Homeless in Venice III

The Conclusion

It is not hard to find a lot of them. When you get to an offramp, on the sidewalk, in the park, there's always someone with a piece of cardboard with a handwritten note on it begging for some change, some begging for food.

With those ragged clothes that look like it hadn't been washed for a year, with weary faces who look like they had given up on everything, and that confused hungry look, you wouldn't fail to at least notice them.

One time I saw a man who is obviously homeless. He sits on the curb just outside the Chinese restaurant where I was about to eat. I went back to my car to grab some few loose change then grab a couple of dollar bills. I was about to give it to him when he said no. I was surprised. He looked like he needed it but he refused. I just shrugged my shoulders and went my way. After I finished my quick dinner, I ordered another meal to go. I gave it to the same man I saw on my way in. This time he readily accepted and thanked me for it.

You see they don't want our pity. They just want to go on with their business, and you go on your own. Even if their business is doing nothing. Whatever their sickness, whatever their disease, whatever their addiction, whatever their sufering from, they all have one thing in common.

The sense of hopelessness. They were so lost and hopeless. For them life, however way they see it, is simply over.

In fact almost all that I see and lucky enough to talk with say they don't want the money. All they want is sympathy. Sympathy for them who, according to one, just wanted to fade away without any body making it a big deal.

Everytime I see one, I would instinctively stop and give them whatever spare change I have in my pocket. Or buy them an extra meal when I'm going off a restaurant or something. It's not my catholic guilt if you ask. I don't believe in altruism. I just want somebody to do the same for me, if that person happened to be me on the receiving end.

Who knows, after my long bouts of depression, I might end up homeless myself.

Homeless in Venice II

(2nd part of a series)

Being homeless at all is no feat. That's why I was surprised why anyone would choose to go homeless when he has a home he could go to. The streets are not safe and oftentimes mean. You could get mugged anytime, killed if you're unlucky.

But Sarge, like some homeless veterans, has a more serious problem than being homeless. He is suffering from a post-war syndrome. I don't know exactly the technicalities and other issues about it, but a lot of them had that seemingly unreal perception on things.

There's also this one man who I refer to as simply the Rainman. You could ask him about any mathematical problems and he'll give you an absolutely correct solution. He would provide you with calculations like an age-old university professor except that you would notice that his eyes are looking through you. He hears you but he doesn’t see you. You ask him about where he came from or anything, he's gone.

And then there's this old couple from Hawaii who were wandering the streets of Venice for about two weeks now. Their favorite spot is the corner on Venice Way under a small tree. The wife said at first they just wanted to experience the feelings of being alone in an unfamiliar place, the exhilaration of being free from the daily pressures, and just be homeless. They even had a budget of $8,000 for them to last a month.

Unfortunately, her husband, after much prodding from dealers, is now into drugs. And what worries her is that their money is almost gone. She's thinking that they might not last one more week without food. Worse, she's afraid that her husband wouldn't want to go back home with her.

With no money and nowhere to go, now they might experience the “real” thing. The feeling of being alone and utterly helpless.

There are others who are nuts and just plain crazy. They do not belong to the streets. But nevertheless, all of them needed professional help. I don't know all their problems, I don't know what they've been through. All I know is that they are suffering and they needed help.

It's now past six in the morning, and like my every morning in this part of Venice, I could see them loitering on the corner coffee shop, sipping their early morning coffee. Without talking to each other, they just sit there. No hellos, no gossiping, no small chat. To some, they easily pass as beach regulars enjoying the sunrise.

However, if you take a closer and second look, you would figure out that they they're not sipping some latte or whatever Starbucks had a new name for to get a rush of caffeine.

They are there for the warmth of the hot coffee and the rising sun, after a long freezing cold night.

(To be concluded)

Homeless in Venice

Homeless In Venice
(1st of a series)

Venice Beach, Los Angeles. Almost always it is a very calm, quiet and peaceful place. Contrary to the eclectic impressions a tourist might have during the day, the nights have a small-town feel to it.

