Story Archives

by Joe B.

An Open Letter On Perception For Anyone With Brains And Hearts To Listen.

Weeks ago while walking from work to home I waved to Willie Warren, a Coalition On Homelessness Advocate.

Besides being a poet and being politically aware he’s a large, strong, even tempered guy who wouldn’t bully anyone about anything.

Except to print embarrass using facts on what’s wrong with political and economic systems.

When he tells his horrendous story of being set up for attacks behind by two white guys who first had a problem with his "tan."

Then after finding out he’s a Homeless Advocate they go nuts and beat or stomp the 'livin bloody mud hole out of him.

I think these two clowns white or black have psychological problems to begin with but to follow, talk, then explode in violence means they wanted "beat down" on someone anyone not their shade or political persuasion.

What’s telling is these are "Gavin Newsom" CNC supporters to me that’s scary.

If they see black guys with backpacks and assume homelessness then go after him-her for his job as homeless advocate as an excuse.

It’s a two-for one beat down.

These two cowards have the gall calling out the "N" word thinking Warren would just flip out then have to follow him as he wisely decides to leave.

I’ve had my own run in but it wasn’t as severe or potentially deadly.

As I read the letter the first sign of trouble to me is two white guys fuming; for me it means go a different route.

Are my senses more acute?

I usually steer by angry people let alone a couple it could be I’d rather avoid confrontation than face it especially when the odds favor two or more against one.

These guys may be the tip of a racist – homophobic iceberg.

What kind of people or persons attack people wearing backpacks assuming those who have them are homeless.

What about tourists, school children without a dress uniform or bucking the code, college, or university students and graduates also undergraduates.

Do you think these kind of people quietly fuming mad about the so called homeless problem will differentiate between different people walking in and around the city wearing backpacks?

I carry a backpack, my mother who’s taking up creative writing in a community college totes a backpack!

How many of these people are walking around itching to attack anyone because they either appear, not neat or cleanly dressed, or are perceived as homeless.

Even being a homeless advocate thus on the left of the political spectrum.

Is this the ultimate answer of conservatives action?

Someone or thing is giving out a message or its being twisted to convey:

Houseless People, Working Poor Folk and families and now Homeless Advocates are seen as targets of opportunities.

Guess I’ll brush up on the empty hand and Ninja techniques to make whatever I can find as weapons of opportunity if I am also to others a beat down one.

When I was young I was forced to carry a sharp kitchen knife in a paper bag to protect myself against being ganged up on because I was small runt of kid.

The knife was never used but felt good having it just in case.

Now I might have be a weapon even when carrying none using my brain to learn and relearn self protection.

I an average peaceful, husky, (slightly overweight black guy.

I’ve been beaten up by girls that couldn’t say they liked me guys know how that is when they hit girls they really liked.

Women, girls are bad enough but I won’t get stomped on for someone else’s perception of me who doesn’t know me at all.

People, I may be wrong but whatever happens with Proposition N. Please for men, women, girls, boys learn self defense and if you know enough teach folks who want to learn.

As for gun will there are Teflon bullet proof vest but buy extra to cover head, neck, under shoulder.

Yes, I’m afraid being mortal brings that out.

I end my open letter saying be aware folks, be very aware.

There's in an undercurrent of anger by persons so fed up with the homeless they’re willing to beat up people or worse.

I hope this is not leading for "A Final Solution" the world has gone that route before lets not revisit the worst humanity has to offer itself. Bye.



Wary and Worried

Joseph Bolden

Cc: The Street Sheet

Cc: Board Of Supervisors

Cc: The Chronicle’s Editor

Cc: The Examiner’s Editor

by Dee

Well, well, well, imagine me, Lester the cat, writing about pigeons- whatever
I know about pigeons could go in a cook book, along with all of the other
tasty things that I¹ve eaten.

Hands tells me secretly, "Why don¹t we invite those pigeons over
for dinner sometime soon?"

"Good idea," I tell him.

The reason I¹m writing about pigeons is that this guy named Joe sent
me something that he wrote about pigeons taking over the world (not with
us cats around, someone should tell him). This Joe wrote to me and Hands:

"Pigeons and cats mostly run Planet Earth!" Human¹s destructive
capacities are their own traits. Let the humans believe that they¹re in
control, stumble on to discoveries that we drop in their minds. Their
hidden control continues: These are Birdview, Pigeon mind(s). Are
You Sure That What You Think Is You Or Are They P-Minds?"

And he also sent us some photos- I¹m including a few. Don¹t notice if
they¹re a little spotty: me and Hands had a little trouble with our spit
the day that we looked at them. We had a drooling problem for
some reason.

As soon as I finish this column, which is now, I think I¹ll send this
guy Joe a Hands-written invitation to dinner with me and Hands- for him
and for his pigeons. We¹ll talk Joe (humor him) into going out
and taking many more rolls of film of many more pigeons, lots and lots
of pigeons. We¹ll give him categories: most beautiful pigeon, most happiest
pigeon, and so on- whatever takes him the longest.

Meanwhile me and Hands will amuse ourselves, discussing with the pigeons
this plan for taking over the world, and how "Pigeons and cats mostly
run Planet Earth", and the Delicious Dinner we will make OF, for,
I mean, the pigeons that this Joe guy leaves with us.

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Lakota TwoCrow

Slam Bio

I like the color green

My taste is sour

My smell is pizza

My touch is hard

Chameleon

I’m from many tribes

I live with my mom

I live with my dad sometimes

by Staff Writer

While swimming in Hawai’i, Larry Lattimore, Father and Grandfather, had a fatal heart attack. Six months earlier he went there to recharge his batteries and his faith in activism and people after 20 unbroken years of working to change the world for the better.

I met Larry 10 years ago, when he’d already co-founded POWER (People Organizing To Win Employment Rights), the first night of the founding of the Living Wage Coalition. I didn’t speak to him then, he looked cranky; I later found out that was his armor against the world, we became good friends.

Intelligent, to almost genius level, he worked for San Francisco General Hospital as a janitor, picking up hazardous waste without proper safety equipment, like gloves. Larry caught an immune difficiency disease doing Workfare for the General Assistance Welfare program, and got SSI benefits after fighting for them until 2005.

We worked together on the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition in 2000, when he was elected Co-Director. I remember the night we got the Living Wage, sitting in the SEIU union’s local office negotiating with SF Mayor Willie Brown. He was in an air-conditioned hotel in New York, we were on the 14th Floor of Fox Plaza: 20 people in a hot room.

Josie Mooney, Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU Local 1021 (it was 790), made an unofficial deal this poverty scholar can’t prove, which excluded CalWorks and GA Workfare workers from the receiving the Minimum Compensation Ordinance benefits, including health benefits which would have gone to anyone working or any company accepting city contracts.

In 2005 Larry and I were on the Committee To Get A Minimum Wage, which fought to raise the San Francisco County minimum wage to $10 per hour, enduring 4-hour meetings once a week to get through one agenda item. Larry was patient, this poverty scholar (to be polite) wasn’t.

After petitioning to get the MW on the local ballot, Larry was the happiest person I saw on Election Night. I never had an easier friend and ally to work with. We went to Sacramento often enough, to lobby and to protests that we knew every tree by name.

The night he got his daughter back in his life, we were hanging out in the Living Wage offices. He had an ear-to-ear grin on his face. They lived in a Winnebago until a better place could be found. Larry gave his daughter a home-school education and did a great job. His activist work and his daughter are his legacy to the world.

by Staff Writer

Pt 2

by Joe B.

Tuesday, Oct.16, 2001, 8:45 am.

Whisper of winter not chilly enough for an overcoat.

Seeing Select President G.W.Bush Jr. actually say no to the Taliban regime when they suggested a neutral country to discuss terms of handing over Osama Bin Laben.

Only when he's satisfied! Does this guy know he's President of all the people not just hawks but doves, conscientious objectors, and anti-war activist's also?

It is chilling to see him determined to "stay the course of" war and not even contemplate alternate ways to settle this quickly, safely, using diplomatic means.

