Spirit in Action
Nashville Homeless - The View from the Street
Guest host Robert Wolf of American Mosaic shares the poetry, prose, and voices of the homeless people he's worked with over the years. The voices are gritty and real, providing an honest glimpse of life most of us never see. In 1989 Robert started his writing workshops with the homeless of Nashville, and he's gone on to gather writings from all over the country, creating an American Mosaic, both book and radio program, part of Free River Press.
- Broadcast on:
- 16 Sep 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, I welcome back Robert Wolfe, who's sitting in for me as I travel around Alaska with the Quaker Folk Dance group called the Friendly Folk Dancers. Fortunately, as I'm kicking up my heels in Alaska, Robert Wolfe is hard at work on American mosaic and free river press. Robert has a passion for really knowing this country and living with a clarity of sight and openness of spirit that he pours into the books he's written and edited. And into the radio show he does, American mosaic. Today, he's bringing the reality of people living on the street before our eyes and ears. It's not the sugar-coated or theatrical drama of homelessness, but the experience straight from the mouths of the homeless people he has worked with. So now, I'll turn over today's Spirit in Action to Robert Wolfe, for Nashville Homeless of You from the Street. This episode of American Mosaic features poems written by four formerly homeless writers. Three were a part of a homeless writing workshop that I established in 1989 at Matthew 25, a homeless shelter in Nashville. This was to be the start of Free River Press. Matthew 25 was located on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Broadway had once been the domain of tourists, but now was filled with the homeless, who spent their days and sometimes nights in its hockey-tongued bars or outside them on the sidewalks. The homeless were coming to Nashville from all over the country. Many in the hope of breaking into the music business and becoming the next Willie Nelson or Whelan Jennings. Matthew 25 was a ramshackle three-story building that sheltered approximately 40 men. In retrospect, it was the perfect place for the writing project. It had the right feel and was close to the hockey-tongues, and the life on the streets came with them into the shelter. Free River Press eventually published six chapbooks by the homeless, three of them authored by today's writers. First there was El Gilbert, then Joe Goller, followed by Robert Roeburg, and then Rebel Yale. Our first poet is El Gilbert, who hailed from Port Arthur, Texas, and worked in New York as an executive secretary to the legendary jazz and blues impresario, John Hammond. When Hammond retired, Elle sought and failed to find employment with other New York record companies. She headed south and landed in Nashville, where she eventually found herself on the streets. By the time I knew her, she was living with a couple that had taken her in. She is still in Nashville. Elle's poems are read by singer Bonnie Colock. Elle Gilbert, well-seasoned, Friday night, Nashville, Captain D's fish chain on West End Avenue where the elite meat to crunch, chomp, guzzle, and slurp, unaware of the perpetual draft from the air conditioner or the monotony of music in the distance. Countergirls appear at intervals to wipe off tables. Bill napkin holders keep the ketchup flowing and the customers content. That's what they're paid to do, so when they holler, y'all come back in their best finishing school voices. Don't take it personally. You're not a person, first of all. You're a seafood platter and a coke, or black coffee and a banana tart. Nothing more. Don't forget that. Hush. Be quiet. Eat your grub as quickly as possible and get out. These are the unspoken rules of the restaurant game in these parts, no room for poachers or poets, just as no dogs allowed. 100% Texan. I have loved cowboys, urban or otherwise. In their stack-yield boots, clothes, fit and jeans, hats bent to the curve of the head, brass belt buckles, and I have said, God help me for this weakness. This shooting gallery, pinball, alley mentality, this final ride into the hills of what used to be can never be again. I have loved whaling Willie and the boys, who done me wrong songs, jute boxes playing in roadside diners, deserted horsemen and Texans stuck with themselves, whittled from the inside out, stranded and forgotten, left to fight half-worlds with unloaded guns. I have loved good old boys, rednecks, rebels, outlaws, men brave enough to defend their rights even when they weren't right, who dreamed of owning themselves and freeing the prisoners. I have loved taverns and bars, restaurants devoid of decorations or beauty, plain blazes filled with plain people, dethroned princes, commoners, laborers and field hands too exhausted to expound on pound, po, or proost. Extraordinary examples of courage in a less than courageous society. I have loved truck drivers for being themselves, whoever they are, wherever they are, their spirit of freedom flashing across the freeways, in fluorescent colors, their