Crustypunks

"No one's better then the god damn dog."

2011-07-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

I'm never good with computers, never good with words, never good with pictures. Just kinda do what I do and I do how I do it.

I need food and water. I need nothing but what I can carry and what has been given by the gift of the earth. The earth gave us everything we need. Either you're too lazy to take it or you're just gonna die. There's no more law. There's no more naturalistic law in this country. What happened to hunting and gathering? What happened to being a human being? What happened to being an animal? We were animals but we think we're better. No one's better then the god damn dog.

This race. I wanna finish last because I want to see everything along the way. I'm a person who's willing to finish last. Fuck the race. There's no big hurry. People just running for an early grave. If you're gonna die you might as well enjoy life.

Brice

"Fuck the police, I got it tattooed on my arm, ha ha."

2011-07-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Last week I got arrested for sitting at the chess tables not playing chess. Now it's a public park and there's twenty only chess tables open. If someone needs to play chess at my table I would have gladly moved. The officer had no right. That's no charge. It's shit. And there's twenty other Yuppies sitting there eating their picnic lunches and they let them all go. They arrest me and two of my friends. It's segregation. To fucking hell with the Yuppies. I grew up here. I'm gonna die here. And hopefully I won't die soon. But I feel like it.

I don't give a fuck about the police. Fuck the police, I got it tattooed on my arm, ha ha, I go where I wanna go. But I think they really disrespected me in my own neighborhood. I was getting arrested daily when Lt. Corcoran was working, I have thirty or more assaulting police officers, two assaulting federal officers, four other assaults, most of my shit is just assault or discon, discon, discon, discon, discon, it is what it is. The EMT's know me, the whole hospital staff knows me, everybody loves me, but I shouldn't be so fucked up, and I wish I could be a better person, it is what it is, I'm me.

Jewels

"Ended up beating the fuck out of this guy and stealing his truck."

2011-07-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Recently we've been running kinda running across a lot of fuckups. A lot of people with wheels and then they end up fucking us over. So we get a ride from Seattle all the way to Missoula. People don't want us to ride in their van. All right cool, whatever. I don't mind it. We'll make our own. Get a lot of shitty rides from fucking people from Montana on down to South Dakota. South Dakota, different fucking story. Fucking God damn bunch of stupid ass fucking prairie niggers. Fucking hate those fuckers, I don't like Crow Indians. They tried to solicit my wife and tried to take us out in the middle of nowhere. Ended up beating the fuck out of this guy and stealing his truck. Left the truck on the side of the highway but I dunno.

Rob

"I have no desire to do anything ever."

2011-07-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

I hit the road when i was seventeen, after a book I read called Evasion. It really inspired me to go on the road and see what's out there. I was hooked on the free life, living on the road. Meeting new people. Exploring new places. After that its been kinda non stop of west coast to east coast, east coast to west coast.

What a lot of us are out here doing. Just living the free life. Dumpster diving. Getting around for free. You don't need to work because there's so much excess that people have, they don't need that, they try to dispose of or do dispose of, that you can take and make your own. I have no desire to do anything ever. I'm completely content doing nothing and living off the excess of other people.

T-Bird

"I just like find bones along the tracks."

2011-07-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

I sew a lot. I sew bones on my clothes. I just like find bones along the tracks. I like made this whole skirt out of scratch. Find them and hold on to them till I can think of something to do with them. Think the big ones are from deers, like most of the vertebrae and the small ones are from cats. Maybe a possum. I know that one right here is an armadillo.

I've gone through a lot of pairs of stockings. I've had these maybe three months now. I usually go through like maybe five pair a year.

Dolly

"Does it really fucking matter?"

2011-07-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

Fucking hanging out. Day in New York. I came up here to meet with Road Dog. It's my fault that we're not together now, cause I was supposed to go meet him awhile ago. When I see him, I see him and then we're together again. Then we hang out in New York till we don't fucking feel like it anymore. Plans are plans. Does it really fucking matter? We'll go somewhere.

One day you will not find me. I'm leaving the god damn city. I'm doing my own thing.

Peachy

"I'd just rather sleep under the stars."

2011-07-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

I gave it a shot. I did what everyone told me would make me happy. Got an apartment. Got a job. I wasn't happy, so I started traveling. I haven't stopped since. I've been doing it for like six years now. I love it. It's what makes me happy. I've tried to settle down. Can't do it. I'd just rather sleep under the stars.

One of my favorite places I've ever been to is Nicaragua. It was really eye opening. I mean I'm an anarchist. I fucking hate capitalism but as much as I hate this country, after going to a third world country it actually made me appreciate a lot of shit about America that I didn't before. Well you know people live in poverty here in the states but you can still go to McDonalds and get a dollar double cheeseburger everyday. You can still get food stamps. You can still dumpster dive.

Kayla

"My leash was around my wrist but my dog wasn't attached to my god damn leash."

2011-06-28T10:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday fucking morning I woke up. Me and my boyfriend woke up. We were sleeping on 5th. Where was it 5th and A? My leash was around my wrist but my dog wasn't attached to my god damn leash. And fucking found out she was fucking gone. And then my boyfriend's supposed to get me a bag of heroin and then I went to sleep because I was all pissed off about my dog. Then I wake up and he's like, "Baby I lost a bag of heroin." And I'm like, "God damn it.You lost. Ok you lost it mother fucker, yeah you lost it." He's wasted. So I go back to sleep. I wake up and "Jahni your boyfriends getting arrested."

Jahni

"I also want to get horn implants."

2011-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

I like to drink, I like to smoke weed.

My next tattoo is going to be the whites of my eyes. The whites of your eyes are a different color. I also want to get horn implants. The kind of horns that go underneath your skin. I know a couple of people that have horn implants. I want to change the whole appearance of how I look. Just to stan . d out more. But i also want to do suspension. Hang by hooks. Just so I can say I've done it. I always want to try something at least once.

A freak show job. People just stare at me and pay me money. Hey I'm an odd one.

Warlock

"Everybody's fucking robots, everywhere I go there's fucking robots."

2011-06-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

I've just been traveling, around traveling around. I just want to see all fifty states and all the capitals so I can get the fuck out of this country and never come back. Fucking hate it here. Everybody's fucking robots, everywhere I go there's fucking robots. I swear to God. Have you been to Times Square lately? I scream at people. One one zero zero one one zero zero, cause they're fucking robots. I hate them. I cannot wait to get out of this fucking country. I just travel around, get drunk, get wasted and have a good fucking time. I do what the fuck I want. Go where the fuck I want. Living the life, living the dream.

About a month ago. I've gone three and a half months without a shower before. Doesn't bother me. Why would you have to buy body odor? You make it. I get really mad at people who yell at me on the bus. You know you fucking smell like a chemical you bought in the store. I smell like what? What God wanted me to smell like. If your God wanted me to smell like flowers under my armpits, fucking flower smell would come out of my armpits. No, this is the smell that comes out. The only reason you can smell it is you're so busy trying to cover it up. I don't smell these kids. Sometimes I smell them and like damn you must smell really bad if I can smell you.

Cameron

"Tried living in a house a few times. It's just garbage."

2011-03-10T05:57:00.000-08:00

I did a little bit of modeling just for fun and cause like people were asking to take my pictures. If was fun though definitely. Taking pictures for money. It's a good deal. Win win.

I've been on the road, this is my fourth year. But on and off, you know I tried going back to school. Tried living in a house a few times. It's just garbage. It doesn't work for me. I windup getting into way too much trouble and or just going insane in my own brain cause I can't handle all that bull crap. Like having to do stuff for people, like having to feeling the necessity to do everything. Make money. Stress. Too much stress. Like people trying to tell me what to do all the time and what you're supposed to do rather then what you want to do. And I'm not like, when you're younger you think it's supposed to be like, all that like teenage angst and everything or whatever. But once you're not a teenager anymore, it just becomes like part of life that you wanna get away from, all that crap cause it just makes you crazy. It makes people wanna kill people.

And my friends are awesome. People on the road are awesome. Life; you get to live it like one step at a time. In our lives that we live; we live day by day like every second is fate and it's like happening right in front of us. Like we don't have anything. We don't have anything we need or want, we just kinda like go around and just like, it falls into place. Manifestation. I'm sure you've heard about manifestation. Wanting something and then like, knowing that you're going to get it I guess. Like knowing it's going to happen and then it does happen. Knowing that you're not going to go hungry. You can't go hungry. So you're automatically going to get fed. Knowing you're going to have a place to sleep. You're automatically going to have a place to sleep. Like a lot of people think that it's scary but it's not even scary. Cause it's like, fuck.

Cause none of us try. But look at how happy we are. How we just get to like; we get everything, we get everything. It's not like we're asking for everything. Boom. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to explain it other then that, if you know what I mean. It's like cut into the ground already and we're just falling after it. I just feel like this is my job. This is like my job, when your job is to do what you do. The president's job is to do what he does and you know everybody's got a job and maybe mine's not one you get paid for but it's still a job. I get to go around and meet everybody and talk to people and tell them about, about this and I don't know. I feel like it's my job. I dunno.

I do. I do get paid for what I do. You know what I mean. I get paid, just because people don't understand me so automatically. Automatically when you think like someone is in trouble, you offer them money. It's like the world just doesn't understand us. What you don't understand your either scared of or you just like. That's why I think everyone's scared of us. They just don't get our life is completely different, But yes we should get paid for it and I think we all do. And that's why we keep doing it.

Confusion, fear, anger. Mostly confusion. Then second anger and then third, like fear kind of. Cause like the angers like, Ifd feel like probably like sixty percent of people wished they had done this themselves. At least went out, not necessarily what I do because I've been doing it for four years right. But at least when I got out of high school and stuff. At least like wished they had went traveling and seeing the country where your born in, where you've grown up your whole life. Like I don't watch the news but I still know what's going on. And I'm not scared because I am like the news. I get to see what's really going on. Even though I don't get to hear about huge things like shootings and stabbings, do I want to surround myself with that kind of information all day? Do I want to live in fear every single day? Not particularly. I'd rather just like go, be smart, be safe. You know what I mean? And you definitely have to be smart to do what we do, even though we might seem like a bunch of dumb ass people because we like to have fun and whatever but. You have to be smart otherwise your going to wind up another headline in the news. I wouldn't change anything for the world. But I wish people would realize we're not here to hurt anybody.

Skamper

"When it comes to the concept of modesty, fuck modesty!"

2011-03-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Basically, you probably won't be able to tell by looking at me, but I chose to live the lifestyle of a transient and a vagabond based upon on all my studies that I've done at school. I went through three years of philosophy and history. I went through three different majors. History, pre-law, criminal science and uh an english major. I've been on the road like this for three and a half years going on four. But I've only been really hopping and leaving my home state for about two years now. It's hard to explain exactly what happened when I decided to go on, like decided to just stop living and corresponding with real society but it probably had to do with getting kicked out of my last college when I was majoring in pre-law. I was going into constitutional law and criminal justice. I was gonna be basically the public defender. I was shooting to get public defender and environmental law. I was doing really good in school. Actually I had really good grades and all of my teachers that I worked for their classes loved me. But I didn't get along with the religious department and I didn't get along with any of the security. One day when I was wearing my old vest that had a giant fuck you back patch on it and a bullet belt security cornered me on school and said that I wasn't allowed to dress on school the way I was dressed. I wasn't allowed to speak my mind. And it came to me like well I'm paying what twenty five thousand a year for an education in a system where they don't even respect who you are. I'm not going to take that bullshit, fuck them. So I grabbed my shit. Walked to my teachers class and said, "thanks to your security guards I'm dropping out of school." And I turned my back and walked out of the classroom. I haven't stopped learning. I mean every day I'm picking up a new book or studying some new oddball fact. Like my old road dog Trashcan used to call me Infidel. Because I was one an infidel because I would always go against the grains of society. Because I was fucking smart as shit and I had this random like knowledge that no one else would, no one else would actually think to learn or study. I could come up with some random weird ass fact to any quote that they would do but if you asked me how to fix a car. You ask me like numbers or science I don't understand those. I'm dyslexic when it comes to numbers I guess. But when it comes to philosophy, when it comes to history, when it comes to common sense, when it comes to surviving. I'm pretty, I'm pretty smart when it comes to that. And when it comes to the concept of modesty, fuck modesty! Know who you are and be as bad ass as you can fucking be. And if you know that you're a bad ass, just fucking say it and just be ok with it. Don't gloat about it but be like you know; yeah I know that. I'm good. I know what I'm doing and I'm good like that. Yeah it sounds cocky. It sounds arrogant. Sometimes you just got to be an asshole to get by.

You know I don't have a house. I don't want a house. I see no reason to have to pay three hundred thousand dollars or more for the rest of your fucking life for four walls and a roof. I got a sleeping bag, a tent and a dog and I'm probably warmer and happier in that then you are in your comfy house with your tv.

There are two dogs killing each other at the moment in the dog park.

Brian

"I don't know what these cops are doing. Fucking assholes."

2011-03-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

I got a hundred dollars from Denzel Washington in Venice Beach , California. In my first month traveling. It was really cool. Like the day before these kids jumped me. Kicked me in my face. Took all my money. So that sucks man. Actually he was really cool. Pounded knuckles with him and stuff. Talk for like five or ten minutes. He was really nice.

I don't know what these cops are doing. Fucking assholes. I've met cool cops, I mean. A good majority that I met do suck but there's a lot of cool cops. I can't hate on them. Like today we got caught at our squat where we were sleeping and the cops they just, "they're like I don't care what you do. Just leave. Just don't ever come back." They didn't even care so. Under this bridge. Under the Williamsburg Bridge. In this big fenced in area. They didn't say anything really. They just told us to move. So really really can't hate all coppers. Those cops seemed like assholes a little bit.

