"I wish all of this were a dream, but the blood and tears I have shed seem so wet and real."

I texted this to a friend of mine Anthony one recent morning.  He is also homeless.  He is very sweet. He is a musician and writes his own lyrics.  Anthony is generous, kind and has a lot of heart.  He is courageous, unafraid to fight to stand up for himself and his friends.  On the streets, your on your on. Most people, even if youre a woman, will not help you if you are getting attacked, even by a man.  I was once jumped by a 6'5" black dude in front of 6 men.  Not one of them intervened to help or stop him.  Believe me, no one helps or even will call the police.  He will put his life on the line to protect anyone who is being victimized on the streets.  Anthony is not afraid to show his passionate feelings, either.

Anyways, as I was saying I sent him what turned out to be a huge, long text, that read a bit like Ferlinghettis, " Howl."  I set out to just send a text message and ended up with stream of consciosness with deep feeling.  I knew it was pretty intense and maybe a little "out there."  After I sent it, I got a return text from him, "Are you ok?"

 I conveyed that I was fine and just venting my spleen.  I felt a little embarrassed sending the contents of my raw unconscious to Anthony and quickly forgot about it.

Then three weeks later, it was nighttime and raining.  I was walking u...  ( to be continuedp one of the many borderline neighborhood streets, when I saw Anthony coming toward me in the opposite direction.  When he saw me, his eyes opened big and wide and his mouth fell open, like he was stunned to see me.  He swept his hat off of his head, down to his chest and over his heart, clutching it.  At the same time, he dropped to his knees onto the sidewalk in the rain, right in front of me without concern for the couple of surprised onlookers.  There I was, standing in the soft San Francisco rain with this young man on his knees in front of me with his hand over his heart

Now THIS Shit Is Funny!

I am not going to remind the reader of the writer, drawing attention away from the serious matter of writing as a vehicle to amuse, entertain and pleasurably absorb the intense interest of the reader.  I strive to engage you that youre compelled to read the whole thing through, that you might miss your bus stop and laugh aloud, once atleast.  A tall order, indeed!

This is funny.  An acquintance went to use the Space Toilet a public restroom structure in a Grench Art Deco style that is round shaped and capacious for a latrine.  These public restrooms are self cleaning automatically after each use.  It
These restrooms that populate major street corners in SF, CA are well known sites popular with homeless and non homeless drug addicts for shooting up and other drug activity.  This is due to lack of available privacy for this activity or lack of meaningful or effective intervention before people are reduced to this level of self abuse on the streets.

So, my friend knocks on the door because its already occupied at 200 am at the popular cable car turnaround at Market Street.  Somebody responds with, "were down for the night."  This means the person inside is not coming out of there until the morning. Naturally, the friend is indignant that someone would assume control of this public restroom by hogging the Space toilet for any extended length of time.  After all, it is public, isnt it?  So he bangs harder on the door insisting his right to entry even with the squatter in there with him. He had to take a leak and such. Whoevers inside capitualates and opens the door.

To my friends surprise he finds that the floirs have been appointed with wall to wall carpet and pictures have been hung on the walls.  To make it weirder still, There is a woman in a wheelchair, a black man and a midget lounging on the carpetted floor smoking a cigar.  My friend had to ask the midget to m9ve to accomodate him inside the toilet now turned apartment to three. I guess San Francisco rent is so high, people are moving into public toilets as a free alternative?  This is just weird and goofy as hell. I mean what a cast of characters who seem rather unlikely in their diversity.

This definitely is something that would happen here in San Francisco where weird odd occurrences are just banal in tbeir regular appearances everywhere.

This is a continuation from yesterdays

My apology for the interruption of your Entertainment  Broadcasting Network from Sundays urban "desk."  I blog on the fly and sometimes I get interrupted by a drug deal or someone hustling me for something, usually a cigarrette.  I am almost always out in the field and write from the frontlines of urban guerrila warfare, called the streets.  Yes, they are mean and filled with slippery and treachorous denizens of this busy "bottom of the ocean,"  twilight realm where anything that aint moving or nailed down is eaten or stolen.  Its a fucking zoo out there (or did I mean, "jungle?").  It doesnt matter.  Its just very action packed and demands hypervigilant attention to your surroundings and every mother fucker "up on in it!"

So, enough lubrication for the money shot.  This is a friends true account of events two nights ago at Powell and Market, at 2am at the big, green, round, metal, self, cleaning oddly redolent of art deco era, imported from France, called by the people who useb them regularly for other than excretory functions, namely recreational consumption of Scheduled narcotics, the acclaimed hotel room of choice of the indigent, the"Space Toilet."  Because, its free!!......to be continued..in a while...likely within a few hours.  Its now 5:29pm.  I have to catch the free food gravy train before it pulls out of the station!(: