A week later, a turning point in my life occurred. Jesse had invited me to a candlelit vigil outside of the Portland City Hall in affiliation with Occupy Portland. The vigil was for a man named Cameron Whitten, a human being I later became convinced was possessed by a true genius and a single pointed vision- the vision of a sociopolitical and economic liberation of the people, and of a peaceful political resistance in the tradition of a Gandhi or of Thoreau. He had been on a hunger strike for 30 days so far, in the name of housing justice and equal rights. Whitten had recently made an attempt at the office of mayor, being the youngest candidate to lose by a narrow margin in recent history. This had undoubtedly concerned more than a few business-as-usual yes-men in the city's public offices. In a stroke of media savvy brilliance, Whitten kept the push alive after his shot at the public office by starving himself outside of city hall. It seemed clear the city was becoming embarrassed of itself and its policies towards its homeless youth population.
The vigil served to kill two birds with one stone for me in my personal life- It was a sort of a casual date with Jesse, a newly forged relationship of mine, and a topic to explore in writing for my twice a month work quota with my editor, JC. Although I didn't know it at the time, this was to be the beginning of my real adventure, my journey towards self-discovery and self-actualization, my voyage into the strange world of countercultural politics and my initiation into the life of a street urchin.
My involvement with the movement over the next year would be sometimes empowering, sometimes maddening. I believe now in hindsight that I needed to lose my self completely, to lose my material possessions, my false pretenses, my pride, and finally my sanity, to come to my senses. I needed to be taught, by hard knocks and experience, just how much I had been brainwashed and placated by my own society. I needed to learn, firsthand through the destruction of my own ignorance and innocence, that the world I had lived in was an elaborate illusion. I needed to feel the pain of betrayal, the kiss of a Judas, the abandonment of my friends and the agony of defeat. And I had needed to learn to snatch victory from the jaws of that defeat, and to be born again. None of this was apparent at the time, although it seemed clear that something in my life was primed to explode. I was a lit fuse, ready to ignite the blast. It was only a matter of time until the floodgates were opened and I crossed the domain from tourist into full-time power weirdo. And like most good things, it all began with a little bit of casual sex.
When I met Whitten that evening, I was with Jesse and the night was young. I sat and listened to him speak to the others for a while before I began questioning him. Some of the official newspapers had their way with him first, and I sat in a foldout chair, docile and unobtrusive. The others sat and roasted food around Whitten, who was already shriveled and emaciated. I laughed to myself. It was the first perfect photo op I had seen myself from the City Hall Occupation. Bleak. In all truthfulness, the best thing to do for a young man who was starving himself to death for the sake of public approval was to roast food while sitting around him in a circle, making sure to take lots of pictures for the press. He didn't look too bothered by it. I waited until the official news sources left to start in. Someone asked if the reporters would stay and have a hot dog with the group, answered by a chorus of resounding professionalism: "No, we couldn't do that. That would be too personal, we can never become too involved with our stories, you know."
Cameron seemed unaware for a moment, his eyes drifting off into a blank stare. "Hang my head, I want to drown my sorrow/No tomorrow, no tomorrow" he sang quietly, under his breath. I sat down across from Whitten and sized him up, making eye contact with him. He locked gaze with me, and I told him I wasn't like the others. That didn't seem to register to him. He nodded dreamily, contemplatively. I asked permission to question him regarding his involvement in the movement, he consented. What followed was the first of a series of field reports while living on the city streets.
"For Immediate Publication. Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law. JC, I know you have a sort of a hidden distaste of Occupy for whatever queer ulterior motives you have against organized human decency. Speaking of which, how's William Clark's bleeding asshole? I hope you at least gave that bastard the common courtesy of a reach around after you ruined his life with that documentary of yours- like something out of Andy Warhol's most sadistic wet dreams. I'm sure his family will never speak to him again. Your personal, professional and ethical degeneration aside, as far as I know, we have a little agreement for a two-piece-a-month quota. You can't suck blood from a turnip, and I've been hard pressed to find anything I haven't already given you in one form or another, both figuratively and literally. So take the Occupy piece and run it, personal opinions be damned. I'm sure you have no problems spotting the economic viability in a group of disenfranchised and heavily exploited young people. Some people build their careers around that sort of thing, JC. Some people.
30 DAYS, so far.... Former Runnerup for Mayor Cameron Whitten on Hunger Strike*
"Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light."- Dylan Thomas.
Speaking with former candidate Cameron Whitten is a humbling experience. He is soft spoken, but lucid, and shows surprising insight for his age. Quick witted and fluent in answering all of my questions, his eyes are dark and piercing. He wears the look of a pugilist in his last few rounds with a formidable adversary. He is now on day 30 of a hunger strike to help raise support for lifting a ban on the use of tents for homeless in Portland to use in inhabiting the city.