I guess they were down there shooting up. Cops walked up on them. Just busted them. Yeah kicked them out of New York. It's crazy. I'm surprised they didn't take them to jail or anything. Anywhere else. It's crazy out here. Up north it's crazy. In Texas, that type of stuff don't go. Certain towns. They'll either like, if you were to talk back to them, like certain towns, like Austin or something they would definitely try to rough you up a little bit. Or would have definitely took you to jail. Yeah they definitely got lucky on that.

Trash Can

"I'm really dirty. I'm a dirty kid."

2011-02-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

My original nickname is Raggedy Ann and my friend kept telling me I was not Raggedy, I was rancid so I became Rancid Ann cause I'm pretty gross. I don't know. Ask this kid. I don't observe myself enough. I know I just pick my boogers and wipe them wherever. I pick them and wipe them on anything. I'm really dirty. I'm a dirty kid. I have no idea really, they just think, "You're really haggard, you're rancid". That's how I got my name Rancid.

Rancid and Riot

"I'm just forever restless and have a sense of longing for something more."

2010-08-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

Born and raised in Louisiana. I had a pretty like normal life growing up except my mom was always on the road. My mom's a gambler. I left home when I was eighteen. Started traveling around. Ended up in North Carolina. I'm just forever restless and have a sense of longing for something more. I don't know what that is. I've never shot dope. Done any of that bullshit. I don't have a desire to. I just want to live my life and have a beautiful life.

Eulalia

"We're all poor, white trash squatters, scum fucks, losers, throwaway kids."

2010-08-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

My father was an attempted cop killer, he was doing twenty years to life for shooting a police officer three times. He was serving five years in CCI corrections and my mother met him visiting my uncle who was an incarcerated Hell's Angels. As my mom would tell you, she fucking fell in love with a felon. Got a petition with three thousand signatures on it and got my dad released in five years served, five years probation. He got out impregnated my mom. I was born two months premature and I was dying.

I got into punk rock music and squatting when I was thirteen years old. By fifteen I had been in jail, was kicked out of high school and I had a son on the way. In two thousand one, January third, my son Seth Alan Parker was born. At that moment I knew that I would never stick a needle in my arm or ride a train or ever do anything that would ever threaten me being there for him. I've traveled all over America, just not on trains. I've stayed in the dirtiest squat houses. I've cried over dead friends. I've cried over live friends. When I was eighteen years old we started a crew, it's called the Dirty South Crew. We're all family. We're all poor, white trash squatters, scum fucks, losers, throwaway kids. Some of my friends died from overdoses. Some of them killed themselves. Some of my friends are still alive and wish they were dead. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left that's still normal. I look around me and just see all this disease and drugs and just hopelessness.
.
When I was seventeen years old I was at a punk show in my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. A straight edge hardcore guy named...approached me from behind and tapped me on my shoulder and said my name. When I turned around he grabbed my by my shirt, stepped on my feet and he smashed my face in. I had three thousand dollars of reconstructive surgery putting my nose back together. Putting my eye socket back together. Half of my face is metal. I have screws and brackets in my face. When I woke up I didn't have a nose. I didn't have an eye. My eyeball was loosely hanging out of my socket. Everyone kinda likes to joke that I'm the man with the metal face. Six years later after I got my face busted in that same guy he got stabbed nine times by a Nazi and his car was set on fire.

I'm on the way to the hospital right now. I did a back flip off the stage during a Mischief Brew set. I'm pretty sure I have a pretty bad concussion. Maybe a fractured finger. I'm feeling kinda fucked up right now.

I don't see these racists, these capitals, these sexist, these homophobes, these class action you know yuppies tearing us apart. I really hope all these kids stop sticking needles in their arms and start putting ideas in their fucking heads cause they're losing their souls and it's breaking my heart.

Steven

"My mom's a Czechoslovakian whore."

2010-08-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a product of the American foster care system. My mom's a Czechoslovakian whore and my dad was a sand nigger. His name was Ahmad something or other. I grew up in the foster care system till I was three. So I woke up one day and I was fucking fifteen years old, ran away from the fucking group home. Decided it was in my best interests to become a crack head on the streets. And spent the last two years losing my mind in Oklahoma City.

I started traveling after I got clean off of meth and was discovered by some hippies on the street.They asked me what I was doing on the street. I said, "I was trying to score another bag of meth." They said, "hey, you want to go somewhere with us?" I said, "where are you going?" And they said, "does it really matter?" And I said, "no I guess no it doesn't really matter." At that point I was eighteen years old and I went on my first trip to Knoxville. Stayed with all these crazy bio diesel hippies. They make bio diesel out of corn. That's when I figured out you could travel. That homelessness didn't mean you had to stay in one place and rot away or be a drug addict. That you were actually allowed to move around and do something interesting and explore the world. You know you didn't have to be stationary and miserable. So I took up to hang out with hippies and fucking drunks and train riders and made my way around America. Met a few interesting people. A few not so interesting people. Got in a couple of fights. Got my ass kicked a couple of times. Break my glasses about every six months due to one of those events. It's really hard actually being blind on the road. I'm legally blind.

I also appreciate not getting hit on every twenty seconds of the day by crazy old men who think they can get into my pants because I'm dirty looking. My plans are to one day not be miserable and to quit doing drugs and not killing so many brain cells.

Ketchup

"The entire life, the universe and everything is the answer of forty two."

2010-08-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

I'm forty two. Forty two. The answer to life , the universe is forty two. I am the answer to life, the universe and everything. Forty two. There's nothing I can give you other then forty two. It's not the question it's the answer man. That's like forty two. The question is such a contradictory like ever loving statement that if the answer were to be there with the question they would contradict each other and um wipe each other out of existence. The entire life, the universe and everything is the answer of forty two. Yeah no like five million years of human evolution equals forty two. Yeah like forty two. I'm not a human being. I'm a man with an answer.

Daniel

"I have the daddy syndrome. He has the mommy syndrome."

2010-08-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

I am a traveler. Did it for six years. This is a poem and mainly the reason why I started traveling. It's about my junkie dad who I've never met actually.
This is how the poem goes.

One two three, you learn to say fuck it. A b c d, the lesson is on how to be shit. I'm gonna bleed out on account I'm a child. And abandon the fucker with luck and the intention of to wild. Selfish pig I'll slit your throat. The first time we meet I'll laugh at the reflection at the pool underneath at my feet. A small giggle and a mass of satisfaction, I'll cut off your lips, don't fucking speak I'll feed you word captions. Father dear it was a wonderful time. Twenty three years have I ever crossed your mind? And how sweet a thought of a family, where shit like that doesn't happen to shit just like me. And the story will end with an ever happy conclusion or either the fact that I suffer from delusion. You're a fucking piece of shit human being so go back to the needle and forget the real world you're fleeing. I'm glad you ignored me. I hope you die. I'm tired of living this life without breaking these ties. Your addictions are your first love, so I guess I'll understand. You'll always be the worst fucking excuse of a living man.

Love you pops.

Why did I write that? Because after twenty three years of him being a redneck piece of shit and never paying attention to me or my brother, who just happen to be of an hispanic descent that he accidentally knocked up. My mom's hispanic. He's a racist redneck. He had a mistake. He sent up three of them he didn't want to deal with. That's why I wrote that.

It affected my life where I basically had the no daddy syndrome and I had to go through a lot of abusive relationships just looking for a father figure and I just realized the only father figure I had in my life was my brother. He was the only one that was ever there for me.

Yeah now I married. Very happily married to the love of my life. I'm basically his mother figure cause he is the complete opposite. I have the daddy syndrome. He has the mommy syndrome. His mom left him when he was two years old. My dad left me when I was one. So it's kinda of, we work out that way.

I am completely content with my life right now. What makes me happy you know, I don't have a place to live. I don't have a place to sleep. I don't have any money in my pocket but every day I will wake up and I'm sublimely happy because I have good friends, good people and you know I go through a dumpster and I'm fed.

Jerrica

"And the cops ended up giving us a hundred and fifty bucks."

2010-08-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Just turned eighteen and I was working at Panera Bread. Hated my life. Drink beer work, drink beer work. Some train kids came into my town. Got me drunk. And they were like, "you wanna ride the trains?" And I was like, "fuck yeah." I told all my friends. I woke up underneath the bridge the next morning. And fuck I gotta go now. I got to leave my hometown. We sat on train for twelve hours. And we ended up getting caught by a bull cause my friends dog barked. And went to jail. All seven of us. And there was a nice nurse that called us boxcar children, like hooked us up, got us out. Brought the prosecutor into the jail to come talk to us. The prosecutor stood up for us in jail. Got the dogs out for free. They gave us like three brown paper bags full of toilet paper, food. And another one of water. And the cops ended up giving us a hundred and fifty bucks. Got rid of my scabies. I ended up better off leaving then I did going in. It's the only time I've been in trouble since I started traveling. It turned out the train wasn't going anywhere for three days. It wasn't going the right way anyways.

Spit

"I did the best that I could to kill that fucker."

2010-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

I've been busted drinking a bunch of times in every state except none of that Puerto Rico shit yet. I was beating the shit out of some mother fucker. They're trying to tell me it's manslaughter. I was getting kicked in Portland, Oregon. I didn't appreciate that. I don't kick nobody. I put that nigger on the table. I did the best that I could to kill that fucker. Turned out to be a child molester. I found that out on Christmas. I was fucked up. I'm a good guy now. All I do is drink.

I got this. I did ninety three days in prison in Oregon State Penitentiary. They seen me, I got into a big, there was a muscle car show. I go out there and I'm fucking, "yeah I got this new tattoo." I went to jail for that shit, dead beat, bum fighting whino. Anyway the mother fuckers seen me, "oh you little mother fucker, come here or we'll start shooting the guns. We ain't playing handball. You ain't nothing special." They gave me ninety three days in the hole where the sun don't ever shine. In the pines, in the pines where the sun don't ever shine.

Justin

"I always wind up sleeping in places where there is a lot of perverts looking at me in the middle of the night."

2010-08-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

I like to shoot heroin. Sometimes. I'm supposed to be on a methadone program. Doing good. Wink wink. Guess I'm doing good. Kindaish. And I'm stuck here in New York. Wish I wasn't in New York. I was gonna leave New York.

I dunno, I like drinking Four Loco. And I always wind up sleeping in places where there is a lot of perverts looking at me in the middle of the night and I gotta chase them down and beat them up. I dunno. That's pretty much the story of my life. And I'm always surrounded by a bunch of, I don't want to say idiots, but people I sometimes worry about their intelligence.

I kinda travel around the country. I kinda blew up the west coast and so now I'm on the east coast. And now I blowing up the east coast where I'll probably never be able to come back here again. So maybe I'll just hang out in the middle somewhere. I haven't quite figured out what the hell I'm gonna do.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow brings I don't know. I don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Creep

"They were one big fat fucking family."

2010-07-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was on a Greyhound bus. I was going from Boise, Idaho to Portland, Oregon. I seen the fattest chick ever. So fucking disgusting dude. Anyway the whole family was fat. This lady was Mexican or something like that. She had like six Mexican kids. Two were boys and four were girls and they were all fat. They were one big fat fucking family. Mexican family. This lady was so fucking fat. I don't know if you've ever seen this but when they have an extremely large fat person on the Greyhound they have to take off part of the side of the bus. And then there's this hydraulic shit that comes out, you know what I mean. Like a platform. Dude they had to have like the fire department there. You know like EMS, an ambulance there and shit to supervise this shit. So we had to have a different lunch break. We had to eat the shit from the Greyhound station in case anything happened. Anyway so they hydraulic her ass fucking down and shit and dude she obviously cannot fit inside a regular size vehicle right so she had one of those big fat person Amigos and shit like that. Looked like a zero turn fucking lawn mower. Anyway they wheel her down. I was like, "no way. No fucking way." This big van pulled up with a trailer hitch at the back of it. And dude she didn't get in the van. She wheeled that zero turn shit to the back of the trailer hitch bro and they drove away. Oh God. It was the most fattest thing I've ever seen in my life. Fattest, disgusting, fucking shit. Wind blowing through her fat shit, Mexican mullet, you know what I mean. I bet she weighed close to a thousand pounds. She was like a big circus freak.

Chris

"They're in a cult man. They're crazy."

2010-07-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Kinda just got out of a situation with my parents, Jehovah's Witnesses. Like a lot of turmoil in the house. I came back here. I have a scholarship to an art school in the city. I figured it would be better to just get out till maybe the school could put me somewhere. I want to be a fine artist, a sculptor and a fine art photography.

They're in a cult man. They're crazy. Jehovah's Witnesses. Fucking horrible. Just judgmental. All about appearances, God's not about that you know. God's love, Jah's love. You have to love everyone unconditional. Unconditional love that's part of my life.

They try and tell me how I need to look. They tell me what I need to do. They tell me what I need to eat. They tell me how to sleep. They tell me everything man. Yeah they basically tell me how to live my life.

Marry a Jehovah's Witness. Be a Jehovah's Witness. Go to church twice a week. Go knock on doors and for the most part just know in your heart that means your salvation and everyone else on the face of this earth that's their salvation and if they don't accept it they're gonna die. I say fuck that.

God's not about tattoos and long hair or like scruffy beards or like ratty clothes, old shoes and shit like that. That's all like pretense to old school teachings. People need to be told like God flourishes in that, he loves it and that's a sin. You can't judge. People need to be set straight on that. They need to be told and taught that's like, you can't do that. You just can't. It's horrible.

I had a nervous breakdown a couple of weeks ago. The past thirty years kinda hit me in the head. I don't know if I can actually honestly answer. If I can imagine what it would feel like to die and still be alive that would be the closest thing I can explain it. It hurts so bad. It still hurts till this day. Everything. It sucks man.

Chris

"I still have all my teeth."

