Tuesday, February 17, 2009

blue badge bullshit.

" they let harley's killer out, go home quickly girl, the streets are not safe"-local maniac night walker


Harley is a 20 year old,a part of the street community, who was pushed under a bus by a drunk man "well dressed" bystanders say, "not from the streets"

and he got out tonight.

Unsuprisngly, I have a tendency to attract maniacs, and as such have come to appreciate thier company. One of my kind walked up to me tonight and spun me the dangerous streets. These situations go as they go, and the large methaphysical side of myself opens up, and assumes that this is a godlike intervention.

"go home quickly" she says, all scarves and magic, "the streets are not safe. These young girls (gesturing to the sex-trade workers and addicts on the nearby corner) are all bait for the Pickton Pig farms ---

which are alive and well in the victoria police department"

More than one way to skin a cat as the saying goes, and when you're dealing with an explosive homeless population, there are a multitude of ways.

A twenty year old had her skull crushed by a bus. If the rumours circulating are true, and the men that pushed her to her death are released and not charged, it will be another link in a long chain of evidence to prove that the city of victoria and it's police department view our brothers and sisters without homes as disposable, and un-deserving of the same judicial rights that housed citizens possess.

"Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives, and no loss if he dies"- PolPot

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

the price we pay to live near the mountains.


In the tangle of streets that make up the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, a familiar scene unfolds. Carts full of belongings, the odd police car, dealers and workers, and people panhandling with a mismatch of sayings etched into cardboard signs. One man in particular, alternates smoking a cigarette for playing on a rusty trumpet. He looks up at me as I pass, and in his eyes I see a flash of jazz, of the thousands of stories this man, just like everybody on this strip has to tell. His sign, like the others, cardboard and black marker, with three or four old sayings crossed out. A new one, the ink still drying in the sun, screams from the center of the sign: “I used to be you.” My eyes do a double take and I nearly hear his raspy his voice say the words aloud. “Quite a sign there man,” I say, offering him a fresh cigarette and lighting one myself. “ Sure gets you in the guts eh?”
He laughs, leans back against the wall behind him, smiles a toothless grin and replies:

“Hell, you ain’t gunna wake ‘em up with the same thing that put ‘em to sleep”




Understandably people are getting cynical. It makes sense that people have a healthy sense of skepticism. When that which is supposed to be the “driving force” behind solving Victoria’s issue with homelessness, The Coalition To End Homelessness, is orchestrated, funded and organized by the very system that is routinely interrupting alternative, feasible solutions, we’re not waking anybody up.

We know the statistics. We know the conditions of the crowded shelters, the bylaws and the bylaw amendments. We also know that there is something amiss.

In a city with a Council that claims to have homelessness and affordable housing as it’s number one priorities, a city that claims to be committed to a Housing First strategy, one trusting in therr City, in their ‘representatives’ would imagine progression, communication and solutions.

Instead, we are served red tape, and political jargon.


When “Housing First” means only after; Olympics, flower boxes, light displays, fountains, clean up crews and more police, we are a society asleep.

When “Ending Homelessness” means the criminalization of poverty, violating peoples right for basic survival, and furthering the stigma toward those who are homeless, we are a society asleep.


The City of Victoria has been hitting the snooze button for far too long. It’s time we, together in all the aspects of our diverse city, join together and wake up.

Monday, February 2, 2009

school and the service industry

I used to believe that the service industry was the sole killer of young, supple youth. Late hours, a prevailing drinking culture, the only relief from the hectic busy floor is a cigarette sucked back behind the dumpster, or a shot of whiskey, at the opportune moment when the management has turned their backs.

I have since learned that the ivory tower is just as toxic.

I've sat down for 10 hours today and I'm not even done yet! I've started drinking 6 cups of coffee a day, my hands are continuously attached to a humming machine which I cannot understand, and the whirr of the flourescent lights above my head is slowly boring holes into my brain. I am running on redbull and will power, with occasional breaks for nicotine.

TELL ME HOW THIS IS ENRICHING MY FUTURE

maybe all the knowledge is settling like sediment in my hips.