"THIS STRIKE is to increase awareness towards the need for decent housing for the poor, the dispossessed, and the entire working class", Cameron says. He has indicated to me that his strike is not exclusively a product of the Occupy Wall Street movement: he views it as its own thing, outside of Occupy, although many activists from Occupy Wall Street inluding himself are present for the vigil.
Whitten is 21, certainly a young age to have already made a serious attempt at election for Mayor of Portland. He sports a black "Suicidal Tendencies" baseball cap, which makes me hope that it isn't a highly unsettling bit of foreshadowing. A high school honors graduate and registered student of Portland Community University, calm yet assertive, Cameron seems to be alert and on the top of his game. The mood is not just a bit solemn, for many of us know that Cameron has gone a month without food now and could be close to physical and emotional collapse. Even so, he is undaunted, stating simply: "I am doing this to work for a change in how our City Council handles the issues of housing for the poor, the disposessed, and the middle class, post recession."
Whitten has mentioned that although he remains a friend of the Occupy movement, there have been times in which internal schisms within the camps have surfaced regarding the use of protesting space for the homeless to camp and to live in.
"Some people within occupy have been intolerant towards homeless occupants of our public demonstration areas, and I think that in this way the behavior of these individuals has become reminiscent of our own political opposition", he confided. (He's told me he thinks the single biggest opposition against the movement itself, ironically, has come from within its own ranks. Schisms, mostly ego based, and paid disruptors are what he views as being the primary obstacles the Occupy Movement has had to overcome.)
He has been, and remains, however, an adamant supporter of OWS.
"Occupy was my entry point into politics. It was the deciding factor in my running for mayor. I personally have been attacked twice by two people, both incidents isolated and within an hour of each other. This was by people that no one in our camp had ever seen before or since. I've been harassed and unconstitutionally jailed by the police, and also beaten by them. They broke my laptop and they shoved me into a police horse. They beat the fuck out of me there in the streets with batons. They arrested me at a demonstration in 'The World's Smallest Park' here in Portland, just for being there."
In spite of this, Whitten has persisted. He has spoken directly with all of the members of city council. He has made it clear that he will not go away until new implementations of housing projects are put into place by the city. This entails the construction of a new transitional housing site to be run by a non-profit agency called "Right To Dream Too", and the revocation of the city's taxation on an already existing Right To Dream facility, a move which has been so far opposed by certain council members with zoning fines and restrictive politics. The issue remains an ongoing battle within city hall.
" 'Right To Dream' is a non profit, and they want to build a community shelter for those who need to stay, tax free. The tax payers wouldn't pay anything for this", said Whitten.
Councilman and Housing Commissioner Nick Fish, on the other hand, has seen it fit to establish a Mega-Shelter by spending 47 million of the taxpayers' dollars, housing only 130 people. The agenda seems clear: Monopolization over housing projects for the homeless and siphoning the money of the middle class. Beyond this, Fish has denied local families the right to sleep in church parking lots or other public areas in tents, effectively criminalizing homelessness.
As a representative of mortage and construction corporations, the goals of Nick Fish run directly contrary to the interests of thousands of disposessed, impoverished or needy individuals. One can infer, logically, that the interests of Fish are in criminalizing and locking up families who lack housing, taking tax dollars for building insufficient and shoddy transitional housing facilities, and securing the land for the financial interests he represents.
Fish justifies opposing the right of indigent people to live freely and secure from legal oppression by stating that he is "afraid the homeless will become dependent upon tents as temporary solutions to permanent problems", yet he took tax payers' money to build his own center and blocked the non-profit, economically efficient "Right To Dream Too" foundation.
"He's a carpetbagger, and a swine," one man told me. "Nothing more than a puppet. That bastard represents his corporate interests, his agenda."
Beyond securing the ability for "Right To Dream Too" to build its nonprofits, Whitten's general goal is to raise awareness on the issue of housing rights. Tonight, he plans to speak publicly to the crowd that will be attending a candle light vigil for the work that he has set in motion. Many more attendants are expected to arrive. He is undecided as to when he will choose to eat again. He's said that it will hinge upon how seriously the city council of Portland is taking this issue.
Whether or not Whitten meets the goal, one of the most positive things to come from the strike is its sense of generous solidarity and community, which consists primarily of the terminally impoverished and dispossessed. An older, gentle mystic I spoke with named Body who is staying for the entire vigil told me "I've had conversations about Christ Consciousness, love, housing rights for the poor and social justice. This closely aligns with REAL Christianity and its tenets, before it was corrupted. If there were a real Jesus, he never belonged to the greedy landrapers. I think he would be here."
