January 8, 2018

Amazing how one event can send your whole life crashing down. In my case, it was a major car repair. What started off as an oil change appointment led to a burst steering hose and a check-busting $400 repair that due to the scarcity of replacement parts is still not completed yet, 3 days after I took the car in. Without a running car, I have no way of getting to work. Because of my lack of transportation, I no longer have a job. I have at most 10 days to find a job walking distance from my apartment before rent is due again. If I don't have the rent money, then I lose my apartment (and the $610 deposit), and will probably end up homeless again. So far this period since March 2015 has been my longest period of not being in a homeless shelter in the last 10 years. But I guess I can't escape the inevitable again.

January 4, 2018

It has been a busy few months since I last posted here. Since October, I've had my first apartment since May of 2011. About 2 months after I got the apartment, a new landlord bought out the building and changed the rent payment dates. I got to spend about a month alone before a nosy neighbor moved in.

That nosy neighbor, known as Misty the Cat, has proven difficult to evict, even after she misbehaved and disfigured my face with her claws.

For the first few weeks, she was a indoor/outdoor cat, due to the fact that she had been living outdoors for several days to several weeks before she barged into my apartment. She now spends her days indoors, using my tv stand as a lookout post and using the crawl space underneath the kitchen sink as a hideout whenever she hears a plastic bag crackle or hears boots stomping on the floor.

I've been wearing my boots a lot due to the weather- snowstorm after snowstorm since early December, and 2 weeks plus of sub-zero mornings. The snowstorm today qualifies as a blizzard (probably more so than last week's Christmas storm that dumped a foot plus of snow on my neighborhood).

If I didn't have an apartment, a needy cat, and a high paying job 23 miles from home, I'd consider moving to the warmer climates of New Jersey or Pennsylvania. But all this may come crashing down if my 16 year old Taurus (with 220000 miles that has never experienced these kind of weather conditions before) stops running.

August 15, 2017

Today is the feast of the Assumption, a Catholic religious holiday that honors Mary and her life (and after-life). I managed to attend the Assumption Mass at the Basilica on my first weekday off work in a while, while also signing up for uninsured health care at the local Catholic hospital, St. Mary's. I also removed my last vestige of Texas residency by finally switching the Taurus's license plates over to Maine for about $150.

Most Catholic holy days that honor Mary are supposed to be days of peace, but peace is in short supply in this world right now. The white nationalists and nazis are at it again, protesting and causing havoc, most recently with a white nationalist rally turned terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12. Their main protests right now are over the removal of monuments that honor a 150+ year old defeated secessionist movement. Normal countries that survive civil wars would never allow widespread worship and remembrance of the defeated enemy, but this country allowed it. For 152 years. Now that the overwhelming majority of Americans (including most Republicans, despite what the leftists say) want these monuments to the proprietors of enslavement and the end of American unity gone.

The irony is that America is waking up to these mistakes at the same time it is splitting apart again. The battle lines this time aren't over enslavement of Africans (thankfully the Confederate defeat in 1865 ended that), but over the role of government, the value of life of the unborn, and cultural insanity (i.e. the left's political correctness) versus cultural common sense. While the US is at war with itself, one of its most annoying adversaries is threatening nuclear war against it. North Korea has made similar threats before, but President Trump has figured out the status quo isn't working and is threatening to nuke North Korea if they attack the US. Kim the Insane already has the capability to wipe out South Korea, Guam, Hawaii, Southern Alaska, and California. Kim the Insane has already pissed off his Communist Chinese allies (who seem to be more afraid of Trump's actions than Kim the Insane is). I'd guess there probably will be war between Kim the Insane and the US in the near future. Millions of Koreans and Americans could die in such a war, which could easily dwarf the American casualties of the Civil War and World War 2. North Korea would lose, but what happens after Kim the Insane is nuked to Hell is what would could turn this war into global Armageddon. China could attack the US if what's left of Korea unifies into a pro-American government. Russia could get involved. Al Qaeda and Daesh could end up with black market North Korean nukes and start using them on the West. It's a scary new world.

July 26, 2017

Life is supposedly a long journey. If so, my journey in the last 6 months has been longer, bumpier, and more painful than most journeys have been. Since I last blogged, I spent a disastrous 3 months in Austin, Texas, working for my old warehouse, getting my old job back- and getting paid less and getting run out of the job after 3 months. I was planning on moving from Texas to either Pennsylvania or New Jersey when the warehouse job ended. Instead, I ended up in Maine with 2 job offers. I ended up working in a warehouse for a well-known Maine company, commuting from my current residence in Lewiston to Freeport.

