It seems that my remarks about homelessness on a local TV station website have attracted some attention.  Rather than further chewing up that discussion with off-topic talk about me, I thought I'd go ahead and just respond here to those who seek to criticize.

I was invited to CA several times over a period of months by people I'd done work for.  I finally went, sick of NC and hoping to settle in for a couple of years, get an office up and running out there, and ultimately to return to MI.

Unfortunately, those who invited me created an artificial excuse to toss me out less than three weeks after I arrived with nothing more than my computer, camcorder, camera, and clothes.  No, I'm not willing to discuss the details here, as it would serve no purpose but to further titillate the voyeur class.  No, it would have done me no good to sell my meager possessions, as that would have left me in an even more helpless position if/when I finally did get back on my feet.  No, I didn't eat their cat or crayola their walls.  No, I will not offer any further explanation on this point.  If you feel the need to make up fantasy stories to fill the gaps, then so be it.

"West Coast":  I was born at Borgess Hospital.  I went to school at Ramona Lane, Portage North, and Portage Northern, where I had the good fortune to be taught by genuine leaders and thinkers like Asa Dawson, Doug Hoopingarner, Stan Ford, Larry Provancher, and others who took their responsibility as teachers seriously - teaching me how to THINK for myself, rather than just being able to pass standardized tests.  This is an art that I fear we've lost in this country, and we didn't have a great grip on it in the first place. 

This is MY home, from the old brick house at 11th and West Michigan where I was born (now a condo/office complex, and no longer brick, though last time I was there in the late 90's the two cherry trees and the big pine that used to be right outside the front door were still there) to the apartment over the Depot where I used to live, to the fields between Lovers Lane and the railroad tracks where I used to sneak out of my folks' house on Lovers to go to Star World on weekends. 

I became who I am over a process of 23 years living in Kalamazoo.  Hanging out on the corner of Idaho and Oregon before class, smoking Marlboro Reds and smoking ditchweed, walking down to Jet Gas at lunch hour to buy more smokes and a bottle of sugary caffeine, spending hours and hours at Boogie Records flipping through the records and eventually becoming a musician.  The first film I ever saw was at the Douglas Drive-in ('Star Wars,' as I recall).  I kissed my first girlfriend at Rollerworld on Kilgore.  Got my ear pierced by hand in the woods east of PNHS, on the hill above the softball fields.  Had my first real drink of beer in the parking lot by the football field.

I love this town, and have loved many of the people in it.  I wasn't just born here:  I *chose* to come back (although circumstances put me here a bit earlier and a bit less prepared than I'd like to have been).

Because I love this town.  It's in my blood, you see.

I must say it's rather disheartening to see what was once a vibrant and creative community reduced to petty internet trolls, Fox News-slurping sycophants, and the terminally unthinking.

I am home, now.  In Kalamazoo, where I was born, raised, and belong. 

Those who have known me are well aware that I am not shy about expressing my opinions.  Those who have gotten to know me since I left are well aware that whatever reticence I may have had in 1994 in regards to speaking my mind and being who I am, has long since disspated.  I am who I am, and if that's a problem for some folks...well, then some folks have a problem.  I am not quiet, I am not reserved, and most of all I refuse to suffer the foolishness and regurgitated banality that masquerades as social and political discourse in this country quietly.

Turning this into a conversation about me is the act of a pathetic coward trying to avoid facing responsibility for his or her own lack of common decency toward other human beings.

Tearing me down solves nothing.  Accusing me of being a liar solves nothing.  Kill me in the streets tomorrow, and it will not change the fact that some of you have abdicated your responsibilities as human beings and any pretense to common decency; you seek rabidly for any unfortunate soul you can point at and feel 'better' than; you create lies to fuel your addiction to schadenfreude, then you convince yourselves those lies are true to protect your tenuous grasp on any sense of self-worth.

Has any one of you ever bought a burger for a homeless person?  It costs a buck at McDonalds.

These people are lost, hopeless, confused, and ignored.  They are despised and cast off; ostracized and criminalized and sanitized for your protection so you can sit in your cushy little pseudo-lives and have someone to look down your nose at.

And they are also human beings, deserving of the same love, respect, and dignity as any other.

Calling me all the names in the world will not change that, nor will it change your ethical and moral bankruptcy in failing to treat these people with the humanity they deserve.

I have nothing to prove, and no obligation to prove anything.  The only thing you accomplish by attacking me is revealing yourselves as cowards who are afraid to face your own shortcomings.

And in the mean time, people are still sleeping on the streets.  KIDS are still sleeping on the streets.  Our entire social structure is failing, and failing miserably, from broken education systems to dysfunctional health care to mental health structures that are just plain...well, insane.

And your solution is to throw water balloons at a stranger online.

Draw all the conclusions you want about me, if that's the diversion you need to keep you from facing yourself.

But don't blame me when you wake up one day and realize that your life has meant nothing.