There's A Place in the world for a Gambler

I've been blessed and cursed. You see I discovered late in life what I've always been a little "Different".

In my teens I resonated to the lyrics of the Beach Boys "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" but didn't fully understand why.

I keep looking for a place to fit
Where I can speak my mind
I've been trying hard to find the people
That I won't leave behind

They say I got brains
But they ain't doing me no good
I wish they could

Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin' for myself
But what goes wrong

I found out that I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) I think differently than the majority.

The blessing: Strong language and memory skills. I can remember incidents and people from back to my childhood. Vividly. And spatially, I can pack a car trunk or storage locker like it was a jigsaw puzzle. Getting things in places that others believed would never fit in. I also have the ability to "fit in" in most social situations easily creating conversations with total strangers and including others as well. And I'm good in a crisis. Whether it be a person getting a flat tire in the fast lane on the freeway and calming them, talking them to the side of the road while signaling cars behind us of our intentions, or calming nerves and adding perspective after the loss of a loved one is overshadowed by the events of 09-11-01. (My sister died of Colon Cancer 09-07-01; her memorial was 09-10-01.)

The Curse: Not fitting in to the mainstream, having a "hot" temper when dealing with retail middle management types whose adherence to "the book" and "office politics" overrode logic, analysis and/or common sense. Low self esteem. The inability to sell "Myself".

I have a Bachelor's Degree in Literature (Creative Writing). I snuck up on it after 10 years of avocationally taking classes. A counselor called me in and said I was 10 units shy of earning an AA degree. I'd had no idea...but it was too late, the hook was in. After attaining the degree I felt a bit of loss. Was this the end of the line for me? Having not cared about going for a degree just months earlier, happy just to be taking classes and feeling competent in my abilities in academia, I was now confronted with an un-dreamt of possibility for my life. To become a college graduate. Thanks to a fortuitous meeting with an old high school friend who just happened to work in a local university Financial Aide office I was lead to a path that lead to my eventual BA degree.

An advanced degree! High paying jobs hear I come! unfortunately that never came to be. I've lived my life never achieving an income above $25K/yr.

Luckily, I am very good budgeting with what I have. (Which is why I've been able to live on under $11K/each of the last two years. But I paid my rent & bills, looked for work and even tried my hand at self-employment and still had enough resources to visit friends and do a few excursions from time to time and feel I was living a decent life.

But zero income and zero shelter makes for tougher times. Sitting still is not an option - especially in California, my home state, where the unemployment rate is at 12.2% and in the Los Angeles Metro Statistical Area was just surpassed by the state for the first time, registering in at 11.8 % as of August 2009. (When I ceased to be counted as one of the "Unemployed")

Theres a place in the world For a gambler

Theres a burden that only He can bear Theres a place in the world For a gambler...

...Theres a light in the depths

Of your darkness Theres a calm at the eye Of every storm. Theres a light in the depths Of your darkness. Let is shine Oh, let it shine...

The decision.

I had for sometime had the notion that taking the journey that Steinbeck attempted would be a great adventure as well as an overdue updating of the american scene. Add to that interviews with people I'd meet along the way, capturing their stories and experiences as Studs Terkel had done with Working and Hard Times. I have nothing to prevent me from taking on this journey except the resources to complete it. I have a list of publishers I am sending quarry letters to in this regard and am looking to see if I can get funding to make this a video documentary someplace between Ken Burns and Michael Moore.

I was heartened by the Emmy acceptance speech of Jeff Probst this year when he said:

"Tonight I also want to share this (Emmy) with anybody who has a dream, because I am living my dream right here in this moment. If you have a dream, dream big -- pursue it with a passion. In the words of the great storyteller Joseph Campbell, 'The adventure you're ready for is the one you get. Life is short, go for it.'"

"The Adventure you're ready for is the one you get." - I am so ready for it and I AM going for it.

I think of the words from Dances With Wolves when the post commander asked why Lt. Dunbar requested that assignment.

His reply:

Lt. Dunbar: I wish to see the frontier.