independence and individuality in spite of the countryside cluttered with copies of copies. And I have loved you, even though you didn't fit into my VW and couldn't be shrunk to size. Winter boy, crawl into bed now, slide between the wrinkled sheets, hold me in your arms and tell me nothing changes, let me hear you say it only rains over there, make me believe it's true. I'm sorry but, meeting you this afternoon made me think of other afternoons alone. Temporary relief, I love you, he said, even though you are old enough to be my mother. He was wearing weak old jeans and a Linda Ronstadt t-shirt, his breath smelled of white Russians. We danced this way in New Jersey too, he grinned, the band eased into far the good times, he stumbled, rested his beard against my face. There was enough dirt under his fingered nails to plant a marijuana patch. "I'd like to make love to you," he said between hiccups, repressed farts. That's what they all say after the fifth drink, when the vision gets clouded and younger prospects disappear with well heel hound shows. I let him sleep on the spare cot, he made two trips to the bathroom to throw up, said he was sorry if he caused me any trouble, hoped I had a good time, the next morning I felt hung over, coaks do that to me now. He put on his boots, kissed me goodbye at the door, some things are expected. I folded up the cot, lit a cigarette, watched him cross the street from the kitchen window. Wouldn't you know it? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and the fools are packed in here tonight. Each one trying to look hipper than the next. Each one sucked into music city melodrama, pasty phonies from New York, Chicago, LA, the Cosmo playboy whirlwind tornado, the in scene, the boredom. I sit at the front table where in my five-year-old Steppenwolf t-shirt, which isn't very in by local standards, but what's the difference? I've been out so long I'm in. You noticed? How sweet. I'm trembling with excitement. The only thing that prevents me from jumping up to kiss you is the fact that you look like a gargoyle. You say you're not a gargoyle? A musician? That's too bad. That's really too bad. Well, look, I'll see you around. What? What am I doing with that old man? That old man is a year younger than I am. Yeah, ha ha, it's funny, I know. Nah, there's no sex. I accompany him to places like this, so he'll look less like a man man. He feeds me in exchange, otherwise I'd go hungry. Jobs aren't that easy to get now. I guess I'm sort of a musician, too. Trouble is, the only instrument I've got is broken, and the concert hall is empty. Our next poet, Joe Guller, was a supervisor at Matthew 25 when I met him. He'd been a drummer in a rock band, and had been to prison for selling drugs. That was all behind him now. He didn't want any part of the workshop. To put me off, he handed me a stack of poems he had written while in prison. I published excerpts in a book he titled, "From Within Walls." When my life is gone, keep my name forever silent, lest the winds carry it, and destroy my eternal peace. When my life is gone, shed no tears for me. There'd be such a waste to weep over your enemy. When my life is gone, set my soul a flame, lest it get away from me, and hinder my escape. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Gold is precious, paid for with countless lives. Diamonds are valued as the old and ugly wives. Rubies are worth their weight in shape and size. Emeralds are favorites, but beyond the poor man's prize. Water? Who needs it? Except the drink and pollute, air? Well, I can use it, but I like it with soot. Earth has its use, but looks better under cement. Nature? Yes, I saw it once in a post-card stamp. Values? What a wonderful thing to possess. Morality? Means loving thy neighbor's wife best. Character? Play the next man's part instead of self. Faith, a stack of old Bibles on a dusty shelf. Love, love is war, not flowers, is hate, not friends, is vanity, not beauty, is cold, not red, is dead, is not, is, female guard. She traded her blue jeans and her sunday dress, gave her a new uniform off green at best. She walks the beat now, grounds forbidden so long, just another cop on the prowl, trying to meet the test. Do you think she can hear the growl deep within the prisoner's chest? The uniform is on, badge in place, smile erased, but we look, and she feels the heat right through her bare feet. Thank God she isn't wearing boxers, too. Standing grey walls, steel bars, put them in a jar and flesh it down the toilet. Pretty boys lifting weights and spending time broken down at the waist, the mornings without sun, so I stare at the glare of the fifty-watt freak, lying on my bunk, thinking about the punk who winked at me. Bedsprings start to sing to the only tune and the face in the wall. Large-changing shifts but knock the rules, doesn't matter, dot my own, received a letter a week old and means just as much. Too bad hate's not shaped like a key, I'd have a master's. Don't tell me what time it is, it may be too late. The great promise, two cars in every garage and a TV in every cell. Nothing really knew about my style, just the way it's expressed. I