On any given day you will find lots of characters along the speedway by the beach. Artists both new and old hand displaying their latest work and willing to do your portrait for a fee, street performers showing their talents for a chunk of change, well-tanned bodybuilders showing off their enormous muscles, surfer kids waiting for a swell, skater boys challenging each other for new moves, and some simply enjoying the shows and whatever the place has free to offer.

In Venice, everyday is a day on the beach.

But at night it is different. Gone is the festive atmosphere, gone are the merry men and women you could see loitering around when the sun is up. Aside from the occasional joggers and bikers, there was not much activity at all but the homeless scurrying to and fro scouting for a free space on a covered sidewalk, on a street corner, under a tree, a spot next to a trash bin.

I was behind my desk, comfortably resting my back on the old dark easy chair, both my feet up on a wooden stool. In front of me was a small TV donated by one of my coworker who probably thought that we who work at night should have something to keep us awake. As if we were sleeping on the job. Well, at least not all the time.

I turn it on CNN and then forgot about it. I guess maybe I was so tired or maybe just plain lazy I instantly dozed off. I think I spent half an hour snoozing, when I thought I heard myself snoring. I immediately woke up and instinctively straighten my shirt, and made sure I had nothing dripping from the side of my mouth, all at the same time.

As I stood up and opened my eyes, I saw Tony coming through the door. Tony is a Vietnam veteran who served as a sergeant in the marines. Everybody calls him Sarge. He has on his shoulder his usual backpack of tools, the hammer still protruding from its side. Some nights he would spend hours on our couch just to get out of the cold. In exchange, he would provide extra security for me making sure no vandals nor criminals would dare go in. He’s been in Venice long enough to know almost everybody. Every homeless, drug-dealer, street peddler, bodybuilder on steroids, property owners, he knew them all.

He liked Venice so much that he made it his second home.

From what I heard from another veteran roaming the streets, he has a ranch somewhere in Wyoming. He would spend some months there in his ranch but always, he keeps coming back. During his days here, he would solicit jobs by working as an electrician. At night, like the rest of them, he would roam the streets and look for a fine spot to rest. Like the rest of them, he is homeless. But a homeless one by choice.

I wondered, how can one with a home chose to be homeless?

The Rain, Man!

It was a bit damp and a little cold tonight. Off to another whole night of number-crunching boring work. As always I'm running a little late. I passed by the broken gate I hit a few nights ago. It seems to be working fine now, except for the water pipe. I could still see the water leaking from it. I already wrote the manager about it, thankfully the bill hasn’t arrived yet. I still don’t know how much they would ask me for it.

I lit one of my cheap cigars and drove off. As soon as I got on the 405 freeway, I realized the road is wet. I guess it really rained earlier. I should have watched the weather channel.

Earlier today, as I was looking out the foggy beach, I saw a rainbow. Funny. It hadn’t rain for more than a year in LA. Must be that global warming thing. The rainbow was magnificently arched above the Santa Monica pier. My first thought was that I should have brought my camera, only to realize later that I don’t have one.

I love driving at this time of night, there were not much cars on the road. During the day, this freeway was so jammed it takes me two hours to get to Venice. But not at night. It usually takes me only twenty minutes driving at this hour, and at a leisurely pace. Groovy.

As soon as I reached the hilltop near Getty Center, the rain started to trickle, then a minute later, to my surprise, the wrath of heaven started coming down. I was amazed at how fast the weather changed. A flash of lightning can be spotted somewhere along the bushes. I was awed by the size of the raindrops on my front windshield, they were as large as hailstones. I can’t do anything but scratch my head, putting the few pieces of hair I still got left on it out of place. With every drop I could hear a whacking sound as it pounds the roof of my car. Now I certainly feel how little my car was compared to those huge gas-guzzling Humvees.

Damn, my windshield already had a crack. I hope the onslaught wouldn’t break it even further.

