A New Calling?

Okay, I like making movies. And sure, music videos are fun. My heart lies in motion pictures. But there's another line of work that's calling me to leave behind the cameras that lie 24 times a second: Homelessness.

So here I offer to you a life-decision presented in III Acts.

Downtown, last week:
Some friends and I are standing in an alley, outside a venue, off of Main and 2nd. A guy comes up and asks "How many 'a you cocksuckers ever sucked a cock?" Who gets to ask those penetrating questions (pun semi-intended)? The Homeless!

Hollywood Blvd., Halloween:
Stuck in spirit-numbing traffic. People cursing at one another from one car to another. Horns honking out of sheer frustration. It's taking an hour to go a block and a half. My westbound lane starts moving then suddenly stops. We have the green light, there’s finally room to continue forward, but we stay still. No one's honking. No one's yelling. No one's charging though the intersection with a wanton disregard for life and limb. Why? Because traipsing through the intersection, against the light, is a homeless dude pushing one shopping cart and tugging two more behind him. Who else could get away with that? No one, only the Homeless! If it had been a pregnant woman with three strollers in tow: there'd be a couple empty seats at the kiddie-table this Thanksgiving.

Sepulveda & Venice Bl., earlier this year:
It’s around 2 a.m. and I'm crossing Venice when I see a man coming up the street. He's not walking but not quite running either. He's clearly found great displeasure in something and has decided to air his grievances at the top of his lungs, occasionally halting, momentarily, to take a belt off a cardboard cup of coffee. He's had it with the coffee! He chucks it into the middle of Sepulveda. Without losing stride or breaking his torrent of expletives he swats a can of malt liquor off a newspaper vending machine, grabs a stack of newspapers off it's neighbor, hurls them into the street and kicks the third machine. Like I said, he didn't slow down for a fucking second! He keeps charging toward me. He's about 10 feet away when he stops yelling. He looks at me, gives me a cordial nod as he passes and jumps right back into his diatribe against "those fuckers". The freedom! The dedication to pissed-offedness! Who hasn't felt like that? And yet who can/is allowed to display it with such beauty, such awe-inspiring resolve, such resolute form? The Homeless!

I'm thinking of going downtown to talk to "my man" Mr. Wright (yes, Mr. Wright of Mr. Wright & The Salvadorian Band. Oh, you’ve never heard of them?) and see if he'll help me pick out a cardboard box. Later.
Originally Printed on 11/20/05
Fire Off A Comment


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J.J. Oblivian
Los Angeles, CA



I'm in a gang
called California.








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