hate, I hate the smallest of your thoughts, I hate your obsession with man-made store-bought, I hate your beauty above the ugly inside, I hate all the things you're trying to hide, I hate the one you'll never be, I hate you because you're blind to me, I hate the things you think you represent, I hate you on Sunday as you repent, I hate everything you leave to fate, I hate the hate, I hate the hate, I hate. Our third poet is Robert Robert, a one-time homeless man who is a men-and-night street preacher with a wife and children when he joined the workshop. Robert used to illustrate his sidewalk sermons with primitive day-glove paintings, I should have bought one then, Robert was later discovered by a New York folk art expert and his paintings began selling for goodly sums, his poems are read by actor Robert Swan. I was hungry and you pledged millions of dollars to build yourselves a new building, I was thirsty and you bought the most luxurious organ you could find, I was naked and you put in new carpeting, I was homeless and your doors were locked, I was sick and your youth group had a Mickey Mouse banquet, I was in prison and you visited me through your radio show, the voice was warm, not far away and untouchable, I was lonely and you sent missionaries overseas, I was brokenhearted and I couldn't help blaming someone, can you guess who? A poor man's eyes are stretched wide by hunger, so we see the different world, I've been imprisoned in Mexico, the US and Colombia, sold my blood in Greece for a boat ticket to Israel, begged for bread on the streets of India, I've slept under bridges, eaten from soup kitchens, walked all night, many nights because I had no money or friends, look into my mind, let me be a window to show you how the poor think, we think constantly of the rich, we hate them, the rich are the cause of all our suffering, we're blind to any good they may do, we hate all governments who favor the rich, we hate congressmen who vote themselves raises, we hate rich farmers who are paid not to plant, we hate little shopkeepers who exploit their workers with low wages, we're blinded by people eating from garbage cans, we hate fences that say keep out, no trespassing, we hate well clipped lawns where money that could go to the poor goes to lawn mowers and fertilizers, we hate pets who gobble up meat and fish dinners, we hate cars that gulp gallons of gas, paint oil and wax, we hate to see people skiing behind boats for the fences, keep us even from dipping our tongues in the lakes, we hate churches with tall steeples and stained glass windows, we know we're not welcome there, we doubt if the sweaty carpenter of Nazareth would be welcome there, we hate preachers on TV begging for money, we hate people trying to stop nuclear war, the poor say let it come, let the bombs rain down, then the rich will reap what they have sown and the poor will inherit their laser and reward, I wrote this poem before I became a Christian, I still struggle with negative thoughts about the rich, I'm now trying to love everyone, but it ain't easy, I saw a lonely shadow on a barroom wall, I thought it might be Mike, the second wife left him just last fall, I turned to say hello but he was gone, later as the jukebox played the broken rose I saw the shadow flicker through the candle glow, thought it might be Jane, after Eric left her she was never quite the same, I turned to say hello but she was gone, I was returning from the bathroom when I saw it in the hall, just for a brief moment I thought it might be Tom, then I remembered his plane went down over Vietnam, after midnight when I left the bar I saw the shadow sitting in my car, they say loneliness can play tricks on your mind, I got to stop this drinking while I still have the time, for the shadow on the barroom wall was mine, I turned to say hello but I was gone, who needs more learning than a teacher, who needs more preaching than a preacher, have you ever felt lonely in a crowd, have you noticed a silence can be loud, the world makes more sense if you turn it upside down, where those who weep the most are the laughing clowns, look at those high on the ladder of success, can't you see their lives are a mess, money is not the name of the game, those who go for the gold or those who go lame, yes the world makes more sense turned upside down, where those who weep the most are the laughing clowns, the prouder they come the harder they fall, only the humble can truly stand tall, in my search for the truth this much I found, the way ups not up, but the way up is down. Our fourth poet is Rebel Yell, whose real name is Laurie Lee, Rebel was homeless from at least 1989 to 1992 and was one of Nashville's better known street persons, I first met Rebel when a Vanderbilt University graduate student brought her to the workshop, tall gawky woman and scruffy blue jeans, plaid shirt and work boots, carrying a backpack with all her worldly possessions, all the other homeless writers knew her, Rebel seldom had the patience to sit through a workshop, when the spotlight wasn't on her she got bored, each spring Rebel got travelling for you, I got it bad she'd say, and soon she