Jordan Osborne interviews Ace Backwords about Jack Kerouac and the counterculture in general

 

The Beat Tapes: An Interview with Ace Backwords

May 29, 2016 jordan.osborne@sky.com Leave a comment

Earlier in the year, I wrote an article discussing Jack Kerouac and Beat culture. The Beats were instrumental in the construction of counterculture and how the American society in particular wandered away from normality in its championing of the alternative, of the personal and societal other. I interviewed a number of different people all with associations to Beat culture and counterculture in order to develop a large portrait of Beat culture. Not just the spontaneous, romanticised side, but the part that is regularly brushed under the carpet; the part that Kerouac himself disassociated himself from completely as his unwanted legacy twisted into something he deemed gruesome as the questionable ethics of the ’60s merged with his more organic visions in the ’50s. One individual I interviewed was Ace Backwords, cult underground cartoonist, publisher of short-lived punk rock tabloid Twisted Image, and revered street icon in Berkeley, California. Backwords sees the residue of Beat culture lingering in the streets of Berkeley everyday but is more attached to punk scene- a schism of ’50s/’60s counterculture. Backwords features heavily in my article and had some interesting personal and impersonal views on Beat culture that offer an interesting perspective on its influence throughout the latter end of the last century and the modern day.

 

What is it about Kerouac’s writing that resonates strongly with you?
I think Kerouac’s honesty is what most resonated with me the most.  There’s very little bullshit to his approach.  He describes his world and his feelings pretty much exactly how he sees it.  This trait isn’t as common as you might think with people and writers in general.  And there’s a spiritual-seeker quality to Kerouac.  This yearning for the higher truths of existence.  That I think really gives Kerouac a universal appeal.

So you’re tied heavily to the Berkeley street scene. What is it that attracted you in the first place? Was it inspired at all by the adventure and revelatory nature of On The Road or counterculture in general?
Not really.  I was kind of a late-comer to Kerouac.  Didn’t get around to reading On The Road until I was 40.  And had been part of the street scene/counterculture for 2 decades already at that point.  But I could certainly relate personally to the milieu  in which Kerouac lived and wrote about.  Guys like Cassady and Burroughs are quintessential street people.

How has Kerouac and On The Road your view of the world and your lifestyle choices, especially in regards to your street scene association?
Even people who have never read Kerouac have been influenced by him in all sorts of ways.  The hippie and punk and raver scenes are definitely a part of the lineage that Kerouac founded, in a way.

With ‘off the grid’ lifestyles, a person’s decision to try and sever any ties to the world, how do you think Kerouac has influenced the development of this lifestyle? Do you think this lifestyle has changed in the 21st century, especially with the advancement of technology and the omniscience of the ‘Big Brother’ age?
There have always been little pockets of bohemia.  The underground.  Outlaws. Drug cultures. Gay subcultures.  Etc. What Kerouac did that was so remarkable, was that he presented these subcultures, these “alternative lifestyles,”  in a way that was very appealing and exciting to the mainstream culture. And transformed the mainstream culture in the process.  Virtually every major “Sixties” figure — from Lennon to Dylan to Kesey to R. Crumb to Jerry Garcia — sited Kerouac as a major influence.  And, like I said, even people who never read Kerouac were profoundly influenced by him through the second-hand affect of these “Sixties” figures.

Do you think that the yearning for adventure and ‘good times’ that are celebrated in On The Road have led a lot of people to search for their own adventure, and if so, do you think they’ve been disappointed by what they’ve found or failed to find?
That’s an interesting question.  Hard to answer. I can only really speak for myself.  I’m sure some people romanticized the lifestyle that Kerouac represented.  Compared to the 9-to-5 working stiff life-in-the-bland-suburbs lifestyle, Kerouac had a walk-on-the-wild side appeal.  But to his credit, Kerouac never idealized that lifestyle. Or tried to make it out to be more than what it was.  There’s as much pain in Kerouac’s accounts as there are  “good times.”