2010-07-26T04:58:00.000-07:00

I'm drinking beer. I need something to get rid of this pain. It was one of those nights. That's all. I don't know how to describe it other then that. It's a regular fucking night. I ended up on the losing end. This happened last night. This morning I hadn't swollen up yet. But I got all the cuts last night.

These guys know me when I was inside bro. I was locked up. I didn't even know I was about to get setup for a fight. They fucking set me up. I was in the middle of it and I didn't even know what was going on. And they all disappeared and I have to be the one to settle the problem. So it turned into a good fight. Some fucking biker. I still have all my teeth. I'm gonna feel great tomorrow. Once it's healed. I don't have and cuts on me. Like I said I got all my teeth. Fuck it. Couldn't have been that big of a fight. More like a scuffle. It ain't my problem. I wish them the best. He thinks that I ripped him off. I had nothing to do with anything. They were setting us up for a fight. He doesn't understand that. That's why that giant black guy rolls up on me, "what the fuck." Because he knew what was going on. I'm not a fucking Nazi. Those guys take it to another level. There's a difference between being a friend saying , "yeah well when I was locked up I hung out with Nazi skinheads." But out here these guys they're just fucking you. This shit is no joke. Because he knows I did some fucked up things when I was locked up. But I'm not locked up. I'm outside right now. I don't plan on going back, I don't plan on killing anybody out here. Why? We don't get anything out of it.

Dave

"My dogs nuts just dropped."

2010-07-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

In Baltimore, we pull up right, we're parked and we've slept almost all night. Then we're like gonna get off right because we see workers and shit, so we dive into the bushes and shit. My dogs nuts just dropped, so he's all about barking when people are walking around and stuff. So I close his mouth and went, "stop it, shhh, thank you for letting me know." So finally we decide it's cool, it's clear so we decide to get back on. Rob throws his shit on and we look down the way and there's a freaking worker. And he's like, "Oh shit." So he totally saw us. So we run back into the bushes. Next thing we know we see this fucking copter coming around. This helicopter and we're like, "oh shit." Wonder what they're looking for. It's like diving right. We run for a bush across the ground, another set of rails to another bush. We look up and we see like you know some cops tromping down. We hear all the footsteps on the rocks and shit. Next thing you know, he's all talking about how cool, how fun it is when the bull is chasing you because it's a high, you get to run. It's not really that fun. It isn't! You know the adrenaline rush is great. But it's not really that fun. We hid, but my dog's barking. So he jumps in the bushes. My dog's barking so they already know where I am so there's no point in even trying to hide. You know like ha. They calm down. They get our id's. Rob's sitting over there in the bushes, just like five feet away, just behind the cops. And I can hear him snap a twig. You know it's like oh my god, really the cops don't hear this. They don't know where he is. I'm holding my dog back. We didn't get tickets or anything. From there we ended up hopping another train all the way here, oh wait all the way over to Pittsburgh. Then we waited in Pittsburgh, but that's a whole other story.

Wednesday

"Damn girl. What happened to your face? You got fucked up."

2010-07-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was sixteen. It was like October twenty third, twenty second. A couple of weeks after my birthday. My birthday's October thirteenth, eighty seven. Best birthday ever. In my opinion. So I'm on my way to night school. I just moved back from Wisconsin back to Portland, Oregon. Friends were throwing me a birthday party. On the way, took the Max in Portland, you know it's the upper ground subway, pretty much and took it all the way from Washington Park. Got off on Forty Second, Hollywood stop and wanted a cigarette because I'd been drinking and figured the cigarette smell would knock off the booze smell. I wasn't the brightest girl then. I asked this lady that I didn't realize at the time was out of her fucking mind on drugs and booze. She was thirty two years old and happened to be like at least one eighty, she was a big mama. I asked her for a cigarette and she freaked out on me so I said, "whatever, fuck you, I don't want your cigarette." And I was a kind of a cocky punk rocker then so I just walked away. Next thing I know I was being pulled by my backpack, dragged to the ground and she straddled me. She being a lot bigger then me, I was about one twenty back then, I was just sixteen. She banged my head on the cement. She just kept on banging and I pulled out my mini-mag light, flash light that I had on my belt loop and I was popping her on the face and then the next thing I remember she was her on my face. I didn't feel anything but I remember digging my nails into her scalp like this, pulling her off, just yelling, "Get off of me." And like no one helped me. I remember hearing her boyfriend laughing and laughing saying, "kill her, kill her. Kill the white girl. Kill this bitch." I tried to get on two buses and they just wouldn't let me on. I was gushing blood. I thought the lady just broke my nose. I was too scared to touch it because I was so bloody. And I just figured because of the alcohol I was just bleeding more. Finally I made this bus driver open the door. I wouldn't let him leave and I got on. And I was like, "call my dad or an ambulance. I'm fucked up." People were just looking at me in shock and I didn't understand why. Hip hop girls came up and said, "Damn girl. What happened to your face? You got fucked up." And I was, "like what are you talking about? Yeah I just got beat up. Whatever." And they're like, "no you're missing a nose." And I'm like, "no she just broke my nose." Next thing I remember I woke up in the hospital and they told me they had to give me a shot to calm me down. So I wake up in the hospital and I'm strapped and so I call the nurse and she comes in and unstraps me and tells me what happened. She's not quite sure how I'm missing my right nostril but I'm missing my right nostril all the way up where I can see the bone and they're telling me it's three o' clock in the morning, they don't know who I am because I don't have ID. They tell me the plastic surgeon is coming in to fix my nostril. At that time I hadn't seen my nose. So I didn't know what it looked like. Finally I get them to let me go to the bathroom and I see it. I about fainted. I dunno. I didn't really like how I looked back then but I liked the color of my eyes and my nose. I was fond of my nose. I was really heartbroken. I know it sounds really selfish and vain, but I was. I felt like a monster with no nostril. And like scratched up. The lady tried to fish hook me. And I had to get stitches inside my mouth. I had black eyes and I had to get three staples in the back of my head. She had swollen my brain so my equilibrium was off. The first surgery that night they took it from my hip right here, the fat and they put it on my nostril. They could fix my nose in six or seven surgeries. Well six. I was supposed to have a seventh one but I didn't want to do the cosmetic surgery so I only want to do reconstructive so that's why my nostril is thicker right here and it's really bumpy. For the first two years it was so white, so different. I had such a red line right here. Like the scare on my forehead was just ridiculous. Luckily I've always had bangs. I was really sad. I became addicted to pills. And then they cut me off pills I didn't realize like wow I was so sick but it so happened my husband was a heroin addict and was a speedball addict. He told me he could help me feel better, so my drug addiction continued onto heroin and coke. For about a couple of more years till I found Methadone and got off of it finally last September. I was clean about five months. And I've been chipping every so often. This is definitely something that changed my life. Something I've grown to love. I love my nose now. I think it gives me character. Most people don't realize it. Complete strangers ask me about it. I get compliments and I get weird questions. It doesn't hurt anymore. I have most of my smell. In time everything heals.

It's not all about trains.

Ashley

"I didn't choose to be homeless and to live the way I live."

2010-07-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

I was born and raised in Italy. I grew up in a very poor depressed area in the outskirts of Milano. We were me, my three brothers, my mother, my father. A lot of fights in the family. A lot of problems. Then went to art school over there. Start working in Milano as a graphic designer. Painting on the side and at the age of twenty eight decided to come to New York. I had what you could call a middle upper class lifestyle. I was married with a British woman for three years. We were living on fourth avenue between eleventh and twelfth in a luxury apartment. Both hard good, make good money. Everything was going well. Then we, I befriended with a guy that introduced me to heroin. I never done drugs before then. I never even smoked pot. And I started using heroin. And slowly it became an addiction. And slowly I started losing jobs. And then little by little I became homeless and here I am.

I think it was a coping mechanism. I was, even though I had money and a pretty comfortable life, I felt a void. Something was lacking. I didn't know what it was but I thought heroin was gonna fill the void. Was gonna like help me. Fill the emptiness. Obviously I was wrong. It's been a nightmare for me. It's like a demon. It took everything from me. It took everything. Material things but also destroyed my soul. But not my hope. I still have hopes in my life. That I'll be able to stop using and restart working and functioning and put everything behind my back. It really taught me a lot of things. I think I grew from the experience. It gave me a a chance to know myself more. But the price that I paid was defiantly too high for what I got in exchange. More insight. I got more experiences that on a conventional level they're awful like homeless, poverty. But for some reason I feel enriched. It's hard to put into words. It's more like an awareness about me and the world that before I didn't have because I had a very sheltered life and kind of a boring life. I was a nine to fiver. I used to get up. Go to work and go to restaurants and buy clothes. Be able to pay rent. But there was always this lack, this void I needed to fill and I didn't know how. For some reason heroin gave me the chance to be more introspective.

I believe for most of the people on crusty row it's a choice and for me it's not a choice. It's consequences of my addiction but I didn't choose to be homeless and to live the way I live. It just went out of control. I burned a lot of bridges. I feel very lonely. My friends that know me don't want to be around me anymore. Lost my family. My girlfriend. I have two babies. Wonderful babies. Nine months old. Twin brothers. I can't provide for them. I can't really be there for them right now. It's very painful.

I sleep on the streets. In front of a school. There is a gate that is opened. It's unlocked. I open the gate. I put my cardboard there and lay there. Wakeup at six in the morning. Try to find money for coffee. Either find money for heroin but recently I stay away from heroin and pretty much on medication foe Suboxone, that allows me to not get sick so sometimes I just try to eat whatever I can find. Either go to a church or eat from like organizations that come to the park and give food to the homeless people. Sometimes I don't even eat for two or three days. I walk a lot. I'm very restless. Go to see art shows. Sometimes I go to the bookstore. I try to keep myself busy. I read a lot. Think a lot. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm pretty much waiting for some kind of miracle to happen. I still think I can save myself. I don't consider myself completely self destructive. Even though some people think if you're a heroin addict you're automatically self destructive.

Geo
Died in 2011

"I've had bulls come into the spots cause kids were fucking idiots."

2010-07-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

A lot of people look at us like you know we're scumbags and shit but what brings respect is that people like you, you come and see us as humans. You take our picture but it's not just like taking our picture it's actually showing who we are and what we do. We're not horrible people all I do is make my little money. I get drunk, you know, I eat bad food. I don't bother anybody, I'm not a violent person. I just, I do what I do to survive. And this is the lifestyle that I've been around for a long time. This is all I know how to do and it makes me happy.

I'm really a loner pretty much. I have a few select friends and shit but like the general population I've got so jaded to them that it's just like I don't, I don't, I don't want that. I've done the apartment, I've done the housing situation, I've had a girl, I have a kid. You know thats just not for me. I've been doing this shit since I was a young young teenager and I found this lifestyle, I've found a whole new family out here and they've taken care of me. They've treated me with respect, you know they gave me the love that my family didn't. So, what I do is I travel you know. I consider that making the best of the situation that I'm in. You know, I'm actually out there doing something.

New places, new people. I consider myself more of a person who experiences more than any of these yuppies that work nine to five that don't do anything with their lives except for work in that rat race. I take that rat race and I push it aside and say you know what? I'm free to do what I want to do. I'm not held by any boundaries. People tell me all the time, oh why don't you get a fucking job. Why don't you live in my shoes for a few days, you know? Its uh, it's a hit or miss situation with me but you know what? I have bad times and I'm gonna have bad times. I expect me to go through a field of shit to get where I'm at, you know. I have a lot of friends who died, a lot of friends who disappear. Like, it's all bullshit man. I have been traveling for a long time and this is the worst year I've ever travelled cause there's so many new people there's uh theres people that ruin it for a lot of people like me. I've been doing this for a long time so these new batches of kids who think they gotta be the hardest, baddest guy out here, you know they try to prove themselves in some weird sense and then they ruin it for people like us, they blow places up; like I go to hop a train in a yard and I go into like secret little jungle spots where I wait for the train and shit, and I've had bulls come into the spots cause kids were fucking idiots. And they ruin it, you know, they ruin places like that. I've been doing this for years, I come back this year on the road, I've got pulled off trains, you know I've gotten harassed a lot more, I cant make money really you know. It's uh, it's just uh, it's really destroying everything that I'm about man. It's such a downfall. I consider myself a dinosaur of this situation. I'm a dying breed. When I was younger, I had to fight for my spot in this food chain, cause without that, I'd just be walked all over. I'd be you know, it just wouldn't work man.

You know, I try to make the best of the situation. People have problems. Everyone has problems no matter who you are there's some sort of problem your'e going through. And just, I take those feelings, you know, i put them aside because my life is gonna be too short to deal with that. You know, I don't need that stress, I don't need any of that drama. A lot of times I travel by myself because, you know, I don't like people a lot. Cause people annoy me generally. I have a few good friends now, that have my back. Other than that, I'm just so tired of a lot of shit man. That's why I'm leaving town tomorrow. I'm outta here. And Dio's dead; that's a bad thing.

I just, I've been coming to this park for many many many years. And I've I just progressively see it downgrading and downgrading and downgrading. Like you know I travel the country and I go to my spots that I have and people have gone there and they just destroy it for me. They destroy it for people like me who actually need this, who uh you know are my good friends who've been doing this a long time. You know like I was in Chicago, there's a place, there's this yard, and they have this little jungle and I was just sitting there in the jungle and uh the train police, the railroad cops, they came into the jungle, which is supposed to be like our little secret spot you know. And I've been pulled of the trains like seven times in this past seven months. I'm getting really tired of it. It's my birthday you know, I'm gonna get fucking hammered drunk, have a good time, you know, and then tomorrow morning I'm going.

Damien

"My father was a heroin addict, my brother was a heroin addict, my sister was a heroin addict. I mean it runs in my family."