began a month or two, when she'd return she'd come back with three or four notebooks filled with prose poems, poems from this episode are from one of those notebooks, they also appear in a free river pressed volume, each hiker's dream, Rebels poems are read by Cathy Baldwin, just another hiker dream, there are hiker who used to travel the nation, now they have a car and homes, they have been there, and they see a hiker they pulled over to lend to help in hand, they have been there before, just another hitchhiker dream, they wish they could do it again, travelling, down the interstate or seeing the great smoky mountains, sleeping under the star along the road or even under bridge when it rains, and getting wet on top of Mount Eagle, just another hitchhiker dream, going through small town along the interstate, or sitting on a ramp for a ride to come and pick you up, seeing the open road and cattle grazing and open pastures and watching the cars and semis passing you by, just another hitchhiker dreams of long ago, only the memory are there, left those who want to travel again, just another hitchhiker dream, Lord you see me on the ramp, let not harm come to me when I travel, you know the hearts of everyone who pass me by, Lord, touch a person who believe in you, let that person come by today and give me a ride where I need to go, Lord, please forgive those who don't stop, I forgive them who just pass me by, I'm a child of yours who has faith, Lord, I pray for them who don't know, their fear of stranger like me who sit along the road on ramp, forgive them, Lord, I-75, Lanur City, Exit 81, people are telling me to get a real job, people are telling me to get a real job and stop traveling on your thumb across this land, I don't listen to them and their words that cut my thoughts and my traveling moods, they have not seen this land or slept under the stars each night or watching a spider making its web and I put away their words away from my thoughts and they have not seen the different places and different people getting to know the inner states and knowing how to sleep on a hillside along the roadside, seeing the sun, kissing the land a good morning kiss to the living who lives on the world, the people never seeing the sunset after a day is over or seeing the sun come up on the next day along the I-75, sitting along the US-321, just waiting until the sun cut the chill off the land and in the wind. In a moment we'll return to the poetry of Rubble Yell, but first I want to remind you that you're listening to Spirit In Action, Northern Spirit Radio Production, website nordancepiritradio.org, where you can listen to and download seven years of programs, both Spirit In Action and Song of the Soul, leave us comments there to help guide our work and other listeners and leave us a donation there and you can help us sure that this work goes on. Obviously this is not the kind of programming richly underwritten by mainstream sources. We depend on your contributions and support to get the word out and one way to do that is by clicking on the donate button on nordancepiritradio.org. I'm Mark Helpsmeat and I'm normally your host for Spirit In Action, but while I'm up in Alaska doing my quicker peace ministry of international folk dance, you're in the capable hands of Robert Wolfe of Free River Press and he's sharing some of the fruit of that work as today's Spirit In Action. The topic is homelessness, not the mainstream, sanitized or dramatized point of view, but from the mouths of the homeless themselves, many of whom took part in the writing workshops that Robert has led for the homeless of Nashville and elsewhere. Robert has compiled the prose and poetry from these and other contributors in a series of books which are part of the American Mosaic he has assembled. So back to Nashville homeless, of you from the street, Robert Wolfe sitting in for me for Spirit In Action and we'll hear more from one of Nashville's homeless, Laurie Lee, AKA Rebel Yell. I am a road dog, I am a road dog, I am in between a bridge for the night or a rest area for the night. It's not being seen by people and when you are running with a road dog, then the road puppies will learn how to keep alive. Traveling down the road alone someday and getting to know how to do things to keep alive, watching the traffic go and pass by you and being very patient and to know how people think of you a road dog like me. High 75, Lenore City Exit 81. A whisper of good morning, my child. A whisper of good morning, my child. You give me thanks and all the praise, so I kept you safe from harm. I could hear my Lord voice. So I let you rise up early to see the sun rise into the eastern sky and I let no rain fall on you when you slept through the night. I could hear my Lord voice and then I told my Lord I would put you first in my life. It's hard for me to put the Lord first in the city. I know that's right to seek the kingdom of God first and giving a friendly smile to everyone I meet in my life. I told my Lord he woke me up each day to start out with a kind word and being gentle to people who is around me. I could hear my Lord voice against my ear in the