What negative effects do you think On The Road and the counterculture movements had on society and culture? Do you think, with the benefit of hindsight, it negatively affected you?
Another of the truly great things about Kerouac.  He was one of the first to be critical of the “negative effect” the Beatnik movement — and the Hippie movement that followed in its wake — might have on society.  He was searing in his criticism of people like Ken Kesey who claimed to be influenced by Kerouac, but whom Kerouac felt completely misrepresented what he stood for.  The Drug Epidemic and all the broken families that resulted from the “free love” movements were just some of the negative effects of the counterculture.  But it’s important to note, Kerouac was about personal experimentation. Not publishing manifestos for how people could live.

I read your piece about Kerouac on your blog. Do you think the rejection of his fellow beats changes the way we view On The Road? Or do you think it doesn’t change anything and Kerouac had just become disappointed by how his legacy had mutated?
I think it was very brave how Kerouac “rejected” his fellow Beats and the Hippies who followed in his wake.  He could have easily done what Ginsburg did.  Just jump on the bandwagon and milk it for all it’s worth.  In the late ’60s Kerouac could have easily played at being the great cultural guru, with millions of followers worshipping at his feet.  Instead he turned his back on the whole lot of them.  I think he rightly viewed the “anti-American” aspect of the 60s counterculture as the poisonous effect that it was.

What about Kerouac and his writing do you see in the Berkeley street scene and the street scene in general? Do you think his ideas and work are still highly influential and celebrated by the people of the streets?
Kerouac’s effect on the counterculture has been so profound.  I’m sure the street scene would look quite different today if not for Kerouac’s writing.

I feel that On The Road contributed heavily to the advent of the teenager as well. As well as altering youth culture in the decades to come, how do you think youth culture has been shaped by Kerouac’s work in the 21st century? How do you think the youth of the 21st century, On The Road and the street scene have mingled together? Do you think the youth and the 21st century still take influence from Kerouac or do you think with time and change they’ve separated?
I think Kerouac’s writing will always have a universal appeal with teenagers.  He’s like the next logical step after The Catcher in the Rye.  There have always been kids who ran away from home and “joined the circus.”  in the post-Sixties world they ran away from home and joined the Grateful Dead tour.  Young people will always seek adventures, artistic expression and spiritual searching.  Traits that Kerouac embodied.

What do you think is the best part and or movement that has sprouted from Kerouac’s work and the Beat legacy? 
That this world, for all its pain and suffering and disappointments, is also a thing of great beauty and awe.  Worthy of studying and celebrating.  There’s a yearning quality to Kerouac that always touched me.  This yearning for something more.  And who knows.  Maybe we’ll find it just down the next road.

Street Royalty: Ace Backwords tabloid Twisted Image featured interviews with Charles Bukowski, Henry Rollins and Johnny Rotten.

Street Royalty: Ace Backwords tabloid Twisted Image featured interviews with Charles Bukowski, Henry Rollins and Johnny Rotten.

Could you give me a summary of your day to day living? What you get up to, the challenges you face on the streets etc. What kind of challenges do you face that most people wouldn’t expect you to face? 
Usually wake up around 6 at my campsite just as it’s getting light.  My feral cats usually wake me up — they’re eager for breakfast and keep pestering me until I get out of my blanket.  After feeding the cats I’ll usually lay around for a couple hours listening to the radio on headphones (Armstrong & Getty show or sports talk).  Or, if I still have juice on my cellphone battery I’ll take a bunch of photos and check out my Facebook page (usually my first thought is:  “What drunken nonsense did I babble last night that I need to immediately delete?”) . . .   Then I’ll trudge down to civilization (so-called), get some coffee to shake off the cobwebs in my brain from the previous night . . .. Then down to the library.  Spend two hours on the computer working on my Acid Heroes web page or amusing myself in some other cyber-way . .. Around 6 in the evening I usually start drinking.  40 of Olde English if I’m drinking on the streets, or pitchers of Race  if I’m drinking in a sports bar (I’m addicted to the Golden State Warriors basketball team) . . . Usually I’ll spend the night hanging out in People’s Park at Hate Camp — Hate Man’s legendary street scene. . . Around midnight I’ll usually trudge back to my campsite in the Berkeley hills.  My cats are usually waiting for me at the foot of the trail . ..  I’ll feed them their dinner while fending off the raccoons who are trying to horn in on the cat food. . . Wake up around 6 and start the whole nonsense all over again.