2010-07-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

When I was five I was abandoned by my mother. My mother ended up leaving because my dad was very abusive and would beat the crap out of her. So she left for about a little over a year. She was gone. She hit the road. I don't know what happened to her, what she did during that period. I was obviously too young to recollect what was going on. I remember him beating her a lot.

My father was a heroin addict, my brother was a heroin addict, my sister was a heroin addict. I mean it runs in my family. It's like they're all into it. I thought it was the most disgusting drug ever. And I wasn't doing my pain pills, you know that I was prescribed. Cause I didn't want to catch a dependency to that. I was trying to keep my life straight. I can deal with the everyday that people face, the pains and heartache everybody goes through. I could deal with it at that time. And I don't understand why I can't cope with it now. And I do get clean. I'll get clean for a few weeks, a month, a month and a half and then something will happen and I just go right back into it. I pretty much get super depressed and the only thing that makes me forget about my depression and lead a normal life is drugs. Obviously it's a chemical imbalance but I don't know what it is. It makes me feel like i need it. I need it constantly to be happy. Cause it's the only time I have a smile on my face. I've been homeless for the, gosh, three months here and I had my friend go, "I just don't understand how you can cope with being homeless and how you can be so happy all the time. I would have gray hair and pulled out all my hair by now." Little did he know, you know the only reason I've been happy all the time is because I've been using heroin. Being homeless isn't so bad when you're high ninety nine percent of the time.

Steve

"I'm kinda like, basically a cyborg."

2010-07-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

Between ninety one and two thousand five. I went into war. First the gulf war, in ninety one, Fort Jackson. Where I graduated top ten in my class. Then from there I went to Afghanistan Desert Storm and everything. Been to Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama. I've rescued POW's and MIA's. So that's my job. Yes for ten years I was POW, MIA myself. I was the one who helped get Michael Durant out. The one that was POW, MIA in Somalia. I'm the one that actually helped, well, wasn't actually the one. Lets say I helped get him out. Lets put it that way. And you have to understand what I did at the age of eighteen going in through what I did to survive. Get done up by a tank explosion thirty yards into a brick wall, head first. Far from the line about four stories down, landed on my back, messed up my back. Still went through the military because at the time I was fine. Got shot ten to twelve times. Then I jumped on a grenade and the marines come and got me. I jumped on top of a grenade on my stomach. See I'm half robotic. Titanium, steel alloy that they make in space shuttles. That's what I got inside. Kinda like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also my left arm is also mechanical. From waist all the way up is mechanical. I'm kinda like, basically a cyborg. Almost.

I'm also a vampire. I was born and raised into vampirism. I was thrown out at a early young age from my family and everything by some wicked church people, satan worshippers or something. All I remember is I've been into it since I was born. I speak about eleven or twelve languages when I'm drinking. Not really right now. With the cancer setting in right now because of the heat and everything, just kinda like can't think right now. Plus I could use, I probably do better when I'm on my vodka. But I've been trying to cut that down too and start just drinking beer, smoke my weed and smoking my cigarettes. Doing my own chemo. And I got a prescription for it, somewhere here in Manhattan. I just gotta go pick it up, if I could remember where the address is. I'm thirty seven. I'm not crazy. I'm not insane. I'm not stupid.

Jeremy

"They call it, "goodbye lulu" man, throwing kids off the train."

2010-07-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a grown ass man dude. I'm a carpenter. I used to make twelve fifty a week. I was ready to buy a house. We voted in a liberal president! I'm a train bum. There's three rules to riding trains. You can die. You can die. Don't get caught. I'm dropping science y'all.

Smoking meth in Tijuana with a hooker. Boned her, got robbed and it cost me four hundred bucks. I'm a train bum, like a hobo, my other brother is a pro skate boarder and my youngest brother is a mortician.

I'll probably die of alcoholism. I only drink beer, but I don't know. I'm not going to guarantee my demise. Sometimes I don't feel so right here. Thirty seven. Yeah it's hard core man. No I'm just getting started. The guy that give me my name is like in his sixties and he's got a freight train tattooed on his forehead. I'm just getting started. I ride the sunset. This is my first time in New York but I mainly ride the sunset which is LA to New Orleans. But I go up north too.

Box car, grainer, grainer porch, ride the unit. Whatever you can get. There's many many rides. And really it's boring. No it's actually difficult to find a ride. You pretty much gotta like just wait. Wait and watch. Watch and wait. No it's easy too. It's not like I'm in a yard showing you how to do. Just talking about it. Train rides hard core. All the way hard core. You can die, you can die, don't get caught. If the first two rules is you can die you can figure it out from there. Thirty six inch steel wheels, bulls, other crazy hobos. They call it, "goodbye lulu" man, throwing kids off the train. I've never seen it, never been involved, but I've heard stories. It's evil man. You get out in Utah and shit or Mexico too. I wouldn't ride in Mexico without a pistol on me.

Let it be. Enjoy. Time is the most precious thing you have. Enjoy every second you're given.

Yardsale
1973-2010

" I don't need to get high in the woods. It's an escape from reality."

2010-07-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

I've been on the road for a couple of years off and on. I find that I'm mostly drawn to like the outdoors, living outside, being one with nature. I decided to go to this school called Tom Brown's Tracker School which is like, he's a famous survival guy, guide like writer. So I decided to go there. Learn a little bit more about survival skills. How to be self sustainable and live in today's world. I learned different ways of fire making, different primitive shelters. It has a spiritual aspects as well. Tracking. Old Apache ways of tracking. I learned different ways to make food. How to survive off different circumstances and climates for water. Urban survival. I took this class surprisingly in the Pine Barrens. That's where he grew up. That's where he decides to hold most of his classes. I'm doing it because I want to bring people back to our mother. I want to bring people back to the earth.

But this is a survival situation. Learning how to survive in these circumstances. I've never been to Manhattan. It's good to see it.

I fall in and out of that. Every once in awhile. I've had drug problems before. I definitely think that there is a large possibility that's something that I do plan on working on is bringing people out into the woods and trying to get people off their drug habits or bad habits in today's society and bring them a little bit closer to the earth and be able to help them find themselves. Their real selves and be happy with their lives. Hopefully turn around and do the same thing again with somebody else, you know. It's been successful for me. I know it's definitely successful.

Oh yeah. Heroin, meth, lots of drugs. I've been like two years getting better. That's what helps me the most. I don't think about it when I'm there. I don't need to get high in the woods. It's an escape from reality. Then when you're out like, why would I want to escape from this. You know. It's so beautiful.

Devon

"You know it's America. You get McDonald's and fat people."

2010-07-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well living out in this concrete jungle here with all these hippies and yups. Oh they're wild. They're smelly. They use too much soap trying to stay clean. But the real kids stay clean by staying drunk. It keeps us alive.

It's beautiful besides the people and the concrete. They're on my concrete. They built it. They don't give me enough money to keep me happy. Not enough. If they give me money I love them. But if they don't I still love them.

You know it's America. You get McDonald's and fat people. And then at night they roam. Around the track. Once the light hits you know all the skinny yups starting running for no reason. I mean they're already in shape, they're already good looking, but they're stressing themselves out. Killing themselves to run through humid ass shit. Fucking concrete jungle here. I drink everyday and I got a better fucking figure then they'll ever fucking have.

Eventually I'm gonna sleep. Then the same thing. I might go explore the beach if I can find sand around here. But they covered everything with concrete and steel so you know it's gonna be a long and hard search. But you know we might have to go to Long Island and find the crackhead beach spot.

Jon

"I'm free as a bird. Live free assholes"

2010-07-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

What made me decide to travel was my first tattoo. On me ankles, Live Free. I decided, oh man, I worked for my dad. I don't know where the fuck I'm going with this. Just to live free. Live your life. Do some fun before you get old and you can't do anything else. Except for raise your family and do your job and do what you need for your family. If you're young enough, do it and live free. I'm free as a bird. Live free assholes. Stop worrying about your life. And give those needy mother fuckers, not me, but him and him and him and keep partying. PTK all day to the day we die. We rolling through your streets with a cardboard sign and a box of wine. Maybe if I was on a scholarship I'd have more to say. I gotta smoke some pot so gimme a blunt please. Send it my way.

Greyson

A terrorist task force came and kicked in my door."

2010-07-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

When I was around thirteen I started hanging around I guess in computer chat rooms where there were hackers and from there I just started meeting people. I started like learning, because I dropped out in the sixth grade so I was pretty much on a computer all day. I started learning programming languages. And from there I met friends and started learning about hacking.

We were stealing like hundreds and hundreds of credit cards and debit cards. With the credit cards we'd just do credit card fraud ordering like pretty much anything possible we could think of because we were so young there was probably nothing I didn't order. Finally what it came down to I was ordering fireworks offline like flash powder, making M80's and I lived really close to Quantico military base so I guess they established I was a terrorist trying to plan a terrorist attack. And one morning I was sleeping on the couch, a terrorist task force came and kicked in my door and took all my computer, digital disks and everything in the house. They left. Nothing came of it for a couple of months and then one day just like ten cops showed up to the house. All these states are trying to extradite me for all the peoples credit cards from different states. But I was so young they really couldn't do anything. To this day I'm still not really allowed near computers.

It's kinda weird cause I just stopped going. Nothing ever came of it. No truancy officers never came to the house. Nothing every happened. Actually at the time he was a heroin addict. He was kinda doing his own thing. I pretty much watched out for myself. I've never met my mother. She left when I was born.

Craig

"You know I want the wife, the kids, BMW, the whole story."

2010-07-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

I got a forty smashed over my face. Last night. Basically a chick started calling me out saying, I was some sort of dumb ass saying I'm full of shit. So I said something I should not have said and I deserved a forty but she had no reason to cut off my dreads. With scissors. I thought she was pulling my hair. I stood and took it like a homeboy. She kicked me in the face. Smashed a forty over my head. Gave me a few punches. You know I'm not gonna hit a homegirl.

Why am I still sitting here with Hep C. Fuck Hep C. I'll answer my own question. I was a dumb ass. Because I was with this girl and some process of mixing up the needles, she told me she had Hep C. At the time, like whatever, we fuck unprotected all the time, you know; what does it matter. Come to find out later that it's really not sexually transmittable but I didn't find out that till later. So I gave out my own damn self Hep C. I got it from her but it's my own damn fault. I gave it to myself.

Me and homegirl split up. I came out east. I potentially got a job being a bartender here. Hopefully I'm not in this shit hole no more. Hopefully I'll get my life together. You know I want the wife, the kids, BMW, the whole story. That's what I want. I don't want this dumb shit. Straight up fucker. If I was giving advise to anybody it would be don't be as dumb as I've been.

Illy

"Sorry about your bad luck, bing, bing, bang dude."

2010-07-07T06:50:00.001-07:00

I'm just me dude. I'm a kid. I travel the country. I hitchhike. I've been around dude. I've been on the streets since I was ten years old, dude. Hitchhiking cross country since I was sixteen. I used to roll with the Eighteenth Street. I get into fights, I drink. I don't do no drugs. All I do is swirl beer. Occasionally some whisky. I'm thirty two years old now. I had a house with my ex-girlfriend out in Nashville. We broke up so I packed my bag and hit the road.

I love it. I love being out here dude. I love the people I meet. This is my home. These streets are my home. The road is my home. That's all I got. It's good to me sometimes, sometimes it's not. Every once in awhile it's fucked up. Hey everybody goes through their fucked up shit. Everybody gets beat up. Everybody gets jumped walking through ghettos and shit sometimes. You just learn how to take care of yourself. You learn how to take care of business and handle yourself. You act a fool, in this circle of kids that I'm with right now, you act a fool, sorry about your bad luck, bing, bing, bang dude. You're fucked up. You act a fool you get taken care of, you get handled. We're all good kids. We're all real people. We're all just trying to drink and have a good time.

Satan

"Used to be this dude who used to buy my socks."

2010-07-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

On the way to the beer store to get a beer. Hanging out in the park with my friends. Passing through New York for awhile. I'm pretty spontaneous. Like to travel. Freight trains of course. Where else, Greyhound? I like going through the Canadian Rockies on the trains. Like actually being on a freight train out in the middle of nowhere. Seeing bears.

I used to live in SanFrancisco. Used to be this dude who used to buy my socks. I dunno he liked really smelly dirty feet. I thought that was really pretty freaky. I'm pretty freaky, out there on wild things, but he takes the cake. He would like smell them and stuff.

I don't like stores here in Manhattan. Their just like way too expensive. Like just a beer. Three bucks for a forty, that's ridiculous. Usually no more then like two fifty at the most. I say fifty cents matters for sure. I like other stuff, the Four Loko cause it's a little bit higher alcohol percentage. Its got caffeine in it. It keeps you up and gets you a good little buzz on. It's like an actual like super good drink. But it only like appeals to like I imagine poverty stricken people of our nation.

I mostly have a routine. I like panhandle out in Queens to make money. Then go do what I do. Then I go to sleep in Brooklyn. So I just kinda like bypass Manhattan. I'd rather be kicking it here everyday. It's just like everyday I forced to make money to do the things that I do. Anywhere from like a hundred and five to a hundred and thirty five. Sometimes it's like good right here in midtown, but it's just the cops are such fucking assholes. They'll take you to jail for unlawful soliciting. Different little technical rules. Things that should just be like a ticket, they'll take you to actual jail. You know what I mean? Central bookings.

They either love them or hate them. They think I'm brave. This or that. And then you have those people that are redneck. "What are you trying to make yourself black?" Or "that's real stupid." "Why would anybody want to do that?" Or think it's satanic or something. You know everybody's different. It's kinda like asshole repellant. It keeps away all the assholes and it just attracts good people. I'm used to the stares now. Is that real everyday or did that hurt? The same questions everyday.

Jason

"I like Dali and the surrealist shit."

