Central City East : Downtown Los Angeles

The non-profits are getting ready to begin their Holiday Season. As Always the Midnight Mission hosts their Thanksgiving Street fair on the actual Thanksgiving day . The festivities bring out lot's of music, esp the Music of the Midnight Mission all volunteer blues band. The Music fills the streets on 6th Street between San Julian Street and San Pedro. This year will be Thursday November 26Th .

The Los Angeles Mission will have their Thanksgiving festival on 5Th street between Wall Street and San Pedro on November 25Th .

The Union Rescue Mission will have their Thanksgiving Street Fair on Saturday November 21st .

The Fred Jordan Mission will also be having their Thanksgiving on the Street on November 26Th. It will be held between Crocker and Gladys on 5Th street.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!!!

Have I given up my skid row citizenship?

I don't know, but it is strange to be living in a part of the community that isn't full of crime and folks sleeping on the streets, no smell of weed intermixed with the smell of crack cocaine. No feeling that the criminals will get me , no one walking by me and saying threatening things only I can hear related to my work with the LAPD and the non-profits.

It is also quite interesting to know that I had to put these fears , these thoughts of seeing human beings suffering, into the far recesses of my mind everyday I was in skid row. To think that this is a traumatic experience , I can assure you living in skid row everyday is a traumatic experience , thus, now I dread having to go there and all I have to do is get the rest of my belongings.

Skid Row is as raw as it gets. The naked human condition. The predators , both sexual and drug enslavers , are everywhere. I mean , where else can you live and a person goes around showing you a nude photo of his so called girlfriend on his cell phone in a provocative position and then when you tell them you don't want to see that are called gay and then that person hits on you. The perversity in skid row was everywhere. But when one maintains that light through the strength of the creator of the Universe , things have to change around you; these laws are inviolable.

I am a square. I am not perfect,but most would call me a square. In skid row to be a square is not welcome. I witnessed a person who claimed to be law abiding and living in skid row at a public hearing , knowing that that person sells boot leg dvds. SO even many who claim to be square front a lot to hide their true character.

I know that much of the universe is hard for many to understand. I don't know how to live by all of the laws of the universe and work within the scope of those natural laws , but I do know that living by faith and understanding faith as a universal natural law , then I can move forward in this existence. I truly believe we are meant to discover these laws and learn to abide by them so we can draw closer to the source which these laws come from..

It is difficult for others to even come close to understand concepts such as delayed gratification, inertia ( what goes up must come down, reaping and sowing, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) why we must refrain from introducing chemicals into our bodies that mimic those in the body because the body will stop producing the ones internally which allow us to grow and learn....and that we are responsible for our behaviors around others because we can cause negative energy to attach to another and cause pain and suffering and sadness.

Free will is a right and inalienable right and it is also a tool we can use to work within the parameters of the natural laws to create and enjoy our sentience and our extension of what is inherently at the core of our every being and express it. That radiation which we call the life force...

I am skid row adjacent, but am living in a different culture where social norms are followed , where there are consequences to what we do , where civility can have it's day. Skid Row was not like that, it is a place where bad is rewarded and good is punished. It is a place that instills in those who wish to live a life of virtue the opportunity to endure , the whole world is like that , but in skid row negative energy is the dominating force, and when one is full of positive energy, you can actually feel the negative forces around you pushing to squash it and if it can't gain your will , it will literally push you out or try to push you away, because the darkness can not be, nor stand to be, around light. If you are light. skid row will literally regurgitate you from within it's borders .

It is this that I have to take hold of; that I must endure to the end and do what I know is right and cling to the knowledge that in due season I will reap . It is these tests that make us who we are. I am literally a better person for having lived in skid row. For understanding and sensing the pain that flows from those who do not and have not learned the lessons that I have. You can feel their pain and they sometimes will tell you that it is easy for those on the straight and narrow to look like perfection in that place, it literally causes them emotional pain that hurts them. I can't comprehend the idea that just because I don't consume drugs or engage in prostitution or prey on other human beings how someone could envy those attributes in myself. To me it is just Loving oneself and loving my neighbors. It is also a gift..