I also got to visit family I haven't seen in years. I got to see my sister and nephew in Western Tennessee (the first time I've been in that state in over 20 years). I got to see my father's eccentric cousin in Franklin. The only relative in Tennessee I didn't get to see was my niece, who was finishing up her final month teaching in Cheatham County and who will be joining other family in Franklin next month while teaching at a better school. As far as I know, my niece has not experienced the horrors in her profession that most of my teacher friends in New York have (i.e. death threats, abusive students, flying metal trash cans, etc).

I next went to Chambersburg. After my uncle Rodger Barnhart's passing in March and my Godmother/Aunt Sally Bowling's recovery from a life threatening infection in April, I had to visit my surviving relatives. Most of them still remembered who I was. But as I've gotten older, they've gotten much older. It's scary thinking of Aunts and Uncles under the age of 80 needing to be in a retirement community. It's disturbing knowing that several of my relatives are battling dementia. I probably could have gotten a warehouse job in Chambersburg, but I had to at least go to the interviews I had waiting for me in Maine on June 12.

The first interview was a bit of a disaster. The second interview went well. And after spending $200 for 3 nights lodging, I was exploring my only affordable non-shelter option in Lewiston on June 13 when both called me and told me I was hired. One wanted me to start that week, the other started on the 26th. I ended up working for both until the 26th and staying with the warehouse job that was closer to Lewiston. Both paid $12 an hour, a record as far as hourly salary for me.

Now I'm getting used to long rural drives, cheaper car insurance, and wondering how much longer a 2001 Ford Taurus approaching 214000 miles can continue to hold on. It managed to get me from San Antonio to Austin to Tennessee to Chambersburg to New York to Maine over the last 7 months. Now I need the car to get to everywhere except Mass (my current residence is a block from Maine's only Catholic Basilica) and the library.

November 13, 2016

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday, I was updating my laptop computer at the McCreless Library for what I thought would be the last time as an American. Now, I'm debating on what to do with all that money I saved for an international move that thanks to Trump's victory won't happen this year.

I spent most of the last few hours updating my laptop at the library again. I updated and remastered 4 tracks from previous years on Soundcloud. It helps my still minuscule music career if I have professionally mastered tracks on my Soundcloud page. It would be great if there were a terrestrial radio station in San Antonio that actually played EDM or Dubstep or Trance. And I still don't know how to contribute to Channel 5's "Breakfast Tracks", bumper music they play during their morning newscast.

San Antonio seems to be politically divided, although not as violently divided as many other major US cities. Yesterday, the city's downtown was full of life, with the normal tourist hordes, a Veteran's Parade, the city's official car show, a Notre Dame/Army college football game at the Alamodome, and an anti-Trump rally that compared to most of the others disgracing this land was rather peaceful. Most of these other rallies are at the very least destructive, hateful and at worse, bystanders have been shot and police have gotten attacked. The DNC and liberal media have been unable to tell these protestors that the election is over, they lost, and they need to go home (or better yet, to Canada). Most of the protestors are leftist millennials. If these unruly youths are truly the future of this country and they want the same leftist anti-Catholic, anti-life, anti-economic-common-sense crap that the Democrats thrust upon the populace before this months election, then I may have to leave if they ever do take power again.

Between this broken country, my still messed up personal life, and my seriously ill uncle, maybe I need to pray more.

I did go to the evening Mass at the Cathedral last night. San Fernando Cathedral is one of the most welcoming Catholic churches I've ever been to. If a 300 year old church with a predominately Hispanic congregation can be so welcome to international and English speaking tourists, then maybe there is hope for this society.

November 9, 2016

Up until about 2:30AM this moring, I was expecting to have to contact the US embassy in either Toronto, Dublin, or Belfast this afternoon to make an appointment in early December to renounce my citizenship. I was expecting to fire up a GoFundMe page to come up with the thousands of dollars necessary to rid me of ties to a pending government that would be openly hostile to my existence. I was expecting to hear the media elites gloat about how the intelligentsia defeated the deplorables. I was expecting to hear how lower class whites, pro lifers, and conservatives in general would never have power or influence in America ever again.