2010-07-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

I modeled when I was very young. I have a bunch of pictures of like me in catalogs, in like Easter catalogs and Macy's ads and magazines and stuff. No not really. Cause I feel so awkward doing it. A long time ago. Like fifteen maybe. Not even probably. Fourteen maybe. I mean I like the pictures sometimes. I feel very scrutinized. Yeah, no I have money for my college fund. I have not touched my college fund. I'm living in the park and I'm not touching my college fund. Go figure right.

I just want to be myself and sell cool stuff. Chill. My philosophy is to do what feels rights.

I'm not well versed in names of artists so much. I like Dali and the surrealist shit. That's badass. Let's think. A lot of weird shit happens to me. No like when you're tripping and like you don't ask anybody for money or anything and you end up with thirty five dollars in your pocket. That's like really cool cause everything clicks together. People just hand us money. And we don't even ask anybody. Maybe they just felt the vibe. Quote, unquote, vibe thing.

I've slept over there. I've slept at the beach lately. We squat usually. We find something.

About not being completely reckless about everything, I guess. Because I have a puppy, so I can't. Reckless. And I'm never really reckless anyway. I think I'll always be the one like, no guys, lets not do this whatever. Unless I'm drunk and I might do it myself, but then I'll get the fuck outta there. Like if we're trying to do something. Like slide down a cellar and get some beer and climb back up. Like stupid shit. But if I have a puppy I'm not trying to do stupid shit. I wouldn't want to get locked up. So she's gonna put my at my best behavior. She doesn't have a name yet. Just calling her Baby Girl for now.

Bailey

"All my money is just going in my arm."

2010-06-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

Panhandle for my stupid ass heroin habit. On and off since I was eighteen and I'm thirty years old. Oh its fucked it up pretty good. I've lost a lot of friends. They've all been junkies at one point in their life. Now they're pulling the hypocrite card. A lot of people think and it's true, a lot of junkies are thieves, shady people you know but not all of them are. Sure I've done some shady shit in the past, but I've learned one thing over the years. You don't gotta fuck people over to survive. There's plenty other ways to get by as far as you know getting money for drugs or whatever you know. I've been accused of a lot of shit I haven't done you know. I'm probably gonna end up going to detox here in the next couple of weeks. I'm sick of it. You know it's a full time job. You know you wakeup in the morning. You get straight. You go out and make money all fucking day. Fucking find the dope dealer. Do your dope. Go out, make more money. Fucking find the dope dealer. Do your dope. Go to bed. Wake up. Do it all over again. It's pretty monotonous. You know I've been doing it on and off for twelve, thirteen years. It's getting really old to me. All my money is just going in my arm. That sucks.

Jaime

1969-2011

"I got picked up by a fucking serial killer dude."

2010-06-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

I got picked up by a fucking serial killer dude. I don't know if he was a serial killer or not but for some odd reason he was pretty weird you know. He had like, he had all these weird rings or whatever with blood on them. I guess from where he was cutting the finger off. We went to a gas station and I happen to rummage through his truck cause I figure he was like a creepo anyway so I was just gonna rob him. So I'm going through this like box, I'm like jacking the rings and like I lifted up the bottom part of the box. There was a human finger in there, with the ring still on it. It was like pretty bad ass. I kinda wanted to take that too but I din't want to get caught with it. And I ended up scoring a bunch of meth from him, um like sixty bucks and just took off with a bunch of rings I ended up selling in Colorado.

Mike

"Success is bullshit."

2010-06-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

I travel around and hang out in different places. Because it's easier then doing anything else. I've tried to do the whole like have a job and all that kind of stuff. I get so depressed and so bored and so tired of everything and sick of people I always end up back on the road.

Unpredictability and just you know freedom. Wakeup in the morning whenever you want and do whatever you want that day. Do whatever you want to do. Thats more then a lot of people can say. I may not have a lot of money or anything but living happy is a lot more important for sure. I feel freedom is the only ingredient for happiness. Not being told what to do. Able to make your own decisions. I've tried to settle down from this quite a few times. Every time seems pretty unsuccessful. Success is bullshit.

Kerr

"I really don't believe in money. Right now I believe in getting drunk."

2010-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

I believe America is on a downfall. People are getting more pissed. There's going to be a lot of people doing what we're doing. Maybe not doing what we're doing but a lot more broke people that's for sure. They're gonna get pissed. And something is gonna change you know.

You should be able to get fucked up on whatever you want as long as it's not impeding on anyone else.

They got their hand in everything. They might be trying to kill them. I don't think they care if they're fucked up or not. Get rid of a society they don't want. I don't think they really do with the heroin too much. Maybe like fortified wine or something. Like Mad Dog and stuff like that. Cause they put some crap in it that makes you feel a little weird when you wake up.

They're trying to make it for rich people and rich people only. Money is an object. You don't need it. I really don't believe in money. Right now I believe in getting drunk.

Drew

"I expect the worst out of things so I'm never disappointed."

2010-06-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

There's nothing really interesting about myself. I don't know much about myself. I guess I travel. And I realize that traveling is a mental disorder. You always want to be somewhere you're not. I wouldn't really call myself a crustypunk. I wouldn't really call myself anything.

I'm just a living being waiting for death. Cause you travel and you wait to the next spot and then you die. The last spot is death. You just roam around with a mental disorder. I think it's healthy. Acknowledging all that shit.

I have really thin eyelids so I wakeup early in the morning. The sun goes right through them. I don't really wait for anything. I wait for my friends to wakeup. Cause I'm always the first to get up.

I try not to seek happiness cause it's a disappointment. I expect the worst out of things so I'm never disappointed. I enjoy nothing. I set my standards low so I'm almost never disappointed.

Steve

"I don't see myself ten years from now living in a cardboard box."

2010-06-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm getting really sick and tired of these younger groups of crusty traveling kids that are completely utterly violent for no reason. When I first started traveling, hoping trains and shit, when I was eighteen, I'm thirty four, well I'll be thirty four in October it wasn't always like that, it was completely different. Everybody rode trains and everybody was cool with everybody else. There was some violence but it was like outside. It wasn't like inner scene fighting. It nearly as violent as it is now. It's just utterly fucked up. I'm just getting so sick and tired of being around other kids. Like a bunch of us went to Deathfest in Baltimore. Pretty much it was just like all of us like here in the park but like a hundred times more. There were like people fighting with each other and like breaking bottles over each others heads. The violence is just too much.

It's more unstable kids from an unstable background. Coming into the scene and traveling and shit like that . Alcohol for sure. When you're putting yourself out there on the street and everything else like that you have to be subject to some kind of violence. That's just how it is. Unfortunately it's just all inner scene violence.

For some of us this is all that we have. It's all that we know. Some of us don't give a shit. It's like the only way to live. But the again I look back. Getting a job and working like nine to five and paying bills and fucking paying rent and all that. It's just mind numbing. It's just boring. It would be really hard to change, you know. From doing like a one eighty from like doing this to like getting up in the morning, going to work. All that shit. It be, not culture shock. It be stressful. It's completely anal.

I don't see myself ten years from now living in a cardboard box. Drinking fucking hooch down by the railroad tracks. I mean I don't want to be a home bum. I'm not gonna be that home bum. Someday I'll do something. I just don't know when. I'm not gonna be a home bum, dude you know living under some fucking bridge when I'm like forty five years old.

It's a way to live, definitely not a way to die if that makes any sense.

Jamie

"I'm a hitchhiker, not a hooker."

2010-06-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

This guy I was hitching back to Atlanta from Kansas for a funeral and I was about two hundred miles away, right on the other side of Birmingham and this guy, "where you going?" "East?" "Sorry I'm going west." It's all good. He turns back around and like"I'll give you a ride." And it was fine for about sixty miles. The he pulls off the freeway and starts driving off into nowhere. He pulls over and he was like "excuse me where are you going?" I really want to know where are you taking me right now. He was like, "oh I have to piss." Being real evasive about answering the question. And he kept driving and I was like "really where are we going?" You need to tell me where we're going cause I don't feel comfortable with this. And he was like, "oh I gotta to find a place to piss." I was like, "There was four or five bushes I would have gone behind already." So we drove out into the middle of nowhere for forty five straight minutes. You know the sun was going down. He stops in this clearing and you know does his thing. I get out to check on my gear and I don't want to be in the truck if this dudes gonna attack me. I want to be out of the vehicle. We started sizing each other up. And he like, "are you interested in fooling around?" Like, "no I'm not. I'm a hitchhiker, not a hooker. There's a huge difference there. You didn't have to give me a ride anywhere. Just take me back to the freeway." He didn't move. He just kept on staring at me. I started reaching for my knife. Right about the time my hand got to my knife, my little brother called on my phone. And I told him, " you see that. That's my family. I'll be missed." Ever since then I try not to hitchhike. I just try to stay stick with freight. Because at least if I'm alone, I'm alone. You know that's pretty scary, I thought I was gonna have to stab that guy. I really didn't want to do it. You know I'm not really a violent person.

Rebecca

"Should I go kill myself? Should I go kill someone else?"

2010-06-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sixteen. I dropped out of school. I thought I had a kid on the way. This girl moved to California and I was talking to her and stuff and it turns out I didn't have one. She just told me that so I'd freak out. And I dropped out of school and I had a job at McDonalds, like eight months. And I'm was like what the fuck am I doing. I'm not making a living.

I used to hitchhike a lot. I had a dude pull a gun on me when I was hitchhiking. I freaked out. Grabbed the gun. Grabbed his wrist like this and he shot up into his own ceiling and I started punching him in the face frantically and grabbed the car and turned it on the side of the road, stepped on the brakes and pistol whipped him and threw his gun into the woods, took my shit out of the back of the truck and took off.

This year I just been an angry crazy person all year. I've been traveling so long I feel like my mind is slipping from me. I feel like every year I do this I feel like more and more crazy. I don't feel like I can't hold down a normal job anymore.

I don't know what I should do. Should I go kill myself? Should I go kill someone else? Should I start robbing people? Should I get into some crime shit? Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy. I dunno. Maybe living in jail is way easier then living in the real world. I can get three hot meals. A place to sleep you know. Of course you'll probably make some friends.

Sometimes I snap.

Gregg

"I dunno what the reason was but he made stew out of her and served it here in the park."

2010-06-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you remember a few years ago this guy Rakowitz. He was this local guy in New York. He used to date this girl, she was like you know this ballerina student and I don't know, they had a wicked crazy relationship. Anyways like one time you know they used to come serve food in the park. Yeah this guy you know one time he came to the park, here at Tompkins and he brought this stew. It was actually pretty delicious. It wasn't that bad till you know we found out a few days later when it was on the news that, what that stew was. Was actually his girlfriend. That he ended up um, he ended up murdering her. And I guess for some reason trying to get rid of the evidence, I dunno what the reason was but he made stew out of her and served it here in the park. A bunch of us ate the stew. I ate the stew. And the thing is it was actually good so I even had seconds. Yes I had seconds. Anyway how this guy ended up getting caught was you know I guess it was Port Authority he actually kept a bucket with hid girlfriends head in it.

Slug

"Most of society treats me and my friends like shit."

2010-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

I ride fright trains. Travel around. Gone to pretty much every state in the United States. I like getting drunk with my friends. That's why I do it.

I've seen a lot of fucking crazy shit. One of the scariest things that ever happened was I was riding the suicide one time. It's like a train that doesn't have any fucking floor. So it's like you're just sitting on beams. I was jumping from one beam to the other beam and I fell through the fucking train and I caught myself with my arms and the train like fucking pulled me along the tracks and it like pulled my shoes off and my socks off and I finally pulled myself back up but I almost wasn't able to. I almost broke my leg. I had to hop off that train barefoot.

Hippies suck. Maybe hippies back in the day were bad ass but hippies now a day suck. The culture is just fucking retarded. Completely washed out. Everything that hippies stood for and believed in used to be all right you know kind of like a revolutionary sort of thing. Now it's just about fucking bullshit, basically. I don't know what the hippies are about. I don't hang out with hippies. It's not just hippies I dislike, it's pretty much everybody.

People are afraid to talk to me which makes me kinda dislike a lot of people. Cause of the way I look. Who knows? There's a million different reasons. Just cause I'm homeless. Just because you can obviously tell can tell I haven't fucking showered. It trips people out you know. It's a different aspect of society. A lot of people aren't comfortable with cause they don't understand it. No I didn't understand it. I just started doing it however long ago and like the first time I was homeless was when I was seventeen. It was a completely different fucking lifestyle. I was completely in shock at first. I realized how much potential it has for freedom. That's why I continue doing it. That's why I do it now.

Yeah that's probably the main three. Addiction, lonliness, hatred. Because I'm happy even if I hate and I'm lonely and addicted. I'm still happy with it. I'm ok with the way I am. I don't hate people because who they are. I hate people because of the way they treat me. Most of society treats me and my friends like shit.

Brandon

"We're all kinda the same."

2010-06-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

I used to be in a band. We're on YouTube. You could look up the Vagrants Rejected Youth. And you can see me when I'm fifteen playing the drums in a punk rock band out of Louisville, Kentucky. I'm twenty nine. Rejected Youth is about is about you know we're different then you. Something like that. When you get older you realize you're really not. We're all kinda the same. But Rejected Youth is just a punk song saying like, the lyrics are, please don't look at me, I'm not your friend. Please keep in mind I didn't write anything, I'm just the drummer. Please don't talk to me. You wouldn't understand. I'm not like you and I don't wanna be. You're so cool and cute. now I'm gonna leave. Rejected youth, rejected youth, rejected youth. It was our hit song. Everyone loved it that came to our shows. You don't like us and you're so fake. I can not believe. One day you'll break when you realize that I'm really true. Lies in your eyes and I don't want to be like you. The singer wrote the lyrics. I think they're ok. It's kids stuff.

Will

"We're probably all gonna die soon anyway."

