The Wild Street Kids of Telegraph Ave
We, in Berkeley, are fortunate to have Telegraph Avenue which bustles daily with culture and commerce. Telegraph's vibrancy is a tribute to our community and to our faith in Berkeley's spirit. Today we are concerned with vagrancy amongst the young and able-bodied on Telegraph Avenue along with its causes and its effects. This article will only scratch the surface of the concern. However, we believe that public awareness is a first step toward a remedy for any problem. It is in this spirit and with this faith that THE WILD STREET KIDS OF TELEGRAPH AVE was composed.
You’ve seen them on the street corner, you’ve passed them on the sidewalk, you’ve heard them ask for change. They disdain tests and grades and resumes, they care not for extracurriculars and externships and Panhellenic exchanges. They do not live by the daily shower or the hourly wage. They go their own way, and they seem somewhat proud of it.
But who are they? Who are these ageless children, these eternal youths dressed in the most fashionable of rags who strum guitars and hang out in doorways? What compelled them toward their alternative path? What do they want and who do they want it from? To find out your faithful reporter went out into the field to live for just a short while as they do – to learn their stories – to gain their insights.
“Do you like dogs?” she asked moments after her dog jumped on me and licked my face.
“I could take them or leave them,” I replied, and then realizing how bloodless and remote that made me sound, I quickly added, “I used to have a cocker spaniel.” I still have a cocker spaniel, it’s just that I abandoned him to a parent when I moved to Berkeley to acquire a college degree.
“He usually isn’t so friendly with strangers, he really likes you! My name’s Moon by the way.”
“I once a met a street kid in Portland who had a cocker spaniel. I didn’t spend enough time around him to know what to think of them.” As Moon’s friend said this – I later learned his name is Teddy – I realized that the questions I want to ask them were just a bunch of aggressive posturing. I could have just as easily told them repeatedly that I thought I was better then them.
To one side of me were a couple of veterans conducting business in hushed voices, to the other side were some kids who like to draw and play with dogs. What was I really doing here? Documenting the ways in which I think I’m superior to these people would not make me an investigative reporter or anthropologist; it would make me an asshole.
As pure as I wanted to believe my intentions were, I had really chosen to pick on these people because it bothers me that many of them beg for money on the street. Why does this bother me? Because their youth, their attitude and yes, their whiteness seemed to suggest that they had chosen poverty. And I would respect their asceticism if they did not suck around the collective asshole of capitalism hoping to collect its waste.
You can’t reject the establishment and act entitled to its scraps.
Or at least that’s what I thought. When a middle-aged couple gave Teddy a slice of pizza without being asked, or when a man asked to photograph Teddy as he drew a picture in his sketchbook, or when a UC Berkeley student propositioned Teddy for a drug that is known to be less harmful than the drug sold legally across the street at Raleigh’s, I started to see that Teddy didn’t feel entitled to much of anything. I wanted to expose the truth about Wild Street Kids, but the truth is they are already fully exposed.
Up the way a bit, outside Rasputin, a jug band outfit playing a folky bluegrass variant on the sort of gypsy punk made popular by Gogol Bordello drew the attention of many of the street kids around the block including Moon and another girl I met named Snowflake. As I watched them dance to the music and cheer on the nameless ragtag band that was apparently visiting Berkeley from up the coast, I knew I was letting my subject off the hook. Thankfully off the hook is where my subject belongs.
You’ve seen them on the street corner, you’ve passed them on the sidewalk, you’ve heard them ask for change. They disdain tests and grades and resumes, they care not for extracurriculars and externships and Panhellenic exchanges. They do not live by the daily shower or the hourly wage. They go their own way, and they seem somewhat proud of it.
But who are they? Who are these ageless children, these eternal youths dressed in the most fashionable of rags who strum guitars and hang out in doorways? What compelled them toward their alternative path? What do they want and who do they want it from? To find out your faithful reporter went out into the field to live for just a short while as they do – to learn their stories – to gain their insights.
