If there is a religious worker on the staff... A person's religious therapy is left up to him... The chaplain...is shoved so much in the corner that he cannot instill faith into his clients. Unless the person in need finds some outer force to enter into him...to overcome his problem, then the psychiatric approach is more harmful than helpful. The psychiatrist...becomes a substitute savior... The patient helping patient approach means they are using one another as priests and lords. Coffeehouses. These are points of contact with hippies, runaways, tourists, students, and anyone who wants to talk. The Gospel is presented to ghetto children who will become the addicts, alcoholics and muggers of the future... ...have staff live in the community and become fused with the people. This method has been used with good results by the Young Life group...amid the slums, garbage, vices, poverty... - The Untapped Generation, by D. and D. Wilkerson, 1971
"Permanently homeless people...feel they...will always be homeless. What should we do about this population? This is where sociological perspectives are important to solve the problem"... - Denver Voice, 6/12
The doorbell rang on my day off, what would be the day that the first U. S. governor in history to survive a recall election. It was the person who, as a result of shifting voting districts, my new State Representative here to introduce herself. She is the second politician who I have ever met. The first was Diana Degette, twenty years ago this year, who rang my bell at a home which no longer exists. The woman before me today tells me that her old district is more conservative, and she mentioned to me that she won that district by more than half the percentage. She also mentioned that the latest special session ran rather late for her, and that the House Leader (who like to send bills to the wrong committees) was rude to her. She asked me if she could count on my support for an upcoming ballot election, which she doesn't understand why she needs. Considering this a vague question, I answered with, "I don't see why not." She put me down for a yes, whatever this means, and asked to put a sign in my yard. I told her that, being in a townhome, I wasn't sure where my yard is; and belonging to an HOA, I don't recall what my covenant says about it. At no point did she ask me if I am registered to vote.
It's after work. I'm on a bus waiting to pull out for home. I'm listening to another middle-aged guy with a bandanna covering his head. He's wandering the train station, yelling at I know not who. Perhaps it is a cry for help. "Do you know where the zeroes are? I'm looking for the zeroes!" He means the buses which run the route #0.
I'm up on a Friday morning. The streetlight, a few yards from my place, is throwing shadows of branches blowing back and forth, against the orange light coming through the animated leaves. To the east, against the dawn, is the blue form of a thunderstorm with occasional flashes of lightning.
What to say about Father's Day weekend? Sunday I was off to Colorado's first ever Comic Convention. At the Colorado Con, the focus is on the comics, although there were both a Stargate prop and a backdrop of the Millenium Falcon available for photo ops. There was also the orange Charger called the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard, and the car named Kit from Knight Rider. I knew a kid in the 7th grade who would sit at his desk in Algebra I, and enact his own Dukes of Hazard scripts. From the same town, I knew a guy in high school who met the actor who played Knight Rider. He told a story about slapping the Knight on the chest and asking him, "Want to trade sunglasses?" Milling around the cars were young people dressed as characters which I didn't recognize. They appeared to be more interested in the local Ghostbusters vehicle than the muscle cars each from its own decade. I didn't watch those TV shows, but it was fun to see the cars. There were costumed characters to take photos of, as well as everyone else who appeared to be the 2012 version of the nerd, which appeared to almost be its own kind of costume. To be a nerd, it appears as though you must be a heterosexual male with facial hair, glasses and clothes which send the nerd vibe. There were the popular zombies, including a zombie kid. As I came in, I saw one kid who had made his own costume out of cardboard, a robot from the TV show Doctor Who called a Dalek. A tall woman came into the hall. She radiated self-consciousness and lack of security, almost as if she didn't even consider herself to rise to the level of the nerd. She is by no means bad looking. She just didn't have the nerd energy. I sat at a table in the hall cafe, next to a young mom with her two small kids. I asked her for the time. Her son asked her why I wanted to know the time. I said that I was taking time-release cold medicine. She told him, "See?" He told her that he liked Wolverine.
I exited the Con, and made my way through record 100 degree F heat to the Pride Fest. I would later read that the previous day had been a "cool" one. Not today. Someone puts a sticker on my shirt which reads "Shine your love. Love your shine." I get a pen for donating a dollar to something. There appears to be no such thing as a gay nerd. I see shirts for sale which have "Legalize Love" on the front. I saw a booth for gay Jews and went to look at the photos they had. One was of a crowd with the Star of David on a rainbow flag. A woman came up to me and stood there silently. I asked her if I can get one of those flags. She shook her head no.