Visibility was down. With its raging thunder pounding on the few unlucky vehicles, the storm just kept on coming. Everyone started hitting the breaks. Only the red lights coming from the rears of each moving vehicle remain evident. I could hardly see where I was going. I decidedly put off my cigar, closed all the windows and reached for my eyeglasses. The rain was so hard and heavy I thought this must be the rain that we were supposed to get for the past year. I guess it decided to come plummeting down just one time.

Since everybody now is slowing down, my twenty minutes driving time definitely won’t gonna happen. Not tonight. I wonder why the weather chose to let it all fall tonight. It had the whole year to do it but no, it decided it had to be tonight. I was suppose to stop somewhere for some errands on my way to work. Now I couldn’t.

I know I had to stop complaining. I knew we needed the rain. It had been awfully hot last summer, it’s about time for LA to have some showers. It’s time to cleanse the smog layer hovering the city. It’s time to cool the weather. Besides, summer’s over. I just wished it wasn’t tonight so I could immerse myself with it.

Man, I’m on my suit.

Twenty One

September Twenty-One, the year was 1792, this is the day the new French National Convention abolished the monarchy after the revolution. Twenty-One, year of 1972, almost two hundred years later, Marcos abolished the public assembly and bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch.

While poor peasants armed with pitchforks and shovels marched down on every city in France demanding liberty, military agents barged down every door of Marcos’ critics and political opponents and took away their freedom.

Today, the country remembers the start of a very sad and dark chapter in its history, the day of colossal debility in the history of government, politics and civil liberty. Starting that day, civil rights were suspended, human rights violated, warrant less arrests were rampant, and disappearances were not uncommon.

Everybody lived in fear, the military reigned supreme. The rest is in our history books.

I just cannot imagine how easy it was for Marcos to pull the whole country down two centuries backward. And how, for more than 20 years was he able to pull that off. It wasn’t Ninoy’s assassination alone, nor just about people power, nor about the people fed up with the system, that eventually brought him down. It was a series of critical events that snowballed and culminated to a one particular moment.

A one defining moment.

Again, the rest is history. But a history that nevertheless will have a profound consequence in the history of modern democracies.

But it should not be forgotten what started it, lest we forget the greatest lesson that we as a country should have learned in all these. That the same institution that put him in power and that made sure he remains in power was the same one who took it away from him. Wasn’t it a fact that Ramos and Enrile started it all?

And so in that sense, we should always be aware of the power of the military and how it uses that power. Civilian rule should always prevail. Therefore, at these difficult but strangely not-so unfamiliar times, we should always be cautious of all the president’s men who, mostly, came from the same background. We should, and we must, maintain a watchful eye on those who hold the guns.

Monarchy and dictatorship are like conjoined twins. One cannot separate one from the other. If you take one, then the other ceases to be itself. With its minor difference in form, they are essentially of the same breed.

While monarchy justifies itself as anointed by a higher power, dictatorship validates itself through anointment of physical force. The former takes away your rights and tells you it’s okay for you to give it up because heaven will find you, while the latter takes it away from you and asks you to shut the hell up or you might end up in heaven yourself.

The ends always justify the means, they might say. We could always justify kicking them in their pompous holy asses.

It Sucks (poem)

Life is just a game
Bring your luck but still
You end up needing more
Just not enough
Sometimes

If you have everything
Would you need something more
Would you ask for more
Or you just wouldn’t care.

Life is but a game
Win some, lose some
Not about feeling good
That’s the truth, it does just hurt
Sometimes

If you have everything
Will you help someone you know
Will you try something new
Or would you rather stay behind?

It is everything but fair
Tried all but still
You always lose something
Someone somewhere

Sometimes it just simply sucks.

Conundrums (poem)

My brain kept thinking
Was it logical, or even rational
Educated guess, endless hypotheses
Matter of a fact!

My heart feels something...
Was it right, or might even be wrong
Just a hunch, or woman‘s intuition
Science or fiction?

My left says yes, my right said no
The brain thinks right, my heart feels wrong
Is there any other way
But compromise all along?

