from the Department of Public Health; the men's shelter will receive $250,000 from the Department of Human Services; and the Employment Center will receive $90,000 in federal funds. Newly appointed CCHH Board Chair Boden's future vision of Hospitality House relates back to the times of a simple and honest organization founded and operated with integrity. When asked if he believed that Hospitality House could ever return to being what it once was, Boden's reply was guardedly optimistic.

"I think there's a chance it could go back to being a funky little place on Leavenworth Street and have an arts program and a neighborhood paper," he said. "I mean that's what it used to be. It used to be just a fucking place to hang out and get really basic necessitiesS It had very little, but what it had was coming from somebody that you would be hanging out with or you would run into on the corner.

"One of the great things about working there - I lived on Leavenworth Street and I worked at Hospitality House - you couldn't (verbally abuse) the clientsS You see shelter staff do that shit all the time. And you couldn't play that shit at Hospitality House and survive. To the extent that we can recreate that, that's what we're shooting for."

Researched and written by the Raising Our Voices Task Force: Trent Hayward, Max Nolan, and A. Clay Thompson. Raising Our Voices is a Media Alliance program, in collaboration with Street Spirit, Street Sheet and Poor magazine, that trains homeless and low-income people in investigative journalism.

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.

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 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

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

I haven't known you for very long, maybe a month. And I ve only met you twice. The first time was at newsroom. I remember being really proud of you for the work you were doing as a freelance writer. I saw you as a peer I guess because of your age and your homelessness. I guess I was feeling admiration really for you coming up out of poverty or struggling to succeed. I saw you as making headway and that made me feel hopeful. The weird thing is that after I met you the second time over at the Coalition On Homelessness, you had just gotten the job at the Guardian. You laughed and said " yeah, I'm their man on the street.... Literally" we both laughed. I 've been thinking about you alot since them, and especially during this last week. That s the really bizarre thing,. I've been watching and waitng, expecting to run into you.. So I ve been doing double takes at guys fitting your description, my age, weather beaten, back pack. Now Tiny tells me your dead. Well that just pisses me off!

It doesn't make much sense though since I hardly knew you. But none the less there it is. I'm really mad that you're not going to be around anymore. Ive been looking forward to getting to know you. The only resolve I have is that maybe you can hear me and know I still wnat to know you. I hope you'll come by and visit us over at POOR from time to time - give us some inspiration. I know that you were respected for your wrtiting and I can surely use all the help I can get. Please consider this a full fledge invitation. I didn't get to know you while you were down here on the earth plane. I hope that your spirit will feel free to infuse my thoughts and writings now that your over on the other side.

As I am remembering you I am hopeing that your spirt is traveling safely, now and always

Love, Anna Morrow
Poor News Network