We do not have a King but G.W. is acting like one. Let’s not compound the problem in 2004. Bye

Please send donations to Poor Magazine C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street, San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA

For Joe only my snail mail:
PO Box 1230 #645
Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102
Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Tom Mc Kay

When I got divorced at the age of 33, I felt betrayed by our cultural belief system. I had done everything right. I had conformed to the social standards that were deemed “proper” -- and that belief system had led my life to TOTAL FAILURE.

What good is a life with NO HAPPINESS in it? Why would I want to work to support a social system that denies me happines? Happiness and love go together. Where there is no happiness, there has been a lack of love. Jesus taught us that LOVE is the most important thing we need to learn in life. In the beginning stages of learning how to love, happiness, love, and sexuality are closely related.

Sexuality is a powerful force in the attraction between men and women. Sexuality brings us together, and then we need to learn how to love each other.

Unfortunately, our culture is fanatically hateful towards sexuality for many reasons. People who express their sexuality in irresponsible ways can cause tremendous problems. Many religions teach us that celibacy will help us to grow spiritually (although this is not true). Many of our corporate leaders feel that frustrating sexuality can help them turn us into neurotic workaholics. Many of our military leaders recognize that frustrating their soldiers turns them into viscious killing machines.

In The Ultimate Frontier, by Eklal Kueshana, page 257, a member of the Great White Brother tells Eklal: “The human brain will produce a personality which is either pleasure-oriented or violence-prone. Its neurological structure allows it to develop only one way or the other."The hatred of sexuality in our culture has caused us to become extremely violent and cruel."

In order to promote an authoritarian structure in our families, men are taught to use economic blackmail and physical intimidation to control their wives. Women are taught to use sexual blackmail and verbal skills to control their husbands. The end result of these teachings is that many relationships between a man and a woman become power struggles to determine which person will be dominant in the relationship. Sharing and mutuality are not encouraged in our cultural attitudes.

The most unrecognized form of sexual abuse is the conscious and deliberate frustration of a man’s sexual needs. Whether it is done as an act of punishment, for manip- ulation, or for blackmail, it damages the TRUST that is the foundation for all social relationships.

Sexual frustration hurts men much more immediately and much more intensely than it hurts women. This is because men are living their lives under the influence of TESTOSTERONE and women are living their lives under the influence of PROGESTERONE.

Unfortunately, the pain caused by sexual frustration makes men angry, hostile, and aggressive. This can sometimes be expressed as criminal attack, assault, rape, battering, infidelity, or even kidnapping and enslavement. This is no way to run a society.

Our cultural leaders have engaged in a massive mind-control campaign to deny the relationship between sexual frustration and the many different social problems it causes or exacerbates. This denial is dishonest and destructive.

It is impossible to solve a problem until after we are willing to be honest about it. Honesty must come first. This problem can be solved, but first we must engage in some honest social dialogue. Sexual abuse cannot be tolerated.

by Anna Morrow

There is a pristine cleaniliness

that comes from digging through these mazes

This relentless naughty jungle that keeps hostages

of folks that are mightier and penniless

A purity of soul transcends them

hovers over the sticky hot cement

Posibilities rise up from the sweaty pavement

where people hold there hands out

Working hard barely moving in active

participation of grassroots tithing

Consumed by meakness and hostility

dispising and worshiping themseves -

day after dingy day

The monotony collides with hypnotize:

an unavoidable medititation

of what it is to be without

To be lifted up, to fly away

outside this body that offends some

that most everyone ignores

I might rise up above the masses

confessing the secrets of these trenches

shouting out all of the inadequacies and betrayals

into the wind into the ear of god

You could tell the story of our lineage

how our once humble hearts were belittled

and now are humbled once again

by the history of our grievances

the tale of our common sorrows

Unashamed Unadorned Unappologetic

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Ian Twiss

Slam Bio

I am as red as the tide tingles off your tongue letting it lick your ankles in the softness of a new moon

Eagle

My culture is of a burnt thigh, that’s why we’re Sicangu

Sometimes I forget where home is

I could drive the 2 blocks but still be a 1,000 miles from home

Sometimes I’m white, sometimes I’m not

Sometimes I’m red, sometimes I’m not

I think sometimes circles aren’t coherent, like the ones we have to run in