"Under the Weather"

"It's my Blog'n I'll whine if I want to"

Dammit! My feet are killing me. One of the legacies of my time living on the streets is aching feet. As I mentioned one has to keep moving while out there.

You can get killed by bad guys or put in the "System" by the cops. That means you can get arrested if you encamp or just try to rest.

Swell.

I always knew that we treated the very poor with official thoughtless cruelty. Only now I've lived it. Yeah I'm whining so frigg'n what! My damned feet are in agony gimme a break.

Other than that, and assorted terrifying nightmares,...

I just had one where I'm in a long grey cold hallway, and being followed by a lion, bear, dragon beast/thing. Long black claws clacking on the floor, big neon green/yellow predator eyes.

...it wasn't smile'n neither.

It followed, pacing me. Deciding when or if to shred, and or eat me,...merry Christmas.

It's going to take a long time to get over this current mayhem. I've told friends that when I get my new place, and I will, I'm going to lock the door, and not come out for a long time.

A very long time.

"Bat Woman's Revenge!"

Umm, they never really got along ya know. His wanting her for a threesome with Robin was the deal breaker.

"Homeless Dolls"

Hi gang. Things are going a bit better for me,..in a way. I've managed to dig up most of the paperwork to complete my Kafkaesque identification, and banking problems. Once I get access to my dough I can seriously set about getting a place for my dolls to live.

Well okay I'll be sleeping there too.

I'll keep you posted on my ongoing nightmare of part time homelessness, and general befuddlement at having survived into the early 21st century. Shouldn't I have a rocket belt or be wearing aluminum underwear by now or something?

Well that or have a radio/tv welded into my head.













I'm thinking of doing one of them feed the oppressed infomercials,...for me.

Let's see,...

This is little Uncle Sydney he was wrongfully deprived of his ancestrial manor by usurpers, corrupt family conciglieri and assorted scalliwags.

Unless you help 'right now' he'll have to go to bed tonight without a whiskey'n soda. Perhaps without even a vodka martini.

Goes without saying he's kissing goodbye any chance for a Quiche Lorraine, Braised Halibut Provencal, Chicken a la Diable or for heaven sakes even that crappy Cognac Shrimp with Beurre Blanc Sauce! ...smells weird.

His accounts frozen, his 1934 hand made Bugatti impounded at the border, his coveted box top collection ransacked, and scattered. Poor Uncle forced to roam the mean streets of the financial district where not even the falafel vendors would give him credit.












Oh how the mighty have fallen!

Our dear Uncle can't even keep up with the current episodes of "Lost", "Heros" or which one of them swell gals on the Weather Channel is pregnant this time!

You, and only you can save our dear Uncle from this living hell of the American downsized nightmare.

Please call 800-000-000-000, and make a generous donation to the rehabilitation of a man of the people. ...and remember you'll not only be saving a lovable middleaged homosexual, but his perverse doll collection as well.

Please give today.

"Night into Day"

"Evening, Night, Dawn"

"More Blue Doors",...'cause I loves'em

"Found Reflections"

(Click on images to see them in their fuzzy, colorful glory!)

"Be it ever so Tiny"

What with everything going or already gone to hell I'm thinking of Home. Home that wondrous thing we all want. Either to have for the first time or to get back to for comfort, and refuge.

My Home, my old family place is gone. Now to build a new one. My adventure in semi-homelessness continues but with all sorts of hope, and miracles showing up.

Mind you the mayhem tracks along side by side with the hope. I still have terrors, doubts, and despairs aplenty. Even as I write anxiety eats at my soul like molecular acid. Nasty stuff that.

'Bleep'em if they can't take a joke.

My home is coming, my one act, one person play about this adventure is also coming along. I convinced one of my musician pal to do the music.

Years ago he was on tour in the U.K. when the company's dough ran out. So he ended up busted, and broke in London. He told me the story of living for a few daze in Victoria Station till cash got wired to him.

So yeah he gets it.

Anyway, home, my new sweet, cute little home is coming.

Btw, you're all invited to the party.

Below Posts are meditations on doors.

...but first this important message from Dorothy Gale.

"Blue Doors",...inspired by Braja

"To Hell with God"

"...can't sleep"

hi.

this business of being yanked back, and forth from heaven to hell is starting to make me crazy.

