a room full of seattle street kids watch a movie about seattle street kids, 25 years earlier.

here's another photo that i like very much -
Inde, on top of the dumpster, in a "King of Seattle's alleys!" salute,
Aztec, in the foreground, with dumpster-scored tube of paper,
and Wish, in the background, trying to figure out how to take
possession of a large chain that he found bolted to some
port-o-potties (behind dumpster).
It all just epitomizes the street youth culture here.

i totally see this as my book cover.

click on photo to full-view.

.

this was not staged.

oliver finds a tiny cadaver.
om mani padme hum

kelly, boxer, ninja (cat), kidd, and katie red shoes.

oliver, kelly rice bitch and daimey, outside of new hoz.

gloves - i miss you, my little buddha..

i love this photo of chopstix and oliver twist with billy looking on in the background.

aztec and wish in a downtown seattle alley.
they had just scored a large tube of unused paper from a nearby dumpster.
very fortunate as they are both incredible artists.

some photos from a night spent at the 'forever love'
georgetown squat.
the kids here stay under an I-5 interstate bridge.
the sound of traffic is constant - so ubiquitous
it becomes invisible.
which is how the kids feel themselves sometimes.

in the last photo, bubbles and mississippi look on ,
quite pleased it seems,
as oliver rips the bandages off his
bleeding raw hide caused by burns from a fire.

i could fill pages with such photos.

inde delights in a white mouse that was found in the bushes.

inde, the pyro, dances in his fire.

mississippi's back after almost a year of train-hopping.
good kid. big tender heart.
he just lost his dog.
loss is The Law on the streets.

Erin - one of the twist family mafia.

She is waiting for her boyfriend, Ashtray, to get out of jail.
He's in for 2 years for stabbing a guy who had tried to
sexually harrass Erin.
it's a tough life out here for these kind of hardcore street kids.
it's little wonder they turn to frying for some escape value.

twist family mafia insignia.
when the spiral curls to the left, as erin's does, it means chaos.
to the right it signifies harmony.

Here's XIII again. I wish I could hold him now like Purple is here.
But I can't.
He's in jail for 1st degree murder.

inde and flitter trying to sleep off a hang-over.

this is XIII and behind him is wes, dylan and henry.
i've known XIII for almost 2 years now and he has always struck me
and being one of the smartest and more complex personalities
amongst the street youth culture here.
he's also incredibly resourceful (an ex-army guy) and he just
has this almost superhuman will that is absolutely unstoppable.

he went down to portland recently and just sent me a note to
say that he's been clean for a week and is going to try to
get a job there. i wish him all the best, of course, and
i'll miss him like crazy.

being part of this family means lots of opportunities to realize
impermanence and practice letting go. it can still be difficult
not to get attached. but i am learning..

XIII writes, "arguably the best photo ever taken of me."
so here it is, in his honor.

Homeless street youth, Shaggy, holding a stranger's pug
at a dog park just hours after all of
his possessions were stolen.



these kids are some of my greatest teachers.

patrick.
16 yrs old.
both parents dead.
homeless.

look at his face.

XIII, aztec and vash-the-wolf
under the bridge.

ghost and zao wait under a bridge for the rain to stop.

[click on the image to view large]

inde, cat phisch and blu, all homeless.
i love this one... full view!

three of the homeless kids that i am very close to have been sleeping under an awning outside an architectural firm across from a midas auto repair service.
on sunday the kids called me and asked me to come by asap.
i jumped in the car and arrived 15 minutes later.
there they were talking to a bumble bee.
i asked what was going on and the bumble bee (dave) said he had
received a call from midas asking him to get rid of the kids.
that "they are an eyesore."
i told him that the employees of the business under whose awning they slept were fine with it
as long as they were gone by the time the business opened.
sunday the business was closed and was the only day that the kids could sleep in.
it's the only day that the kids get a good night's sleep.
(if you can call it that - they're outside, it's cold and the ground they sleep on is hard cement.)
dave said he's fine with that but right then and there the kids had to leave because of the complaint.
but you know who i felt the sorriest for?
the guy from midas who called the kids an eyesore.
can you imagine having to live with a mind like that?

frantic and inde (inseparable as they are) made yesterday at freeway pk.
formerly homeless, now staying with justin.
justin's dad said he will buy them a house.
in return, they'll work for him.
they seem happy with the arrangement.
apparently they're both off the junk and just sticking to pot and X.
i love these guys and am rooting for them all the way.

