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August 31, 2012
Walking In - 8/29/12
When I get to Market and Sansome, a homeless guy that I don't recognize catches my attention
No shirt, dreadlocks, body covered in tattoos,
No socks.
No shoes.
He's wearing underwear on his feet
That's what draws my attention...he's wearing underwear on his feet.
So, I start shooting him from a safe distance with the long lens.
He's digging through one of the free newspaper dispensers, which is not unusual
The homeless routinely use these for lockers, trash cans, drop boxes, etc.
But the underwear on his feet is a sign that cannot be missed.
See, SF loves the homeless. The give them free apartments, free meals, free clothes...u name it
So, if this guy can't keep shoes on his feet then something is alarmingly wrong with him.
Now he's talking to the man that runs the newsstand
Babbling in that intensely delusional stream of consciousness that makes u think he might be onto something
But it's all nonsense
Paranoid delusional non sequiturs. 'Word Salad' at a thousand words a minute
And I stop to shoot him not because its easy. It is not.
I shoot him because I see him.
Because I refuse to politely tune him out like gum on the sidewalk
The city is what it does to you.
It sucks you and and spits you out but you're not the same at the end
You cant watch people eating out of trash cans all day without getting warped and bent in a manner that's difficult to predict.
Everyone gets all spun together into this human salad and at night everyone pulls back like uranium rods from a nuclear reactor and the reaction slows
But we're not the same at night over beers with warm friends at Amante.
We're not the same as we were this morning.
Update: When I got to work, I read that the city had shut down an Obamaville of about 50 homeless meth addicts down on 5th and King Street under the Highway 280 overpass. So, that's probably what my guy was. A meth addict evicted from an Obamaville.
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 31, 2012 at 5:55 PM
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