Public Art show in Hollywood!

Show #1 of my Urinating in Public Summer Tour is now up and running, somewhere in Hollywood.  Good luck finding it.  Presented by Gallery 5043.  Art shows where bums pee.  It's free, open to the public, and will still probably manage piss someone off.  People get irate about the dumbest things these days.  Photos are from my #SEstreetlife series, many of which appear on this blog.  Show runs until all photos are stolen.  Enjoy!  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

 

#SEstreetlife- More beauty seen on the streets- 8/10/2022

Flowers in the afternoon sun, on a hot summer day.  Tarzana, CA, 2022.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Flowering bush in Tarzana, 2022.

Flowering tree, Tarzana, 2022.

Flowering bush again, different angle.  Tarzana, 2022.  

This whole little session of shooting photos started when I walked up to a bus stop, and saw a hummingbird really close up.  Of course, by the time I set my bags down and got my phone powered up to take a photo, the hummingbird was gone.  But there were several bees working these flowers.  There's one in this photo, if you look close.  Do you see it?  Tarzana, 2022.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

While this looked like a carpenter bee in size, I'm used to seeing them with gold and black coloration.  So I looked them up real quick.  This appears to be a Californica carpenter bee, which is generally all black.  The lighting's not great, but when I can get a photo of a moving bee from 3-4 inches away, I'll take it.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

 

#SEstreetlife photos- Hollywood, California- 7/15/2022

Bruce Lee's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  2019.  #SEstreelife, #steveemigphotos

The Damn Team, a street performing dance team.  Ending their show at Hollywood and Highland area, with a flip over five crowd members.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Mel's Drive-in on Highland, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, in Hollywood.  2020.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Graffiti in Hollywood, 2020.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Those Turtles, TMNT, graffiti in Hollywood, 2020.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Hollywood Boulevard is a weird scene.  Full service panhandler trying to make a dollar, 2019.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

Affordable housing...  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos, #steveemigmemes

 

#SEstreetlife photos- The worst is yet to come... and other street art

Street art in the east end of the San Fernando Valley in 2020 and 2021.  All of these are from that Obey guy, you know who he is.  Above, close-up of the piece below.  "The worst is yet to come."  #OBEY.  #SEstreetlife, #Steveemigphotos 

Andre' the Giant/Misfit icon on and abandoned motel, Studio City, 2020.  

Stay up and Obey.  Someone wrote on it, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."  Some people just need to rage (against the machine).  

Obey icon on an electric box.  2020.

Below, detail from the poster above.  "From across the world... Welcome visitors (with a few exceptions)".  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

 

#SEstreetlife photos- Random pics from the streets- 6/19/2022

Above, someone doesn't like art, or at least street art.  Obey poster in The Valley, 2021.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos.  Below, a job offer?  Hmmmmm.  Sticker on a highly stickered taco stand in Costa Mesa in 2019.  

Above, this so reminds me of high school in Boise in the 80's.  Her name is Becky (seen on another sticker of her), and she's drinking out of the paper bag, Generation X style.  On a sign in the Universal City area, 2020.  Below, wider shot of that sign.  

mAbove, homeless amputee veteran on his power chair, charging his cell phone at one of the Red Line train platforms during the Covid shutdowns.  I was there charging my devices as well.  At that particular spot, we often had to hang out while people smoked meth or crack on the bench, while we were charging.  Most or all of these charging outlets have since been plated over, making it much harder for homeless people to charge their phones.  This particular spot, in Hollywood, was used by dozens of people every day.  

Heroin addict sleeping standing up at a bus stop.  I was sitting there eating my breakfast, as I often did at the time.  This guy wavered back and forth, mostly asleep, without falling over, for at least 20 minutes.  I had to ask other homeless people how tis happened, later on.  They told me that heroin addicts sometimes can literally fall asleep standing up, and somehow not fall over.  2021.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos
 

#SEstreetlife: The Snowstorm

Aawww... the gently falling snow looks so beautiful in this photo, doesn't it?  I was sitting in the snack bar of a nice, warm, Target store when I shot this photo, in December of 2018.  This is Richmond, Virginia, on West Broad Street, near Libbie, the west side of the city.  The lame part of this photo is that I was homeless, and when Target closed three hours early, because of the snow, I had to go outside for the night.  

I hiked through 4-5 inches of snow, while it was still coming down hard, to my sleeping spot, about 100 yards away.  I slept on this tiny little porch of an abandoned Bar-B-Q restaurant, that's it in this photo.  There was a tiny area, then three steps down.  I had two sleeping bags, two moving blankets, and 5 or 6 layers of cardboard boxes underneath me for insulation.  

The snow kept falling well into the night.  It wasn't a super cold night, it was about 25 degrees, I think.  I've survived two or three nights in the 11 to 12 degree range, two in Virginia and one in North Carolina, in a tent.  That's a few degrees warmer than the freezer in your refrigerator.  Imagine craling into your freezer, and spending the night.  Yeah, not fun.  