Not being able to sleep (due to having to leave for work in about 2 hours), I turned on Channel 5, San Antonio's local CBS station. The graphics were pretty damn clear, Donald J Trump elected 45th President. Apparently Trump won my current home state of Texas (so much for this being a swing state), battleground states Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and North Carolina, and shockingly, he won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. At last count, he has 278 electoral votes and a popular vote advatage over the Hildabeest. I guess my prayers were answered.

From what I saw of his acceptance speech, Trump seemed pretty generous towards the Hildabeest. Hillary, for her part, didn't attend her own election party at the Javits Center. She had her anti-Catholic lackey John Podesta tell the crowd at Javits to go home after the networks called it for Trump.

Depite the crushing victory of Trump and the Republicans over the liberal establishment, the changes necessary for this country will not happen overnight, or even within a week of Trump's inauguration. The dreaded Obamacare will be gone by January, but there will still need to be an overhaul of what is left of the healthcare system. Trade deals will need to be renegotiated. A new Supreme Court justice will need to be appointed and voted upon. Planned Parenthood and other left wing leeches on the Federal Treasury will need to be de-funded. And a broken nation where half of America thinks the new power will destroy them needs to be healed. Too many have bought into the liberal lies about minority disenfranchisement when the only ones who have been deliberately disenfranchised over the last 24 years have been the idealogical opponents of the elites.

Will Trump be able to create much needed change for this country? Will his odious aspects surface and cause a national crisis? Who knows? But the imperfect candidate who campaigned on the right issues won last night, and the worst possible candidate who represented everything I loathe about America lost. And because everything I hated about American politics and government will be out of commission come late January, I no longer have a reason to renounce my US citizenship. But if I ever get a decent job offer or win the lottery, I'd still move to Ireland. I just now don't have to move there next month to save my physical and mental well-being.

November 5, 2016

This might be my last blog for a long while. 25 years ago today, my mother died. She had been suffering from lymphoma for about 3 years by that point. She was at the (since-shuttered) Baptist Downtown Hospital in Memphis, TN, for an (at-the-time) experimental stem-cell treatment. She died about 12 hours before she was scheduled to get out of the hospital. My mother's death destroyed what was left of my family. My father and grandmother died 4 years later, and my mother's family in Chambersburg rarely communicated with my father after that.

For about the next 80 hours, the country I currently call home faces the most divisive Presidential campaign in the last 156 years. The votes should be counted by late evening of Tuesday the 8th. By the following morning, the world should know if the next so-called leader of the free world is a billionaire idiot with some good ideas on fixing corruption and replacing Obamacare- or a corrupt leftist female canine who is anti-male, anti-Catholic, and under FBI investigation. Regardless of who wins, I see a lot more civil unrest in America's future. This election has caused deep rifts in America. Democrats blame it on Trump's caustic personality. Conservatives blame it on the corruption of the establishment. Some people believe in and advocate racial divisions (i.e. minorities against "Whitey"). Many believe in affirmative action, a deliberate form of racism. Some believe law enforcement is evil. Many believe infanticide should remain legal and be expanded. Most Democrats support government funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's biggest infanticide provider and an organization created to prevent inferior (i.e. minority or disabled) people from reproducing. Some people believe racial diversity is a bad thing. Some think thoughts should be controlled. Some think the government should control everything and punish those who defy or oppose government regulations. Some think male nature has to be changed. Some think women are too uppity for their own good. Some think women should be beaten or killed for defying a man. Some people think guns should be banned. Many disagree, and the vast majority of those aren't criminals. Many of both parties think people of my faith (Catholicism) don't belong in the public sphere. Indeed, some of Hillary Clinton's allies (including John Podesta) advocated "infiltrating" the Church to make it more left-wing American, while others (including Andrew Cuomo) have advocated their relocation outside their political jurisdictions.