2010-06-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm from Tennessee. I wound up here from curiosity I guess. I travel around. I do what I want. Jesus Christ. Probably done more things then most fifty year old men neck deep in a mid life crisis have done in my short twenty five years.

If I'm not being homeless on purpose and riding trains yeah I'm probably not too different. Like this year I have no idea what I'mm doing. I just roll with the punches.

Nothing good. We're probably all gonna die soon anyway. The damn oil spill it's supposed to kill like two thirds of the worlds oceans. Dio died. Fuck, everything is just going to hell it seems. But it's been like that, fuck since anyone can remember. Nothing. We're killing everything. All we do is breed and take away. Don't give anything back at all. Ever. We'll kill the planet eventually. If the planet doesn't kill us first. I'll do what I do till it happens or I die. I don't want much out of life except to be happy.

Clinton

"A lot of people ride freight trains but none of them took a freight train here."

2010-06-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

It's dirty. It's a very dirty scene. A lot of people ride freight trains but none of them took a freight train here. A lot of them like to do hard drugs. I don't do hard drugs. I'm still not on heroin.

I'll probably stop this when I want to. If at all. Hopefully all my friends and everyone I like are still around and ok. I know that's not going to be the case. A lot of them will be dead. I guess in short I hope I'm not dead. I think I'll live old.

Jason

"I'm not like socially retarded or anything."

2010-06-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Woke up, saw a squat house and tell their buddy is going to jail is going to jail for awhile. We went there last night to do that and then flew a sign today to make money so we can get a bus up to Boston. We're heading up up New Hampshire so we'll take the Chinatown bus up to Boston. My buddies live there. We're gonna hang out in the woods. We've been in the cities too long. I'm over it. Just wanna hang out in the woods with my dogs. I love the woods.

I'm not a good people person you know. A lot of people love talking around people. I've never been good at it. I'm not like socially retarded or anything.

I don't make plans too far ahead. My only plan is I think next year I wanna try and hike down the Mississippi River like from Minnesota all the way down and I want to go up to Alaska and work on a fishing boat.

Technology. If we all still farmed or were hunter gatherers we wouldn't really have polluted the earth or all that stuff so bad. All of us just sorta get drunk and have a good time. The future yeah it does look pretty bleak. Most of just kinda don't want to have anything to do with it. That's why we just hop trains and ignore the stuff that's going on I guess.

Chris

"We all decided that we would help her eat the dog's heart."

2010-06-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

My friend had this dog and it was like a little puppy and his name was Grandpa and he probably was only like four months old and then um she ended up putting the dog, she was getting a ride back to where we were staying like this collective house in Utah and she puts the dog in the back of the truck and he fell out of the truck and his leash got stuck and the dog died and we didn't know what to do about it so we woke up in the morning and asked her what should we do with your dog. We need to do something, so should we bury it? She decided she wanted to take all of the bones out of the dog and have the dog's fur and its bones and everything so we ended up having to gut this dog so she could have the bones and the fur. Pretty much there was a dog heart and she was like, "so what should I do with this dog heart?" And someone said, "well you can eat it." And she goes, "well should I cook it?" And they were, "no just eat it, you're fine, it's fresh." So we all decided that we would help her eat the dog's heart because we weren't going to sit there and watch her eat it all by herself, you know. So we ended up like having spin in a circle around just like this dog's heart and we all like ate it. Disgusting. It was chewy and crunchy. It was the roughest, grossest thing. We all had blood down our face. It was really gross. Then she wanted the dogs blood on top of it, so she decided she was going to cover herself in the dog's blood, like saved his bones. We were like on this train, on the gondola and she was like trying to tan his fur on the gondola cause it was sunny, so she could keep the fur and it would be fresh. Probably for two weeks we all smelled like dead dog.

Jordan

"I freaked out and had a manic, panic attack in a park and they picked me up with an ambulance."

2010-06-15T07:46:00.001-07:00

I grew up on tenth street here and i've been here in this park for thirty five years. I met the love of my life three years ago and we had a baby just now. I'm the happiest guy you could ever meet. Well ACS became involved because she's on methadone and they tired to take our baby away and case is closed, thank God case is closed.

She didn't know where I went. She thought I disappeared. I freaked out and had a manic, panic attack in a park and they picked me up with an ambulance. When they picked me up with the ambulance somebody threw a backpack in the ambulance and said it was my backpack. It wasn't my backpack. I had no idea whose backpack it was. When they pulled the stuff out of the backpack, it had a bunch of dirty needles and all this other stuff in there, which I never used a needle in my life. That's why I'm still coherent and here and don't have AIDS and Hepatitis and nothing and neither does my wife. They put me in Rikers Island for two days. Then they put me in Bellevue for two days and then they asked me if I was ok to go home. I checked out this morning and came out here to see my friends.

Eddie aka Mad Dog

"Fucking take a dog from a homeless person that has nobody else besides the dog."

2010-06-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

We found a cool spot that we could go to sleep in. We didn't think anybody would bother us. I did notice some apartments, somebody might say something, it was late and lets just chill out, whatever. So we'll just go to sleep, drink a beer or two and go to sleep. I had my dog. About 9th and 2nd, 3rd. A construction site. I didn't see any signs, but they said it was off limits, no trespassing. There were no signs around there. Cops fucking came. Someone saw us from an apartment. That's what I'm assuming. And they called the cops. Me and my friend and my dog got fucking arrested. They made me put the dog in the back of the fucking cop car. They took the dog off separately. It was ridiculous. Fucking crazy man. Fucking crazy. Fucking take a dog from a homeless person that has nobody else besides the dog.

I'm hoping she's with a really nice person, that can really take care of her with a really nice family. Not a homeless person. I hope she's with a really nice family. I try not to think of the stupid shit that might actually happen to her. Like get put down. Who deserves that. Nobody deserves that. Being put down for no reason.

Lisa

"Put the keys in the tailpipe. Left my mom a note and stole her credit card."

2010-06-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

I started traveling. I started doing dope when I was seventeen years old and I got caught with some when I was eighteen and I got put on felony probation. After awhile I escaped from rehab and I met these travelers from New Jersey in San Francisco and they told me what they did. Rode trains and shit. I was like, "no fucking way." After I did some more jail time for fucking up probation I just dropped everything. I left my van in a parking garage. Put the keys in the tailpipe. Left my mom a note and stole her credit card and bought a bus ticket to Richmond, Virginia. Started riding trains and hitchhiking and stuff and running away from my problems, pretty much. Drugs.

I have, live free or die on my arm and I look at that sometimes. Kinda funny. I guess there are people that are more free then I.

Megan

"Pretty much been everywhere and everywhere sucks."

2010-06-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

I've been in New York City for like two or so years now. I came here with my husband. We came here to stop traveling and get our shit together and get off the street. We've pretty much been living on the street here the whole time. I mean we had a couple of places but that obviously did not work out. Don't plan on traveling again really unless it's out of the country. Because everywhere is pretty much the same. Pretty much been everywhere and everywhere sucks. About equally.

Just picked here because it has more resources. Its a good place to make it if you are good at whatever you do and you bust your ass at it. We're both good at what we do. Just don't have the busting ass down yet.

I like it out here. It's all right. It's kinda becoming a police state like little by little. More and more. So that's like the worst part about this city is that aspect of it. And the fact that there's so many fucking people around all the time.

I do like the city. It just kind of seems that all the people that move here from other states and other cities you know they like New York City but they don't like all the things that makes up New York City. They want to live here because it's a cool place to live but they don't want all the homeless people and the graffiti and the this and the that. That's what makes this place what it is. That's kinda what New York is about. If you don't like it then why the fuck are you living here. That's why the city has changed a lot and it kinda isn't my favorite place to be anymore. It kinda sucks now because everyone that moved here like some rich Yuppie asshole wants to turn it into whatever you know suburb they were from but still live in New York at the same time. I don't understand why they don't just move to fucking LA if that's the case.

Acacia

"Lose the baby and I lose myself."

2010-06-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

I just had a baby six weeks ago. His name is David Joseph. I call him DJ. I never knew what love was till I had him. His father is Eddie, Mad Dog they call him and I met Eddie three years ago in the park. He's missing in action and I gotta say it hurts but hopefully he's getting his shit together somewhere. I heard he was drunk in the park and they called an ambulance on him. Maybe he's in a psych ward or something. All I gotta concentrate now is on my son and getting my shit together and doing the right thing and loving him and being with him. That's all that matters.

Drugs. Not giving a shit. Coming and going. Wherever I laid my head was home. And didn't really have any real friends.

Right now he's in the hospital. I'm going to get him actually. He's in the hospital because I was addicted to Klonopin and I had to go to detox to get off of it. While I was in detox, he had to be detoxed. Which is very sad. But thank god he's healthy and beautiful.

I'm clean. Totally. Went to detox and made a decision and stuck with it. If not I lose the baby. Lose the baby and I lose myself. I'll get it together. I know I will. I'm a strong person. I've been out here a long time. I've fallen and gotten back up. Fallen and gotten back up. I was sticking anything in my arms. Now I'm totally clean. Never thought I'd see that day. Never thought I'd see my age.

Dawn

"A cop rode up to me on a horse and clubbed me on the top of the head."

2010-06-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

I've been hanging out in the Lower East Side especially Tompkins Square Park for a little, almost thirty years. One of the most memorable nights that I remember is the night of the riot. At that time in my life I was working from Monday to Thursday in Queens where my actual home was and from Thursday to Sunday I would sleep here in the park in Tent City. Tent City was a collection of cardboard boxes and shacks that, I'm gonna say we put together to live off the street. We used the electricity from the light poles, so we had our little TVs , hot plates and ovens, so it was a regular little community of castoffs, drug addicts and misfits. Well the night of the riot I went over to 6th and B. There used to be a deli on the corner there that sold coke. I went to cop some coke and when I came out of the deli I saw a bunch of police lining up. And what they were doing was they were um taking their badges off their hats and they were putting on riot gear and putting tape over their names and numbers. As soon as I saw it I started running towards the park. A cop rode up to me on a horse and clubbed me on the top of the head and when I woke and came around the corner the riot was in full swing. Police were beating people up in the middle of the street over on 7th between A and B. And they were going insane. They were tearing up our houses. They were tearing everything apart. They brought in a bulldozer and bulldozed all our stuff. It was supposedly part of a cleanup. But I was never able to figure out how you can clean up one area of the park by dispersing everyone that lived in that area all over the neighborhood. I ended up living in what is now the community garden on 5th street and Avenue B. I ended up living there with fourteen of my friends.

Tony

"These kids don't really have that high of a life expectancy."

2010-06-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

Basically I started hanging out with street kids, gutter punks when I was sixteen. I would come to the city on the weekends. I guess I leaned a different lifestyle because it was more of a community and people took care of each other and i just liked the way people looked out for one another. It was more like a family.

I'm usually found between New York and New Orleans. The last year since July, I've been on the road. I was traveling with a guy, but unfortunately he's incarcerated and I just found out I'm pregnant with his child. So I decided to come to Tompkins one last time because I'm about to start adult life with a baby and go to school and get a degree and I guess kinda leave this lifestyle behind. It's like my one last hurrah.

I want to get clean and so I can't really associate with people that use anymore. I get disability right now. Anxiety and depression.

I feel like I've been very lucky to experience a very different way of living outside of societies norm. It's cool when you have the freedom to do what you want, when you want. But structure can also be important. I always have freedom cause I'm a free spirit. I'm gonna miss it but I'm ready to move on. These kids don't really have that high of a life expectancy. I call all my gutter punk friends my lost boys. Most of my friends are guys. I love them and usually it's like I stay in New Orleans and I see them come through town every year and I look forward to seeing different people and stuff like that but in a way as free as I think they are, sometimes they're kinda trapped in that lifestyle. I dunno it's like I've been there, done that and I'm looking to try something else.

Andie

"Actually I don't know what I'm doing. It's ridiculous. This life is shit."

2010-06-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I'm getting high. Living here. Yeah I'm here getting high. I've been living here since 2004, 2003. I'm born and raised in Manhattan. I dunno. I'm a heroin addict. I just get high all day and drink and live to get high. That's pretty much what I do. Actually I don't know what I'm doing. It's ridiculous. This life is shit. Not here. Look at me man. I haven't showered in a week. I beg for money all day. All my friends get high. I don't talk to my family anymore. At all. I'm twenty three and it's been like nine, ten years since I've spoken to any of them. My life is going to shit. Slowly and it always happens when I come back here. I went to prison. I came back and I went straight here. And it's just a circle of shit.

I probably should be in school doing something productive. Yeah I don't have a lot of time left. I've just been doing this for so long it's not cute anymore you know. It's like a waste of time at this point. The same thing happens every day in this life. It's risky. Im on parole. I'm on the run. I'm on the run hanging out in this park. There's a warrant squad coming through here all the time. So I should probably be doing something else. Like school. I'm an artist. I'd like to go to school one day. I have to get clean first. That's a problem. I just don't know how clean I want to be. I just love getting high. Well I need to get high not because I'm just at the point where if I don't get high I get sick. It started out as love. I used to love to get high. Now it's a job. It's a full time job. I gotta shoot like two bundles a day. And it's like I'm not even enjoying it.

This is it probably. I guess I don't even know where to start. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can make it any other way. I don't know if I can be happy any other way. Or maybe this is it. This is where I'm most happy. I've lived so many different lifestyles and getting high is the only thing that's like really, you know like it's worked for me. Even though it's like pushed everybody and everything away from me. I just feel like it's the only thing that's ever worked for me.

No. How many people are happy? How many people can really say they're happy. I mean I'm happy at times. But overall I'm not the happiest person. No. I'm not trying to sound desperate. Maybe a little bit. I'm not happy really anywhere. When I was in prison and when I was clean, I was not happy. I just wanted to get high all the time. When I go to rehab I'm not happy. I need like. I dunno, I guess I'm like um. I don't know. I don't even know what it is man. I wanna figure it out. But I just can't.