Unfortunately, my shoes and feet got all wet from walking through the snow.  I spent 17 1/2 hours huddled in this little area freezing my ass off, with bare feet, under my pile of blankets.  Then I had to put my wet shoes on my bare feet, and hike to a CVS, hoping they would be open.  The fast food places I usually went in the mornings didn't open, because Richmond isn't used to big snowstorms.  So I hiked up to CVS, hoping they would be open, with my bare feet, in wet, frozen shoes, and marched right into their restroom.  I dried my shoes and warmed up with the hand dryers for about 20 minutes.  Then I caught a bus to the library, I think, to warm up for the day.  

Later that afternoon, I went back to my usual McDonald's.  This is the patio of Mickey D's, and you can see the 10-11 inches of snow from the storm piled up on the benches.  Homeless life isn't all glamor.  Heh, heh.  Shit, it isn't glamorous at all.  Dealing with rain and snow while homeless fucking sucks balls.  Big fucking donkey balls.  Big fucking donkey balls with festering, oozing green sores.  I mean it REALLY sucks.  It's fucking miserable in the winter.  Cold rainy days between 35 and 40 degrees are actually the worst, dealing with 25 degrees and snow is actually a little easier.  But 17 1/2 hours outside in 25 degrees and 10-11 inches of snow was a rough night.  I wasn't sure I was going to survive.  I just tried not to freak out, and stay as quiet and warm as possible.  The abandoned restaurant has been torn down, and is now a Chase bank, I just checked the place on Google Maps.  It's right by the farthest west Pulse bus stop. 

 This is the time and temperature sign right by the McDonald's I went to nearly every morning, while I stayed on that little porch in the winter of 2018-19.  This wasn't the day of the snowstorm, just one of the many mornings that were well below freezing.  In times like that, you just try to stay alive day after day, hoping life will get better somewhere down the road.  This is why I don't bitch about the occasional 35-40 degree nights in L.A. (not very much, I still bitch sometimes).  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

#SEstreetlife photos- 5/24/2022

These four photos are ones I shot in 2021, while we were still in full Covid-19 restrictions mode.  What you see in the pic above is an actual homeless hammock set-up in a fucking tree.  I'd thought about doing this at times, but I'm a really fat dude these days, so it wasn't feasible.  This was right in front of where I had my storage unit, and pretty much unnoticed by most people.  Anyone remember Swiss Family Robinson?  This set-up didn't look that comfortable, but it was definitely creative.  Below is the same tree see from a short distance away.  Other than a sign this guy hung on the tree, most people, even those walking their dogs under the tree, didn't see this spot.  He had it up there, and actually slept up in the tree many nights, for about two months, I think.  There was a big homeless encampment right across the street at the time which is now all cleared out.

The tree with the homeless hammock in it, well hidden from sight.  2021.  #SEstreetlife, #steveemigphotos

The bag car.  There are many levels of homelessness, something I'll explain in more detail in a future post.  There are A LOT of people living in their cars these days, like in the movie Nomadland, but locally.  Many of these people do have jobs, but don't earn enough to pay rent, and all other bills, associated with having an apartment. This guys really needs a van.  OK, he needs an apartment, but he could use a van or bigger car in the meantime.  

The Park-N-Ride in my area turned into a Park-N-Live during the Covid era.  Here's an older limo, being used as a bedroom/storage unit, in one group's campsite.  This encampment, which had 6 to8 RV's and maybe 15 ramshackle huts, has been declared off limits to camping since.  Most of the people went into the local neighborhood, camping on the sidewalks, afterwards, and others when to the edge of the park, across the freeway from this site, which is in the East end of The Valley.  

I call this "Homeless Pinball."  A group of city leaders in one city will get the police and outreach workers to push homeless people out of an encampment site, which usually sends them right into the local neighborhood, a park, or other empty lots nearby.  Pretty much everyone from this encampment moved to new locations within 200 yards of this site, when pushed out.  But they weren't visible from the freeway, which is what mattered at the time.  Sweeping bums under the rug, and out of sight, so to speak.  Several months later, as we began to come out of the Covid restrictions, they were all pushed to move elsewhere.  Some may have got housing (local motels, then on a list for apartments, paid with tax dollars),  and some may have simply moved across city lines to another outdoor spot in a nearby city.  The only guy I really talked to got a motel room to stay in 30 minutes away.  

As we open up completely out of the Covid era, there's a massive push to get people into "housing," and get homeless people out of sight in L.A.  "Housing gives people a roof over their head, a bathroom, a shower, TV, and power to charge phones and other devices.  These people keep social program money, like EBT (food stamps), and other programs. most of the time.  But they wind up with very little money to live on for personal expeneses, and very little to do, but binge watch TV.  "Housing"  usually comes with curfews, searches of personal property, not having the key to your room (security lets you in in some cases) room searches, and bans on weed/cannabis, alcohol, and possibly cigarettes. which are all legal.  "Housing" leads to addiction and mental health programs, but rarely leads to  ever making an actual decent living,  where you can rent your own apartment again.  So even long term housing is still a temporary fix.  People going through these programs don't become what most people would consider "productive people" again.  

For those and other reasons, a lot of homeless people prefer to remain on the streets, which allows much more personal freedom.  There are a lot more nuances to these issues, which I'll probably dive into deeper in future posts.