In terms of “challenges” — life on the streets is a constant series of unexpected challenges.  Things can be rolling along uneventful, but rarely for long.  Like this morning, to give but one of countless examples. I wake up and notice a young homeless hippie-looking couple has decided to camp about 30 yards from my campsite. Which is completely unacceptable.  This is the only bit of privacy I have in the world and these two dumb-ass clunkers have decided to invade it.  I glared at them as I passed them as I walked down the trail.  Tonight or tomorrow morning I will have to figure out some way to deal with them.

Could you describe the negative, darker side of street living for me. I get the idea that a lot of people follow this lifestyle expecting an interesting and enriching experience but it often ends up surprising them. Would you say that is an accurate presentation of street life or is it something you enjoy encountering through and through? 
I have seen so many street people disintegrate right in front of me.  There are countless ways that they self-destruct.  Drugs and alcohol being two of the more popular modes.  Violence does many people in.  They get in so many fights their bodies break down. Or just the harshness of outdoor living — getting sick from the cold and rain.  Or getting locked into battles with the cops and dealing with the harshness of the prison system.. . . .Or, as a homeless friend of mine put it:  “The worst thing about being homeless is other homeless people.” . . .  But mostly its the sheer POINTLESSNESS of so much of the street life that ruins them.  “The devil makes use of idle hands.”

Some people hit the streets seeking adventures.  They usually find it. Often more than they bargained for.    But the fact is, a good portion of street life is mostly just boring.  Pointless bums hanging out endlessly socializing.

What consequences have there been for you in adopting the street scene as a lifestyle? What sacrifices have you had to make? Are there any you didn’t expect to have to make? Is there any kind of warning you could offer to people that were considering a street lifestyle?

It is difficult to accomplish ANYTHING when you’re living on the streets.  Everything is complicated by your situation.  A simple thing like doing your laundry can involve countless steps and complications.

For me the biggest sacrifice is that it limits the kind of art projects I can get involved in.  I used to embark on fairly complex year-long art projects.  Things like recording CDs and publishing books.  But it’s incredibly difficult to do while living outdoors.  My last book (Acid Heroes:  The Psychedelic 60s and its Aftermath) I wrote, edited and published a 300 page book while living out of a sleeping bag during the rainy season.  It just about killed me.  Just surviving on the streets alone can be a full-time job.

Another unintended consequence of the streets;  You can get ghetto-ized on the streets.  By that I mean, you can get completely cut off from mainstream society.   You can end up hanging out and living entirely amongst other street people.  Which can be a very limited lifestyle.

I generally warn anyone who’s on the verge of becoming homeless:   If at all possible, do whatever you can to keep a roof over your head.  It is very easy to end up on the streets.  But often very difficult to get off of them.

How do you think media has portrayed street living, off the grid living and nomadism as something 100% positive? Do you think that is something terrible on their part? Do you think we need more exposure to the dark side of street living, not just the glory of it?

The media generally portrays the streets in one of two modes:  a.) Pathetic homeless beggars and shopping cart people — the objects of pity or revulsion.  Or b.) a life of adventure, excitement and danger. The wildness of the streets.  Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll.  Romanticized versions like Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries . . .   When in truth the reality is mostly in between these two extremes.

In hindsight of Kerouac’s tragic and premature demise, do you feel that the pressure of this legacy that exploded out of On The Road was even too much for him to handle? Do you think that is a little indicative of the direction the legacy of Beat culture was going to follow?
Sure.  Fame, in general, can be hard to handle.  And the overwhelming — and virtually over-night — fame that hit Kerouac must have been mind-boggling to deal with.  To go from being a nobody, virtually invisible and quietly existing on the fringes of society.  To one of the great cultural icons of our times.

