Nowhere

This episode is about my own story, mostly looking back at the end of my traveling, when I got off the road, and then also looking back at the beginning. It is mostly about my time spent in Slab City. I keep forgetting in my effort to interview other people that I have my own story that I still haven’t really shared on the podcast, just kind of referred to it here and there. I hope to share more similar episodes soon. Unlike other episodes, I didn’t write this one out, I essentially just recounted these parts of my life through the perspective I have now. I figured with my trip coming up at the end of October to cover the dirty kid memorial gathering in New Orleans, it was as good a time as any to start looking back at the time in my life when I became part of that nomadic sub-culture. This episode kind of sets the stage for the rest of my time spent traveling.

I’ve been reluctant to make episodes about these times because I know I would be mentioning Grant, and I wanted to give him his own episode with high production quality, so I’m back to working on that. All I can really do is talk about my experiences with him, so it will be about my own story but also Grant, because he was there for most of my traveling. I talk about this some in this episode, but I don’t meet him until after this time period.

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This episode looks at national news around homelessness, from Oklahoma’s sweeps led by the state to the mass shooting at a Minneapolis homeless encampment. I also talk about other violence that I have heard of while doing outreach locally.

In this episode I analyze this news and how it is portrayed and debunk claims that I often hear in person and that are perpetuated nation-wide from media and politicians on both sides of the aisle; like the idea that people choose to be homeless, and that they don’t want help.

I also look at ideas in America that people need to somehow earn their right to exist, that it is our job to judge whether they are worthy of basic human rights, along with looking into US media’s portrayal of homelessness and total lack of any analysis that looks at systemic issues, always putting the impetus on the individuals.

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As a continuation of my lil series on the commodification of human connection, we go to the next logical step, which is the automation of the human connection. You don’t even need the human!

This is a fascinating interview with anthropologist Isabelle Fioroni from the University of Helsinki who has been doing an ethnography on individuals who use AI for different relationships. We talk about the history of mourning the dead and how we find new ways to do so, including AI versions of past loved ones, about romantic relationships, therapeutical relationships, and more. Her perspective as an anthropologist is fascinating. I think the important thing is to have compassion when looking at these cases, because who can blame anyone in this world for seeking connection wherever they can find it. That being said, we talk about the harms also.

I will do another episode on AI that goes more into my own critique and analysis of these technologies as a whole, and looking into people’s more recent spiritual and religious connections to AI.

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This episode is the first part of a very mini series I’m working on about technology and the commodification of human connection. I decided to do this episode because I wanted to try to define what we’re up against when we try to build community in the real world, and why it is more important than ever. A lot of research and writing went into this, as well as playing a little more with the audio form so I hope it’s a little entertaining.

We’re told we’re more connected than ever, at the same time people are more lonely than ever. This is a look at how tech like social media and algorithms have addicted us, isolated us, all while selling the idea that they are actually connecting us. I look at the history of this technology into the modern day and how over time capitalism and monopolization has taken are desire to be together and used it against us, creating a disease of lonliness while at the same time selling us the “cure.”

Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: a comprehensive 2023 study by the surgeon general, 72 pages

In the intro to this episode, I cover what ICE has been doing on a national level, how what has been happening is unprecedented, etc. If you want to skip to the interview, it starts at 8:30.

In this episode I interview Nick about his resistance of ICE with a group of people in Portland. He has been arrested four times, maced, tear-gassed, flash-banged, attacked by counter-protesters, had his phone surveilled. We talk about the differences between what him and his friends are doing and protests like No Kings. We talk about what it has looked like on the ground there, and some of the logistics of a long-term resistance like this. We talk about what it’s like facing brand new ICE recruits, and the other local battles that are happening on the city council level to try to get ICE out of Portland. I think one of the most important take-aways from this is confirmation that we are not powerless, and also the importance of working with other people.

HERE IS THE GO FUND ME LINK TO HELP THEM KEEP FIGHTING

And here is a link to Nick’s substack where you can find his writing on Accelerated Christian Education as well as videos of what has been going on in Portland.

Our Streets Collective protested homeless sweeps in Pittsburgh by camping alongside community members experiencing homelessness, after attempted collaboration with the city where they were mostly used for PR. In this episode I interview co-founder Sam Schmidt. They are a mutual aid collective that does not get government funding, or any grants of any kind. They advocate for those in need and help members of their community who are unhoused, incarcerated, or just hungry. “We’re just neighbors … there’s a difference between charity and solidarity,” as Sam says in the interview. They are part of a network of different mutual organizations, and they do a food distribution outside of the local jail to help people coming out, and they have even had people who were in jail do a sock drive for those unhoused. Most of all what they do is exist with the community, they give space and facilitate discussion for people to be able to share their personal experiences, and they fight for people based on those needs and what they are going through at that time. As a collective, they are doing something with and for the community every day of the week.

LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO OF INTERVIEW

“The only metric for success here is the experience of homelessness. So if my people are suffering, then we're going to keep showing up.” -Sam

Here is a link to their website’s donation page if you want to help them, as well as their Patreon where you can subscribe and donate to access pieces written by members:

Donate — Our Streets Collective

Our Streets Collective | A mutual aid collective serving Pittsburgh's poor and unhoused | Patreon

Okay this one is a shorter episode with essentially a single topic, you guessed it. Trump said he is deploying the National Guard to DC and has plans to round up Americans experiencing homelessness and send them to an undisclosed locations. In this episode I talk about how the Supreme Court decision last summer is allowing this to happen, and how our good ol’ friend Joseph Lonsdale has been furthering this goal with his Cicero Institute, and the video in which Trump laid this out before he was even elected. Why? AI automation, smaller middle class, bigger wealth gap, larger poverty class, more people on the streets, they have to do something about it. Cheap exploitable labor? We’ll see. Criminalizing the existence of people experiencing homelessness along with Trump’s July executive order that makes it possible to involuntarily commit people has all been working towards this goal. Now ICE is tripling, bringing in new recruits as they get contracts with the military tech company Palantir (Joe Lonsdale co-founder), we didn’t think they would be using ICE on just immigrants did we?

More in the latter part of the episode about how corporate media right-wing and left-wing has made things like this even more possible and laid out the authoritarian tools for any f*****g idiot to come along and pick up and use. Whups! Who knew that was the logical conclusion of dehumanizing an entire class of our fellow Americans?

2023 Video of Trump on homeless policy:

Agenda47: Ending the Nightmare of the Homeless, Drug Addicts, and Dangerously Deranged

Klippenstein Nat Guard leak:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-170741299

Trump signs order to make it easier to remove homeless people : NPR

Alec’s Copaganda Newsletter | Alec Karakatsanis | Substack

This episode goes off topic a bit here and there (my fault), discussing conspiracy theories and the KKK in Colorado, but mostly it is about Vachel Lindsay, a poet from my hometown who traveled the nation in the early 1900’s without money, trading poetry for room and board. Ian is actually a Vachel Lindsay expert, having been involved with tours at the Vachel Lindsay house since he was 11, as well as featuring in a documentary and other videos/interviews. I happen to be playing Vachel Lindsay in a local short play also. Vachel came up with a concept of the “Church of the Open Sky,” one that accepts all creeds and encourages one to travel far and wide and then come back to their home and put in work to make their own “hearth and neighborhood the most beautiful, the most democratic, and the holiest in the world.” The concept is not about God but the world around you, and for many reasons (some you might guess) I feel a kindred spirit with Vachel, and many of the things he wrote about over a hundred years ago are things I’ve been thinking about when it comes to local community.

Here’s a link from a video where coincidentally my sister Rachel (then working for NPR) interviews Ian about Vachel as they tour the house:

A Tour Of The Vachel Lindsay House with Ian Winterbauer

This is a very exciting episode for me, I talk with Peter Hough, pastor at the Alton Mission in Alton, IL. I found Peter through searching for winter survival practices for people experiencing homelessness and found about the OWL program he helped launch (Overnight Warming Location). But in the first half of the episode he talks about what having a congregation of people in poverty and experiencing homelessness looks like, and also what building community WITH those members looks like. Peter speaks about the difference between the transactional nature of targeting people for a mission or to be fed and instead eating with his congregation. From that simple starting point, he has been able to build community around the Alton Mission. Peter also talks about the difficulties with starting OWLs, and how invoking the religious liberty and tradition of helping the poor helped him convince other pastors to open their doors to people experiencing homelessness on freezing nights. Even then he still struggled with police and the city trying to stop them. The whole conversation is a very inspirational look at what building community in such crucial ways can look like.

In this episode I talk with my friend Ian (poet/author/monk) about finding community locally. I speak about my own experience with finding community in recovery, and Ian speaks about the moments that led to him to seeking community at our local Buddhist temple. Ian has become involved there, working around the temple, driving monks to other temples for ordination ceremonies, and has received teachings from the Sayado and essentially become an assistant there. Issues with mental health led (along with a strange dream) led Ian there, and we wrap up the episode talking about mental health in our personal lives. Ian also explains the different Thai amulets made and worn by Buddhists (including himself) that can contain different pieces of human material, and how a symbiotic relationship with a ghost works.

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