homeless hot spot

This morning, I woke up at my boyfriend's house. As I left the building and walked outside, then walked diagonally through the famous Haight/Ashbury intersection, I realized just how many young travellers really are somewhat permanent residents of the haight. People still gravitate to San Francisco (specifically the epicenter of 60s hippy culture) even today. I saw about 30 or more, they all smelled terrible and had hella dogs, just chillin and sitting around on the streets. I'm not talking shit, I don't mind these people, and I do think space must be made for them in our society. I'm just not going to pretend like they're doing something important or relevant when they're just bums.

95% of the businesses on Haight street are only open from about 12-7pm, so in case you're ever in the area outside that specific limited block of time, you'll see a whole other side of haight street full of panhandlers, homeless runaways, drug addicts, and broke down hippies who are still living the dream. Basically, any time outside of peak shopping hours, when the most amount of tourists/shoppers are in the area, the haight looses its luster. Most of the time, walking down the street at night is tiresome for a beautiful, young, preppy gay guy like myself. I'll never understand why everyone thinks I have so much money to spare. To quote Miss New York, "Do I look like I give a fuck? Cause I don't!"

By travellers, I mean young homeless people who decide that the American dream doesn't apply to his or her life's vision. Jobless and without responsibility or conformity, they travel around the country together through various means and methods. Most of these people, if not squatting inside one of the actual thousands of already abandoned buildings throughout the area, squat in parks or even on the streets, basically anywhere they can set up a bed for the night. In many ways, I admire their ability to live so outside accepted norms and institutions, choosing to totally ignore the dominant capitalist ideology.

The thing about living that kind of lifestyle, especially if you're young, is that you're constantly travelling and moving through different places. It seems like an exciting opportunity to live life to its fullest, and do whatever you want whenever you want, which usually seems to be nothing. Nothing can still be a welcome release, especially if you have nothing to look forward to, don't want to go to college, and don't see working a bullshit minimum wage job as something you could handle doing. Some people may think it's glamorous, but it's nonetheless depressing. It seems like they're all on drugs (huge surprise) and stuck in a rut of some sort, that seems almost impossible to break once enacted. Obviously, if one has been unemployed for long periods of time, it will not be easy to find a new job as soon as you want to go legit again, cause sleeping on the street just got a little bit too uncomfortable.

For about 2 years, I lived about a 15 minute walk away from Hippy Hill. For those of you who don't know, it's the area across the street from the end of haight, and it's basically the place to go for drugs (weed, shrooms, LSD, DMT, + more, but those are what people usually go there for), and in fact many tourists come here on a daily basis expecting to buy these substances. Because I was out of a job for such a long period of time back then, and because I often don't want to really do anything aside from hang out and get as high as I can each day, I started hanging out there a lot! It was so close, and always offered some sort of entertainment, although I did see many sad things, such as fights all the time, arrests all the time, and even a case of abducted children living in the park (although it wasn't the only time I saw people living in the park with kids, and then of course get in trouble for it). I made friends with drug dealers and homeless people, who gave me valuable insight into other ways of life, and "flying below the radar."

However, after a while, the glamor of the alternative began to fade rather quickly when I began to realize how sad that kind of lifestyle really is. There's no opportunity for improvement, without playing into capitalism, your life can not possibly evolve. The thing about doing nothing is you never know when you're done doing it. It makes me really sad to watch people destroy their lives, day after day through alcohol, drugs, depression, and undiagnosed mental disorders. At the same time, I can understand their unwillingness to conform to capitalism standards which are in and of themselves, evil and exploitative. What can the government do? The money has to come from somewhere.

Hippy Hill and Haight street's homeless populations are very different from the kinds of homeless in other districts of the city. For example, the tenderloin homeless are the closest to death, and usually on hard drugs such as heroin, speed, crack and ocs. You can go to Pill Hill at any time and be offered OCs from homeless on the streets, usually the OC dealers do it out of a wheelchair. Next time you're in the tenderloin, take a look at one of the omnipresent wheelchairs, guaranteed within the next few minutes the drug dealer and addict will exchange white pills for cash. The homeless in haight ashbury are usually younger, and doing mainly psychedelics. I love how different kinds of homeless can be found throughout different areas of San Francisco. It just gives San Francisco so much more personality!