Also, too, Kerouac was a largely conflicted person to begin with.  And any faults and shortcomings you start out with are usually magnified greatly by the spotlight of fame.  I also think he was largely a repressed gay guy who couldn’t accept his gayness.  So to suddenly have something that he always hid from the world exposed in the glare of the media spotlight must have been deeply upsetting.  I’m sure that’s a big reason why he made such a public show of rejecting Allen Ginsberg.

Also, for all of this bohemia leanings. Kerouac never lost his identification as “the All-American football hero.”  He yearned to be normal just as much as he yearned to be this crazy street lunatic who burned and burned and burned.  Reconciling all the different conflicted sides of himself was probably impossible.  He was at war with himself in a way.

You can read more about Ace’s daily street lifestyle at https://acidheroes.wordpress.com/

Death of an anonymous street tramp

originally posted in 2007)

We got the news the other day that Mott died. For a half hour, Mott was the gossip of the day. And then, he’s forgotten. It’s amazing how quickly people are forgotten. Mott was another one of those guys who’s been “on the scene” for at least the last 20 years. A face in the the crowd. “There goes good ole’ Mott.” And then, suddenly, its: “There went good ole’ Mott.

Death becomes a drum-beat that gets louder and louder as you get older.

At first, when you’re young, the deaths are spaced out years apart. But as you get older, they’re months apart. Then weeks apart. Then . . .

Pretty soon its almost like every day you’re hearing about somebody you know dropping dead. Its not so much shocking — the reaction you get when you hear somebody died. It’s more like a “Huh? What the fuck?” reaction. Like when something peculiar happens and the mind can’t quite wrap itself around the subject.

This weird reaction to death. Where it seems so weird, AND so normal. All at the same time.

Mott was this scruffy little guy, almost dwarfish in his stature. I always pictured him as “Pig Pen” — the “Peanuts” character. Every now and then, like on the first after he cashed his SSI check, Mott would look neat and clean — new clothes, hair-cut, etc. But within days he’d be back to his naturally dirty look. Disheveled hair. Scraggly beard. Tooth-less. Weird stains on his torn jacket.

Mott was the classic hobo. The classic street-tramp look. The harmless little troll sitting under the bridge. He was one of those archetypal street people — you couldn’t picture Mott existing anywhere but the streets. One of those guys who never “dropped out.” Mott was never “in” in the first place.

Mott was a nice guy. Even Hate Man called him “sweet.” A lot of people had a secret soft spot for Mott. Even the bullies that picked on him, who Mott just shrugged off with a “That’s just how people are, whataya’ gonna’ do, Ace,” shrug of the shoulders. With no sense of bitterness or need to retaliate. Mott was one of those guys who accepted whatever life gave him, was grateful for any scrap he got, and never complained when he got the short end of the stick. Which was often.

The last time I saw Mott he was lying on the sidewalk on Bancroft and Telegraph.  He wasn’t passed out, but he couldn’t get up.  He was surrounded by three paramedics who were getting ready to load him into the ambulance.

When we heard Mott was in the hospital, we thought of getting a card and all signing it. But we never quite got around to it. Which somehow summed up Mott’s life. Typical. You cared. But not that much. Or maybe it was just the “solitary tramp” side of Mott that always kept you at a distance. Like . . . Mott himself was more comfortable watching the doings of humanity from a quiet place in the bushes. He knew what the fate was for the trolls who ventured too close to civilization.

“Hey there, Ace, how ya’ doin’,” was Mott’s quietly chipper greeting as we passed (many, many times) on our sidewalk routes. He had the bearing of a wary, scraggly puppy that had been beaten too many times, and yet could still cautiously and eagerly warm to the friendly overtures from others. Just a good guy, Mott. One of those guys defeated a thousand times by life, but never really defeated. Always bounced back. Had more soul than a lot of people.

One time, Mott came up to me and said: “Ace, two months ago I stole 50 cents out of your donation cup when nobody was looking. I been meanin’ to pay you back. Here’s a dollar.”

That was Mott. He didn’t have to tell me, after all. And 99% of the other bums on the street scene wouldn’t have. A good guy, Mott.

