I was born in Glendale, California. I call Los Angeles my home. As of late I roam. I have no patience for blog posts at the moment. I just want to sing songs. But I can write short sentences and feed the beast and make it feel alright. I've got a home for the night. I've got friends with shelter and flowing water.
The bed is calling me. It would be either way. I'm learning all about talking by listening to people talk. Let's let these ghosts go walking, by walking down that road.
You point and shoot and wander round. We make out homes on hallowed ground. We've got our friends and we've got our church. We've got our pains that have to hurt.
I have a desk and a couple beers, some cigarettes and a language full of spears. I let them fly. I let them fly. Most of them miss the mark, and that is fine. What matters most this time.
Poetry in paragraphs. Lets not revert. To things that hurt. Let the memories stick, and the strong ones more. I hate to hear an artist talk about her artists chore. But what I hate much more, is an artist who says nothing, lyings saying "Art no more".
Monday, November 12, 2012
Complain
I got food stamps. I got EBT. Fine.
You know what's fucked up? I can go to Whole Foods and spend every fucking dollar on ice cream but I can't buy a chunk of lasagne and some collard greens because it is "hot food".
Wether or not you agree with the idea of food stamps in the first place (I'm not sure I do), that is fucking BULLSHIT.
That is all.
You know what's fucked up? I can go to Whole Foods and spend every fucking dollar on ice cream but I can't buy a chunk of lasagne and some collard greens because it is "hot food".
Wether or not you agree with the idea of food stamps in the first place (I'm not sure I do), that is fucking BULLSHIT.
That is all.
Friday, November 9, 2012
130 Dollars In About Three Hours
I frequently have to remind myself that people are lazy. In the world of offices, emails, phone-calls, meetings, lunches, deadlines, and days off, much of an honest day's work is spent fucking around. This is fine.
I, however, am plagued by the urge to be constantly productive. I once had a job working for the Pasadena library. I was a page, which meant that I was responsible for putting books back on shelves, and maintaining the organization of said books on also-said shelves. There were only two pages at my library, and from what I could tell by monitoring the stack of returned books and the state of the shelves the other page did not spend very much time replacing and organizing books. I, on the other hand, spent as much time as I could bear efficiently maintaining the organizational integrity of my little library. I was eventually fired. Not fired, exactly, but simply not retained. I was a probationary employee and after 6 happy months my boss let me go, with what I could tell was a certain amount of regret. I worked hard at that job and lost it.
Later I had another library job, this time at the California State University, Northridge Music and Media Library. I was a special assistant to the music librarian, which means that I executed whatever projects she gave me. Sometimes this meant doing my old job of organizing stuff, sometimes it meant going through donations to the library and assessing their value to the collection. Lots of different things, sometimes menial and sometimes challenging. I had learned, however, to fuck around. I surfed the internet. I browsed the collection. I stared off into space. If a certain project had any real urgency I would focus on the task and please my boss with my ability to come through, but usually I tried to treat my work like a fly. I would shoo it away if it bothered me and try to squash it if I had nothing better to do. At that job I got an award for being one of the best new employees at the annual banquet thing.
I have to remember to fuck around. Two days ago I had a very successful morning filled with emails and revelations and phone calls. Then I put in a couple of strong hours on the piano, and some more time working on songs at the guitar. The next day (yesterday) I slept until noon and spent the rest of the day trying to convince myself that I wasn't a waste of flesh. Things turned out ok. Threatened by rain, I rode my bike downtown anyway, and was treated to chilly but beautiful weather and time spent with the wonderful Midnight Ridazz. Today is looking to be one of the productive ones.
I was up at 8 this morning, and rode my bike to the Glendale Social Services office to inquire about EBT. I was in the office at 9 or 9:30, and at noon I walked out the door with a little plastic card charged up with 130 dollars that I can redeem for a wide variety of snacks up until the end of the month.