And why not? The scene today has attracted everyone from Asian business men to flaming drag queen queers in pink spandex, blaring Beatles tunes through old boomboxes and gruffly barking their lyrics through megaphones. The general vibe, however, remains pensive and contemplative. This tribute to Whitten pertains to politics, but it is certainly not limited to politics. The people here care about one another: food and drinks are shared freely, and the genuinely needy receive the human compassion, basic provisions, and the love that they need. Perhaps more importantly, they find their strength in numbers.
Cameron remains strong, but the solemnity of the gathering is not diminished by his casual humor or smiles. They can tell he is suffering and has already gone through hell. He remains unswayed, offhandedly remarking that he looks "like a rock star on a year long coke bender."
"It's been a million buck week," he laughs. "I feel like a million dollars."
Leaflets passed through the crowd sum up the entire message of the demonstration with a single, profoundly simple aphorism: "Living is a basic human right."
Indeed. And when sleeping on the streets with adequate provisions is illegal, it is illegal to live and to be homeless. When and where was it decided that the pursuit of happiness, essential human liberty, or even the right to live was to be secured only for and by the private sector or corporate interests? And how long will this madness continue?
The myth of capitalism, the "get in quick, win big, and get out before you lose your ass" pyramid marketing scheme of our planetary work machine has left us all terminally crippled. It was a lie to begin with, it never served the most of us, and after years of ignoring its failure to work for us we are now finally paying the price: The immanent collapse of the American Empire.
This is not a new phenomenon historically, although it has reached a crescendo. Many now believe that it will herald the downfall of the society we have come to love for its depraved luxuries and complacent familiarity. The history of our nation is full of such examples of human greed and stupidity. It is the sort of hubris that makes me think it is through dumb luck that we have even survived as a nation for the comparitively brief time we've spent on top of the shit heap. As William Burroughs once posited, "America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil was there waiting."
How long? And how many more people are going to have to starve to death in the streets before we see the change we have been waiting for?
I, for one, certainly hope that it does not take a Cameron Whitten in every major metropolitan area starving to death publicly to end it, once and for all.
*On a personal note, after tonight, I am now officially homeless. So this may be my last piece for Modern Mythology, at least for a long time. I hope you have enjoyed it. Love yourself, love your life, love people. Do something beautiful, make the bastards pay. Good night, and good luck.
And so much for young rock stars on coke benders. The truth of the matter was, the ragtag group of homeless youth I found myself writing about that evening were now my family, as a simple matter of course. And not a girl or boy, man or woman among us could afford a serious cocaine addiction, although several of us had probably lost teeth due to seriously dehabilitating crank habits. We were all starving to death, in our own ways. It was clear that I was completely on my own now, lost in the land of Oz. But at long last, I wasn't alone. I had found a group of people that were every bit as alienated and disenfranchised from the 9-5 grind status quo as I was- some of them were even as mentally unstable as myself. And as every head intuitively suspects, there is strength in numbers. I would later come to love each and every one of them, for their uniqueness, and and their collectivism.
Jean had called my cell phone that night to tell me she had finally decided it "just wasn't working." What that really meant was, Richard had decided to move his new fuck buddy in early and I was now no longer needed. No matter the social niceties that dictated a civil conversation, I hung up the phone that night feeling like a kamikaze strapping a bomb across my chest. Something inside me had snapped. I looked over towards Jesse, who was busy cooking food for the others and smiling. The tears came easy and genuinely then, so much so that Jesse took notice and stopped what she was doing. She held me then on the sidewalk, and a vision came aligned in my brain. For as long as I could remember, throughout high school and later, higher education, I had felt lied to. I had long since left my family, and I was drifting in the abstract without much of a safety net other than the occasional royalty and a social security check. There, in the light of the sidewalk fire, near the tired eyes of some 40 odd others, I cried. I felt the stability melt away. I felt my home then to be wherever the wind carried me, blown and beaten about by some inner conviction I had yet to understand. A man drove by, blaring the Stones tune "Gimme Shelter", pumping his fist. A crowd of kids cheered.
I slept that night on the sidewalk with Jesse, tucked away in a sleeping bag, my wet eyes pressed down against her fragrant, dark hair. She gave me a handjob under the covers before we both drifted off. It was cold that night, and it was one of the last nights I remember being lucky enough to share another warm body inside of a sleeping bag. The sidewalk soon became my place of rest, my angle repose and my place of business. I traded drugs, sex and food on that sidewalk. I played music with other street people there on the concrete. I helped to make life very difficult for those who were feeling substantially less motivated and substantially more comfortable than I was. And I guess, in hindsight, this was truly enough of an MO for me.