The last time such differing and incompatible ideologies competed in the national sphere, the result was the Civil War from 1861-65. For obvious reasons, unless the elements of American politics that are openly hostile to my beliefs and existence are dealt with defeat and permanent obsolescence, I don't see a future for myself in this country. I don't believe in government over-regulation. I don't believe in legalized infanticide. I don't believe in discrimination against people of different races, and I don't believe in government sponsored discrimination in legal or hiring or immigration or educational practices. I don't believe in the government telling me I have to pay more for health care than what I presently pay in rent, and that I have to pay a huge percentage of my income in government fines if I don't get their mandated insurance. I don't believe in stifling competition. I don't believe in throwing people out on to the street and denying them shelter (partially because that has happened to me before, most recently in January 2015). I don't believe in being branded a traitor or worse because I can't support or defend a country that is at best hypocritical and at worse a growing threat to the world and trying to become as much a part of the Axis of Evil as the mad mullahs of Iran, North Korea, Putin's Russia, the Chinese Communists, and Daesh/ISIS already are.


For probably the last time, here are my election endorsements for this Tuesday:

President:

I ended up voting for Trump, not because I agree with his stands on Immigration or trade or celebrity treatment of women, but because unlike McMullin or Gary Johnson, he actually stands a chance of defeating the one candidate who will make me defect somewhere else (Hillary Hildabeest Clinton). Anyone idiotic and stupid enough to vote for Clinton should contribute to the GoFundMe page I plan on activating November 9 (if Clinton wins) to pay for my international relocation, Obamacare fee, and renunciation of American citizenship fees (approximately $2-10K, $1-2K, and $2-4K, respectively).

Congress:

District 35: Susan Narvaiz over liberal Lloyd Doggett. What idiots in Austin thought it was a good idea to put SE Austin and the east side of San Antonio in the same district?

District 23: Will Hurd over Pete Gallego. At least Hurd has campaigned against both Trump and Clinton, while Gallego spews the DNC anti-Trump line.


And I would recommend Canada, Ireland, and the UK for potential expatriates regardless of ideology. Ireland and the UK are a bit more conservative than the US, while the current Canadian government is more liberal. But all 3 are far less likely to explode into civil war than the US is right now, and all 3 are freer than America.

October 9, 2016

2016 has been a hectic year so far. But as the year draws to a close, things seem to be getting a lot worse. I got laid off from my high paying warehouse job in Austin and ended up with a lower paying paratransit driver job in San Antonio. I've released more music, and gotten more writings published in this year's Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen Writers' Workshop Anthology (all submitted before I moved to Texas). A hurricane recently killed over 1000 people in Haiti and damaged my late father's final resting place (the rebuilt Jacksonville Beach pier). Rent is significantly lower in San Antonio than in Austin or NYC, but my future in Texas (and the US in general) is in jeopardy due to the election next month.

Donald Trump has managed to keep things close against the unacceptable alternative of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But he is his own worse enemy when it comes to speaking or preparing. He focused too much time after the first debate attacking on of his former beauty pageant winners instead of debating Hillary's failed policies. Trump knew more than a decade ago about his recorded conversation that went into Clintonian vulgarity on how to pick up women. And yet, he was unprepared for the fallout when it was released, and now most of the Republican establishment wants him to quit.

But nothing Trump has done or said is anywhere near as bad as the actions of Hillary "Hildabeest" Rodham Clinton- Benghazi, Lewinsky, her rapist husband, her left wing politics, her mishandling of ISIS/Daesh that allowed them to grow into the cancer that now terrorizes the Middle East and Europe, her support of the expansion and taxpayer funding of legalized infanticide, her dismissal of her opponents as deplorables, and her hatred of men in general.

If this female canine becomes President (and most of the media and political establishment wants this to happen), then I can no longer consider myself a loyal or willing citizen of this country. Things have gotten so bad here that both sides are encouraging self-deportation of their opponents. It will be governmentally-sanctioned open season on conservatives if Hillary wins. There will be a lot of violence and civil unrest if Trump wins. Indeed, China is using this election as an excuse to explain to its people why democracy doesn't work.

I'll try posting another blog post around the election, but after November, I don't know where I'll be living or working. If Hillary wins, I'll probably start a gofundme page for an international work/residence visa and tell all the people who threatened me online about my political views to put their money where their mouth is....

April 30, 2016

Another year, another job, another residence. For at least the next 7 months, I'm still in Texas. I don't know yet how permanent my new job is. I'm not sure what country I'm going to be living in by December, since this country is hopelessly divided.

Most Americans want the election to be over with, but right now it seems to be a race between a madman, evil incarnate, a socialist, and a Canadian Texan. In a normal election year, someone with the criminal baggage of Hillary Rodham Clinton would not be a factor. Her allies in New York are ruining that state and city on their way to jail- see Sheldon Silver, Alan Hevesi, Malcolm Smith, Larry Seabrook, and (hopefully soon) Bill DeBlasio. But the media seem hellbent on propping her up to President, even though her opponent has far fewer ethical lapses.