I recommend everyone apply for social benefits. If you are steadily employed, I recommend you quit your job, turn your liquid assets into reliable and untraceable gold bars, and spend a Friday morning at with Social Services. There, simply by asking for help, it is assumed that you need help. You will not make eye contact with anyone you don't have to. Nobody wants to look at you, and they don't want you looking at them. If you are at the Glendale office, a nice Armenian lady will try to convince you to accept general relief ($220 a month!) in addition to food stamps, and you will decline because while you have may have reached the point of asking for a handout, you will not ask for anything more than you deem "necessary". Then you will go to the Whole Food for Life market and the man behind the deli counter will make you a huge sandwich and throw in two amazing side salads (some kind of potato thing, and something with beets) because you originally asked for a pizza and the pizza dough is frozen. He will call you "Bro", and it will feel genuine, possibly because he is much older than you are or maybe he is just a really nice guy. Whatever the reason, you will feel like his Bro, and you will go pay for the sandwich and the money will come from taxes. Probably they will come from the late penalties that a mechanic in Oklahoma had to pay to the IRS because he was dealing with cancer and well that just sort of dominates ones priorities, even when it comes to the United States Government, but they probably wont have come from Rex W. Tillerson because that rich fuck probably spends more money on his tax lawyer than he does to the Federal Government.
I still have half the sandwich and the salads. I will update this post with a picture later.
I, however, am plagued by the urge to be constantly productive. I once had a job working for the Pasadena library. I was a page, which meant that I was responsible for putting books back on shelves, and maintaining the organization of said books on also-said shelves. There were only two pages at my library, and from what I could tell by monitoring the stack of returned books and the state of the shelves the other page did not spend very much time replacing and organizing books. I, on the other hand, spent as much time as I could bear efficiently maintaining the organizational integrity of my little library. I was eventually fired. Not fired, exactly, but simply not retained. I was a probationary employee and after 6 happy months my boss let me go, with what I could tell was a certain amount of regret. I worked hard at that job and lost it.
Later I had another library job, this time at the California State University, Northridge Music and Media Library. I was a special assistant to the music librarian, which means that I executed whatever projects she gave me. Sometimes this meant doing my old job of organizing stuff, sometimes it meant going through donations to the library and assessing their value to the collection. Lots of different things, sometimes menial and sometimes challenging. I had learned, however, to fuck around. I surfed the internet. I browsed the collection. I stared off into space. If a certain project had any real urgency I would focus on the task and please my boss with my ability to come through, but usually I tried to treat my work like a fly. I would shoo it away if it bothered me and try to squash it if I had nothing better to do. At that job I got an award for being one of the best new employees at the annual banquet thing.
I have to remember to fuck around. Two days ago I had a very successful morning filled with emails and revelations and phone calls. Then I put in a couple of strong hours on the piano, and some more time working on songs at the guitar. The next day (yesterday) I slept until noon and spent the rest of the day trying to convince myself that I wasn't a waste of flesh. Things turned out ok. Threatened by rain, I rode my bike downtown anyway, and was treated to chilly but beautiful weather and time spent with the wonderful Midnight Ridazz. Today is looking to be one of the productive ones.
Shame Log Lives
I was up at 8 this morning, and rode my bike to the Glendale Social Services office to inquire about EBT. I was in the office at 9 or 9:30, and at noon I walked out the door with a little plastic card charged up with 130 dollars that I can redeem for a wide variety of snacks up until the end of the month.