...just a little.

i wish the angels or demons or who ever would make up their mind about my celestial case. on the face of it it's a rather routine, and simple one, just look at ruwanda.

am i to be disposed of or not?

what's the problem?

from unexpected christmas ham to dead friend, all all in a few hours.

are you guys fucking with me or what?

i mean there was that homeless thing then a bit of hope then ya yanks back, and forth. now this.

another dead pal,...just like that.

is there a number i can call for this sort of thing?

"...so it goes"

This was a good day with a bad end.

After the party I was told that a dear friend had died earlier this week. She went very suddenly, no illness. She just went.

Seems they couldn't find me to tell me. A constant problem. I'm finally getting a proper cell phone next week. Apparently they come in handy. Hey I don't like them things so never got one.

Well,...well death again.

This has been a very, very full, and terrible year.

There were laughs, we must remember the joys, and silliness we've enjoyed. Without that what's the point.

But now,...

Now the details of mourning. I lost my only dark suit during my recent dispossession. That's okay Sandy was never very formal, and will understand.

More later.

"Ham!"

No not me,..the "guest of honor" at Christmas dinner. Tonight I found myself at a Holiday Feast. I had no idea this was going to happen. I was swept along like a log in a flash flood to a feast worthy of old Fizziwig's bashes.

He of Dickens "Christmas Carol" fame.

I have to say I've been to more parties had more hair raising adventures, and been bestowed with more kindnesses since I've been Homeless than in 30 years of being a taxpaying drone

Oh, but the ham!

Oh my! A Christmas ham all glazed, and plump, and lit by candles! It was like a pagan wedding, but without the human sacrifices. An infamous artist, unnamed for the nouce, threw a bash that I was swept up into.

Being somewhat infamous myself,..check out "Bleeding Queers" one, 'and' two, I felt right at home. Mostly. There was some weirdness, but nevermind that now. I ate, and drank more than I have in the last six months.

"At this festive time of the rolling year when wealth rejoices, and want is keenly felt."

You said it pal!

The lines above from the liberal trouble makers that foolishly wandered into Scrooge's office to ask him to shell out dough for the poor.

Yeah well they got an earful didn't they. Still Scrooge was redeemed, and that's all that matters in the end. We get redeemed. Re-Born. Sorry if that's too religious what can I say. Must be the time of year,...and the ham.

Btw, Braja please don't tell dear Pushpa that I fell off the sprouts wagon,...it was just for tonight. Well okay this week,..month, eh,...till the Ham runs out!

Anyhow I got's to work on my play, and eat everything in sight. So a Merry Holidaze, and New Year to you All!

....hic,..burp!

'oops excuse me!

(In the interests of full disclosure the Ham above is a "stunt double" for the former pig consumed tonight. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it.

The mob of layabouts, artists, and shameless liberals finished the poor thing off before I could make it famous here.

Okay I had a serious share too, but that was for research for my play. ...Burp! ..sorry.)


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Swell, I go from eating huge piles of Ham to Holocaust Dolls. No wonder G-d's punishing me!
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"Anna Brahm's Dolls"

I've never seen dolls quite like Anna's.

Holocaust dolls.

I never imagined such could be made. One just sits, and meditates in the presence of these creations.

Of all dolls 'these' may need the most loving.

The overwhelming contradiction of "dollhood" with the unimaginable idea of deliberate extermination of the innocent leaves one,...what?

Spiritually stunned, a deer in Satan's headlights?

Yeah, trite hand wringing crap, but what the hell else can I say?

No more words.
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...i need to sleep now.

"The Play's the Thing",...part 1

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.
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"THE PLAY'S THE THING",...part II













"Great Expectations"

I've been advised to keep a daily record of my life on the road. That is other than what you've been reading here so far. Basically a laundry list of the hour to hour, day to day mayhem of this mini-series of which I'm the main character.

Swell.

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 Invisability" for protection. "No the cops can't harrass 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.












It's simple really. Visualize me up there on a little stage with all my toys, props, slides, videos, and music. Some musician pals is going to play live for effect. Eh. don't tell'em 'cause I ain't asked yet.

Right.

The arc of this story starts when my elderly cousin has a stroke. I say elderly 'cause my dad married real late so my cousins on his side tended to be 20 to 30 years older than me.

...back to the arc.

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 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 middled 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.
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"THE PLAY'S THE THING",...part III












"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.
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"DELETED SCENES"











Our hero, and main character.

Below are snap shots from my street life.














"Chimes of Saint John the Divine"
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