I guess I was inspired by Tales of Young Urban Squatters, by Claire Bursch.

true story

This morning I got on the 31 outbound. As it drove through the tenderloin, I saw a really young looking guy who appeared to be about 15 or 16. He was hanging out with obviously questionable individuals who appeared to be over 40. Immediately, all my memories of pre-teen Scarlet came rushing back to me. It made me very sad. Honestly, the TL youngster reminded me of myself in a lot of ways (he looked like me too) so maybe that's why it made me sad.

The story of preteen Scarlet- So there's this group of prostitutes in the TL called the Scarlets. They all have the same pimp, and there's about 5. They are all white women with red hair. A while ago, a friend of mine started to find homemade posters all over the TL saying "Scarlet, the white woman yous all know is wanted in other states for robberies and murders." There were a few different types- tweaker Scarlet who always wore skimpy outfits, and always looked pissed off. She had a stripper look. Then there was dred Scarlet, who had red dreds, she obviously dies a long time ago, she had face tattoos and always sat on the corner in front of a liquor store, filthy, addicted to heroin, and obviously a prostitute. There's 2 or 3 other ones, and I don't know that much about them. Then, there's preteen Scarlet. They're all junkie whores living the American dream in the tenderloin. Tenderloin magic!

true story

As I was walking down Folsom Street, I absentmindedly stepped in what I soon realized to be SHIT! It's all inside the grooves of my shoes. OMG, what will I do?

My friend Angela Bacca tried to alleviate the situation by pouring hot coffee on it, which left us with a puddle of coffee with small bits of shit floating in it!

And now here I am at a computer, typing about what just happened with shit still stuck in the grooves of my shoes.

gross!

Today as I was walking down 4th street between Mission and Howard, I saw 2 pigeons eating vomit on the sidewalk! That's totally not the first time I've seen that, I can't even begin to estimate. Island biogeography is so real. Did I fail to mention that I hate pigeons? Birds are one of the 3 biggest vectors (disease causing agents), and I'm not at all a fan.

Oh no he didn't!

Today I saw a drug deal through a MUNI bus window on the 31 Balboa as it goes through the Tenderloin. It was morphine. As amazing as that is, I kept thinking to myself, "is this really happening right now?"

Why can't all drugs just be legal. It's obvious that a responsible drug policy is the only one that would ever work. It seems to me like the only drugs that should be against the law is speed and heroin.

funny

December 28, 2007 - Friday


street hos/crack kills
Current mood: amused

Today, about an hour ago I saw something that was hard to forget. As I was walking on Mason, I crossed Ellis, the epicenter of tenderloin schemes. I was stopped at the intersection waiting to cross the street as I was making my way back to the soma.

Somehow, into view came a white woman bent over, about a block away not appearing to be doing anything, really. She was wearing blue jeans around her ankles (no panties), and she had shoulder length dirty blond hair, and a big black jacket up top. She was pale and gaunt, if I had to relate her looks to a celebrity, I would suggest that she looked like nicole kidman, only a few more years down the merry methadone trail. Before I could wrap my mind around what was going on, she pulled her pants up, and began briskly walking, shopping back in hand, she was on the go! I think she took a piss on the street in front of everyone in the middle of the day!

Oh I failed to mention something. I got a peek at her ass, it was red, bloody, and chapped! The crack on that street ho was just simply somethin else! P.s. crack kills! (I blame the us government for making it, subsequently distributing it to wipe out urban ppl of color) This white woman had so much pubic hair I could see it from a BLOCK away, and the carpet did not match the drapes! Her pubic hair was dark brown; however, I didn't get a good luck at any of her orifices (aside from her chapped, dry lips also visible from a block away) but if I had to guess, I'd predict those holes as being tore the fuck up! Bummer.

I feel like I was the only one who noticed! There was a white guy waiting next to me, he was tall and heavyset with a nondescript face. I really wanted to ask him if he saw what I saw, but then all of a sudden another white guy with a security guard uniform came walking the other way, and waved to him- and they both started a conversation.

I've been to Europe, ok I've only been to Amsterdam, and there weren't any homeless people there. Maybe 3, one of them tried to sell me blow.

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