And yet still, when I think of Mott — or when I think of most people I know who died — there’s this sort of empty feeling. Like: That’s IT?? Mott tramped and bounded and stumbled and staggered and strutted (even Mott) through life. Then, like a wind-up toy that ran out of ticks, it toppled over on the sidewalk one day and laid there, silently. Done.

.

.

So you’re interested in a career as a writer

.

One of the funny things about writing, about sharing your thoughts with the public: YOU NEVER KNOW HOW THE READERS ARE GOING TO REACT. You can never predict that.

Every now and then I’ll write about some controversial subject. And I’ll know there’s a good chance I’ll generate some heat. But then I’ll write about something that I consider fairly innocuous — like  a recent blog about a little old guy who worked in a booth  — and even that, somebody will get upset or offended or take issue with it. One of my Facebook friends wrote: “Did you ever think to stop and talk to this person? Without his perspective how can you even begin to comment on his life.”

Well, this is how. Probably 90% of the piece was just me describing how he looked and how he interacted with people. And maybe 10% of it was me speculating on what his life might (and I said “might”) have been like. And by the way, this is something that we all do, all the time. When I see some photo of a Facebook friend and they’re hanging out at their house with their family and friends at some kind of get-together, I’ll speculate from that as to how their lives might have turned out. We mostly do this kind of thing instantly and subconsciously without even realizing it. But we do it all the time.

But getting back to writing. Contrary to what I sometimes get accused of: I don’t go out of my way to push people’s buttons. But I’ve always had a weird knack for doing that. Of course that’s one of the exciting things about writing. This ever-present wild card. Never knowing how people will react. And every now and then I’ll be pushing a buzzer expecting a buzz, and I’ll get an explosion. . . .

And then you check to make sure you still have all your limbs. And you think twice the next time you start shooting your mouth off.

(This was the blog I was referring to:  https://acidheroes.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/the-guy-in-the-booth/ )

.

The guy in the booth

.

 

For years and years I’d pass this little booth every morning as I walked down from my campsite towards civilization (so-called). For nearly 10 years. And every morning I’d pass this little old guy who worked in the booth. He was probably in his 60s. Gray hair. But in pretty good shape. Road his bike to work every day. A chipper fellow. His job was pretty simple. He’d check to make sure that the people who parked in the parking lot had appointments at the eye clinic next door. But you could tell he was diligent at doing his job. When a car pulled up he wouldn’t just walk over to the car, he’d trot over there really quickly, with his ever-ready clipboard in his hand.

.

And I’d pass this guy every morning as I was staggering down the hill, hungover, my clothes disheveled, my hair strewn all over the place. And I’d pass this clean-cut, blandly normal guy, working away at his job. And it was like a study in contrasts. You could tell the guy had been on the straight and narrow path his whole life. Probably sat in the front row of every classroom as a kid and regularly raised his hand when the teacher asked a question and had a perfect attendance record. And he never deviated from the normal, acceptable route. Course you never know.  For all you know he’s got women chained up in his basement. But he certainly gave every appearance of having lived a pretty straight and conventional life.  Whereas my life went hopelessly off course at age 17 and I’ve been bouncing around following my own weird ever since.

I admired the guy in my own way. He had found a way to smoothly slot into society and have a productive life and not cause any problems (seemingly). Which is more than I could say for myself a lot of the time. And maybe his gig was a little dull, but it was a cushy deal in a way, working outside on the beautiful green campus, surrounded by vital young college students, and he probably got a good salary with benefits and retirement package.

Then one day when I passed the booth there was a big, blown-up photo of the guy posted on the side of the booth. With a caption that said; “In appreciation of 30 years of loyal service to the University of California. . .” and etc, etc. And then a week later he was gone. And I never saw him again. I guess he retired.

Its weird all the different paths our lives take in this world.

.

Semi-functional alcoholism

.

