Archive for the 'homelessness' Category
March 29, 2008
PHILIP
“Wow, you look really pissed off; I hope it’s not something I did; I wouldn’t want to be on your bad side when you’re looking the way you do right now.”
TONY
“No way, you’d hear from me about anything like that, that’s for sure.”
It’s my friend I’ve been telling you about. So he gets his welfare cheque, he promises me, he really promises me that he’s gonna use the money to feed himself and get a room. Next thing you know, he’s spend it all on crack and he’s got nothing left. Probably got 3 eight-balls with the dough. Now of course he wants me to help him. How’s he gonna get out of his situation if he can’t be a bit responsible, you know what I mean?”
Posted in cause and effect, classical mechanics, cocaine, crack, eight-ball, friend, homelessness, Newtonian mechanics, promises, responsibility, waste, welfare | 2 Comments »
March 22, 2008
PHILIP
“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while … how do you keep your breath from smelling bad? Isn’t that hard to do in your situation?”
TONY
“Well first of all, I better keep it smelling pretty or no one’s going to want to talk to me or give me anything. I just take care of it, just like anything else. And believe it or not, the smoking helps too. Even when people don’t like the cigarette smell, they don’t go backing away from me, if you know what I mean.”
Posted in Bachman Turner Overdrive, breath, BTO, cigarettes, homelessness, smoke | 3 Comments »
March 19, 2008
PHILIP
“Hey Tony, someone threw your stool into the garbage pail over there. He was just some regular guy. Me and another guy pulled it out and put it next to ‘your’ tree there.”
TONY
“Let me tell you, it happens all the time, Phil. You know, when you’re homeless, folks think that they can do anything they like with your property. It’s like we don’t even exist. ‘Course, then people wonder why homeless people stink after they gotta rescue their stuff from the garbage.”
Posted in bathos, garbage, Hogarth, homeless, homelessness, property, stink | 2 Comments »
March 14, 2008
ONE OF TONY’S “REGULARS”
“Hi Tony, I saw you really shivering last time so I checked at home and found you this blanket plus this fleece jacket. You can use that blanket to keep that beautiful ass of yours nice and toasty.”
TONY
“Well that’s 100% great. Thanks for these very much; I can use them. But I got to tell you, my ass is nice and warm right now. What I need it for is to warm up my legs.”
[Later] to Philip
“That the blanket is kinda like that Coat of Many Colours from the Bible. Except no one wants to kill me for it, which is good. i can’t believe I still remember those Old Testament stories but that’s what a Catholic education does for you.”
Posted in ass, Bible stories, blanket, coat of many colours, cold, forget me not, Genesis, homelessness, Joseph | 5 Comments »
March 9, 2008
PHILIP
“Hey Tony, I was talking to this homeless guy, Randy, about sleeping in shelters. He hasn’t stayed in a shelter in at least a year and he says he won’t ever again if he can. He figures that 10% of the five hundred guys staying there are ‘psycho’ — guys who’d kill you for ‘a pack of smokes or half a tuna sandwich.’ ”
TONY
“ You’ve heard me tell you that before. Nobody believes it … who’s gonna to listen to one of us, if you know what I mean?”
Posted in beggar, Caught in a Trap, cigarettes, desperation, Elvis, homeless, homelessness, kill, King subway, nut case, panhandlers, Randy, Seaton House, shelter, smokes, street people, suspicious minds, Toronto, tuna sandwich | 1 Comment »
March 6, 2008
PHILIP
“Hey Tony. Look, my letter got published in the today’s Globe.”
TONY
“You should get that up on the blog if you ask me. It’s just plain Canadian to say ‘please’.”
——-
PS: I’ll post a copy of the original March 5th op-ed later. In the meantime (sorry): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wconafta05/BNStory/specialComment
Philip
Posted in Bercuson, Canada, Canadian, Canadian culture, David Bercuson, homelessness, hubris, Ian Brodie, NAFTA, NAFTA leak, NAFTA-gate, NAFTAgate, Obama, please, politeness, sleeper cells, strategy | 1 Comment »
March 1, 2008
TONY
“That guy Barack’s doing unbelievable in those USA elections. I think that people are maybe figuring out that it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white — if you’re smart, you’re smart.”
PHILIP
“Amen.”
Posted in 1964, African-American, black, Civil Rights Act, homelessness, hot, Jerry Reed, LBJ, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, MLK, smart, white | 1 Comment »
February 15, 2008
As some of you know, Tony has a court hearing coming up on Feb 20th.
