10-15-2022, 11:06 AM
This morning, while I was walking down to pee between the storage containers a block from the day shelter, I came across a pallet in the median. I went back and got Shane, and we demolished the pallet and harvested chunks of the slats for firewood.
This wood burned cleanly with no smoke while the top of the stove was open, but dense clouds of noxious smoke were produced when the pot was placed on top of it.
While I was fucking around with this, a man told me the last person who started a fire there went straight to jail. They didn't just make him put the fire out, as I imagined they would.
Also at about the same time, a church group had set up a meal line, and they were serving coffee. I got a cup of coffee from them, put out the fire, and left in disgust.
The thing I'm most disgusted with right now, even more than having to depend on handouts rather than doing for myself, is this brand of "we" socialism that I first encountered among the Rainbow Family kids in Asheville years ago, and which I'm seeing now.
"We" socialists are those who talk about what "we" accomplished, or what "we" are gonna accomplish, but never contribute anything towards the cost and labor of getting it done. I'm talking about costs other than food, which I obviously don't need any help with.
Scott, the biggest critic of the "me" mentality among the homeless, is a "we" socialist. He wants to sit in the day shelter parking lot all day on Saturday when the day shelter is closed and wait for trucks to bring handouts. If we were at the night shelter, I could be selling pops to make money for charcoal so we can do this hobo stove thing right. We'd get there faster if he bought 50 cent pops from me instead of dollar pops from Jeff, but he's waiting for me to pull a miracle single-handedly from my ass.
I'd really love to be cooking hot meals instead of waiting around for someone to hand me yet another cold, flavorless hotdog or potato burrito. Alas, it's going to be awhile before I can pull it all together by myself. You can bet your ass there'll be a crowd of buzzards circling to reap the rewards when I do.
This wood burned cleanly with no smoke while the top of the stove was open, but dense clouds of noxious smoke were produced when the pot was placed on top of it.
While I was fucking around with this, a man told me the last person who started a fire there went straight to jail. They didn't just make him put the fire out, as I imagined they would.
Also at about the same time, a church group had set up a meal line, and they were serving coffee. I got a cup of coffee from them, put out the fire, and left in disgust.
The thing I'm most disgusted with right now, even more than having to depend on handouts rather than doing for myself, is this brand of "we" socialism that I first encountered among the Rainbow Family kids in Asheville years ago, and which I'm seeing now.
"We" socialists are those who talk about what "we" accomplished, or what "we" are gonna accomplish, but never contribute anything towards the cost and labor of getting it done. I'm talking about costs other than food, which I obviously don't need any help with.
Scott, the biggest critic of the "me" mentality among the homeless, is a "we" socialist. He wants to sit in the day shelter parking lot all day on Saturday when the day shelter is closed and wait for trucks to bring handouts. If we were at the night shelter, I could be selling pops to make money for charcoal so we can do this hobo stove thing right. We'd get there faster if he bought 50 cent pops from me instead of dollar pops from Jeff, but he's waiting for me to pull a miracle single-handedly from my ass.
I'd really love to be cooking hot meals instead of waiting around for someone to hand me yet another cold, flavorless hotdog or potato burrito. Alas, it's going to be awhile before I can pull it all together by myself. You can bet your ass there'll be a crowd of buzzards circling to reap the rewards when I do.