“Do you like dogs?” she asked moments after her dog jumped on me and licked my face.
“I could take them or leave them,” I replied, and then realizing how bloodless and remote that made me sound, I quickly added, “I used to have a cocker spaniel.” I still have a cocker spaniel, it’s just that I abandoned him to a parent when I moved to Berkeley to acquire a college degree.
“He usually isn’t so friendly with strangers, he really likes you! My name’s Moon by the way.”
“I once a met a street kid in Portland who had a cocker spaniel. I didn’t spend enough time around him to know what to think of them.” As Moon’s friend said this – I later learned his name is Teddy – I realized that the questions I want to ask them were just a bunch of aggressive posturing. I could have just as easily told them repeatedly that I thought I was better then them.
To one side of me were a couple of veterans conducting business in hushed voices, to the other side were some kids who like to draw and play with dogs. What was I really doing here? Documenting the ways in which I think I’m superior to these people would not make me an investigative reporter or anthropologist; it would make me an asshole.
As pure as I wanted to believe my intentions were, I had really chosen to pick on these people because it bothers me that many of them beg for money on the street. Why does this bother me? Because their youth, their attitude and yes, their whiteness seemed to suggest that they had chosen poverty. And I would respect their asceticism if they did not suck around the collective asshole of capitalism hoping to collect its waste.
You can’t reject the establishment and act entitled to its scraps.
Or at least that’s what I thought. When a middle-aged couple gave Teddy a slice of pizza without being asked, or when a man asked to photograph Teddy as he drew a picture in his sketchbook, or when a UC Berkeley student propositioned Teddy for a drug that is known to be less harmful than the drug sold legally across the street at Raleigh’s, I started to see that Teddy didn’t feel entitled to much of anything. I wanted to expose the truth about Wild Street Kids, but the truth is they are already fully exposed.
Up the way a bit, outside Rasputin, a jug band outfit playing a folky bluegrass variant on the sort of gypsy punk made popular by Gogol Bordello drew the attention of many of the street kids around the block including Moon and another girl I met named Snowflake. As I watched them dance to the music and cheer on the nameless ragtag band that was apparently visiting Berkeley from up the coast, I knew I was letting my subject off the hook. Thankfully off the hook is where my subject belongs.
My name is mountain.
ReplyDeletei am a good friend of teddy, moon, and snowflake. i'm inspired by your interpretationof what you experienced when you met them. i'm proud of your objective reasoning, and your ability to lay down your paradigms, even for a moment, in order to understand another person's view of life, the worlds, and society.
i have lived on the street, traveled the highways, and met the great people of our great country. i have my difference of beliefes from the majority of our civilizations citizens, but i expect that my beliefes be accepted and tollerated...and i'm thankful when they are. so...thank you.
to add to your comment "suck around the collective asshole of capitalism hoping to collect it's waste"...it is my belief, a belief held by most transients, that food grows from the ground. it is free and should remain so.
when a free element of life is taken away and placed in a warehouse, and the citizens are comanded to work in order to regain that element, you can only expect to find some degree of rebellion.
for my part, i wish the rebelion were larger.
i've always been of the belief that if you want food you should have it...FOR FREE. whereas, if you want a playstation...you should pay someone to make one for you. that's the difference...that's why we beg for money and sell drugs...to get food that should have been free in the first place. we don't beg for your scraps in order to buy a new car or television, or even a new pillow.
we use your pocket change to live...and nothing more. that's all we aks, that's all we need.
Thanks for your comment. I hope it was clear from the article that some of my initial assumptions, especially the "suck around the collective asshole of capitalism hoping to collect it's waste" part, were significantly changed through what I actually found out when I investigated more closely. I will add that even initially I did not believe that anyone should be deprived of food or the means to live. My critical outlook was more determined by a sense of attitudes that, as I said, changed once I actually spent some time trying to figure it all out.
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