- The "Couples" set by AnomalousNYC on Flickr. Another favorite is "Saints of the Lower East Side". Or Faces of New York.
- "With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the road and in the streets" - Although published back in 2005, I just discovered this one. I've held a long time fascination with traveling kids (a.k.a. gutterpunks, oogles, trainhoppers) and it's been a love/hate feeling. For example, when I saw one of these guys standing, obligatory mutt next to him, flying a sign right across the street from a guy in a wheelchair who was also flying a sign and was there before him (at Lake x Hiawatha about a month ago) I was pretty annoyed. On the other hand, I do understand that some of the population is on the streets for valid reasons. I also know for a fact that some of them are there for the adventure - it's the adventurers that I get annoyed with - they are sucking up resources that should be going to others and when they panhandle, it feels as though they want us (the general public) to finance their fun. No one financed me during the many years I spent as a single parent - not even the government (I only qualified and used medical assistance until recently).
So anyway, my point is this: I am trying to look at the population without my judgements and dig further in and learn. But I'm not going to lie, they are there. When I was out this summer with friends who are or have been quite involved in the traveling kid/punk community and asked, because I was trying to understand, why there are so many and why they run around the country spanging, hopping from punk house to punk house and just kind of living a free but selfish (my opinion) lifestyle the main answer was this: It has been glamourized and therefore, like everything else, become the thing to do. It's trendy among kids high school through college. I agree. Someone I know pretty well told me stories of living on the street a few times because his dad and he didn't get along. There was no abuse, unless he omitted that, but he chose to live on the street with a bunch of kids rather than stick it out at home a few more years. It's hard for me to understand, actually wait, it's not. I understand the idea of sitting around all day with friends, drinking, exploring new places, traveling, meeting new people, doing projects, etc... but with that, I would know not to expect other people to toss me coins so I could do this.
I'm thinking that I may have felt differently had I been able to travel like these kids, unfortunately by the time I discovered that it was possible, I was already a mother. I had only known road trips by car prior to moving to Minneapolis. I was in this mind that right after high school, I couldn't afford college (most likely I could have gotten financial aid) and that my only option was to go to work full-time, I landed in the factories of my town and we took road trips any chance we got. The last one (we were gone a month) required that we give up our rental house and upon our return, we moved in with family. So, in that way, I suppose we did end up doing a similar thing - someone else was helping us finance our adventures... Hmm, I guess I'm not so different than the oogles after all.
- My bike playlist (for my ipod speaker gadget):
Some highlights:
- Juicy - Notorious BIG
- Save Me - M. Ward
- Kids and Electric Feel - MGMT
- Dead Moon Night and Killing Me - Dead Moon
- What's up Fat Lip - Fat Lip
- Broken record, unfinished song - Blotto
- Freesong - Delightful Little Nothings from the 12 Bands from Benecia comp
- Some Black Cobra song I can't remember the name of
- Poison Ivy and Songs of Separation - Rymodee
- Ghetto Superstar - ODB
- The Beer - Kimya Dawson
- Vampire - Antsy Pants
- Fading All Away - Jay Reatard
All this being said, it desperately needs to be updated. I've been without itunes since July (?) and haven't been able to change out any songs... :(
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