Chapter 1: Pre-Road Downs (12-23-10 thru 01-09-11)

"Oh, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore"

 
Dec -23-10
Applied for Jobs in Orange County & Santa Cruz
Driver Position jobs in Orange - Video Producer Coordinator @ UCSC in Santa Cruz

Dec/24-25/10
Spent Christmas Eve & Day with my friend Paul visiting tow of his friends group gatherings one Christmas eve til midnight.
Then up at 7am to visit his friend Michelle’s family breakfast.
Then home around 2pm to rest up before returning that night for Christmas dinner.
Other friends (Nina & Gary) call to invite us to their shindig. We visit them until just about 4pm when we leave to go to dinner (of course we had to have some enchiladas and desserts while we were there.)
At the Dinner it was wonderful, spinach stuffed chicken, homemade dressing - the works, but a heavy rain has begun and I have to drive home in it. I got home after midnight cold but full and happy to see my dog and go to sleep.
Dec 26
I begin a week long process of packing - loading my landlords truck and unloading it into my storage space.
It is a hectic, strenuous, tiring week.
Dec 28th
The big move day. I get in all the big items but I still have boxes of stuff to move out of 3 rooms, bathroom, kitchen & garage. I get to use the truck again and load the truck over the 29th & 30th.
Dec 31st
New years eve. Rain is threatening. I move the last of this truckload off the lift gate just as the rain starts. As I am filling my 9x10 to the top and to the gate, rain is pounding on the metal roof above. After some logistical repacking I manage to get the last items in with hardly an inch of space to spare.
I return the storage company’s cart unmolested by rain; dehydrated , covered in sweat and completely exhausted.
My feet feel like a tympanist has been playing the 1812 Overture on them with meet mallets.
Walking is like a cross of John Wayne, Chester (from Gunsmoke) and Walter Brennan. (And I feel older than all of them combined).
My back hurts and un-rained upon, my clothes are sweat-soaked. My intentions upon arriving “home” (already the term is losing its currency with me) is to: (in this precise order) drink a LOT of water; pet my dog, Mischa; take a LONG hot bath!!
- an hour or so later - feeling more human (if barely more ambulatory)  I decide I’m not  let the new year  pass unheralded’ I go to my local store and get: 1package of black eyed peas, 1 ham hock and 1 bottle of the cheapest sparkling wine I can find (Andre Asti Spumante - $3.99!)
Just prior to the close of east coast new years I call and leave a message for a friend on the east coast just on the stroke of midnight there and then call my friend Diane and her family here on the west coast as I know they will be going to sleep  in minutes If I don’t call them right then!
As I push the speed dial I twist the cap off the Asti Spumante to drink a toast with them. (It’s Andre, remember - there’s no cork popping here!)

01-01-11
I was supposed to be out and begin my homeless phase today, but my landlord, Mike, has given me an extension that actually lasted until 01-07-11.
On  Monday, Dec. 27th , my editor Rebecca, at the Moorpark Patch, sent me two possible assignments. A list of places to go for New Years and another of my man on the street  interviews. I was unsure if I could fit them in with my move going on but I told her I’d try and if I couldn’t I’d let her know by Wednesday morning so she could re-assign them.
I’d managed the first one by Wednesday morning but couldn’t swing the interviews until Thursday. I managed to get the story out by 3:25 as it would now run on New Years Day!
That was my last official story  for the Moorpark Patch. But my last interviews were another story. I chose to go to the Cactus Patch restaurant on High street in Moorpark because of so many of my interviews had been from there. The place is such a hub of community that it makes “Cheers” seem like just another watering hole.
I had another reason I wanted to go there. Two, actually, as I had never eaten there and felt I should have at least sampled their fare once before I left.
But the primary reason was that on an interview assignment before Thanksgiving, I’d interviewed one of their employees, David Engraham, who was a young kid with a ready smile, a kind heart and an inner light that shone for all to see. Just after that Thanksgiving, that light was put out, apparently due to asthma.
In our interview he’d talked with great anticipation of spending the holidays with his father’s side of the family and meeting them for the first time. Happily he did get that experience before he died. The thing was, I had his voice on tape from that interview. A voice that expressed a joy and kindness that my typed words could never convey. So I wanted to get  the tape to someone that it would mean something to. That it might ease a sorrow or lift  a saddened heart. Bring a smile upon the listening. So that day I asked if it would be useful for anyone of them. The next day, New years day, I brought and played them the micro cassette with David’s voice and expressiveness on it. I hoped it would do much good. From the smiles on their faces, I thought it just might.

Jan 1-7
A repeat of the prior week but for a smaller space (5x5) and the soreness seemed to increase exponentially.  I was also trading my CD collection to my landlord (after selling what I could to the people who bought my record collection) to cover what I owned him from my November rent (my deposit covered my December rent). My deal for the 9x10 storage was pre-pay 3 months in advance get 3 months, but I only had enough for 2 months in advance for the 5x5 so I took that deal and packed my remaining positions minus a few items that stayed with my landlord and left the afternoon of December 7th (a day that will last in infamy…); my car loaded to the gills for my life on the road.
I had been offered a few nights at my friend Paul’s in Anaheim before beginning being homeless in earnest. And I still had that potential job interview in Anaheim that could turn everything around.
As I walked to my car, the Mock Orange tree took it’s last shot at me and scraped several big gouges into my head.  I’ll miss you too, tree!

Jan 8-9
Two good das with my friend/brother Paul who didn’t quite get why I’d choose this journey over going to a shelter. Maybe it’s for other people but the kind of restricted confined dependent life that those places have to offer…makes me shudder. Like in the movie Shawshank Redemption “Either get busy living or get busy dying”. I chose life. And those places are sure death to me. Or Hall and Oats “The strong give up and go, while the weak give up and stay”. 
If I’m going to beg for a living, I’ll do it on my terms. Better to beg from friends and associates and  a acquaintances with some possible exchange of value for their contribution, then to be subservient to a system that neither cares for you or your success, nor is designed for it. Plus I have a dog to care for, it just wouldn’t work that way.
I leave to go to camp at Doheny State Beach (where I ended up - I was actually going to camp at O’Neill park…but they were closed - their ground was too soggy - thru March it turned out!) and Paul give me directions to the cheap gas station in Fullerton…and $100! He is my first supporter! Not part of my 3 levels of solicitation - far above the first two and below the top level; but I’m surprised and touched by this from him. He’s dealing with difficult economic times himself and has just mentioned that his main supporter at his main client, Mitsuhishi, is no longer going to be with the company and someone whom he had had previous difficult dealings with is taking that person’s place. This did not bode well for his Creative Corral Advertising business. So, to give me that was a wonderful gift. I knew he didn’t understand. But he supported just the same. I struck me that I had more joy in my life at that moment as I drove off into an unsure future with nothing but my car, my dog, the things I stuffed into the car and his hundred dollars, than he did. He trusts structure and doesn’t seem to deal well  in it’s absence - his or anyone else's. He is a good man, one you can trust, one with a ready smile and surprising hidden creativity behind his button down persona. If you know him, It’s only surprising that it seems hidden from others. He’s always been creative. But, it’s like his secret identity. Only his inner circle see behind the mask. In a traditional Hollywood movie, he’s the one smiling and waving encouragement as I drive off and I’m the one choked up and teary eyed, worried about the future.