morning. The Skin 18 News got my work in, twos in a sleep in the shack with the work in fools. Can't go to town, spend my pay, dig me a hole and pack it away. Nobody lucky like a mucker like me, nobody lucky like a mucker like me, nobody lucky like a mucker like me, nobody lucky like a mucker like me. For free river press, life has come full circle. The press began with the writing workshop for homeless men and women in 1989 when homelessness was a national issue. It is no longer an issue, at least as far as the mainstream media are concerned, but with the massive housing foreclosures of the last three years it ought to be. We don't even know how many people were forced onto the streets as a result of the housing debacle, or how many people are now living on the edge. How many college graduates, two and three years out of school, are still looking for work that pays more than minimum wage? How many families with children are living with parents, or grandparents? The stories and poems that the Nashville Homeless wrote in the Free River Press Writing Workshop between 1989 and 1991 are more poignant to me now than they were when first written. We begin with an essay by Jim Mintz, a day laborer and Willie Nelson lookalike who tied a red bandana around his forehead. Outgoing in jovial, Jim stuck up for the underdog, even if it meant getting his skull cracked with a night stick. Jim, a native Texan, taught himself to read and write by studying the Bible. This story, The Beginning of the End, was published in American Mosaic, a Free River Press anthology published by Oxford University Press. In China recently, there was supposed to be a gathering of students and scholars. They gathered to protest the way the government was being run. They wanted to see a better government, they were for democracy. The government let them have the meeting, then when things were in full swing, the government sent troops in, killing and mutilating hundreds. They had observers so that later they could round up the ringleaders. Education is good, this is what they meant when they said a little knowledge can be dangerous. I had been a Nashville little over a year, I came here to see what I could do with my songs. Shortly after I arrived, my truck was stolen, along with everything else I owned, so I was forced to live on the street. Being a construction worker and having a good trade, most of what I had so and life was the good life. And ever so, people have to stand in doorways to stay out of the rain or sleep under vodocks on hard concrete, some time with cardboard under them to keep the cold of the concrete from coming through. Get up at five in the morning, to go to the mission for breakfast, and while six go to the labor source to be sent out in all sorts of jobs, from Karen Sheat Rock the shingles at a meager wage of three thirty-five, and then only three to four days a week. How in heaven's name does society expect these people to get off the street? They don't. This world is ruled by five percent. When I grew up, times were good. If you would work, it didn't take long to get ahead, and I have been up and down the hill a couple of times so I can't complain. To look around and see the drunks on Broadway and from time to time, I found myself down there too. Now, these people in the bar rooms that I talk to, some run a scam while others tell the truth, I believe in God and Christ, and from the turn of events that put me on the street, I believe I was meant to see these things, and I try my best to stand for what is right. I am now fifty years old and God has been good to me. Hard work and perseverance has kept me strong, and on my fiftieth birthday I climbed over the peak of the ramen auditorium, and I am grateful to God to feel this good. But what I have seen and heard since I hit Nashville hurts a body way down deep inside. I was drinking beer one night at the Nashboro last fall when a man I never met came up to me. He told me how he had contracted Agent Orange while in Vietnam, and that he was dying. I bought him a drink and stood up and drank to him. As we left the bar, a cop car came up, and two cops jumped out. He was only about eight to ten feet ahead of me, and before I knew it they had his hands behind him, and they'd hit him on the right side of the forehead three times. If this I stepped up and told the cops that I had just gotten out of jail, and I didn't want to go back again, but if I hit him one more time they're going to give me a reason to do so. I also told them that if it be the case they had better call for some backup, in fact they arrested him and took him to the hospital. Another man that was with us let me sleep in the back of his pickup that night. When I woke up the next day he brought me back to town. I went up to the mission, and there I met a man who had been beat up, and he invited me out to his brother's house. He gave me a sheepskin vest and three pair of corduroy brooches. I had a nice hot bath and a large soft bed to sleep in that night. Shortly after that the cops beat a man so severely that he died in the hospital that night, so I was told. I talked to men on the street who said that the