Homeless Is Where The Heart Is...

Hello all,

For my first entry I have decided, rather than introduce myself or give a long-winded background tale of my travels and adventures, to simply share with you some of the amazing encounters I have had with the homeless/insane of the County and City of Los Angeles.

I am from New York, so I am no stranger to the homeless problem. The fundamental difference here in LA however, is the sheer mobility of its bums. In New York, the residentially challenged population tend to focus the majority of their efforts on finding warmth. They find a grate, a manhole, anything on the sidewalk recessed from the street that emits warmth and they plant a stake like an Oklahoma Sooner. They stay there and they don't dare move because finding another one may prove difficult. In LA, the bums just wander. They traverse long distances up and down wide streets all day and all night it seems. Warmth is not nearly as much of a problem in sunny California as it is on the eastern seaboard. This is all fine and dandy, however by traveling all day long they tend to come in contact with the general population and, by affiliation, me, more often than the lovable bums to which I am accustomed. I admit homelessness is a dreadful problem and I by no means am an insensitive, heartless demon, but I don't think anyone can deny that sometimes the homeless do absurd things on account of being homeless and thereby going totally insane. Some of these absurd things are bound to make people laugh, namely me. Please enjoy:

1.) I was walking home with my roommate, Zach, and our friend Aaron from Baja Fresh on Wilshire and Curson, near my apartment on a Sunday afternoon. In the distance we heard an extremely loud outburst. We turned around and noticed a hobbled black man in tattered clothing laboriously pushing a shopping cart. He was traveling at a distance of 10 ft. per minute. This had more to do with the fact that he was stopping at every passerby and shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs than the fact that he walked as if someone had shoved an industrial sized elbow pipe up his ass and turned it left some 30 years ago. Perhaps his snail's pace was due to a combination of both. Conventional wisdom tells one to simply ignore the man and keep walking. That wisdom was duly noted and ignored as we stopped dead in our tracks and waited for him to come closer. We still could not make out the words, just the fact that he was shouting loudly at unsuspecting pedestrians. Each time we heard another scream, laughter erupted among us as it is not everyday you hear people yelling in the streets. Finally, he got close enough for us to ascertain the man's astute social commentary. "FAGGOT!!!," he announced angrily as an elderly couple passed him. At this point we were rolling. We fought to contain the laughter because we were within this nutjob's field of vision. He was rapidly approaching, hurling his homosexual slurs at cars as well as people at this point. We turned the nearest corner so as to let him pass us. This was ill-advised. As soon as he crossed the street, he decided to stop. Now the politically correct vagrant was standing between us and our apartment. He turned around. Despite being bat-shit nuts, he was aware enough to notice us. He stood staring at us for a solid minute and a half. We stared back from across the street. It was a standoff on Wilshire and Masselin. Finally, he put his hands on his hips and proudly exclaimed "FAGGOT!!!!" Then he walked off into the distance. The day was clearly his as he had asserted his claim over the sidewalk for a moment in time. We let him have his pride and we walked home once he was naught but a speck in the distance.

2.) I was on the LA City Bus Rapid 720 riding to work at 8AM on a Monday morning, as I do every morning to get from Miracle Mile to my office in Brentwood. On this particular morning, also patronizing the bus was a soot encrusted crazy on his way to the VA hospital. I didn't even notice him at first, as I tend to look at the ground or out the window while riding public transit of any kind. But then he did something a little unorthodox. I was about to put on my headphones and drown out the dull roar of the diesel engine and the clickety-clack of Espanol with some killer Little Weezy tracks when all of a sudden there was an announcement: "WINCHELL'S!!!" Apparently this old fool wanted some donuts. But then he got presumptuous: "Errybody goin' to Winchell's." No sir, I'm just going to work, you may go to Winchell's if it pleases you, though. He continued: "Yeah, yeah, they ahh... they ahhhhhhh..... (losing his train of thought right about here) .....WINCHELL'S!!!" What was most shocking to me was that none of my fellow riders did so much as crack a smile. I suppose it was better that way because it made it easier for me to suppress my external laughter and simply chuckle on the inside. This behavior was repeated at every stop. The exact same one-sided conversation was rehashed verbatim at Fairfax, La Cienega, Robertson, Beverly, Santa Monica, Beverly Glen and Westwood. I mustered a lot of self restraint to avoid laughing in this poor soul's face.

3.) I was standing on line to get into Happy Ending on Friday night around midnight with Zach and my friend David. There was a homeless wearing old sweat pants cut at the cuffs, a t-shirt that looked like a tiger had swiped it's paw across the front, and a bandanna reminiscent of a Tupac video loitering nearby. He was smoking a cigarette which was obviously given to him by some charitable bar patron. Someone on line behind me must have provoked this gentleman simply by standing online and wearing clothing that wasn't torn to shreds, because the next thing I knew, the transient was in this unfortunate soul's face, threatening to knock him out. Strangely enough, at this moment, the psychotic bastard was pissing himself. That's right, the aggressor, not the victim, was urinating himself silly. He walked off for a moment. He threatened a few more customers intermittently. Finally, the security staff of the bar told him he needed to move on. Apparently harassing one customer was within the bounds of accepted practices but once he soiled himself he had crossed the line. This loony tune then blindly walked into Sunset Boulevard traffic and, by the grace of god, made it halfway across to the double yellow line only to come face to face with an ambulance on its way to an emergency. The ambulance prudently slammed on the breaks so as not to create a second emergency. The man stared into the windshield of the ambulance as the ambulance driver and passenger stared back at him. No one was budging. A small eternity passed. Someone on line at the bar shouted "Tiananmen Square!!!!" Everyone waiting chuckled heartily. Then the freak faded into the darkness whence he came.