6:00 a.m. LA and I wake up, we pack up our gear and ride over to St Francis house for breakfast. We have to hide our weapons. Weapons are not allowed in St Francis house. There’s a large line for breakfast, so we wait till the door opens, and the line starts moving. You have to go through an x-ray machine and metal detector to get into St Francis house. You need to have your St. Francis House ID handy to be scanned into the building and into the breakfast. We sit for breakfastbreakfast, and LA is happy when he gets his coffee. Before that he does not like to be bothered.
8:00 a.m. We arrive at St Paul’s Manna Breakfast for and lunch for the homeless, St. Paul’s is located right next to the Boston Commons. it doesn’t open till 9:30, so we hang out in the comments for a while, LA smokes a joint, and I work on editing videos and writing the blog.
9:30 a.m. St Paul’s opens up. My Camera guy and I go down and have a little bit more food. The church is serving oatmeal and cinnamon bread. After breakfast there is a sharing circle. St Paul’s also has lunch. LA and I stay for lunch. I spend most of my time editing videos, writing the blog, and trying to organize and document this project.
1:00 p.m. LA and I bike down to the Phoenix recovery Gym near the impact zone on Mass and Cass. On the way, we catch an announcement from Mayer Woo about the War with Israel. We stop briefly to record and travel on.
1:30 p.m. We drop off our stuff in the Phoenix and we go to Atkinson Street. Atkinson Street is busy, there’s people all over. Tents drugs. No one in the tent city wants to talk to us. We take a walk around the corner and try to get some interviews; none of the people are interested. There’s a man fighting invisible enemies in the street.
2:00 p.m. LA and I decide to walk back to The Phoenix recovery Gym and get out of the impact area. I see one man with a beard walking down the street. LA knows him from a day shelter. The man says he’s going to buy a beer and then come to do an interview. 10 minutes later the man returns, and tells us his story. His name is Clifford and he is from Virginia. You can watch the interview below.
2:20 p.m. LA and I head back over to the Boston Commons area. Most of the meals are within that vicinity. We stop and sit on a park bench on Commonwealth Ave. LA decides to do an interview. One thing I noticed about LA is that he is a hurt person with a traumatic past. It seems most of the people out here in the street have a lot of hurt.
4:00 p.m. There is a feed at a church in Cambridge, so LA and I decide to ride our bikes over there a bit early. Cambridge is the cleanest and most uppity area of Boston I’ve seen so far. Your perspective changes when you are riding around on a bicycle everywhere. We end up sitting outside the church. I get a bad of chips and a monster energy drink and I buy LA a coke. We sit for over an hour, the dinner is at 6:00pm and no one has shown up. We start to realize this place is a bust. LA says he knows of another spot. We jump on our bikes and begin riding back into the heart of the city.
6:00 p.m. LA and I get all turned around, LA doesn’t know where the next meal is. We end up missing out on dinner. This is frustrating for LA. We end up finding a Seven Eleven and getting convenience store egg rolls, and toquitos, there is a woman outside the convenience store yelling and ranting about trash scientist and dropping your pants loud. I wonder if she is drugs or possibly schizophrec.
7:30 p.m. LA and I decide to sleep at the church where we met a few days ago. When we arrive at the church it’s quiet. The woman who sleeps there shows up and silently lays down to sleep. Frankie the drunk who was yelling belligerently about being a marine the first night returns. He must be drunk, he is yelling and hollering about being a marine. He argues with LA and the Woman. Frankie loudly swears and insults them. It’s a small turf war. At one point LA is ready to do harm to Frankie after Frankie threatens to stomp on the Woman’s head.
10:30 p.m. I’ve had enough, I’m tired, so I try to go and sleep on the other side if the church. It’s heavily lighted there and I feel exposed. As I’m looking for a quiet place to sleep I see Frankie walk by down the street. I go to the side of the church where LA and the Woman are, and let them know I am going somewhere quiet to get some sleep. The Woman suggests the Palisade on the Charles river, that’s where I go. It’s a 7 minute bike ride away. I find a weeping willow and set up my bed within the cover of the weeping willow branches.