Who Are Homeless People?

On November 6th and 7th, 2006 my friend and videographer, Crystal Counts, and my brother-in-law photographer and fledgling director, Andrew Wildowsky, arrived in the vicinity of the Pine Street Inn on Harrison Avenue in Boston. It was a cool, overcast day, typical of the pre-winter season. I was searching for the image that formed in my mind when I wrote the song three years ago. I lived in nearby Quincy, MA at the time and had no idea who the homeless were. All I had in my head were simple stereotypes and unkind cliché's.

After circling for awhile, we found a parking space and emptied ourselves and our gear out onto the sidewalk. The sky was partly cloudy and the temperature quite mild for November. Anxious to get a lot done in the two days we had, I set a quick pace on the lookout for homeless people. Since the objective was to visually portray each lyric in the song, we needed to quickly identify and capture specific images. This was my first time filming anything and didn't really have a clue how to do it, except I knew we had to do it now.

As we rounded the first corner, I spotted a couple of homeless men sitting on a wall outside the shelter. One was gesturing to another with his outreached palm and it looked a perfect illustration of the first line in the song. We rushed up the street to capture it and I was very surprised by what I found. The man was telling everyone how he had been beaten up last night while he was trying to sleep in back of a gas station. He shouted and waved his arms wildly, pointing out his cuts and bruises and his big black eye. Several more homeless people had now gathered round and were also listening intently to the story.

When the group saw our camera, they were curious and excited and everyone tried to talk to us at once. We filmed and listened, and filmed and listened some more, and over the course of the next two days they took us deeply into their world. They accepted us as family and took us on a journey that I will never forget. Under bridges, through the parks, behind buildings, in the alleys and under the roads of Boston we went, a homeless brigade leading us on. I was amazed by the love and attention that they gave freely to everyone they knew; I was truly touched by their generosity and humanity. They never ceased to express their love and devotion for each other. I felt I was in the presence of greatness. The wall I had built between me and the homeless melted in a brilliant flash of love and brotherhood.

We talked to many people and heard so many incredible stories. A woman told me about her boyfriend, 37 years old, who painted beautiful murals under the bridge until he died there last month. Two men who had shared a tiny plot of land next to the bridge for the last seven years, told me why they planted little wooden crosses in the ground and draped them with necklaces - these were the graves of the homeless cats and kittens (necklaces) which had died despite their tender care. Another woman told me how she sometimes slept on the stone steps of the government building near the mayor's office because when she woke up, there might be a $10 bill under her body that she used to buy breakfast.

Not everyone we met was happy, and some were very angry. One man decided we were making fun of the homeless because I was visiting a homeless haunt in a business suit, imitating a homeless person.
Although I was doing this to express the lines of the song and contrast my relative affluence with that of the homeless, he didn't see it that way. He threatened to kill me. He said he was just released from prison where he served time for murder, so he no qualms about doing it. I listened to him vent for about 10 minutes and once he was satisfied that I had heard him, he walked away.

We didn't capture even a fraction of the amazing tale that unfolded before us; a music video is not designed for that. Andrew returned to Boston to film a series of mini video biographies with the homeless people. He also organized a food and blanket drive in his native Connecticut and brought what he collected directly to the homeless. Crystal is hard at work editing and assembling the video at her fabulous studio in Providence, RI. We are working together on this important project, and plan to release the video next year.

I am committed to dismantling the stereotypes that exist and putting a face, the face of a real human being on the homeless. I do this using their artistic self expression. The music and art created by the homeless showa the world who they really are and allows all of us to get in touch with what it means to be human.