Because of the weather (I hope), I haven’t seen Tony in 2+ days. If you’re in the area and you happen to see him, please remind him (again!) to call his lawyer, Alice Barton, at Derstine Penman at 1-866-304-1921 so that everyone can be prepared for the 20th and for the human rights action that she’s launched on Tony’s behalf.
Thanks.
Philip
———
UPDATE – 5pm – I saw Tony and re-reminded him to call Alice. ps
Posted in Alice Barton, court, Derstine Penman, Go Ask Alice, homelessness, human rights, Tony Clemens | 3 Comments »
February 13, 2008
PHILIP
“Did you see the photo of JFK’s love-child who’s now living out in BC?”
TONY
“He’s a Kennedy, alright. You can see it in his eyes. Those Americans need a Kennedy again, I’m telling you. They need someone they can look up to.”
Posted in America, Barack Obama, Camelot, eyes, Globe and Mail, homeless, homelessness, Jack Worthington, JFK, John F. Kennedy, King Arthur, King of kings, leader, love child, Mary, Obama, President Kennedy, RFK, There's Something About Mary", US, virgin birth | 2 Comments »
February 13, 2008
Posted in 1999, Canadian Army, coincidence, dig, home, home invasion, homeless, homelessness, Krieghoff, snow, snowstorm, Toronto, winter | Leave a Comment »
February 11, 2008
TONY
“Damn it’s cold. It was -30 C with windchill last night they were saying — and I believe ’em. Hey, did you see my new guitar guy here?”
PHILIP
“Hard to miss him, actually.”
TONY
“You know that I spent 3 hours trying to fix him last night. Just wouldn’t work, even tried new batteries a couple of times. I tore the whole toy apart to find out what was wrong. Finally, I realized that I put the batteries in backwards. I just had put them in like the batteries go into Elmo. Boy, did that turn out to be a bad assumption.”
Posted in backward, bad assumptions, batteries, big bird, Elmo, fix, gotcha, guitar, homelessness, hours, Hugh McLennan, little bird, muppets, The Watch That Ends the Night", toys, windchill, wrong | 2 Comments »
February 8, 2008
PHILIP
“I got you some stuff. Here’s a bottle of ibuprofens, and here’s one of those cans of strawberry-flavoured Ensure drink. How about that, eh [!]?”
TONY
“Great. I appreciate it. I’ll be using that ibuprofen right away, thank you — and I’ll put that can in my refrigerator for dinner.”
Posted in cold, dinner, ensure, fridge, homelessness, ibuprofen, refrigerator, snow, stuff | 1 Comment »
February 3, 2008
TONY
“I had a funny thing happen today with a customer.”
PHILIP
“A customer? What happened?”
TONY
“He wanted to give me some change but he didn’t have any money on him.”
PHILIP
“So what happened?”
TONY
“So he asked me if I would take a credit card.”
PHILIP
“What did you say?”
TONY
“Well I told him that I didn’t even have a debit card machine. He thought that was pretty funny.”
Posted in credit card, debit card, funny, homelessness, Mastercard, priceless | Leave a Comment »
January 21, 2008
TONY
“Do you remember the fellow I was coaching a few weeks back?
“Well, believe it or not, I turned him in. It was small stuff he was into, but he wasn’t sticking to his word to me, so I had to turn him in. I even told the cops where to find him. So he gets hauled off to jail in cuffs and they charge him and now he’s going to trial in a few weeks. So you know what he says to me when he sees me? … ‘Thanks, Tony. Now I don’t have look behind me everywhere I go.’
“Well, I never turned a friend in before but this time it was the right thing to do.”
Posted in arrest, beggar, coaching, cops, handcuffs, homelessness, invisible, jail, morality, panhandling, police, right, right thing to do, roentgen, thank, Tony Clemens, visible, x-rays | 2 Comments »
January 15, 2008
PHILIP
“Your face is distinctly green.”
TONY
“Someone else sid that and it’s true. I can’t keep anything down. I bought myself a nice sausage and it ended up all over the road. Could you buy me a can of stew or chili?”
PHILIP
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? You want chili?”
TONY
“Yup. Trust me. It’s what I need right now.”
Posted in begging, homeless, homelessness, Kerouac, panhandling, road, trust | 1 Comment »
January 14, 2008
TONY
That photo you posted on the blog yesterday, it makes it look like I’m sitting in the middle of a pile of garbage. It’s sad to see myself like that.
Posted in beggar, drawing, Escher, garbage, hands, homeless, homelessness, panhandling, recursion, sadness, self-concept, yesterday | Leave a Comment »
Homeless Man Speaks 