The Pigeon Master
Seasonal homelessness in Nelson reaches new heights.
Always the new faces - 6 eyes, a "girl" (??) who was in the restaurant - wearing 2 pairs of sunglasses, one upon the other, dressed in layers of rainbow burlap, a spirit hoody on her head. Sat on the patio a couple of hours, then couldn't pay her bill, debit declined, she left some "ID" behind - expired, address in Queen's Bay (as well probably expired). JR took it in stride, I saw her a few days later walking down Baker, leading her best addled life.
Then there's the Pigeon Master - whos' been around as long as I remember, usually sat in the runoff or overflow behind the public toilet. He takes the free bread from the Salvation Army and uses it to feed the pigeons. Maybe in his 50's, hard to tell, the street ages people, he rarely talks to anyone, just a cup out, head down, passed out. In the evening he moves locations, finds the sheltered doorways to set up camp, you can see the fluids running down the street from wherever he perches, he's no longer fussed to find amenities or an alley, just attends nature wherever he's sat. The city crews find his perches and hose them down every morning. They must budget an hour a day just for him.
And there's a new one - only been seeing him around town this past year or so, tall, young, maybe 6'2", mid 20's, close cropped hair with a model's startling good looks, dressed always well - for a homeless person, and roaming the streets from sunup to sundown, talking to himself, staring into the distance, laughing or grimacing, he's working his way through a blotter of acid, or schizophrenic, locked in his head, the images and people without of no consequence, it's what's going on in his head, daily, skipping, tripping, or finding him passed out on a bench in the rec center - a shame, young, this good looking, relatively well kept, and yet gone, gone, gone...
There was Panda - spirit hoody, junkie, forever a fixture but he's disappeared, moved on - perhaps to Kelowna but quite possibly OD'd - street people don't get obituaries.
Then there's the camp on Government, and down by the railway. This city tolerates the homeless, but they push it to extremes. The encampment on government, it's on the way out of town, set in some big boulders and trees, beneath the highway, an idyllic location for a campsite, not too far from downtown, but no sooner do they set up camp then you see the shopping carts and rubbish begin to pile up, in no time at all it's a dump of abandoned tents, televisions, stereos, old tires and bikes, scattered, strewn, the city once installed a porta-loo but it was soon tipped over, so the city cleans them up, but the area is soon squatted again...
As is the railway, a tent hidden in a thicket soon festooned with toilet paper and all manner of garbage, another graveyard of shopping carts, soiled sleeping bags, it disappears, then - as suddenly - reappears as if it'd never been removed.
Now, these are problems, no trifles, and not easy to deal with but that's another post...
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A wretched steak and unexpected day off
Tuesday, an unexpected day off, the text while I'm at the gym and just leaving for work, plans now that I have it free, to go the library, do some slight work, then for dinner - treat myself to a steak at the Diner on Baker, and I should have known better, the steak, it's an ordeal, not a treat, chewy, tough, with no great flavor, it's wretched really, but I suck it up and put on a happy face for the server.
Followed by the Poetry Slam, now in the Royal, busy, I always preferred poetry in Cafe's, but I must be a beatnik, the bar, this bar, it's nearly full, and the stage is a proper stage and they have some guest readers, some old faces, some new faces, and - mercifully, most of the poems are short so when quality fails you're not being tortured long.
Follow this with a trip to the liquor store, I'm in need of my medicine, the ambulance whirring across the street to Narcan another overdose, this - 3, 4 times a day, note all the new migratory homeless faces...the ambulance, it's; going 3-4 times a day, and this in a city of 10,000...
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Lately
The past week few opportunities to write, working longer hours (phew - as much as I hate it I've made no progress on any of the financial battlefronts and now, with a clear objective to work toward it's time, it's time). The weather this week has cooled, rainy, Father's day, despite the reservations a non-starter, Pa being taken for dinner by his adult children or grandchildren or wife, and always, always, it's Pa paying the bill.
Work has begun interfering with the Gym, days off are precarious and announced an hour or so before I'm due to start, the new hires, T* and H*, aren't working out, T* abandoned work due to pressing personal issues, H* is a princess who only wants to work when she wants to....
And it rains. God we need the rain, every day overcast, clouds ragged and low on the mountains, when they part you can see snow upon the peaks that wasn't there before, evenings watching movies on my phone, catching up on culture.
The cool weather, damp, humidity, it cements the smells into my vehicle, the scent of tobacco, sweat, vodka, coffee, before work beachcombing new flints and finds, the rain is good for this, every day something new...
Time passes...
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Garden State
Don't know how I ended up watching this, I suspect largely due to it's soundtrack.
Anyways, a depressed young "Largeman" returns home to attend his mother's funeral, only to confront the unresolved reasons he left in the first place and reunite with old school friends. Looking for all the world like a young David Duchovny, it's got a sort of Millennial Rom-Com feel to it, reminding me of John Cusack's "High Fidelity", or any of a number of similar films from a generation before.
Not bad, not great, merely amusing.
Starring Natalie Portman, Ian Holm and a young Zach Braff (who wrote and directed the film. He later died of Covid Complications in 2020!!!).
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