PHILIP
“Do you know, Oscar Peterson died?”
TONY
“Yup. Let me tell you, I remember Oscar Petersen. He was something. He was one of those great Canadians.”
Archive for the 'homelessness' Category
Way back when
January 10, 2008Soothing the soul
January 4, 2008 
TONY
“Thanks [for the coffee, Phil]. This is the first one I’ve had in 3 days.”
PHILIP
“Where were you?”
TONY
“Mostly at Mike’s place. I just pay him some rent and his girlfriend is cool with it.”
PHILIP
“What’ve you been eating … you haven’t even had a coffee in 3 days?”
TONY
“Nope. Noodles, mostly.”
PHILIP
“What do you do while you’re at Mike’s?”
TONY
“Well, other than sleeping, I do stuff that needs doing around the house and I watch TV and some other things. But my favourite is old-time radio on AM900. You can’t beat the Lone Ranger.”
Bearding with whiskers
December 31, 2007
PHILIP
“Where did you sleep last night?”
TONY
“Do you like my trim?
PHILIP
“Very elegant. Where did you sleep last night?”
TONY
“My friend had locked up for the night so I went round to the my donut shop, which is where I trimmed my beard in the bathroom. I got myself into a bit of a confrontation with this guy who came into the bathroom after me. He was pissed that I’d left my beard hairs in the sink. So told him that if he hadn’t been knocking on the bathroom door so hard and pleading to get in, I would have cleaned up after myself like always. He didn’t like being shown up but after the waitress told him the same thing, he went and sat down and shut his mouth.
“Some people like him don’t see that they make their own problems.”
Assassinating Benazir Bhutto
December 27, 2007 
PHILIP
“Did you hear that Benazir Bhutto was just assassinated?”
TONY
“Yeah, someone just told me about that. I bet you President Bush caused it somehow.”
Joke of the butt
December 26, 2007
PHILIP
You got any stories that might bring a smile to your readers during Christmas time?
TONY
“It’s funny that you asked that question since I was just thinking about a funny thing that happened to me a few years ago – it wasn’t funny at the time though. This is when I learned that wooden toilet seats are better than the other plastic ones, even those thick plastic ones.
“So I was sitting on this toilet made of that thick plastic I was talking about — not one of those flimsy ones — and it just cracked under my bum. Somehow one of my cheeks got caught in the crack, and boy did that hurt. I just screamed bloody murder. Turns out it was bleeding pretty bad but I didn’t know. So I started bleeding through my pants, ’til they were totally bloody all down the back of my legs. I couldn’t sit on that cheek for almost 2 months, if you know what I mean. The wood seats just wouldn’t do that to you.”
John gets a home
December 18, 2007 
PHILIP
“Where did you sleep last night?”
TONY
“Right now, I’m sleeping down in the basement at my friend Mike’s. I’ve been doing some work for him on and off. He needs a john in his place and I found one the other day that someone was throwing out — right there on the sidewalk not far from here. The whole toilet was there, no cracks or anything. So I hauled it over to Mike’s and I’m installing it for him.”
Slipping away
December 14, 2007
The dependency dilemma
December 13, 2007 
TONY
“Hey Phil, check this out. It’s my pigeon from the other day. I told him not to get too dependent on me.”
Snow blind
December 9, 2007 
TONY
“I found my glasses.”
PHILIP
“Where were they?”
TONY
“In the snow bank I slept in last night. I thought for sure I’d never find’em.”
It’s Tony’s lucky break
December 5, 2007
PHILIP
“You look like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come — what happened to you?”
TONY
“I went ass over tea kettle on the ice. Always happens to me when I put my hands in my pockets, I just got too cocky.”
PHILIP
“Where did you hurt yourself?”
TONY
“Here on my side here. I’m lucky I already have that broken collar bone. Otherwise I would have for sure pushed that bone would be sticking right out my shoulder. I’m telling you, it hurts like hell; I hit it the ground pretty hard. Serves me right though, I should keep my hands out of my pockets on the ice.”