I recently spoke with my friend Ghost, a homeless street youth in Seattle, about dumpster-diving.
Here's what he had to say:
"I do this with no shame. I’ve been doing this a lot of years. A lot of people look at it as embarrassing to go through another person’s trash, like it’s demeaning on the ego. But I and others do this knowing that every trash bag has a treasure in it and there’s going to be something that someone is going to need or want. That’s the way I look at it. I’ll carry around a bag of useless items to me but I know when I open that bag someone’s going to see something and say, “Oh, I need that!” And I’ll ask them what they got that I need.
The things you find, it’s like currency out here."

For the full transcript of my talk with Ghost go here.

someone made a photo of me and the street kids hanging out at the westlake stage.
from left to right - vash, shaggy, victoria, me, wes, athena and willis.
all of the kids pictured are homeless and represent a tiny fraction of all the homeless youth in seattle.
to them i'm Mama Dread and to me, they're family.

faust and vash at freeway pk.
faust lives in an abandoned warehouse.
it's dingy and dilapidated with broken glass covering the floors.
vash sleeps in different places - mostly under awnings just feet from the sidewalk.
the bumble bees (roaming street security in yellow vests) wake him up every morning
and tell him to move on.
and he moves.
on and on and endlessly on.


i feel sad a lot.
i think it's cos i can't really feel good about my life
and all i have (shelter, food, enough $ to get by)
when so many others don't have those things.
how can i feel good?


these kids...
they're Beauty-full.
they deserve so much more.

the kids (vash, shaggy, athena and jynxxy)
spanging outside mcdonalds across from the westin.
someday i'll have to tell the story behind the tail.

orpheus faust and vash the wolf, both homeless street youth, are pictured here at faust's squat - an abandoned warehouse 10 minutes out of the city.

leaving faust's squat.

vash called yesterday to tell me he has some big, painful abscesses growing on his body.
on the way to getting him some hydrogen peroxide and dressing i ran into rosco.
he told me that the country doctor clinic on 19th was open and free to youth that night.
Awesome. i took vash up there and he got some antibiotics.
still, i'm worried about him. he's not in good shape.

Vash is back from Portland! I was immensely happy to see him. He's one of my closest street sons and one of the few street kids that I trust with All. He had a bad case of scabies - angry rashes and bumps covered his legs and back and he was continuously itching. Yesterday I brought him to my place where we cleaned all his clothes and bedding and he showered and applied
a scabies medication that he got from new hoz. it was thrilling to see him all squeaky clean and know he had a 'fresh' start.
Here he is pictured with his new companion, scraps.

this is faust being adorable while munching on a sandwich.
it's getting damn cold here and i've been asking the street kids what their needs are. most of the squats, from what i've seen, are very well feathered with blankets.
faust told me she needed a sleeping bag. i promptly got on a seattle list and asked if any one had a spare.
i collected 4 in 2 days. turns out daimey, joey and miles need one too. perfect. all accounted for.
it felt really good to know that there are some
kind and caring people out there.
sometimes i forget that is the case.

ghost shoulders his pet rat while she gets a drink from purple.
they'll be leaving in a month to go hopping trains for the winter.
good kids - will definitely miss them.

ghost took me down to the CHID pit - a new squat located UNDERNEATH a city park. extraordinary how we got there and a virtual cop-free zone. (one hopes!) astounding how resourceful these kids are.

I spent some time with 8 of my street kids (homeless) at the Georgetown squat. They're perched high on a hill under the freeway - a cave of sorts. At one point Olly yelled out as he saw Cat Phish and Athena crossing the railroad tracks toward us. Some homeless adults (who are known to drink a lot) in a camp at the bottom of the hill and across the tracks thought Olly was yelling at them. They got very belligerent and about 10 of them started to approach at the bottom of the hill yelling that they were going to come up and fuck up the kids and take their stuff. WTF??! They're fucking KIDS. my god.. Olly, Tarzan, Daimey and Erin ran to the mouth of the cave with rebar and bottles, posturing and ready to defend themselves. Thankfully the threats died down and the aggressors backed off. it just boggles my mind that these kids have to live this way in such an affluent society as ours.
let's put some politicians under a bridge for a week and see how they fare.
sometimes i think that is the only way that people in power will finally get it.

Shy, my closest homeless friend. My street daughter. I love her very much and miss her terribly. After giving birth to baby Cecilia she moved to Spokane, WA - 600 miles away - with her boyfriend to be near his mother and the help she could provide in getting them an apartment for 1/3 of what it would cost here in Seattle.
I'm happy that she finally has her own place. I just wish it could've been here.

Street kid, Jynxxy in an outdoor squat at Freeway Pk.
(The photo was made the moment after Inde told her that her ex had screwed around on her.)

I just love her expression..

Two people wearing black hoods kneel on a downtown street
corner late at night in silent protest to the war.
Seattle.