Tuesday, November 05, 2013

November 5, 2013

22 years ago today, my mother died. About a year ago, I was in an evacuation shelter due to Hurricane Sandy. This year, I am still in Rockaway Park (after detours in Jamaica, Midtown, the west side of Colorado Springs, Downtown Austin, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas). I gained and lost 2 jobs. And now I am big into the music production stuff. Below is my latest song and the politically charged lyrics to it.
Lyrics- Get It Right (with appropriate photos)

Verse 1
New York is a guaranteed right to shelter city, but there are people who would rather sleep in the tunnels, train stations, and streets than go to the shelters in Austin there are 10 homeless people for every available homeless shelter bed and those that don't win the bed lottery are told to sleep outside knowing full well they can be arrested get it right

Verse 2
Obamacare passed solely on the votes of one party it claimed to help lower costs by forcing people to buy insurance Needing insurance when you're sick is the main problem with healthcare and they're doubling down on what is wrong and increasing costs for everyone

Verse 3
since 1973 over 50 million have died because of abortion yet many say infanticide is a god-given right guess they forgot about Doctor Gosnell and who planned parenthood was meant to control if Margaret had her way, Barry would never had been born

Verse 4
hey Bill hey Bill or is it Wilhelm? quit listening to the ACORNS and the nuts this city has enough well-intentioned problems without your nutty leftist friends making it worse


Verse 5
big city not so bright lights how could they confuse an OVH with an M400 breaking down after 6 years now they want to switch to L E D but they've only got one chance and 200 million to get it right and fix the lights


Verse 6
who would have thought that learning would become a money pit benefits for all those not learning everyone wants to teach but no one can afford to learn you think you should mortgage your future to learn the present

Verse 7
does it make sense to believe that stupid peacock when they blew up that truck and the truth west side alphabets are too flashy and the canine on 6th wants money for what should be free can't you see the truth
Verse 8
whats the difference between a patriot and a liar between waterboarding and public extortion whats a few trillion between friends and we'd rather know what Lindsay or Brad or what the fox says than the truth get it right MFers/scumbags get it right before it's too late

Thursday, October 31, 2013

October 31, 2013

A little over a year has passed since Hurricane Sandy devastated my neighborhood of Rockaway Park. Since then, the flood waters have recessed, the boardwalk has been torn down, the rooming houses have reopened, and the beach sands have been raised a few feet.
But there is still beach erosion, unemployment, and a lot of businesses that never reopened. Since I managed to get unemployed again, I have been spending most of my free time until the rent money runs out on the laptop. The wifi is gone in my building, but the Seaside Library reopened (1 year to the day it got destroyed by Sandy) and my laptop is a weekday fixture there now. I finally figured out some of those DJ and music making programs, and I have created several songs, most of which can be found on my Soundcloud page. And this is the widget for my latest Halloween-themed song, Down....

Sunday, August 18, 2013

August 18, 2013

Some things about Rockaway haven't changed....
And other things have changed significantly...
There are far fewer services here now there were 10 months ago. Both Key Foods are gone, the burn area at Rockaway Beach Blvd is now a cleared, empty lot, and most of the Boardwalk west of Arverne is no more. The commute is still long, and rents are still cheap by NYC standards (although higher than what I was paying pre-Sandy). But it is weird how in the last 9 months I went from NYC to Colorado Springs to Austin to Eureka Springs to the NYC shelter system and ended up back in Rockaway and back at a low paying delivery job.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

August 10, 2013

The nearly 10 month Sandy relocation nightmare that started in late October is finally over. I am now living within 10 feet of where I used to live before that storm changed everything. If I didn't have a doctor's appointment in 1 hour and a lot of stuff left to move from storage and the shelter, I'd be enjoying the backyard beach right now. More to come when I have an extended time to write, since I have lost possessions, clothes, and my mind. The Austin move back in February turned into a 3 month stay at the Salvation Army shelter there. I was lucky- there are maybe 10-15 homeless people in Austin for each availble shelter bed there. I then got a church-sponsored bus ticket to NW Arkansas in late May, where I stayed near my Aunt Debbie who I hadn't seen in 15 years. And then on returning to NYC, I spent 2 months in the shelter system (mostly in Jamaica) and got 2 jobs after being unemployed for 9 months. As of this morning, I moved back to the building that as recently as December was still uninhabitable due to no heat or boiler.

Friday, February 15, 2013

February 15, 2013


Another day, another job rejection in Colorado Springs. But the over-the-phone interview I had on Monday with a Randstad recruiter in Missouri has led to another appointment in Austin, TX next Wednesday. At this point I have to move- even if the Texas offer wasn't valid, I don't have enough money or unemployment to keep residing in that motel on the west side of Colorado Springs. So much for attempt #4 to live here. I should know by the middle of next week where I might be working or living. When I do figure out when the Sandy evacuation odyssey from Rockaway ends, I'll resume posting here.



And it's Lent now, which means I had no food on Wednesday and must abstain from meat every Friday until after Easter. I wonder if giving up life in your hometown qualifies as giving up something for Lent? But then 2000 years ago, people were giving up their livelihoods, their families, their homes for something greater- and got ridiculed, arrested, tortured, beheaded, and crucified for it.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

February 12, 2013

I'm still not used to writing 2013 yet, even though it's been more than 6 weeks since the year started. I am still in Colorado Springs (for now), and since the start of the year I have moved twice. At this point, I don't know if I could ever live in a place with roommates again- my last encounter with that resulted in me going back to a FEMA hotel in Briargate on January 4. When the hotel voucher expired on January 12, I moved back to my previous (from 2010) temporary motel lodging on the West Side. Due to financial considerations, I have to move out of there on Sunday the 17th. I could barely afford Rockaway which was costing me $150 a week pre-Sandy. Where I'm staying now is costing me $160 a week, plus tax. I have no more FEMA funding and get $176 every 2 weeks in unemployment.

So much for 3 job interviews that were arranged before I moved back to the Springs, as well as 2 warehouse position offers, 1 call center job offer, 1 stock clerk job offer, 2 applications at 2 different Lowe's, 1 sales job offer from an insurance company (still not sure how they found me, as I didn't inherit the Clarke sales gene), and at least 30 other applications and job contacts since Christmas 2012..

I don't know if I should stay in the Springs after this weekend or go with an offer from my old employer Randstad to work out in Texas.

About the only things I did accomplish since I moved back to the Springs were my first dental visit/work since the 1980s, getting unemployment (although it was based on my last Colorado job because my last job in NYC never bothered to pay taxes or unemployment), and climbing to the top of the Manitou Incline on February 8, 2013.

The above picture were taken from the top of the Incline. I was too busy struggling and praying to remember to photograph my journey to the top, but the first (unsuccessful) time I tried to climb the Incline, I took the following (dated January 31, 2013)..



And something I never thought could happen happened yesterday. Pope Benedict XVI announced he will resign the Papacy on February 28. This is the first time since 1415 that a Pope has resigned. As far as I know, Benedict XVI and Celestine V are the only ones to resign for health reasons. The last Pope to resign (Gregory XII) did so to end the Avignon/Rome schism that threatened to destroy the Catholic Church. Benedict IX resigned twice (one of those times, he was paid to resign), and lived a life so dissolute that it was almost certainly a factor in the Church later mandating celibacy for priests.

So in the next few weeks, I should have a new residence (maybe in Texas) and hopefully a new job, and the Church will have a new Pope, and hopefully Benedict XVI can retire in peace.