NoChancer Headlines

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Homeless Hall of Fame


San Francisco has LA beat pretty soundly in the cultural department. Believe me, San Francisco has more than its fair share of annoying phenomenon, chief among them the wave of hipsters that have descended up on the city like a Vans-wearing fog. There’s nothing more aggravating than someone who spends hours every morning trying to look like they just rolled out of bed. At least LA doesn’t pretend, aspiring actresses aren’t ashamed to admit they’re just steps away from becoming collagen enhanced cyborgs. But there is one area that San Francisco soundly beats the bejeezus out of LA, their homeless population. SF has some of the most creative and memorable homeless folks in the country. In a way they’re a microcosm of the city’s general population, people who just didn’t quite fit in other places and at least found a place where no matter how crazy they are, there’s someone infinitely more insane waiting around the corner. I have to say I’m relatively disappointed in LA’s homeless population, there’s plenty of them but I don’t think I’ll remember a single one. It may be a matter of location, West Hollywood may not attract the cream of the crazy homeless crop, but I oddly find myself longing for the days when a guy wearing a tinfoil hat would calmly sit next to you on the bus. In SF the homeless become minor celebrities, every neighborhood has its favorites and a select few even achieve city-wide fame. It’s not uncommon to have this exchange:
You: “So where do you live?”
Me: “I’m in the Inner Sunset.”
You: “Oh, you know that guy who walks around with a live rabbit on his head?”
Me: “Of course, I was just talking to him today next to the ATM machine.”
So to ease some of my San Francisco homesickness here’s the first induction ceremony for the Homeless Hall of Fame. To qualify you need to be not just crazy, but you need to make a significant contribution to the crazy game, setting the crazy bar just a little higher for the next generation. On a side note some of these people are certainly homeless, and for some it’s completely conceivable that they have a home yet spend every day on the streets doing things that would in no way qualify them to participate in mainstream society. The point is we’re not talking about eccentric millionaires or performance artists here, these are people who are genuinely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Ladies and Gentleman, may I present the 2007 Inaugural Class:

The Guy Who Smells Like Pee: The name says it all. Anyone who rides the N Train on a regular basis knows exactly who I’m talking about. Now it’s nothing special for a homeless man to smell like pee, but this guy has taken it to a whole new level. He smells like he peed his clothes, took them off, peed on them again, and then put them back on. Rinse, lather, repeat. He smells so bad people cram into the front car of the train to avoid him, giving him the back car all to himself. In every other way he’s your run-of-the-mill homeless guy, tattered clothes, doesn’t even really talk. It’s like he decided he was simply going to own the urine-smell department. Just simply outstanding work, a real dedication to his craft.

Painting-scooter guy: Here’s someone who probably does have a home somewhere, but how he makes enough money to survive I have no idea. He’s an innocuous older white man complete with decades old khakis and loafers who works primarily around Church St. and Market St. He putters around on an ancient scooter with a trunk in the back while wearing an enormous black helmet. Every so often he calmly pulls over, reaches into the scooter’s trunk, pulls out a paint brush, and slops a couple of lines of white paint on some surface. Billboards, storefront windows, the sidewalk, it’s all fair game. There’s no `apparent logic behind what he paints and there’s no discernable image or message. It’s undoubtedly illegal but he does it so calmly that no one ever says anything, everyone’s just so stunned by his brazenness he operates with seeming immunity. He’s my hero.

Lucy – I’m pretty sure that’s her name, my memory is letting me down (I’m sure one of our SF readers can confirm). She’s consistently smears her entire face with red lipstick and hangs out around 9th and Irving St. She never stops ranting, just a constant stream of fascinating associations. “No you can’t take my dog! Marshmallows! Where ‘s the hammer, I need some nails for the hammer!” What really sets her apart is her ability to speak completely lucidly for small moments. She’ll go into a store and calmly buy a packet of cigarettes with loose change, exchange pleasantries with the store owner, talk about the weather, and then literally the second she steps foot on the sidewalk it’s back to “Merry Go-Round explosion unicorns!” The rumor is she used to be a lawyer before her life fell apart. Watching her transition from complete civility to insane rant is incredible.

Hate Man: A true Berkeley institution. He believes that only in anger can people truly connect, so if you want to talk to him you have to go shoulder to shoulder and lean against him so there’s a constant struggle to remain upright. Everyday he can be found banging into a never-ending stream of people, ending each conversation with a resolute “I hate you.” He’s relatively non-threatening, and frankly it’s only a matter of time before you have to give it a whirl; give him a shoulder bump, and say “Hi, I hate you.”

Frank Chu (see picture above) – The undisputed champion. No one seems to know any real info on Frank, the rumor is he has a house in Oakland (he might also have a house on Zenon), regardless his prospects for unemployment seem remote at best. He walks around the Financial District screaming that an intergalactic organization called the 12 Galaxies has conspired to keep him from becoming a move star. I don’t even know if I can explain how little sense he makes. Take a moment to read his sign in the picture, that’s exactly what he’s talking about. He’ll show up to protests and do his thing with little to no regard for what’s being protested.
Crowd: “Stop the unjust war in Iraq!”
Frank: The transuniversal ecto-laws have made me intergenic!”
What we need is for some enterprising reporter to just follow him for a day to see where he goes at night, I’m astounded the SF Chronicle hasn’t already done it. God I love Frank Chu.

I present to you the first class of the Homeless Hall of Fame. For those of you who live in places without enormous homeless populations who might think this is a little unsympathetic to say the least, let me respond: either you start finding a way to laugh about the army of destitute and pained people around you everyday, or you turn into a quivering mess of regret and guilt. The reality of the situation is a little more complicated than “I’ll do a good deed and give this guy a couple dollars.” I encourage all you out there to send in your nominations for the Hall of Fame, we can make this a truly national endeavor.