Major Fambrough: You wish to see the frontier?
Lt. Dunbar: Yes sir, before it's gone.

It also reminds me of the grand vistas seen in the movie The Frisco Kid.

Such beauty was breathtaking and I remember sitting in the theater thinking "Where did they shoot this? Does that part of America must still exist!" I had been surprised by the natural beauty of our land and also surprised that I had so easily believed that it was already gone.

A friend on facebook posted more inspiration just last night.

People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. - Norman Vincent Peale

And to bring this post to a close I will post the other inspirations for this journey.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”

by William Hutchinson Murray (1913-1996), from his 1951 book entitled The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

And

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism."

[this is commonly attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Shearson Lehman (American Express) or anon.]

I care little as to who really is the source of these quotes, only that they resonate in the soul and inspire.

- Rik

Homeless, Not Hopeless

Sometime between Wednesday the 7th of this year (2009) and Monday the 12th I will officailly become homeless.

I've been unemployed since the 30th of January 2008. I am no longer even even that. As of August, I have exhausted all the benefits the government believes they can see fit to provide persons like myself.

We have paid into the system for all of our employed lives, even had to set aside what little money we received in march to pay our taxes out of the benefits we received. And once we are dropped off roles, the unemployment levels will not even count that we are out there.

As you can see below, I was attempting to become self-sufficient, but when you only get $249/wk and your rent is nearly $600/mo., there is not much left to build a business with. Even drop shipping was not a productive solution. I had to take my website down after three months as I had run out of funds to keep it open.

I was still applying for jobs during this time but all I would get as a reply (if anything at all) to my 3-6 applications/wk was often an email 2-3 months later stating they'd filled the job but would keep my application on file.

Things started picking up over the last three months. I got my first two interviews. One in June for a job in a start up division for $10.00/hr and no benefits. (And I'd have taken it, too.) I was in a second interview that day with the general manager and they said they'd call me the next week or the week after. I actually thought I had that one.

The next one was two weeks after I applied just last month. It was for a Bakery Trainee. I was to meet the bakery owner at his store in the evening and talk about the job after a presentation about Kangen Water. After the hour and a half presentation he met with the 3 people who were there primarily for the job.

I was the second to go outside the store with him and talk about the job. He was highly distracted with the presentation people packing up and leaving and him giving out the water. The interview was very disjointed and he seemed not to be very interested in filling the job he was offering. He told me to call him the next day, which I did. He never called back. I suspect that my main importance for him was that I was just filling a chair for his presentation that night.

So, with no safety net to keep my rent paid and basic bills, I find myself moving out with, as Dylan sang,

How does it feel?

To be on your own

With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

I paid for another week which ends after the 7th and I may extend my stay until the 12th by having those days taken out of my security deposit. I have been spending the last week or so getting all the things I own ready to put into storage. Storage that I will have difficulty paying for very quickly.

I got my old tent out today and tested it out for my dog and myself. It needs to be washed as it had motor oil spill on it when I had it stored in the lock box of my old Toyota pickup.

I'm listing the minutia of my preparation for homelessness, not to relay some sad story, but to document what is going on with me and perhaps a multitude of others.

For you see...I have a plan.

I am an optimist by nature.

A favorite folk singer of mine, Slaid Cleaves, has a song called One Good Year

Just give me One Good Year
To get my feet back on the ground
I’ve been chasing grace
Grace ain’t so easily found
One bad hand can devil a man,
Chase him and carry him down
I’ve got to get out of here,
Just give me One Good Year

[watch/hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mz0fDFRwTs ]

[Lyrics here: http://www.lyricstime.com/30-odd-foot-of-grunts-one-good-year-lyrics.html ]

And so, My plan, If I can arrange it, is to travel the contiguous 48 states and DC over the next year, 48 states in 50 or so weeks. Doing what Steinbeck attempted to do in his Travels with Charlie. And gathering along the way interviews and stories from people in each state an oral history of how and how we are today as a country much like Studs Terkel did in his Hard Times and Working books.

I am hoping to be surprised. I am hoping to be inspired.

More on my plan another day.