I recommend everyone apply for social benefits. If you are steadily employed, I recommend you quit your job, turn your liquid assets into reliable and untraceable gold bars, and spend a Friday morning at with Social Services. There, simply by asking for help, it is assumed that you need help. You will not make eye contact with anyone you don't have to. Nobody wants to look at you, and they don't want you looking at them. If you are at the Glendale office, a nice Armenian lady will try to convince you to accept general relief ($220 a month!) in addition to food stamps, and you will decline because while you have may have reached the point of asking for a handout, you will not ask for anything more than you deem "necessary". Then you will go to the Whole Food for Life market and the man behind the deli counter will make you a huge sandwich and throw in two amazing side salads (some kind of potato thing, and something with beets) because you originally asked for a pizza and the pizza dough is frozen. He will call you "Bro", and it will feel genuine, possibly because he is much older than you are or maybe he is just a really nice guy. Whatever the reason, you will feel like his Bro, and you will go pay for the sandwich and the money will come from taxes. Probably they will come from the late penalties that a mechanic in Oklahoma had to pay to the IRS because he was dealing with cancer and well that just sort of dominates ones priorities, even when it comes to the United States Government, but they probably wont have come from Rex W. Tillerson because that rich fuck probably spends more money on his tax lawyer than he does to the Federal Government.
I still have half the sandwich and the salads. I will update this post with a picture later.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Too Tough To Survive
I figured out why people have homes. Hangovers, and wasting time on the internet. Both of those things are much easier if you have a comfortable abode.
I'm thinking seriously about signing up for EBT (food stamps). Until now I never considered it because 1) I hate dealing with the government and 2) I have a Roth IRA retirement account, which may or may not disqualify me. The thing that got me thinking about it was my dad. I had dinner with him the other night, and he suggested it, which blew me away. Before he gave up on life and started watching Fox News, he was a libertarian. Between that and his historically pushing for me to be a lawyer or some shit like that, I was amazed. His rationale was something along the lines of "Fuck the government. Suck those asshats dry." Something of a libertarian argument, I suppose, but not the one I expected to hear from old pops. Seeing as the vast majority of my cash goes to food, I think I'm going to stop blogging and start looking up EBT offices.
I'm putting an end to the Shame Log because my eating habits are no longer interesting. Pretty much I drink my coffee and eat my bagel at Silverlake Coffee, and make my meals from the supermarket deli counter. The other night I went to some bar that I might start playing at and they gave me a cheeseburger and a bunch of beers for zero dollars and zero cents. Good deal.
Monday, November 5, 2012
What to do all day
So far, the only thing that sucks about this homeless thing is the nights/mornings that I can't get comfortable sleeping. Sometimes I sleep like a baby and sometimes I sleep like a baby with shit in his pants.
The word homeless is notably weird to me now. I embrace it, though, despite the fact that it has a lot of connotations that probably don't fit my exact situation. I've found it makes some people uncomfortable. At parties and such, I've had a lot of people asking me where I'm going to live now that the Casa is closed as we know it. I usually just say "I'm gonna be homeless," and the response will either be 1) Excitement/interest 2) Apathy/they aren't really paying attention anyway, or 3) Cues of mild disgust in the face, paired with something along the lines of "Oh."
I spend a lot of time in public, of course, and the neighborhoods I frequent have a lot of people that are, as far as I can tell, more classically homeless than I would consider myself to be. I feel a new kinship with them now. What do they do all day? That is usually the first question that comes to mind. I feel like the 1% of the homeless world, trying to understand what those poor middle-class fucks are doing. (I can't help but notice the following: I grew up on the bottom rung of a rich town. I was comfortable, but made to feel poor. Now I am uncomfortable, and made to feel rich. I don't know what this means, if anything.) If your clothes are noticeably old, and your skin is leathery and dirty - if you live in the streets not by choice but by necessity - (the necessity of my own situation is clearly debatable) - if all your possessions are all you can carry - what do you do with yourself other than sit and watch the world go by?
Answer: I don't know. I would hazard a guess at studying in the public libraries and getting wasted on whatever cheap intoxicant can be acquired. I'm sure I'll come back to this later. I've got stuff to do.
No shame to report. Coffee, stuff from the deli counter at Vons. Free beer at Frankie's. The notable meal is: Risotto with a caesar salad and split pea soup at Taix, paid for with a food voucher that I got for playing there with Matthew Teardrop. I bought a beer for like 5 bucks, which is what I was thinking about spending on a big fat burrito or something when I remembered about the voucher. Dinner at Taix is awesome. I ate by myself and read Infinite Jest, then went to sleep at like 9.