My brain was numb, my heart was dumb
Oh how silly this thing can be
We just don’t know, or should it be
To feel a thing?

Would we ever unburden
The sufferings of man
Would we able to measure
The joys of creation?

Could we ever decipher
The mysteries of life
Will we be able to understand
The reasons unknown?

But what is there to know?

Two sides on a coin, a yin and a yan
Stillness of night and the brightness of day
Hues of black and white
Where have all the colors gone?

My mind is a heartless pig,
The heart a mindless freak
Such a self-imposed conundrum
If one has the other
Then it would not matter.

What am I to do?

Me & Johnny-come Lately

I was such a Johnny-come-lately. I just decided to join the blogosphere world after years of thinking about it. I got a lot of false pretenses and wrong assumptions. As a natural skeptic, I was thinking that this new media is just another hyped-up new virtual world for people who can’t find anything to do. Or that this is just for geeks and tech nerds finding new ways to amuse themselves, or maybe for aspiring and inexperienced writers who just couldn’t find ways to publish their work.

As always, I was wrong.

Blogging is now an industry. While some think of it as a huge dollar sign, some also think of it as just what it originally was, an online journal for everyone. I am not trying to provide reasons nor justifications for my joining the bandwagon. I cannot give you statistics and revenues brought by blogging. I was just trying to let myself know that I was wrong and for how long.

When I opened this blog, I named it “The Antisocial”, thinking then that I would post some old and new articles of opinion and other editorials concerning politics, government and public policy.

As always, the minute a new and generally good idea comes to my mind, a thousand more would try to zip through my brain which always shoves me out of focus. I thought about making another blogspot where I can post poems, essays and the likes. I thought of a new to network and invite my friends around the world. I thought about making money through here and somehow find a writing job.

But I also thought of one reason why not to do it. I had no audience. In fact, finding audience for my writing is not my main concern. Just minutes inside the blogosphere and I just lost my focus again.

I’ll just come to my first and main goal, that is just to write a journal, post whatever articles I had in mind, and of course, vent.

And so, after procrastinating myself for several hours, I finally made up my mind about this new literary smorgasbord.

To whoever would come to pass, this is my Literary Ek-eks, my collection of articles, editorials, poems and essays, and whatever comes to mind. Whatever I post here is for own and maybe shared with some friends. But if you ever pass this way, please be kind to leave a comment and correct me if you need to. I might not be good for you but it is for me. In this case, I had no pretensions, I am no professional writer and I don’t write for anybody but myself.

Like some artists say, we play for the fans not the critics. Right now I’m still trying to convince myself to be my own fan. Welcome to the blogging world, dude.

I Should've Been Here Yesterday

Today is the 17th of September 2007.

Two weeks ago, I started on a new job, again. Days ago, Erap was convicted by Sandiganbayan on plunder charges, major earthquakes hit Indonesia for consecutive days, an airliner carrying mostly tourists crashed In Phuket, another forest fire is visiting California again.

And last night, I hit the apartment gate with my car.

I don't know to which I care more, my pessimism on current world events or my dull existence. I don't know to which I care less, the damage to the gate which by the way on impact caused one water pipe to burst , or to my car who (yes who) suffered minor but nevertheless a-bit-expensive-for-broke-like-me bruises.

One thing I knew, I was stressed out. I don't know with what or with whom but I really was stressed out. Was it with the bruises on my car, or with the soon-to-come expenses on the damaged gate? Was it with everything the world was doing to me or was it what I was doing to the world, I dunno.

Maybe, just for no particular reason I can be like that. I suppose I can have that right.

I saw a long lost friend online writing blogs. I thought maybe I could start one myself to at least relieve some of the stress.

Most of the time I am just a bit too stubborn. Blogging have been here for years but I refuse to join the bandwagon for fear of becoming labeled as one-of-those-wannabe-writers. Frankly, I really don't care what anybody might say. For now, nobody can take away my relief.

Besides, I should've been here yesterday.