cops had his hands behind his back before they even started beating him. It don't take much to figure out who was right. So one week after New Year's I walked up to the mission sometime shortly after ten. I had been drinking and the administrator told me I was barred for life. I've been back since so I guess that weren't true. I had saw men come into the mission with their countenance that glowed. A smile and a how you doin' and comin' from them. And they stay a month or two for meager wages, I'm talkin' five bucks a week or less. Then they hit Broadway one night for a laugh or two. Well, they mess up and the mission kicks them out. These same men I saw mop around like zombies. So when I was told that I was barred for life I said, it might as well knock your head off. I went through the door and hit the man in the nose. Had that a large black man who I had no quarrel with came at me. I had really wanted to hurt him, for I knew he didn't know the reason. I threw a punch and hit him in the chest. He picked me up and threw me through the door. And as I hit the wall on the other side I saw three cop cars pull up. I scrambled to my feet and hit the sidewalk. Two cops stood three feet in front of me. The other night's sticks helped high on were Warren Green Wool Switters. The one on my left said, Run for it. Then I replied, I'm not runny. But I knew at best I was in for a weapon. And I said, the hill I won't and hit it down the hill. I got to where the Red Cross sign was across from the Salvation Army. I turned a bit to find out where there were. A club hit me across the throat and will I hit the ground. They hit me across the throat one more time. I bowled up and prayed, Lord forgive them for they don't know what they do. Thinking they had done their job, they put the handcuffs on me. Then I lay in jail till the next morning. The charge was short and simple. I was charged with staggering outside the mission. The man came by the drunk tank and said, plead guilty and you'll be released. Thinking what they might do if I spent a week in there, I pleaded guilty to the charge. Now I'm a working man and I earn my money. I don't steal and I don't cheat. But I had gotten off and work at the Rhymon. And as I started up the hill at fifth and Broadway, I met a friend who says, let's have a bear. We were setting a turf club just T9 at a table right next to the door. At 6.30 a cop came in and placed himself about twenty feet from where I sat and commenced to stare at me. Well I stared back and after a few seconds he pointed toward the door. And he arrested me, no rights did he read. So I sit in the van on Broadway for a while. Now I don't think the cop was bad, but I was mad so I pissed right in his van down on Broadway and took us all to jail. And he said he still liked me, even though I pissed right in his van. Yet was the tourist season and he had his orders, arrest anyone that looked suspicious. Now high up these orders came I do not know, but the charges all seemed to be the same thing, drunk. The next day was a work day and I should have been at work by seven. Scared I might lose my job but pleaded guilty. They released me and I was back down at the job by ten. Now the night of the Summer Lights Festival came around and I was staying with some friends that tutored in and they had all took off early and I was by myself. So I decided to check out the Summer Lights. I had barely got up town and I started to cross the street when a car hit me on the left leg just below the crotch. It threw me across the hood onto the windshield and as I rolled to the sidewalk on my back it seemed just like seconds till the ambulance arrived and the cops were standing over me. The driver was a young man with his girlfriend and the way he shook I knew he was scared. So I checked out all my limbs and I knew they weren't broken and I told the cops to let him go, it was my fault. So instead of letting me go they wanted to arrest me. So I said take me to the hospital. When I arrived at the hospital I was met by these same cops who said with a smirk, you mean you took up an ambulance when someone could have been dying, when they get done with you. We'll get you yet. I gave the receptionist my name and when they went into the back I looked around and they were gone. So I got outside the door and the closest thing I saw where I could hide was a dumpster. So I spent the night in there and walked back to town the next day. I didn't work Monday or Tuesday for as in no shape to climb the heights. This land was built on freedom and liberty and justice for all. Like the people over in China I wonder where it went when so few can tell so many what to do. If a person's doing wrong then arrest him, but don't arrest a man because he wears a red bandana. Or because what you think he might do, he must do the crime before he does the time. Well let me ask you, is this little China? If you find your surprise by my tearless, cheery eyes call ain't always all it seems. Each of the three homeless people for this episode had his own way of dealing with homelessness. Jim men's chose the way of most. He worked as a day laborer for minimum wage, staying