I’m generally a controlled drinker and a functional drunk. I usually drink the same amount of alcohol every night (around 80 to 100 ounces of malt liquor at 7.4% alcohol content) and usually at the same time every night. So I’m well familiar with the effects of the alcohol, and how to navigate safely through the ever-increasing state of drunkenness that, apparently, is my only remaining goal in life.

But every now and then I will slip up and go too far. I’ll drink a little too much, or I’ll drink a little too quickly. And I’ll suddenly (albeit dimly) realize: HOLY SHIT I AM WAY TOO DRUNK. And I turn into, technically speaking, a Stupid Fucking Drunk. I’ll find myself staggering down the street, bouncing off of walls, and shouting curses at passersby for reasons that make perfect sense at the time.

I remember one such night. WAY too drunk. I somehow managed to make it up to the general vicinity of my campsite in the Berkeley hills. But as I reached down to get the cardboard that I kept stashed behind a tree, I lost my balance. And fell face-first down the hill.

Fortunately, I had the cardboard directly under me. So it was a fairly smooth fall down the hill, like riding a toboggan. That is until I got to the creek at the bottom of the hill.

Fortunately for me, the creek was dry at the time. So the gods were on my side. But now the problem was, every time I tried to stand up I fell right back down. The ground was on a steep incline and the dirt and rocks kept crumbling under my feet. I made 7 or 8 valiant attempts to maintain an upright position. Until I finally concluded that the situation was hopeless. So I fell right down for the 9th time and wondered. What do I do now?

But then I came up with a seemingly brilliant solution to my dilemma. Why not sleep right there in the dry creek? I had my cardboard underneath me (which I used as my matting). And it was a warm summer night and I had a warm jacket on. So that’s what I did. I curled up and slept right there. And I slept rather peacefully and comfortably for several hours.

Until I was awoken a couple hours later by the sounds of my feral cats — somewhere off in the distance in the darkness — meowing loudly at me. Meows that no doubt translated into English as: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING LAYING DOWN THERE IN THE DRY CREEK WHEN YOU SHOULD BE UP AT YOUR CAMPSITE FEEDING US DELICIOUS CANS OF CAT FOOD, YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT.”

By this time I had sobered up enough to master the laws of gravity. So I pulled myself up to an erect posture, crawled up the hill, made it to my campsite, fed my goddamn feral cats, and slept happily ever after.

But it wasn’t one of my finer moments.

 

 .

.

.

My life as an artist

.

When I was younger I thought I was a brilliant artist. I thought I was one of those rare people who come along every now and then who have a special vision.

Over a 40 year period I amassed this huge body of artwork. Sometimes when I look at it, it seems pretty impressive. Other times I ruefully think: “Its just a storage locker full of paper.”

Of course I’ve met plenty of no-talent dilletantes over the years who were convinced they were geniuses. And I admit I’m hardly objective when it comes to evaluating my work.

Now I’m an old man. And I’ll probably be dead soon. And my best work is probably behind me. And none of this stuff really even matters to anybody else. It was just a weird daydream I started with myself 40 years ago.

 

Backwords Tip for Today: Whenever possible start your morning with a purring cat on your chest

 .

There are worse ways to start your day.

 .

.

.

I’ve tried just about everything this life has to offer. But having your hand on a purring cat ranks up there with the best experiences there is.

.

This probably doesn’t make sense to normal people. But I have many, many non-verbal conversations with Scaredy Cat the feral cat. We banter back and forth on a non-verbal level. And what she says to me always makes perfect sense.

.

.

What I learned in a writing class

I took this writing class once when I was a young man. I thought maybe I could learn something about how to write literature. Everybody in the class submitted a short story, and then the professor critiqued them in front of the whole class.