The Republicans have a unity problem. Sure, none of them want Hillary to be President, but they seem to think their best shots to face Hillary are character assassinations of their primary rivals in a level not seen since the 19th Century. The mainstream and electable candidates don't have a shot, leaving a radical Cuban-Canadian who happens to be my current Senator, and a billionaire flip-flopper who's almost as unacceptable as the Hildabeest. And there's the strong possibility that the Republican Convention could be contested.

I'm sure my ancestors who fought for this country (and in at least 1 case, actually died for it) are turning over in their graves to see how badly this land has devolved. Riots are now commonplace at Trump rallies, and the most dangerous candidate out there is portrayed as honest and trustworthy while she bashes anyone to the right of her in a way that should prompt riots.

No offense to my ancestors, but this country is not worth fighting for anymore. 40+ years ago, it gave up on respecting life. 7-8 years ago, it gave up on fairness and liberty. And for the last decade, what was the world's freest democracy and economy is now behind Canada, Ireland, the UK, and parts of Scandinavia.

I have enough to pray for, between an uncle with stage 4 cancer, a nephew who turns 18 in 6 weeks who will soon be on his own with no preparation, and asking God for a bigger miracle in getting settled outside the US in 7-8 months than what happened when I relocated back to Austin 2 months ago.

March 12, 2016

So far, this year has had a lot of unexpected surprises. The first would have been my one day of jury duty in Brooklyn last month. The second would have been letting a few complaints against my supervisor result in the end of my courier job on February 16. Another surprise was being able to attend 2 writer's workshops at Holy Apostles (and having one of my recently submitted works make their live blog). The most recent surprise was not that I had to move out of Rockaway (and New York) after losing my job, but that I was able to relocate back to Austin, Texas, and get a job and a non-shelter residence within 5 days of relocating here. The job and residence are about 2 miles from each other in SE Austin. So for 3 of the last 4 months of March, I am back in Texas. Unlike the previous times, I never had to stay at Shelter Alley, or worry about storage back in New York (all my stuff got shipped to storage here by UPS for less than what it cost me to move stuff from Denver to New York in 2011). I got to go to the Texas Independence Day Parade last Saturday (after schlepping from the drug testing to my new job in North Austin by bus). And now I get to go to South by Southwest- and not have to worry about curfews.

September 25, 2015

20 years ago, I got to see Pope John Paul in his Popemobile when he visited my then-home of Baltimore, MD. I didn't have a camera to document this. A lot has changed since his US visit in October 1995. Less than 10 years later, Pope John Paul II died. About 2 months after that visit, my father (who by that time was my last living ancestor) died. Less than a year later, I nearly got killed by my neighbors in Baltimore and had to move- and ended up in New York.

In 2015, I had to move back to the New York area after a disastrous 7 months in my hometown of Colorado Springs. I spent 2 months at a Catholic shelter in Jersey City before moving back to Rockaway. Since then, I got hired for what is probably the highest paying job of my life. I finally got to visit Ireland 27 years after I found out I had ancestry there (although I never got to meet any Clarke relatives). And earlier this evening (while at work), I finally got to see the current Pope.

I was in the middle of deliveries on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I got to the intersection of Madison and E 66th and was prevented from going further by the NYPD. I managed to get a prime viewing spot for the Papal motorcade just as Pope Francis was passing from his school visit in East Harlem to Central Park.

Pope Francis has had a lot to say on the environment, the poor, sin, forgiveness, and prayer. Indeed, numerous times today, he asked people (many of whom aren't Catholic) to pray for him. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that one of the key missions of the Church is to help the poor. Here in New York, the Church is at the forefront of helping the needy. In other dioceses, the Church doesn't have enough resources to help the poor. In my hometown, Catholic Charities runs Marian House which feeds the poor and homeless and provides health services and many other resources except shelter. There is not enough shelter services in that town (especially for women, families, and men who are not substance abusers or veterans), and the so-called religious institution that runs the only all-purpose (200 bed) shelter in town is at best using the shelter as a way to extort money from the taxpayers of Colorado Springs. Austin is in even more dire shape, with about 500 shelter beds between 2 shelters and a homeless population between 3000-5000. And in Syria, the homeless population is in the millions and migrating towards Turkey and Europe due to a civil war primarily between the Baath Butchers of the Assad regime and the barbaric terrorists of the so-called Islamic State.

