"Our Lady of Sorrows"

"...it happens every day"

I've found more from my Homeless year. This it seems is from just after I returned to Human status. I never did that one person show.

"Part One"

After careful consultation with the voices in my head,...and my agent. I've decided to make my current adventure on the streets into a play. 'Makes as much sense as anything else that happened to me lately.

One of my relatives sez I should seek out a book deal as this "Middle Class Homeless" thing is gonna get hot. I'm on da ground floor of a media feeding frenzy.

Apparently I have the makings of a good TV guest, and or radio talk show item.

"Radio Announcer thrown on street! "His heroic struggle to retain his self respect,...and his porn collection"

Uncle Sydney, "The Homeless Satirist" is available for media interviews, and public appearances...blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

You get the picture.

This is nightmare. I will wake up,...won't I?

Anyway I'll leave my fame building for later. Right now there's the play. I see it as a one man show with props,...gotta have props.

Jars full of pressurized foam, rabbits in hats, stupid puppets, burning hoops to jump through all the usual conjurers nick-knacks.

I'll need that stuff to show how I have been transformed from a person into a thing.

Which is what this state of Homelessness is.

You become an object.

Then you cease to exist.

You disappear.

Hell of a Magic Trick.

'But then it After careful consultation with the voices in my head,...and my agent. I've decided to make my current adventure on the streets into a play. 'Makes as much sense as anything else that happened to me lately.

One of my relatives sez I should seek out a book deal as this "Middle Class Homeless" thing is gonna get hot. I'm on da ground floor of a media feeding frenzy.

Apparently I have the makings of a good tv guest, and or radio talk show item.

"Radio Announcer thrown on street! "His heroic struggle to retain his self respect,...and his porn collection"

Uncle Sydney, "The Homeless Satirist" is available for media interviews, and public appearances...blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

You get the picture.

This is nightmare. I will wake up,...won't I?

Anyway I'll leave my fame building for later. Right now there's the play. I see it as a one man show with props,...gotta have props.

Jars full of pressurized foam, rabbits in hats, stupid puppets, burning hoops to jump through all the usual conjurers nick-knacks.

I'll need that stuff to show how I have been transformed from a person into a thing.

Which is what this state of Homelessness is.

You become an object.

Then you cease to exist.

You disappear.

Hell of a Magic Trick.

'But then it happens everyday,...doesn't it.,...doesn't it.

"Part Two"

My life as an urban ghost then. You are seen, but not seen. There's the humiliation one feels in this new identity. There you are with a large back pack, and bulging should bag. In this era these things scream "HOMELESS!" to all, but the most socially innocent.

I feel the eyes of the whole city on me when I am so encumbered.

This profoundly sucks.

'But to the details,...time, time is very different. Your internal chronometer is knocked to hell'n back. The days melt into one another. Soon if you stay the months, and years will do the same thing.

Appearances. One tries to maintain a middle class 'aura' like Harry Potters "Cloak of Invisibility" for protection. "No the cops can't harass me I'm middle class!"

"For Christ's sakes I watch "LOST!"

"I'm normal!, I'm real!"

"I'm not one of "THEM!"

'But enough of the internal voice narrative let's get to the fun part.

The frigg'n play.

"Part Three"

Scene opens,...I'm living with my cousin in the old family house.

I've always lived with family. 'Never liked the notion of giving dough to strangers, and sleeping in a strange place.

(Like the sister in "Little Women" that never wanted to leave home, and disappear into the world,...that was me.)

Well my elderly cousin Tempy has a stroke. Then profound dementia kicked in. I'm the primary caregiver,...'cause I love her.

Jump ahead three years. Tempy dies, and with her part of me.

A period of family mayhem ensues as the "wolves" fight over her goods. You may be familiar with this tradition.

'Mayhem is resolved as the faction that wanted to cash in on my cousin's bones sells the house.

...and toss's me onto the street.

Okay you with me so far.

Now I go from street, to room, to street, to grand mansion,...I really did for a week, to street,...where I was robbed of my bags. The ones that were so embarrassing?

Good now the crooks can be embarrassed!

This game of housing ping pong goes on for a few months. During which I start to go nuts. 'Hearing sounds, and seeing stuff. This I'm told this is from stress, and malnutrition.

Actually dehydration is my worse enemy.

Well that, and my joints ache from the cold. Also my feet hurt 'cause you're always on the move. 'And btw you 'have' to be or the cops, and or maniacs will kill you.

I mean it,...I saw the cops kick the shit out of an old guy that gave them lip.

I now suspect that cops kill homeless folks sometimes.

The things I've seen.

However besides that, and all the other routine atrocities out there I've found that being Homeless is good for you.

...in a way.

Before this unimaginable nightmare from the bowels of Hell befell me I was a bloated beached whale like most middle aged cranks. Thanks to my new lifestyle I'm losing weight. I can actually feel if not yet see my ribs.

Ummm, ribs.

Oddly I'm not really that hungry, yet. 'But that dehydration thing... Gang if you're planning on this sort of life get a big frigg'n canteen,...two of 'em.

Where was I?

Right,...Home, Caregiver, Betrayal, Homeless, Street.


"Part Four"

"Recovery",...of a sort.


Here's the real "Great Expectations" part.