I wrote this story about when I was a 19 year old homeless bum in San Francisco in 1976 and hanging out in the Tenderloin district. The story starts out with me  waiting outside of St. Anthony’s dining hall, lined up on the sidewalk with all the other bums waiting to get a free lunch. When these two winos got into a conflict. They’re jawing back and forth, cursing and shouting and threatening each other. Finally one of the bums reaches into the garbage can on the corner and starts pulling out all the empty wine bottles (Thunderbird) and throwing them at the other bum. One after another.  There’s no shortage of that kind of ammunition in the Tenderloin, I can tell you that much. So wine bottles are exploding all across the sidewalk like hand grenades. And the other bum is dancing back and forth trying to dodge the in-coming artillery.  Then the bum smashed one of the wine bottles on the ground so it had a jagged edge and chased after the other bum, waving the jagged bottle in the air. And as they turned the corner and disappeared behind a building, it looked like the one bum was on the verge of catching the other bum and slicing him up. The End.

This object is a metaphor for a container in which people discard unwanted refuse.

After reading my story to the class the professor said: “What an apt metaphor. That the very wine bottles that the winos had consumed in the hopes of attaining satisfaction were now being utilized as agents of their own self-destruction. Its a symbolic statement of the ironic nature of their existential dilemma.”

I had never thought about that before. The empty wine bottles being apt metaphors and all that. I was just trying to describe something that I had seen and experienced. And hopefully it made sense and wasn’t boring.  And that’s pretty much all I hope for with my writing. And with this piece of writing, too.

.

 

The little old hippie lady of Berkeley

 

The other day I was hanging out with Hate Man at People’s  Park. Hate Man was talking about a guy who had recently slit his throat by the bathroom. “It was amazing how much blood there was on the floor. Its incredible how much blood there is in the human body!”

“That reminds me of when Jack Kerouac died,” I said. “He blew a big hole in his stomach. And it was like a dam bursting. Virtually all of his blood instantly poured out onto the floor.”

Suddenly, this little old lady that was sitting on the log across from us started shouting at me:

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!! I’M DYING OVER HE’YA!! I DONT WANNA HEAR ABOUT BLOOD AND PEOPLE DYING!! I LOVED JACK KEROUAC!! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!”

The little old lady had been on the Berkeley scene, off and on, for years. She was probably in her late 60s. She was wearing a brightly colored tie-dyed Grateful Dead tee-shirt and a long, flowing hippie skirt. She had lips like a fish. And was almost the perfect caricature of the kvetching Long Island Jewish grandmother.

“Hate Man, gimme some of your Coke. Gimme some of your soda,” she said. “I’m dying of thirst over he’ya.”

“No,” said Hate Man. “It would be a hard push.”

“I’m dying I’m dying,” she said.

“There’s a water fountain over there,” said Hate Man

“I don’t want watah’. I want soda!”

Lately, she’s been hanging out all day by herself on the steps of Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus. Occasionally she’ll start shouting to no one in particular, “HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!!”

The other day I passed her as she was walking up Bancroft from Shattuck. She was about halfway to the campus. Its several LONG blocks. All uphill. And she was inching along at a snail’s pace. In obvious bad health. Pulling this suitcase on wheels behind her.

“HELP ME HELP ME!!” she said as I passed her. “I NEED TO GET TO THE HOMELESS SHELTER!!”

I turned around towards her. And for a second I almost got roped into her drama. But then I thought: What could I do? Carry her up the street?

“You’re headed in the right direction,” I said. “Good luck.”

(Later in the day I was relieved to find that she had made it to the campus and was back at her spot on the Sproul Plaza steps.)

Often people end up on the street scene because they’ve exhausted all their options and there’s nowhere else to go. The streets are like an all-inclusive club. Virtually anybody can end up a member.

.

Hoop dreams

.

 

The other night while I was watching the Warriors game at this sports bar, this guy sidled over to my table.

“We should get back out there on the court, bro,” he said with a smile. It was Kenyati, a guy I used to hoop with at Ohlone Park back in the day.

“I’m a little too old for that now,” I said.

“How old were you when you stopped hooping?” said Kenyati.

“Man, I musta’ been around 35, 36,” I said.

“I remember the last time you were out there,” he said. “I was there that day.”

“And you were a teenager back then,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. Kenyati was in his 40s now.

“It goes by so fast,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

We gave each other wistful looks. And then went back to watching the Warriors game.

Those days running full court with the brothers were some of the best days of my life. And probably Kenyati’s, too.

 

.