Pizza and wings
December 3, 2007 
TONY
“See that pigeon over there, hobbling around. He flew smack straight into the corner edge of that building right over there. I went over to him — I didn’t think he was going to live; he’d tore up his left chest bad. I’ve been nursing him a little, even got him to eat a little bit of pizza. If you ask me, that’s a pretty tough bird.”
Tony and Phil — The Video
November 30, 2007
thestar.com/videosearch?q=homeless&OrderBy=sReleaseDate%20DESC.
…………….
Thanks to Neil Sanderson at The Toronto Star.
Cough-22
November 28, 2007
PHILIP
“You’re coughing again.”
TONY
“You’re telling me! It’s pushing my gut through my stomach muscles now.”
PHILIP
“Why don’t you go down to St. Joe’s and see a doctor?”
TONY
“No point.”
PHILIP
“What?”
TONY
“They’ll just write me up a prescription, but how’m I going to pay for it?”
PHILIP
“Come on, Tony, there’s got to be a government drug payment scheme for people in your situation.”
TONY
“Yeah, I’m working on that.”
À la recherche du temps perdu
November 25, 2007
PHILIP
“Tony, when’s the last time you took a vacation?”
TONY
“Ten years ago maybe. I don’t really remember.”
Has anybody seen my sweet sister Rose?
November 22, 2007
TONY
“You won’t believe this. I saw my sister Rose. It was a total fluke. I’d been getting these feelings that I should go to up the bingo hall, you know, up on Lansdowne. So two nights ago, I went up there. Just as I’m getting up there, the place is having a smoke break, and people are coming out to light up. And there comes my older sister in the middle of the crowd, and she looks at me and I look at her and we just stand there looking at each other. It was a total fluke. Finally I say to her: ‘Where’s my hug?’ and she comes up and gives me one.”
Remembering to say thank-you
November 21, 2007 
TONY
“I know everybody thinks Bush has lost it upstairs but also you know, I meet a lot of Yanks and most of them are nice and decent people when you get to talk to them. And they’re spittin’ mad — same as us about Vietnam — I mean Iraq — and they can’t stand Bush just like we Canadians can’t.”
PHILIP
“And your point is …?”
TONY
“Well, someone just reminded me that it was American Thanksgiving on Thursday. It just made me think we should be giving thanks for having Americans as neighbours, even if their government’s run by a bunch of cocaine addicts. You gotta remember that America saved our ass a few times in history.”
Somewhere only we know
November 19, 2007 
TONY
“Hey Phil, do you have two bucks? My pneumonia is killing me; I need to lie down somewhere.”
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
November 13, 2007 
TONY
“Phil, you should hear what happened to me Saturday night:
I was paying my respects to Silvio, the homeless guy who got killed in September down at King and Ronces, the guy I told you about and we wrote in the blog. So I got on my bike and I start coughing and coughing and coughing, you know, because of my pneumonia. Anyway, I was riding down King Street while I was coughing my ass off — guess who comes around the corner down near Dufferin? I’ll tell you who came around the corner. It was that same fire truck from 426 Division, you know the one that saved me from being run over last winter and it’s also the same one that ran over my friend a few months back. So I nearly hit this truck — but I don’t — but there’s this car behind the truck and this car is totally new, shined up and everything. Plus, believe it or not, it’s a new Porsche 911. I’m not kidding you. So I try to miss hitting the Porsche but I wiped out, into into the back quarter panel. So, of course, the guy gets out of the car, of course he’s pissed at me, and I’m telling you, he’s six-foot-something and he’s got biceps that could crack walnuts. So he looks at down me and says: ‘I know you. You’re homelessmanspeaks.com.’ So he’s was pretty nice to me considering but now I owe him $100.”
The naked and the dead
November 10, 2007 
TONY
“You remember that aura that visited me when my friend died a while back? Well he came visiting me again.”
PHILIP
“Where was this?”
TONY
“You know the place where I’ve been sleeping the last few nights? It was the middle of the night and I was under all my clothes and covers, and all of a sudden the place was lit up like there was a fire, but I knew it was that aura. I don’t know what he wants this time but I’m for sure doing what he says.”
Homeless Man Speaks 