Recovery,...this bit has only just started, and is tentative in the extreme. Friends, and family are slowly finding out what happened to me. Rescue of a sort is on the horizon. Offers of help, advice, and a Miracle

Miracle?

Yeah.

I mean beside the heads up on possible homes or available apartments there was this 'Gift' from out of the blue.

Remember that scene at the end of "Its a Wonderful Life" where everybody in town comes together to save old George Baileys bacon?

Well,...good grief.

So there I am drowning in 'well earned' self pity when I gets a Fed Ex package at my job. I figure it's a summons or something the way things have been going.

I opens it up, and an envelope falls out,...no return address.

In the missive is a cashiers check.

(????!!!!)

A note sez "I hope this is enough to get you back on your feet."

....and that boy's, and girls is where I am now.

To be continued.


"Deleted Scenes"

Our hero, and main character.

Below are snap shots from my street life. ...some of what I saw.

...and so on.

My former life is becoming an echo of an echo. Everyday it vanishes a bit more, and is replaced with the present. An eternal present.

I'm changing.

Time, and place are not what they were. This is a new world with a new up, and down. A new wet, and dry.

I have just been born.

"Wheels"

Trailers have gotten a really bad rap over the last 40 years or so. I mean when they became the affordable housing for the white underclass that pretty much did it image wise.

Pity.

No really because they'd otherwise be so cool for the purpose they were originally designed for. An independent, and fast moving life style.

No matter if ya use it to camp out or live by your wits on the road these sweeties are the cats meow,...or at least they were.

That blown image problem again.

Anyway I always loved them things. Especially because long ago we had one. Well in way. See it was sort of up on blocks, and we turned into a play house, and tool shed.

When my Mom bought a summer place there was this old trailer not unlike the one in the illustration above which came with the land.

So I spent part of my kidhood playing in one of these swell silver tear drops. 'Wish I had it now. I'd turn it into a cozy little home.

So that's my Christmas fantasy. Our old trailer done up as my shelter, life raft, and temporary abode. I'd paint it up like the one at the top there only I'd have Angels, Faeries, and Cowboys,...don't ask.

Maybe I'll write a little Christmas story about it,...humm maybe I've already started. Merry Christmas gang!

(Click on the cool trailer art by Paige Bridges for a better view!)

(...a vignette from my more than interesting houseless year.)

"Christmas at Coney Island"

"...batteries"

The subject of the value of E-books came up on another page. In my opinion the so-called E-book is the Devil's "etch a sketch." I have published small books. I read, and have made books of paper. They don't need batteries. They can stay paused for years...centuries even.

They are personal, and loveable. E-books are nothing but toasters that spit copy at you. ...as long as the batteries are working.

Granted billions live by their assorted devices. I don't, and never have. This explains my values.

Of course I mean all this in a nice way.

"...this is an episode of self pity, and dispair",...please skip

So today I wake up raging raging raging! I don't deserve this I didn't earn this. I was a good man a generous man. Death loss, and poverty all around. I'm so tired of my family, and friends dropping dead. I'm tired as fuck of being hungry, but so poor I can't just go get some nice take out. Oh fuck that shit.

I'm so weary of my country being evil Nazi insane.

I'm tired of being sick, but not having the fucking decency to just drop dead. I've already decided that if a major fuck up happens like last spring with it's FOUR surprise operations.
If this shit comes down again I'm staying home, and letting nature take it's heartless oblivious course...should have done this last time.

Otherwise a happy holiday, and a happy new fucking year for all.

Eh,...I hope you don't die.

...as for me fuck'it.

"KABOOM!!"

Wow! Just what I always wanted, and just the thing for the lone wolf sociopathic kid in your life. A Junior Atom Bomb kit!

Damned thing comes with plenty of classified radioactive isotopes.
Codes for entertaining warheads. The websites to assorted terrorist cells, and...wait for it!

Satan's phone number.

Just the sort of shit to get ya started on your career of unholy mayhem! If Santa didn't drop this sweetheart off for ya.
Don't cry the Easter Bunny is taking orders now as I post. Get your request in for the new upgraded "Hydrogen Warfare" set! 

Order today!

You'll be glad ya did!!

"But Wait there's More!"

"...a moment"

"A Night to Remember"

I spent Christmas Eve with my dear friends Sharon, and Paul. Dear pals from my radio days. We sat in the parlor around their tree told stories. Remembered adventures.

They're both still in the biz so they caught me up on the latest news, and dirt. Nothing changes same old mayhem.

We popped Christmas crackers had Chinese take out later ice cream. Being all Catholic survivors told tales of indoctrinations horrors at the hands of the Nuns, and the insanity of that ancient cult. We had great laughs at the Lawd's expense.

Btw he's a cool guy so didn't mind.

We spoke of our lives so far, and death of friends, and those that 'should' be passed on. We pondered the fate of our frayed Republic. The Women's revolution that is ongoing. From the great Women's March on January last.

To now having it's multi leveled effect. It was Black women the numbers show that defeated the rapist Nazi in Alabama. That, and how this profound primal humanist movement may yet overthrow both Houses in 2018.

We spoke of Hope.

We laughed remembered, and had ice cream in honor of  Isaac Newton's birthday which by chance is shared with that other guy.

It was a good night.