Shane

"I had to run down railroad tracks barefoot to get away."

2010-06-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling for three years. I've had awesome experiences and I've had really shit happen. Last summer I was squatting out in Detroit for about three months, staying with some of my friends. Some prostitutes stayed there too. One night someone no one knew came in and kidnapped me, drove me out to the middle of nowhere and raped me. I had to run down railroad tracks barefoot to get away. Crazy shit happens out there.

Kirkland

"Cops are gay."

2010-06-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm about staying out of jail and drinking and I don't like heroin. I don't do that shit. I like to drink. A little weed sometimes. About it. I don't feel like being sick all the time. That fucking shits expensive. The beer stores always right there.

Bang hot chicks. That's fun. Banging hot chicks. Hot chicks. Doesn't matter as long as they're hot. A skinny waist and bit titties and a big butt. Like Hustler magazine or Buttman magazine, one of those kinds of chicks.

Cops are gay. I got a ticket the other day for sitting on the sidewalk. That's disorderly conduct? Sitting on the sidewalk?

Omz

"They beat her to death with pipes and bottles."

2010-06-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've been around here forever. Before the riots. I know all this kids forever. I'm getting ready to marry one of them who is in Rikers right now. About three weeks ago, it was May seventeenth at two forty eight in the afternoon. Me and Tinnon were walking down twelfth street to go to my friends house. Yeah we were making out and we were a little bit intoxicated. He had me pinned on a car and I had my leg wrapped around him and we were making out. And these kids come up. They're like, Rip her shirt down, rip her shirt down." He's like, back up, back up. Get away from us. Leave us alone man." Then the guy went to grab my iPod and I was like, get your hands off my shit." I pulled it out of his hand and that's when the first punch came. And then they just started wailing on us. He's like, "get off of her, get off of her." A couple of guys pulled him away. And then the other guys kept coming around and kicking me. And they attacked me with a pit bull and that's where the pit bulls fang marks are on my fucking boot. There's teeth marks. I have a bite mark on my inner thigh from one of them biting me on my leg. Not the dog but one of the kids. Three or four cops arrived and said, "you're under arrest."

I'm tired of these kids thinking they can go around and pick on us just because we're homeless and we're crusties. They think they can take our shit. They've been doing it for years. They killed my roommate last year, a girl I've know since she was fifteen years old. They beat her to death with pipes and bottles. And I had to find her dead on our living room floor. These are the same kids. They fuck with us every year.

Christine

"That was the only time I ever been shanked or stabbed."

2010-06-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

I'm from Detroit and this story happened in Detroit, First of all Detroit is not like New York. It's all ghetto. It's straight ghetto. I was about seventeen when this happened to me, maybe eighteen. I came into this known drug area. It's called the little Compton Junior. I went into this dope house and I had thirty bucks. I did one bag and I had two in my pocket. Before I came in there I saw these crackhead looking guys kinda staring me down. And I was like what the fucks up with this. But I was like whatever. Should be all right. So now I go down there. I do it. Come out. And all of a sudden I'm being circled by two guys. They're like, "give me all your money, give me all your money." I'm like, "dude , you just saw me go in there. I don't have anything." All of of a sudden I feel this sharp pain right here. I don't even think it was a knife. It looks too jagged to be a knife. I just felt that out of nowhere. It didn't really hurt. It more like burned. The next thing I know is I'm on the ground and I felt the guy go through my pockets real quick. I don't know if he grabbed the bag or not but I had two bags on me and I ended up with only one, so I don't know if they took it or not or whatever. So I get up and I'm walking down the street and every thing is kinda going in and out, in and out. All I'm thinking about now is I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. And then the police come up and they say, "white boy, you walk your ass up eight mile." And I was like , "dude I'm gonna die." And they're like, "you shouldn't be here." And they actually made me cross eight mile which is a big road, into Ferndale and as soon as I got there, there was a gas station right on the corner. Soon as I got there, I just passed out. I don't really remember anything else. That was the only time I ever been shanked or stabbed. I never been shot. I've been beat up. That was pretty intense you know. I wanna kill those guys but I don't know where they are.

Jeremy

"I feel like a piece of paper, flying around looking for a place to stop."

2010-06-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't really do nothing today. No drugs. So I feel sick. I can't do nothing. I can't eat. All I can do is sleep. This is the worst day for me. I keep on vomiting, vomiting, vomiting all day. I feel kinda weak.

I'm dope sick. I used heroin. I ain't got any today so. I can get. I just don't have no money to buy it. And this sucks. To be sick. Especially on Friday.

I'm trying to stop since the other day. I had nothing the other day. I had money. As soon as the pain kicked in, I had to go get a bag.

I feel like a piece of paper, flying around. looking for a place to stop. That's what I feel like.

I don't have a crazy habit. Like a five bundle habit. A two bag habit. That's it. I got two, I'm good for the whole day. Nothing else.

Ricardo

"My balls went straight up into my guts and I fucking lost memory for a second."

2010-06-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

I don't remember. That's all I have to say. I hurt. It feels like shit. My balls went straight up into my guts and I fucking lost memory for a second. Like brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Ever feel your whole body go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr? I'm better now. I just want a cigarette. You know smoking and tasing go hand in hand.

Mike

" All that's in there is criminals, crackheads, prostitutes, whatever."

2010-06-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I got out of jail. I went to Rikers for thirty three days. I came over to this park, Crusty Row. I was over on the field taking a nap. This guy asked me if I knew where I could get a bag of heroin? I said no. I never seen the guy ever before in my life. He started to have an attitude so I got up off the bench and walked away. As I got up he pulled me by my hair and punched me in the back of neck and my friend got him off of me. He had my hair in his hands. A couple of people went to my aid. He wound up on the ground. We left the park and the cops came looking for us and I get thirty three days in Rikers. It is a hell hole there. It is so bad. The food is disgusting. All that's in there is criminals, crackheads, prostitutes, whatever. People being there for all kinds of crazy shit. But anyway I never put my hands on the guy. I didn't start any shit with him. Went to jail though for thirty three fucking days. Ridiculous. Anyway he went to the hospital. I never seen the guy ever before in my life. Ok and I'm not a trouble maker. Everybody knows me in this park. But he got beat up a little bit. And we did jail time over it. We are the victims not this guy. Nobody here bothers anybody. I don't steal. I don't steal out of stores. I'm not trying to make myself sound like goody two shoes. but it's just fucked up bullshit man. If I did something wrong I would have deserved to be there. My stomachs all fucked up from the food there. I have to have surgery from being in that place. You get treated like you're subhuman there.

Michelle

"What they call you know destroyed and by the time the cops got there I was laying out on the grass."

2010-06-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out with friends. Sitting in the back seat and I had a half a can of beer and we were getting on the expressway and supposedly what his girlfriend said who was sitting in the front seat with him, he was going too fast. He hit the curb and blew out the front axel. The car was totally immobile. What they call you know destroyed and by the time the cops got there I was laying out on the grass. So they thought something was wrong with me and they dragged me to the hospital. And when they dragged me to the hospital they found all kinds of medication in my system and they asked me why there was so much medication in my system because I was on methadone and a few other things. You know what I'm say that I had legal prescriptions for; but I was in the back seat you know. I don't remember any of it. At all. I've been trying to get my stuff back from the car and the girls car who owned it doesn't remember what company towed it and where the car is. Because she lost the slip they gave her where they towed the car. So now not am I only out the money I had on me and everything else that was mostly in my pockets, you know what I'm saying, I'm out my paperwork, my clothes, all the stuff that I carry. My jacket. I own, this is all I have what's on my back right now.

I was in the hospital, the first day unconscious. The second day I was awake but I was very groggy and I didn't want to get out of bed. And today I woke up and they discharged me. They said there's nothing wrong with you. Absolutely there's no bumps. I have no bruises, no scratches. I was lucky. The whole car was destroyed and it was a Lincoln Navigator which is like a tank.

I saw my mom, she gave me some money for my birthday and I went and got a haircut so I look more presentable out here you know and stuff like that.

Mitch

"Honestly I think it's the dope. People are strung out."

2010-05-31T18:38:00.001-07:00

I pretty much been homeless for a long time. I squat a lot in Brooklyn, Manhattan, everywhere. I'm ready to go to Vermont in like a week and try to do like some political stuff out there. People just aren't excited anymore around here. I think people just have a lack of passion. People you know that you met on the street used to be like your family. And now it's not like that. People are all about themselves. They rip you off and don't even care. It sucks. Your best friend will steal, like rob you blind. Honestly I think it's the dope. People are strung out. I've lost like five people this year from heroin. I've been doing heroin for about five years. I'm cutting down and stuff. It's a struggle. Like your best and your worst enemy wrapped into one thing. It's like that one little comfort, even if you don't have a place to sleep, you don't have any food in your stomach, you're miserable, it's wet and raining, at least it gives you that inner warmth, that happiness you can't get from anyone else. I've never had that kind of happiness before. I've never been genuinely happy without it.

You get so sick. You get so sick you want to die. You put yourself to such a level, so you can get what you want, get what you need, you know you end up disrespecting yourself, disrespecting everyone else, disrespecting your body. Throwing yourself away pretty much for this drug you know. It's pretty terrible. You can't have the friend without the devil. That's how it is. They come hand in hand.

Hanna

"He's on the ground bleeding with a knife sticking out of his stomach."

2010-05-31T18:12:00.000-07:00

A guy comes up and gives me twenty xanax, six oxycontin. Another dude gives me three bags of dope. I take four xanax, two oxycontin. My nephew comes and gets me and takes me to the house. I go to the house. I'm like fucked up. I passed put. I wake up. His kids mother comes over, catches him with another chick who him and his boy were fucking in the park. She stabs him in the stomach, robs the girl. The girl calls the police and says they raped her. His third girlfriend comes to the house and catches this dick and the next dick. They start arguing. While the police were locking him up, she's stomping him, while he's on the ground bleeding with a knife sticking out of his stomach and stomps him. Police ask me, "Is he alive, I think he's dead, I think he's dead." And that was the end of the night.

English

"Like you'd have to be a complete idiot to go hungry in America."

2010-05-31T08:32:00.001-07:00

I came to the city last night after Boston, before that it was Virginia, before that Baltimore and Philadelphia and so on. I travel a lot. Wherever the trains take me. I've been hopping freight trains lately. It doesn't really matter to me. I go on a train and it goes where it goes unless I have somewhere specific I want to be.

I like to eat freegan which means I don't pay for food unless I absolutely have to So I get a lot of food out of dumpsters. I get a lot of my supplies out of dumpsters too. I'll jump like in like a CVS dumpsters if I need like Q-tips or like alcohol pads. I'll jump in a Burger King dumpster if I need food.

I have to say the KFC dumpster in my parents town. That or the chip dumpster in Pittsburgh. It's a chip distributor. They send potato chips and corn chips to like Giant Eagle and stuff. They leave all the extra bags of chips, like unopened bags. Still good, not past the expiration date in this giant dumpster. You can go and get like buckets of chips and stuff. Any kind of barbecue chip or possibly like Hurs barbecue chips.

Midafternoon to late night. Like 711 dumpsters. They usually throw out their breakfast stuff by two or three in the afternoon. So you can get a bunch of egg and cheese on a biscuit and stuff. After Burger King and KFC close they throw out like whatever they have left over. Like huge chicken dinners and stuff. Sometimes if I'm like going on a train I'll wrap-up a box of train food or something. Otherwise I just eat what I can eat at the time, carry it back to wherever I'm camping or squatting, eat it then and then get more the next day. They just keep throwing stuff out, throwing stuff out. Like you'd have to be a complete idiot to go hungry in America.

Sunny

"Last winter I was in prison."

2010-05-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

I love it here. All my buddies are here. We travel, we drink, we fucking travel around. California, Kentucky, Tennessee, we go west in the winter. Last winter I was in prison. Mohawk. Mohawk county. It's upstate. I didn't do nothing. A cop arrested me right on that bench over there for nothing. And they said I was selling dope. And I had like twelve dollars and a cigarette on me. They testified against me in court. No drugs, no marked money. Just a couple dollars I'd made. But not selling drugs. The cops did lie. All six of them. They came over here with a little envelope. They told me to put all my shit in a little envelope. They put me in handcuffs and nine months later here I am sitting on a park bench.

Lucky

"A couple of lumps and bumps."

2010-05-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

What happened to my head? We were hanging out here. Hanging out with some younger guys. A couple of them were Spanish. Cats came through calling them spicks and what not. They they made another round through the park and came back through. Threw a bottle at us. I took off. Ran after them. Tackled two of them. There's was like four or five of them. Tackled two of them. Had them from the back, was like kinda trying to smash their face into the ground and I looked up and the dude uh was swinging a BMX bike at me. He hit me like two or three times in the head with a BMX bike. So I got some nice staples here. I got some nice staples in the back. A couple of lumps and bumps. That's pretty much that story you know. Another day on the streets. No doubt.

Charles

"He was in the Marines and he kinda went crazy."