If Pope Francis and the Church can actually come up with concrete solutions to the environmental, social, and homeless/refugee problems that plague this planet, then they need all the prayers they can get. But I do trust the Church a lot more than I trust the Syrian, Russian, Turkish, or American governments at this point. Besides, if the Hildabeest, the Socialist, or Trump win the Presidency next year, I don't see any point of staying in the United States. Too many on the American left and the right fail to see how their policies hurt the poor and harm society.

September 13, 2015

As far as the residence and job, nothing has changed since April. But almost everything else has changed. I now am making enough money to afford such niceties as DNA testing and vacations. The fact that I am getting paid vacations helps too. I found out I probably am a nicer person when I'm not in New York and not around this culture. And after my vacation which ended 10 days ago, I could survive outside the United States (and probably thrive, if not for international immigration requirements).

In May, I took an autosomal DNA test sponsored by Ancestry.com. It showed I was primarily of Western European (i.e. German, Dutch, French) and Irish origin. I had so little British/English DNA in my sample that it made me question whether the woman I knew as my grandmother Hazel (who was born 104 years ago in Toronto to Worcestershire native parents) actually was my biological grandmother. I later found a Worcestershire DNA match on Ancestry that could only have been related to me through my grandmother's family. For most of the matches that showed up on there (and GEDMatch and the free version of FamilyTreeDNA), I have no idea how I'm related to these people. And the autosomal DNA test never showed me where exactly my Clarke ancestors originated. I have since ordered a more expensive Y-DNA test that should reveal where the Clarke family came from and hopefully find other Clarkes. As far as I know, I'm the last one. My parents are long gone, and my estranged sister is technically a Johnson (of the Tennessee Springer-esque branch). In June, after she threatened to have me arrested over calling a welfare check on her (which resulted in her institutionalization for being suicidal), I cut her off completely.

I figured out how to get vacation time from my job, and used the money I was saving for a car towards my first extended international vacation. To Ireland. In a lot of ways, Ireland is similar to the US. They speak English (with accents just as hard to follow as Americans from the rural South or Northern Appalachia). They listen to the same music that Americans do. They have HD and satellite television, internet, wi-fi, malls, buskers, nice cars, western style housing, and a more advanced bus and railway network. But cars are driven on the left side of the road. The currency is in euros, with anything smaller than 5 euros ($5.50 US) in coins instead of paper money. And the locals are super nice and polite- to the point that they would be easy pickings for con artists and evil-doers if they ever stepped foot in New York. I probably felt more at home in 5 days in Ireland (where I had never been before August 29) than I did in the last 10 years in America, even with the bilingual signs and instructions in Irish (a language I am far less familiar with than Spanish, or French, or Creole). But it would take a high paying job offer, a Mega Millions jackpot, or a marriage offer (from an Irish woman who could still tolerate me after several weeks) before I could ever think of renouncing my American citizenship and move there.

And wherever I end up, I can now claim to be a published writer. Not for my musings on the obscene state of New York and Washington politics, but for my songwriting and poetry abilities. Two of the lyrics to my songs (Ask and Piping Plovers) and 8 other original works were added to the Holy Apostles writers' workshop anthology that was published in June. I got to read some of my works at a public reading on June 25.

The workshop is starting up again on the 17th. However, I don't know if I can attend any of the workshops with my current work schedule.

April 19, 2015

Nearly a month has passed since I returned to Rockaway. I am still getting used to not having a kitchen or cooking devices, and paying more than half my income in rent (with the lower rent option in Jersey City negated by the more than doubling of non-car-owning transportation expenses). Somehow this part of Rockaway is still safe. There aren't any large scale shooting incidents or breakdowns here like what is happening in the Bronx and Brooklyn under De Blasio's rule. I have been working on writings for the workshop (which I have to submit via e-mail due to my new job) and for potential musical projects. After all, Rockaway is where my electronic music career began.