I digress to the fact that I am now even having a hard time going back to the heart of skid row now that I don't have to....WOW!!!! So many do wish to keep it out of sight and mind... but if we are all connected by the same source , no matter how dim , we can still feel the deep suffering of these our fellow human beings.... The human condition is what we are living...

If you walk around Los Angeles and ask folks what they think about the Downtown News , a lot of responses will be that they are nothing but a promotional rag to the highest bidder , yet these past couple of weeks we have seen Ryan Vaillancourt do actual Journalism in the stories he has submitted and published about the skid row 30n3 basketball league.

It is amazing to see that the howls from downtown residents about actual reporting on what is going on downtown other than the promotional stories about those who pay for advertising in the Downtown News is coming to pass. I am just glad we are seeing the reemergence of a downtown staple becoming a real place to read stories about downtown and not just the politically correct tied to advertiser stories.

Ryan has my utmost respect ... keep them coming... we want to read stories about life in Downtown and not just who has the best new residential building...

He also has qualified himself for an actual Los Angeles Town Crier Ambassador of Goodwill Award for his crossing social and economic barriers to create community within the city of Los Angeles... Someone will nominate him , hopefully...Come on someone nominate him...

That is me on the left standing next to sid garcia..boy was I big

I am glad I took the risk I took to get the weight loss surgery. In life we all need to take risks. I have seen photos of myself and I can say...I was fat as all heck!!!

Geez Louise!!! I am feeling a lot better. At 223 lbs instead of what I was at 280 lbs or even more, 298 at my heaviest, I can say that it is quite a different life and different world. Some people treat me differently;, for the better and some treat me worse.

I was even threatened by a doctor that if I sought out another doctor to go through the process of getting permission to get the weight loss surgery, that doctors group would not see me anymore. They were true to their word. Now I have different doctors and I can start off on a better footing simply because my moods won't be so bad because of the diabetes, which I now no longer have. I have to confirm this with the Endocrinologist , but we shall see what is happening. I am just so happy that now I will be moving into market rate housing and become a productive member of society. This is what I have been shooting for ,for a long time. I know I still suffer with the inflammatory demyelinating neuropathy , but I can keep that under control since I will be operating within a short year my own business and working for myself . I will have to learn how to live with lot's of money. Life is good!!!

I just want to get back into shape again . That is all I want right now. To be at least looking healthy and being healthy. I am just fortunate that the weight loss surgery helped me in the area of the diabetes.

Faith in God is the most important thing.

It might be I might be leaving skid row in a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Time and weight are telling me it it is time to go. Interesting that I have lost almost 50 lbs and my thinking is also changing , not just my body's proportions. The way I am thinking now is that it is time to explore the world. The first thing that needs to be done is to change my location in Los Angeles and try and make a little money. It is so strange to see myself making money and surviving that way. My business can make it anywhere. Everywhere you go people need websites and hosting.. NO biggy...But mine will be a silent skid row success story and I am one of those who took the risk to not be one of those who was dying to get off of skid row. That is usually how one leaves skid row . Many people have to die to get off of skid row. Where I may be moving next is not far from skid row , but in a way it is as far away as one can get from skid row. I will let you know. It almost feels like I am abandoning the efforts there, but many people live outside of skid row and do very well at doing things to make it better for the people there. But to be honest with you ,I will be free where I will be living. Market rate rents allow for this.

To be free is one of the most important things in the world. I think I will be happier there than anyplace else..and then I can move on to traveling and just enjoying life in shape physically and emotionally. It was the place I had been living that was causing a lot of my physical problems. I no longer need an oxygen tank with me nor the concentrator. I will still use a CPAP machine in the evenings, but we shall see if I don't need that anymore in the future. Emotional stability has been achieved as a result of the remission of my diabetes as a result of the gastric bypass surgery. I won't say it is cured because I know my diabetes was the result of the intravenous prednisone treatments due to a different illness. Watch the video to see the amazing things the Midnight Mission does.