at the mission or sometimes sharing a motel room with five or six others. Our third speaker, James Hall, lived in his car. James hailed from Queens, New York and loved country music. Everyone who came to downtown Nashville had seen James. James had plastered his car, top, sides, hood and trunk with photos of country and western stars. Furthermore, he added a speaker that blasted country music to the car roof. I interviewed James for a magazine article, which drove around in his car during a downpour. How did you end up living in your car? Well I lived with my sister here up in Nashville, in New York, that was about nine years ago. And they left, they left, they want to put a one with them in the future. I said oh that's okay, I came down here, but I did work for a while, I was paying houses and I had one room over here in the 16th Avenue, 50 a week. Then after that, I nearly wrote from the job wasn't worth it, then I wouldn't have thought about it. Well how come you left the boring idea, do you just get quick paintings, do you quit the house painting? No, well I quit it because now I'm sick because I can't go up high no more, I'm also a diabetic. You get to see the magazine that you sell, the magazine that you get donations for, you just do it, you have a country, you have a country, yeah, you have a country, yeah, one left. When you ask for a donation for these, how much do you usually get? I don't know what I'm going to know, I'm going to get some more off this guy, well donations sometimes they give me two dollars or a dollar, 50 cents, you know, like that, yeah, enough to get by the heat on and put gas on my car. How much is that per day to usually make? Well not much, seven dollars, sometimes six dollars, you know, so I pay for that, you know, paying for you, that's a different story, it might be a little more. And when I got paid with, I'm not all paid with people who can't fit into the car, I can't afford donations, so I got a chance of donations on it. See I take my showers every day, I place down down by the bus station, they just have three showers on it, I give you towels and everything else. Does that make the mission? Yeah. And I give you showers every day, towels, like that, you know, and I keep my clothes clean, the money I make on the tips over here, I mean I'm donations, I go to London, that one of them every week, wash my clothes, pay showers every day, get everything clean, good noise, no need to clean. James and I were joined in James' car by another homeless man, Chris, who couldn't stop talking, speed talking. If it wasn't for James, I'd be starving. Really? Yep, I hit Nashville and I went in to start with to see somebody that I thought was my friend and he's had the door locked every time I go over there and wants me to call and I won't call, I just don't knock on the door, he won't open and I knew he was working over at Starwater, I thought he was and I pulled into this gate and I didn't have orange barrels and then they went down the ramp, you know, and they had the gate locked and there's no reverse on my car, my car actually does need a transmission, but I got a guarantee, don't worry about it. No reverse, I only go forward anyway, but I tried to turn around and I got stuck and then I got them to open the gates when I got stuck and then I had to unhook the van and I thought it was in park, but I forgot I took a drive shaft out and I was in roll and it rolled over to guard wire at Starwood and then the police came and I thought they were going to tow everything away and I says, "Man, I've only got four dollars on me" and then I talked to the head guy there, I think his name's Steve Moore, the head guy at Starwood. Anyway, I think his name's Steve Moore, I got it written down and then the other guy, anyway, I says, "Man, I don't want it on my insurance, I give you my 24 channel board or whatever until I paid it" and then, anyway, he got some guy there with a 4x4 to pull the van back out. Well, the point is, is I met James when he does his exercises in the park, you know, I've seen the car and I've seen him but I hadn't met him and then I say, "I'm Chris, this is on James" and then we met and then the next thing is he got this paper, you know, the country parade and then like a day or two went by, I don't know what I did for that day, you know, it's just, you know, 'cause I came from Florida with 25 cents and a three quarter of a tank of gas and I went 800 miles on that but I did flea markets, you know, and this and that, what I sold tools or cassettes or whatever I had to do to get gas 'cause I'm going to Minnesota, say, 'cause I got a road band up there and I went to Florida to wax cars, I spent thousands to get there 'cause I got 45 bucks to wax a car, I mean, I got there and they had a drought Lake Okeechobee's down three foot, Everglades is so dry now it's burning up all the wildlife that's dying so they had water restrictions but they didn't have water restrictions on the automatic sprinklers or the automatic car washer, the car washer we put a dollar data restriction on the homeowners where I washed the cars. - That wasn't a good idea. - You know what I'm trying