And in atypical blog discussion, I am trying to determine which bird flew into Rockaway last week (pictured above). I have seen the various seagulls and related sea birds that are normally found in this area as well as this weird bird that looks somewhat like a seagull but with a longer and more pointed colored beak. I have yet to see any piping plovers since I moved back. Supposedly it will be next year before work starts on the section of the boardwalk that connects Beach 115th Street to Shore Front Parkway due to research on the plovers. But there is the chance that the plovers are still pissed about that song I wrote about them last year...

March 27, 2015

My first new blog of the year was composed in a place I never thought I'd be again. New York, or more specifically, my now seemingly permanent home neighborhood of Rockaway Park, Queens. And for the 4th straight year, I spent a good part of Lent in a homeless shelter. But I ended up in the shelter (in Jersey City, NJ, of all places) after getting into a disagreement with the super/resident manager of my Salvation Army-owned transitional housing in Colorado Springs. That led to me being evicted with 10 minutes warning and being blacklisted from the city's main shelter. After getting thrown out and threatened with arrest if I stepped foot on Salvation Army property without approval, I went to Marian House, the main low-income/homeless information center in Colorado Springs. After rejecting their suggestions of relocating to Portland or Seattle, I took a Greyhound back to New York and ended up in New Jersey when my now seemingly permanent residence didn't have any rooms available. One finally became available on the 25th of March, and I moved back with the unemployment I had accumulated while in the shelter. And after about 20 interviews and 19 rejections, I got hired by Urban Express, which means next week I will be a foot messenger again, albeit one paid slightly above NY's minimum wage and making about twice what I did in my last messenger gig.

So now, it's back to the beach and back to delivering on the streets of Manhattan. And (in a somewhat repeat of Lent 2013 and 2014) back to creative artistic pursuits- namely a writers' workshop run by the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen. Hopefully some of the pre-work stuff I submitted can get published.

December 13, 2014

What a difference a few weeks makes. Right before Thanksgiving, I was told there would be hours reductions but no layoffs at my job, and as of the afternoon of December 9, I am unemployed again. I don't know how long it will take to find another job- since December is the absolute worst time for job searching in Colorado Springs. So for now I am waiting for my unemployment paperwork and pouring my free time into promoting a song submission I made to Indaba Music at this link.

For now, Colorado Springs is warm for this time of year and looks something like this:

But thanks to an impending storm that brought flooding to California, tomorrow might resemble mid-November when the streets of Colorado Springs looked like this:

November 23, 2014

4 months ago, I had no idea what to expect or if I would even stay in the Springs. By the end of July I was stuck in the local shelter. And in the beginning of August, I found out my uncle and Godfather Larry Bowling had died. But I managed to find work with a local temp agency that picked up many of the contracts of the now-departed SOS Staffing (my previous Springs employer from 2007-08 and 2010-11). Now I have spent nearly 3 months in a transitional housing program that is nicer than my previous residences in Texas and New York. That housing is in Knob Hill, just west of my home neighborhood of Rustic Hills, where I have worked at a metals warehouse since early October.

Now I get to enjoy Colorado winter weather- including half a foot of snow and a 55 hour stretch below 10 degrees, and a 35 minute walk to work in those conditions.

I released a few original songs in September on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. I also submitted alternate versions of "Down" and "Ask" to Indaba Music.

Now on to Thanksgiving, December, and the commercial nightmare known as the Holiday Season in the United States.

July 29, 2014

I have been back in Colorado Springs about a month. So far, I am not employed, and I have to move out of where I was staying on Thursday. But I still have one more interview scheduled tomorrow in Briargate before I have to move, and another offer for local employment that requires 3 weeks of training in Utah. I also have more songs recorded and for sale. I probably will update this blog again whenever the employment and housing situation settles, because this is really starting to resemble my last stay in the Springs (2012-13) and that resulted in the longest period of unemployment I ever had since I entered the workforce and the longest period of homelessness I ever suffered (although I didn't actually stay in a shelter until after I left the Springs).

July 17, 2014

The theatrical production ended nearly 2 months ago. The Pearson job ended about 4 weeks ago. And now I am back in Colorado Springs. I wish I could say I am gainfully employed, but I cannot. I wish I could say I reconnected with old acquaintances when I moved back here, but I cannot. I was able to move all the stuff out of Austin to here. I came up with a few new songs. I even came up with another listening page and a sales page with the following 2 albums: So now it's a race to see if I end up getting a job, royalties, or unemployment by August 1.

April 12, 2014

I don't know how it got pulled off, but it did.