One thing I am grateful for is the Midnight Mission allowing myself to stay in the transitional program in my own room and with air conditioning this summer during my recuperation from the surgery. It has been an experience. Boy ! Has it been an experience.... The Midnight Mission is a temple..It is a temple to the idea that, just because someone needs help, we as human beings still have our free will to choose our own religions and think freely,instead of being forced into one religion or other . This is one reason I will give half of all of my profits to the Midnight Mission and it's programs. Where there were those who were willing to toss me away , they were the first to want to take me in , although my illnesses had climaxed to the point of intractability. Now I am calm inside, my illnesses have calmed and, now I have to push myself to get out there and live life. Living at the Single Room Occupancy Housing Corporation Hotel was stressful, there was no help, drug dealers ran the hotel, security guards were paid off , and managers, if not paid off, were afraid and let the prostitution and drug dealing run rampant in the hotels. I am glad I left when I did.

Downtown was so good to me while I was at SRO. Downtown looked out for me ,and amazingly it was the gay community that did so much for me while I thought I had not other options. Thank you for all you have done. I love everyone of you. Others who were always those to step up first to help were Orlando Ward and Kathy Ward. Don-Noyes More and Christian Martinez, Councilwoman Jan Perry , Eric Richardson ,and many others who want to remain anonymous were also there.. you I will never forget and pray for.

Now I have to make a decision that will get me out of the skid row fray. I am the type that must have a purpose and the purpose looks like job creation. It is what is needed...

It is a good feeling to have when one accomplishes a mission. This morning I saw the fruits of my labor as I looked at the Installation of drupal on a linux ubuntu and xammp stack. It is so awesome to have that feeling. There was another part to this project that hasn't happened yet , but it will happen. The Midnight Mission now has it's have it's library data base on GNU licensed software so no one has to worry about software infringement. And the stack is on it's own semi- server so it doesn't have to be connected to the Midnight Mission's IT network. The Library will have it's own network eventually , but for now the most important thing is to have a database where books can easily be entered and kept track of and as a result easily put back on the shelves.


I am looking forward to the best part of the project and I can't reveal what that is yet. But I can say it will be a surprise to the open source community. I love doing this and I am so glad that I can do this.

I was just thinking that, in a way, when we do what is right , even if it is not in our best interest to do so the universe blesses us with things we thought never possible. I see now that the Gastric Bypass surgery I had looks to be a part of that blessing. The diabetes is in remission and I still am tired a lot from my other illness , but at least I don't get the double whammy of the neuropathy also coming from the diabetes. But the weather change reminds me that the demyelinating neuropathy deficits are still present with me and the pain and stiffness is still with me. But I see light instead of darkness. Success at this one project has made me happier then I ever thought and the fact that Ronnie Teasedale traded a fully functional computer tower for SEO advice and I used that tower for this project . Sometimes many of us look at those who are less fortunate as not needing the best , but my experiences in the Midnight Mission Library tell me that to make it difficult for people to look for the books because of the perception they are not worthy due to poverty or situation in life , does not make the Universe happy , nor does it help them get out of the situation they find themselves in. I haven't opened the library fully yet , but the time I was in there putting it back together because of it's use as an office for a wonderful organization , which has now moved on , folks were coming in looking for books in basic math , business , and other things that would help them improve their skills. SO it is important to make sure that the genres are placed where they need to be in categories , but as general as possible to make it easier to put them in their categorical location.

It is an experience. Life is just like that. But the universe, has it.s own agenda and we must be tuned to it in order to flow. That doesn't mean we don't have free will and the freedom to choose. We do. And I will always beleive that. The choices are ours.

For your edification Fire Station 9 in Skid Row is now transmitting their weatherbug data to those online. Get a weatherbug widget from Weather bug and stay informed on all the weather in skid row. Just click on the widget on the right sidebar of this blog to find out how to get a widget for your site .