to tell you, Joe, what? - I'm about that, but it wasn't. - Well, anyway, James, if it wasn't for James, so the second day James put some papers on me, you know, "Somber, we're gonna get drunk every day" and I got so drunk. - We were getting the money to get drunk. - Huh? - From Salony's papers. - See? - Up and down on the street here. - Absolutely, that felt bad for the guy. - He helped me out, if it wasn't for the guy. - That felt bad for him, I gave him some pages. - Yeah, that's the word that you know, I was like, yeah, that gives me, if I don't want him to know about it, you know, with some big moment back and talking about it. - No, he shut me off on paper. - Yeah, he didn't want to talk to me about it. - And I can't help him or want to, because I can't, I ain't got nothing to help him with, no. - He got me started in his own industries. - I'll try again. - Yeah, I'll try again. - So what are you gonna do now? - I'm trying to get myself, which is the only way I'm making money now, right? - There's donation when people pay pictures. - Okay. - Not much as I did on papers. So usually when I, when I take a picture of my car, I'll give him a paper. - Yeah, take a paper for a donation, right? Then I'll do it better way, more fast. A lot of people stay away from my car when I take a picture, and I can't help. - Hey, come on, give me a donation. - They have to be close, you know, to more than talk to me. But when I had the paper, it was more better. - I, uh, about a month ago, I got my own apartment. I got my own apartment for one night. So, it was beautiful, hot water, and then I watched TV, ran into bed. But I couldn't sleep. It was this and there, it was like, I, I mean, that, you know, maybe I couldn't sleep. Okay? Next night, I sleep on the car. I'm all like a baby. Okay, yeah, horn, beat, and I know I'm outside, and I love the outside. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm all alone. It's tough, you know, there's days, it is dangerous, we're gonna find somebody can get, you know, you don't know. But a man, they can't see him advance. - Like a mucker like me, nobody like a mucker like me, nobody like a mucker like me. Thanks to Robert Wolfe of the American Mosaic Radio Program for sitting in today for Spirit and Action on the topic of homelessness. I'll be back with you next week, but I thought I'd leave you with a piece of music that connects well with the SAU heard earlier by Jim Mint. The song is from a little known album by the well-known Don McLean, and it's the title track. We'll see you next week for Spirit and Action. Here's Don McLean, homeless brother. - I was walking by the graveyard late last Friday night. I heard somebody yell and it sounded like a fight. It was just a drunken hobo dancing circles in the night. Born whiskey on the headstones in the blue moonlight. So often have I wondered where these homeless brothers go, down in some hidden valley where their sorrows cannot show, where the police cannot find them, where the wanted man can go. There's freedom when you're walking, even though you're walking slow. Smash your bottle on the gravestone and live while you can. That homeless brother is my friend. It's hard to be a pack rat, it's hard to be a bow, but live in so much harder where the heartless people go. Somewhere the dogs are barking and the children seem to know that Jesus on the highway was a lost hobo. And they hear the holy silence of the temples in the hill, and they see the ragged tatters as another kind of thrill, and they envy him the sunshine, and they pity him the chill, and they're sad to do their living for some other kind of thrill. Smash your bottle on the gravestone and live while you can. That homeless brother is my friend. Somewhere there was a woman, somewhere there was a child, somewhere there was a cottage where the miracles grew wild, but somewhere's just like nowhere when you leave it for a while. You'll find the broken hearted when you're traveling jungle style. Down the bowels of a broken land where numbers live like men, where those who keep their senses have them taken back again, where the night stick cracks with crazy rage, where mad men don't pretend, where wealth has no beginning and poverty no end. Smash your bottle on the gravestone and live while you can. That homeless brother is my friend. The ghosts of highway royalty have vanished in the night. The Whitman wanderer walking toward a glowing inner light. The children have grown older and the cops have gripped us tight. There's no spot round the melting pot for free men in their flight. And you who live on promises and prosper as you please, the victim of your riches often dies of your disease. He can't hear the factory whistle, just the lonesome freight train's wheez. He's living on good fortune. He ain't dying on his knees. Smash your bottle on the gravestone and live while you can. That homeless brother is my friend. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World", performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world alone. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world alone. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You