A weird dream to try and pull off a multimedia production about the problems facing Austin's homeless community. It involved an overeager Israeli theater director, a few UT students, a couple of professional actors, numerous contributors from the ARCH, and a certain aspiring music producer with bad stage fright who had the misfortune to have experienced homelessness in Austin and New York in 2013.

It took over 6 months of short videos, interviews, monologue creating, and rehearsing and more rehearsing. Several dropped out of the project due to creative differences or out-of-area job offers. A couple of people were added late to the project, including the music producer. He even created the theme song for the project, titled "Am I Invisible".

An arts grant was provided for the project. St. David's Episcopal Church offered their gymnasium as the first performance site for the project. Sets were built, rehearsals were practiced and practiced. The music producer got a warehouse job in Tech Ridge and a short term rental in East Austin. A short play detailing how a man went from housing to eviction to arrest for sleeping on the street was added. One of the ARCH participants had way too much fun with the baton during the arrest scene. April 12, the day of the performance, arrived. More rehearsals, more intensity, more flashlights, and costume changes. A big pizza lunch about an hour before the performance. Most were expecting about 20-60 viewers for this performance. Instead, about 150 showed up, ready to witness either disaster or a theatrical statement.

The music producer slightly overcame his stage fright. And due to some pre-production technical glitches, his music wasn't even featured in the production. But somehow the thing was pulled off, with loud applause after each monologue and the final scene. Hopefully this project will lead to changes in the way Austin treats its homeless population, preferably doing away with the tight restrictions on shelter and policies that make housing more unaffordable for at-risk low income people. And hopefully those theater participants that are still homeless can use their exposure in this project to get out of shelter alley.

As for the music producer (who if you haven't figured out by now is me), he walked home after the performance to his modest dwelling in East Austin and wondered whether it was worth it or not to have moved back to Austin after his disastrous 3 months there (mostly in shelter alley) in 2013. Yes, he got 2 jobs in 2 months. But all his friends are back in the tri-state area along with a few politicians who probably deserve to get impeached or worse for their views on religious Catholics and conservatives. And his hometown of Colorado Springs is a lot more affordable on housing than Austin is. But their economy is in bad shape, and moving there now without job offers or a car would probably lead to a lengthy stay on Sierra Madre St (the shelter alley of the Springs). Many with money in this town would enjoy 6th Street. But it is too close to shelter alley, and brings up a lot of bad memories I associate with this town.

Photos of the rehearsals below:

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April 3, 2014

What a difference a month makes. Last month, I thought I would have a quick 2 week warehouse assignment and still be stuck in Austin's shelter alley until something else came along or until I got tired enough of Texas to move back to Colorado or the Northeast. Now, the Pearson assignment is still going on, I am now in a house share in East Austin, and literally have 2 jobs. The other job was at first a hobby I volunteered with last year (see my 6th Street video on Youtube for some of the results of that project) that morphed into a multimedia/theater/art project about homeless life in Austin called Am I Invisible. When the director, Roni Chelben, found out I was moving back to Austin, she invited me to join the project even though I was not homeless at the time and had no intention of reliving my shelter alley nightmare from 2013. I ended up writing a monologue about my own views on homelessness in Austin (and how different it is than in New York) and contributing original music compositions to the project. For about a month, I was as much in the homeless shelter nightmare as the other 4 primary participants. But now, I am housed, in better conditions than I had in Rockaway. But that shelter alley/ARCH nightmare still goes on for hundreds of people in Austin- not counting the 1000-2000 who are camping out in vacant lots and park benches because of the extreme lack of shelter space. Most of the ARCH participants in the Am I Invisible project have gone through this nightmare of homelessness and unemployment for years- and were involved when I participated last year. By the grace of God, I was able to get employment and get out of that Hell. But most in shelter alley can't. This in a city with 4.8% unemployment and rising (but nowhere near NYC-level) housing costs.

Got off the train from New York, wonder why I'm back in the place where I was most invisible
where they who pledged to help told me to sleep on the streets
In New York it's illegal to sleep on the streets, and all who need it (by law) can get shelter
In Austin, there is not enough shelter space, and the police chief wants those than can help to move out of town.

Want to hear the rest, go to the Trinity Center gym on Saturday, April 12, at 3PM. This could be a boon for my self confidence and music career as well as helping others who are still in that nightmare get employment and housing.