EDIT/UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I got completely wasted on Saturday. Free beers at Frankie's anniversary party evolved into whiskey at Mike James' movie preview which evolved into my showing up drunk at the peak of a party filled with friends, who, in their party mood and being happy to see me arrive, fed me much beer, which resulted in my passing out/wake-up-and-raging numerous times. There is a certain somehow glorious shame in that.
The word homeless is notably weird to me now. I embrace it, though, despite the fact that it has a lot of connotations that probably don't fit my exact situation. I've found it makes some people uncomfortable. At parties and such, I've had a lot of people asking me where I'm going to live now that the Casa is closed as we know it. I usually just say "I'm gonna be homeless," and the response will either be 1) Excitement/interest 2) Apathy/they aren't really paying attention anyway, or 3) Cues of mild disgust in the face, paired with something along the lines of "Oh."
I spend a lot of time in public, of course, and the neighborhoods I frequent have a lot of people that are, as far as I can tell, more classically homeless than I would consider myself to be. I feel a new kinship with them now. What do they do all day? That is usually the first question that comes to mind. I feel like the 1% of the homeless world, trying to understand what those poor middle-class fucks are doing. (I can't help but notice the following: I grew up on the bottom rung of a rich town. I was comfortable, but made to feel poor. Now I am uncomfortable, and made to feel rich. I don't know what this means, if anything.) If your clothes are noticeably old, and your skin is leathery and dirty - if you live in the streets not by choice but by necessity - (the necessity of my own situation is clearly debatable) - if all your possessions are all you can carry - what do you do with yourself other than sit and watch the world go by?
Answer: I don't know. I would hazard a guess at studying in the public libraries and getting wasted on whatever cheap intoxicant can be acquired. I'm sure I'll come back to this later. I've got stuff to do.
SHAME LOG:
No shame to report. Coffee, stuff from the deli counter at Vons. Free beer at Frankie's. The notable meal is: Risotto with a caesar salad and split pea soup at Taix, paid for with a food voucher that I got for playing there with Matthew Teardrop. I bought a beer for like 5 bucks, which is what I was thinking about spending on a big fat burrito or something when I remembered about the voucher. Dinner at Taix is awesome. I ate by myself and read Infinite Jest, then went to sleep at like 9.
EDIT/UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I got completely wasted on Saturday. Free beers at Frankie's anniversary party evolved into whiskey at Mike James' movie preview which evolved into my showing up drunk at the peak of a party filled with friends, who, in their party mood and being happy to see me arrive, fed me much beer, which resulted in my passing out/wake-up-and-raging numerous times. There is a certain somehow glorious shame in that.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Day 2
As a way to shame myself into better habits I am going to document how much I spend on food and where.
Yesterday:
- $1.00 - An apple, a banana, and a bagel at the Vons on Sunset and Virgil
- $1.90 - Coffee at some coffee place on Sunset and Vermont.
- $2.75 - A veggie burrito at Golfo de Fonseca on Vermont, plus a dollar tip.
- $9.00 - A stupid sandwich, curly fries, and a slice of cheesecake at a major fast food chain.
Golfo de Fonseca is the shit. Reverend X-ray introduced me to it a while ago. It is two blocks away from the Church, and they have daily specials that are stupid cheap.
I don't remember the name of the coffee place, but I'm not going back there, and I wouldn't repeat the name here anyway. (Like that is gonna shut them down.) I'd rather go to Starbucks. At least Starbucks doesn't cycle creepy poster sized ads on an LCD screen. They did, however, have the best chairs I've ever sat in at a coffee shop. Coffee shops, by the way, are my new office. It's great. For a buck or two I get a desk, a cup of coffee, and wifi. I can take care of all my internet bullshit in one sitting and then forget about it for the rest of the day if that's what I want to do. That is where I wrote yesterday's inaugural post.