I'm on an early shift for a couple of weeks, getting over a cold. I have lunch over three or four days at a deli in a white bohemian neighborhood. I'm sitting next to a chatty woman on her cell, setting up some kind of church conference. When she gets off, she begins discussing the minutia of setting up a church service. Pastoral prayer, at what point in the service to mention "the names," will it be minister led or lay led? The last one "should be up to the board" (of directors), "but they have no clue..." The next day, I am back here, this time next to three people closing a deal on veterinary equipment. The day after, I am back again, this time next to a couple who is purchasing insurance from a salesman.
Somehow, yet again, it's another Saturday. There's drama on my street this early morning. I'm headed up the street to the bus stop before sun up. In the dark, I hear Spanish from an angry male voice. I make out the word "all." ("You can have it all!"? "Take it all!"? "I don't like it at all!"?) He's walking ahead of a young woman in a black top which only covers her chest, and black pants. When I get up the street, a car quickly goes by. The passenger says, "Fuck you, bitch." I pass a deathburger parking lot, where a truck is parked. The weight of the entire truck is leaning way over on the front left wheel, which is resting on the edge of of the wheel well. It has a dealer plate on the back. Did it come from the dealership next door, which was the hookah lounge? The truck's front bumper is also damaged. I catch the bus to the train. Where I get off the train, on the platform is a young guy, using "fuckin'" to describe I can't hear what. He points at a sign displaying the time when the next northbound train will arrive. He goes to a ticket kiosk and punches a button. He ponders a ticket, gets a bottle out of his pack, takes a swig, spits over the rail of the bridge he's on. I get on the connecting bus with a young couple. The girl is wearing orange cutoffs and a lime tank top, and has a blonde perm. The guy has a name tattooed on the back of his neck, and is wearing a cap from Walgreens. On a bus home, I'm seated behind a woman eating chips. She's banging her head to her iPod, and has a tattoo on her right bicep which reads "DANZIG." A roommate introduced me to danzig in the late 1980s, and I listened to them through the 1990s.
I've been working an early shift which I occasionally work. To get to work, there's a stretch of street I walk to get to the train station. It's always in the dark. This morning, I hear voices in the direction of the new condos and old Victorian homes of a bohemian neighborhood. Usually, at the end of the street this time of the morning, there is an ambulance parked along with a police car, or a couple of police cars. I look in the direction of the voices, expecting to see a couple of guys on a porch. In the middle of an open field of scrub brush and clay dirt are a couple seated on the ground, chatting and laughing. They are taking in the view of...the ambulance and police car in an otherwise empty parking lot in the dark. When I get to the train station, there is a young white guy laying on the grass. He appears to be asleep. It's no surprise, this morning is a beautiful one with a cool breeze. He looks as though he could have stepped out of The Brady Bunch. Down the drive to the light rail station, I see a mule deer trotting down the street.
I take the bus downtown to the bank after work. A couple of young guys get on. The first one has a ponytail, a button down shirt, and bedroom slippers. The driver is waiting for the fare from his friend. he tells the driver, "He's my caregiver." As he heads toward the back, he's telling his friend about where he purchases narcotics. His friend is telling him, "Calm down, calm down." What a caregiver. I stop to drop off film, which I wait for at a deathburger. Sitting outside, next to the wall, is a woman who looks like a bohemian drifter with a pack on each side of her. She's reading a magazine. A guy who appears to be her significant other, with a greying buzz cut and basketball short, looks as though he is attempting to turn on an outside water tap, unsuccessfully. A customer coming in stops to talk to her for a while. He gives her the change in his pocket. Another customer comes in in a pink shirt which reads, "I'm a bitch. Just not yours."
Somehow, it's another Saturday. Tomorrow is a new month. I take a bus for the short ride up the street. I get off at a corner where a car, with conversation going on inside, pulls up next to a police car. The car with the conversation makes a U-turn in front of the police car, a passenger makes a dog noise ("woof"), and the police car ignores it.