2010-05-29T12:49:00.001-07:00

I was born and raised in Long Beach, California. I've been squatting and traveling since I've been thirteen years old. I'm twenty four now. The reason why I started squatting and I was on the street is because what happened was you know my dad was a really bad person. He was in the Marines and he kinda went crazy. He was a Vietnam veteran and he treated my mom like shit. He would beat her, call her a whore. Tell her that she's a bad person. Just do anything to manipulate her and make her sad and stuff. Fuck with her head and make her feel like she's a low down piece of shit. Lower her self esteem so he could have her wrapped around his finger. One day he just ditched out when I was nine. Me and my twin sister were nine. My younger brother was seven. And my mom went crazy. She found an email, emails from this Japanese lady who I guess my dad was having sex with, cheating on my mom with. And apparently he moved in with her and wound up marrying her. My mom got crazy and got really suicidal. One day I got home from school and she slit her arms all the way down, all the way up her arm and was laying naked in the bathtub when I came home from elementary school. So I dragged her out right and put her in the hallway and I called the cops, you know I called the ambulance and they came and they picked her up. The cops informed me because this wasn't the first time she attempted to do this, they told me they were going to institutionalize her. They told me and my twin sister and younger brother that they want to put us in a foster family. Separate foster families and I wasn't having it. I told them you know can I take a breather, take a walk. They said sure and I ran, ran away.

Jason

"I'm trying to make twenty dollars. Buy beer."

2010-05-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to make twenty dollars. Buy beer. I already got food for today and everything. Three dollars for a forty. Three dollars for a pack of tobacco. And I'm sharing it with my husband. Two of us on it.

I liked it three years ago better when I first got here. The kids. A different group of people and shit. Things were just different. A lot more laid back and stuff.

A lot of junkies. A lot of people doing heroin. A lot. I just drink beer. I don't mind kids who do it. They're kinda of stupid. They leave their dirty syringes around. Fall out, nod out in the park and shit. Fucking have to call the ambulance and all that. The first time I came here three years ago it was better. Each year it just gets worse and worse. All the kids that are just starting to travel now, they're stupid.

Pebbles

"When the shit falls apart that Armani outfit isn't gonna take care of you."

2010-05-25T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's bullshit. There's nothing real about it. All this stuff that people just consume and consume, consume, consume. And they're not happy, like my parents, my dad and his wife, like they live in LA, they drive an Aston-Martin and an Escalade and fucking spend like a hundred dollars a day. They're the most miserable people I know. They're like so fake I don't even like going over to their house. It's like just talking to robots. They don't even support me like how I live which is ok but when I go over there, the financial shit separates us so much, all the stuff separates us.

Materials just turn really good people into like zombies. When the shit falls apart that Armani outfit isn't gonna take care of you.

Madison

"All these kids are doing dope here."

2010-05-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

I smoke a lot of gange. As much as I can. Anywhere from a bowel to an ounce. It helps my stomach calm down and it helps my appetite.

I get to see the country. Different scenery all the time. I hate being in the same town all the time. I love being in different spots. You meet different people. I just love it. It's fun.

As long as it takes me to figure out what I want to do. I might do it forever. I don't care what happens. I've met a bunch of awesome people. I meet awesome people all the time. It might just be some random stranger. I'm a hippie kid. I'm not in a gutter pond. I'm a hippie. I'm a dirty hippie. I go to rainbow gatherings.

They're awesome people. I love these kids.we're all pretty much in the same boat. We all pretty much do the same thing.

I really hate heroin actually. I used to be a heroin addict but now I'm trying to stay away from it. Finally said I'm done. I mean I've done it a few times since. I haven't done it in like five months. I just wanna stay away from it. Kinda why I don't want to be here. I'll windup doing it. All these kids are doing dope here. But that's their gig. I don't care.

Oscar

"They're like giant snakes."

2010-05-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

I love freight trains. Freight trains are amazing creatures. They're like living animals almost. They're like giant snakes. There's like something passionate about riding a freight train and being miles and miles and miles away from the interstate. And being way out in the woods away from everybody else. Just you and the train and the beautiful sites and the loud noises and like the small simple little noises that the train makes. Like the little screeches and the wheels and like you can hear the horn blasting when you go through a railroad crossing. It's nice to go straight through a town, like see all the people in the town and wonder what they're doing in the town for a brief second and then it's over. It lasts like maybe thirty seconds and then you're gone.

Daniel

"A lot of us don't work, play music or solicit for money, tell jokes or turn tricks."

2010-05-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

We're bums but we all provide for ourselves, we know how to survive in the urban jungle. We know how to tell jokes, play songs, spare swipes on the subway so you can get where you're going without having to pay. You know there's always a way. It's about not having your priorities so high you're not able to survive without a job.

Even homeless people are welcome. There's a difference between a homeless person and a traveler. A home bum is someone that wanders around the city and begs for change all day, doesn't want to get a job, doesn't want to get any help, doesn't want to rent an apartment, lives in a box, is an alcoholic, a junkie or whatever. These kids, a lot of us don't work, play music or solicit for money, tell jokes or turn tricks. Anything goes these days as long as it's not hurting someone intentionally.

Will

"The bottom of society are usually some of the best people."

2010-05-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

I come from one of the wealthiest areas in New York; Southampton, Long Island. Here I am in Tompkins Square Park just like with everybody else. I met some of the best people and some of the kindest people here in this park that don't have anything coming from a town that people have everything. You know Mercedes, Ferraris, rich people left and right. I'm poor as a dog. My family has been there for two, three hundred years. My family catered to the rich, you know cleaned swimming pools. mowed lawns, you know that sort of thing. Recently I had a tragedy. My mother passed away and my father sold all the houses that we had and being that I'm a major screwup. I didn't get no money and I had nowhere to live so I came here. I've met a lot of good quality people here, believe it or not. Some alcoholics, drug addicts, regular you know I guess you could say the bottom of society are usually some of the best people. They just got problems like everybody else. So here I am. It's a short story. I'm happy to just be alive.

Charles

"I ended up getting robbed and beaten by them, hogtied and dumped on the other side of town."

2010-05-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have a long existing love affair with New Orleans. It's like a boyfriend that you keep going back to even though it's a terrible relationship you can't get away from it cause you love it so much. It's one of the first places that I ever went when I started traveling. I absolutely fell in love even though some horrible things have happened there. I was brutally raped in New Orleans and when I asked the cops, I ended up getting robbed and beaten by them, hogtied and dumped on the other side of town.

Alicia

"When I'm around, madness is gonna occur."

2010-05-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

I came from a good home. I did all kinds of crap and kicked ass all through the land. Slayer of the system. A lot of people don't like me. When I'm around, madness is gonna occur. All the woman around are going to chant the name of the wildest scumbag you've ever seen around. Crazy Dave, Crazy Dave, Crazy Dave, Crazy Dave.

Dave

"Now I'm back to being a drunk."

2010-05-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

I started doing heroin when I was nineteen. I just got out of the methadone program six months ago. I don't want to have anything to do with that anymore. It's redundant and ridiculous. You spend eighteen hours of the day making money, copping, more money, copping, blah, blah. Now I'm back to being a drunk. Which I don't wanna do that anymore either. I get all crazy drinking.

I went to college for a semester and the second semester halfway through I got into heroin and totally fucked it up so maybe I'll go back to school, maybe I won't. I'll see where the road takes me. I haven't hopped a train yet.

Rachel

"If you find the girl with kaleidoscope eyes you're one more step closer to finding the meaning of life."

2010-05-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

San Francisco. All the way from San Francisco. Today about one o'clock. It's all right. We finally found some kids to mingle with. Eh, eh, eh. Other then that not quite what I expected. We came from Nashville and it was pretty fun there. It was kinda cool in Nashville.

Pretty much this. Yes, we travel, hitchhike, train hop. Go from place to place. It's fun, real freedom. I don't like to conform to society. We have nothing else to do.

Wow, what have we learned? I've learned that there's so much more to learn. That's why we keep doing it. You know what I'm saying? I've learned everything but anger. Pretty much everything that you don't learn from school. Yeah. How to talk to people. How to talk to all types of people. How to have fun, how to have a good time.And not care what everyone else around you is thinking about it. I don't care what anybody else is thinking about me. I'm gonna be me no matter what. How to stay on your feet.

How to get out of New York City. Go to the west coast. Hopefully how to get to a southbound freeway to get back to San Francisco. New York's not our scene..

Not to worry. Just to have a good time. Life is short. You never know when it's going to end.

The meaning of life? There is no meaning. That's the meaning. Stop looking for the meaning. If you find the girl with kaleidoscope eyes you're one more step closer to finding the meaning of life. Stop looking for the meaning and just enjoy it. Find the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. There is not supposed to be a meaning or an answer. There's no answers really.

Stephanie

Casey

"I've done it all for free."

2010-05-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling around the country. I like to explore, see whats around, find cool spots. Find cool spots to hang out. Like meet people. Find places to sleep.

Its like been a great adventure. I also get to see things for free that I've always wanted to see. Like the desert, like coast of California, like Key West. Places people pay thousands of dollars to get to. I've done it all for free. I think I get a more real experience of a place cause I'm not like a tourist. I see counter cultures there. Like different things you don't get to see if like you're not really like out on the street like all around it. You meet more real people that way.

Gary

" I fucking fell asleep and I woke up this way."

2010-05-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

I fell asleep for a long time. I was just hanging around with a bunch of beautiful people. I fucking fell asleep and I woke up this way.

Sleazy

"I've been shot, lit on fire, burned from steam, pistol whipped. I've almost froze to death."

2010-05-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm infamous with street kids around the country because everyone thinks they have to know somebody to be somebody instead of just making their own individuality.

I bought three half gallons, half gallon of whiskey, half gallon of vodka, half gallon of rum. The last thing I remember was drinking a half gallon of rum on the bus and passing it to an old black dude on the back of the bus saying, "drink this." Apparently my friend had me cop some dope on the bus, which I vaguely remember.

We had to shoot up outside because there was no light inside the squat. There's no windows, it's all boarded up. Apparently I was shooting up underneath the lightbulbs and there was a steam hole, like a manhole with steam coming out of it right there and I overdosed on top of it. Honestly if I had been there more then a few minutes, I'd be dead. Somehow the police showed up, put my friend in handcuffs. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I had six surgeries.

Also right after that, my friend just went to prison, his girlfriend went to jail too. She came out and overdosed the day she got out and my other friend came back to Michigan and overdosed on his moms couch the next week. So I missed three funerals and I almost died all in a month.

I've had a lot of shit happen to me. I've been shot, lit on fire, burned from steam, pistol whipped. I've almost froze to death. A lot of shit happened to me.

Doug

"I lost ten friends in the last year and a half. My husband died two years ago of an overdose."

2010-05-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

I started using drugs, running away at an early age. I became an alcoholic heavily when I was fourteen. I've been through a lot of good times and a lot of horrible times. I got locked up for attempted murder. Falsely accused basically. Everything was dropped in California.

One thing I noticed about people in general especially in New York City. People are extremely superficial. They only see the surface, but below the surface is much more important. I look at people walking when they're walking down the street especially when I'm holding my sign trying to make money, they're so focused on clothing, every little conversation you hear is about what they're buying, where they're going to eat, how much money they're spending on this. How much money they're going to spend, spend, spend.

I lost ten friends in the last year and a half. My husband died two years ago of an overdose. He was twenty years old. He never got to live his life. He was a beautiful man. He was a model, a surfer, he was a motorcycle mechanic.

I'm a junkie now. Straight up. I'm not an alcoholic anymore but I am a junkie.

Megan

"I was locked in the closet when I was a little kid."

2010-05-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

My father died when I was two years old at work and my mother couldn't take care of me, she was really wild and crazy at the time, so my grandparents took care of me. They were very alcoholic, abusive people. I was locked in the closet when I was a little kid, hit with a briar bush, old school rulers. They abused my mother.

She was abused as a kid, so she's taking everything out from her past on her daughter, her grandson. That's all she knew.

Sometimes cycles change. So a cycle can be broken. I figured if I don't want to be treated that way who else wants to be treated that way. I don't want to be treated that way. I'm not gonna do that.

Russell

"Yo this is blah, I'm in blah, does anyone know how to hop a train out of blah?"

2010-04-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

In 2003, 2004, all the kids that were in New York that were squatters had set up this Yahoo account thing. It was like 1-800-My-Yahoo. If you knew the number and stuff it was like a big voicemail system. You would call and leave a message. Like a lot of people ended up with it eventually. If you ever ended up in a bind and wanted to know how to get somewhere, you'd dial it up and punch in the digits, you'd be like, "Yo this is blah, I'm in blah, does anyone know how to hop a train out of blah?" So I was like yo I'm in LA, we're in Santa Monica, this, that and the other. Well a friend of mine heard the message and he had a Union Pacific like official pin number like of a conductor, engineer, who knows what, account. And he knew where at any given time, he could look it up where you were and stuff or somewhere nearby to see where any Union Pacific train would stop. What time it would be there, what it was picking up, like a string of cars, what tracks it's on and you know this , that and the other. They left me a message saying we should go to Oxnard, just north of Malibu.

We get to Malibu. When we're walking through Malibu, we cut through a parking lot. This like really fancy car pulls in and they're like, "Are you backpacking? Yeah you're backpacking, hitchhiking? We use to do that in Europe. You need a benefactor?" And we're all at the same time, "Like yes!" And they handed us each a hundred dollar bill. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And like fifty bucks for the dogs too. We hitchhiked to Oxnard. And then we went up the west coast.

Joel

"I'm fucking lost. I have a question mark on my face. "

2010-04-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

Im a train hopper. I ride freight trains around the country. I fly. I take Jet Blue. That's how I got to New York City this morning.

Life is beautiful. Who gives a fuck who you are, how you wanna look. You should be accepted. We're in the United States of America. You are who you are. Some call me OD. Some call me Blackout around here.

I'm fucking lost. I have a question mark on my face. Not for no reason. Who knows? There is no answer.

Tinnon

"I've been shot. I've been shot at. I've been stabbed and I've stabbed."

2010-04-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

I've been riding rails and traveling around since I was fifteen years old. I'm thirty one now. I've been to a lot of places. Seen a lot of crazy shit. I've been shot. I've been shot at. I've been stabbed and I've stabbed.

As for some interesting things that have happened to me, honestly my memory is a little shot. I have pockets. I just can't remember.

Horse