Things I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of:
- Riding my bicycle
- Brushing my teeth
I only need to move my van in order to avoid a ticket, or to get my piano somewhere. Everything else I can handle with the bike. The irony of living in a bike house, was that I hardly ever rode my bike.
Things I think I'm going to be doing a lot less of:
- Wasting time on the internet
- Taking dumps
So there's this website. I'm not going to name it here because I don't want to be the one responsible for turning you onto it if you haven't heard of it before. It is kind of like life. Most of it is shitty, but the good parts are good enough to convince you that its all worth it. If I'm gonna spend all my time dealing with something that is mostly shitty, however, its gonna be my life, and not a website. I found over the past few months that I was spending enough time on The Site to make me feel stupid for having done so.
Etc.
The van needs some work in order to make it feel a little more like the safe sleeping space that it is. I've been ignoring the shortcomings of this interior for too long. More on that as it comes. I'm about to take my first borrowed shower, and then practice with one of the best bands in the world. Looking forward to both.
Oh yeah and today's food purchases:
- $0.98 - An apple and a banana from trader joes
- $3.75 - Coffee and an everything bagel with cream cheese from Silverlake Coffee
- $3.75 - A Carnitas Quesadilla at Golfo de Fonseca
- $1.75 - 24 oz. Steel Reserve at the Riverside/Glendale am/pm
[Update]
- $5.50 - An apple, a banana, a pound of peanuts, and another 211
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Day One
Hi-
My name is Matt, though most people call me Mateo these days.
I left my mother's house in August 2001 and moved to Berkeley, California because I had to study philosophy there. Since then, I haven't lived in the same dwelling for more than a year and a half. I lived at the Casa de Angelopes with a constantly changing cast of freaks for one year and three months, and yesterday we all bid our final farewell in a fittingly chaotic ceremony that brought tears to a number of eyes.
Even before word came down that we were no longer welcome at 1161 1/2 E. Hyde Park Blvd. Inglewood, Ca. 90302, I had been feeling the Itch. I may have loved that scummy warehouse, but I needed to get out. Part of the inspiration for that feeling, maybe, was my newly purchased 1984 Chevrolet C20 conversion van. (The "Swagon" - a name I am not crazy about but it is the best one I can remember. One night I was wasted and came up with another name that I loved, but forgot it.) The Swagon fell in my lap in perfect running condition, and for only 1000 dollars I could keep it there, so I sold my Jeep and the heap of metal is mine. I used it to go on tour up to Seattle and back with Gibbons and the Sluts. The tour ended and we were safe at home when I first felt the Itch. My friend's band, Manhattan Murder Mystery, was going on tour and I asked if they had room for me to come along. As it happened, the Swagon ended up being the tour vehicle, and I ended up MMM's piano player. I found out on the road that the Casa was to be no more. The reality of the situation was numbed by the Itch.
When I got home work began on establishing a new space. Very quickly, with the kind of ease that suggests a divine guiding hand, the Church of FUN was founded near the intersection of Vermont and Melrose in Los Angeles. I let it be known that I was on the fence as far as my future residence, and I was leaning quite heavily to the side of the fence called Nowhere. The Itch pushed me off, and after dangling there for a couple of weeks I have landed. The vast majority of my personal possessions are in storage. At the moment I have a bicycle, a Wurlitzer 200a, a Fender Bassman, a duffel bag filled with clothes, an acoustic guitar, some books, papers, and tools, and the Swagon. I am not yet sure how I will fill my days. All I know so far is that last night, after bidding farewell to the Casa and celebrating with the congregation at the Church, when I wanted to be away from all these people to curl up and go to sleep, I had a place to do just that. It is not glorious, but it is where my heart has brought me. I am curious what my family and my old married-with-babies friends will think when they find out. I am also curious how long this experiment will last. I'm guessing it wont be very long, but it seems ripe for blog-style documentation, so here it is. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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