Nowhere

In this episode Austin is back, and we discuss the recent criminalization of homelessness across the nation, starting with the Grant’s Pass Supreme Court decision and the billionaire founded Cicero Institute that offered an amicus brief in the case and has introduced model legislation across the country to criminalize homelessness. We start off explaining the supreme court case and then getting in...

Austin is back again for another episode, this time to discuss narratives around homelessness online. We get into some areas I wasn’t expecting as much but I think was good discussion, we talk some about the background of the interviews I did with Donny, what ethical storytelling might look like, as well as the narratives pushed by short-form videos online. We talk about the wider lens of it all,...

Austin was with me at the dirty kid memorial gathering in New Orleans, and he’s a friend from my days when I was still traveling. He’s a fellow ex-dirty kid, and he is currently working in the non-profit sector in Las Vegas, where he is from, and works on policy around homelessness. Austin talked about his time in the occupy movement, grief for movements, the public grief of those slain by police,...

In this episode I interview Dr. TJ Payne, an independent investigator investigating the unsolved murder of 21-year-old trans man Poe Black that happened in Slab City. So far Payne has talked to family and friends and even traveled to the Slab City area to conduct interviews. Poe Black was a young artist who came to Slab City from Tennessee, seeking community and refuge, arriving at the Flamingo ca...

Just a short update here, nothing too crazy. Going to be pausing for a minute (not too long) also talking about plans for the future, stuff I’m excited about. Moving away from the weekly episode drops towards my older format of publishing episodes as I made them. A lot of it is contingent on finding interviews and stories I think are worthwhile, and taking a minute to get inspired again and refill...

In this episode I go into some recent news around homelessness including the shift in the federal department for housing and urban development away from housing first which has been show to work, Trump’s executive order to make it easier to involuntarily commit people on the street, and the 1,300 bed forced labor “accountability center” they are building in Utah where people experiencing homelessn...

Audio in the episode from the memorial itself starts off rough for the first few minutes and then becomes more clear. I traveled down to New Orleans to attend to the annual memorial gathering where people come together to mourn those they lost over the last year. By a stroke of luck I was able to get audio from the gathering from a device that I was carrying that happened to turn on a few minutes...

This episode is a lot! I interview Tyler, who lived and grew up in Grand Junction CO and experienced homelessness there, about his experiences and knowledge of the Chicken Whackers. I have also included audio from an interrogation video I FOIAd from Grand Junction Police Department from an older case where a man convicted of a stabbing talks about him being set up and the existence of human sacrif...

I interviewed Lolo, a former traveler who started the memorial gathering in New Orleans that is attended by people from the nomadic subculture I was part of, frequently referred to as “dirty kids.” A subculture full of train-hoppers, hitchhikers, rubber tramps, you name it. Many people in this community either aged out of foster care, were kicked out of their house for being queer as a teen, ran a...

Grant is the one on the left of the photo attached to this episode— (substack post) I’ve been working on this episode for a while. Originally, I was doing like a “memorial” episode, but instead I am just focusing on the only thing I can anyway, my experience with Grant. So, this is more of maybe an ode to him and the connection we shared than it is an attempt to memorialize his entire life. I was...

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 s...

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 po...

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 h...

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 f...

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...

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...

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 furthe...

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...

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 experiencin...

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 teach...

In this episode we discuss recent events like the Bitcoin conference in Vegas attended by JD Vance, the SEC cases dropped on different crypto people and the open season of financial crime in the US, the United Arab Emirates welcoming Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto company and using it to pass 2 billion dollars through. Also: the Big Busty Bill and how it redistributes wealth to the rich wh...

This episode starts off with a background on the ideologies of the far-right tech elite that have gained more and more power in our country, acting out decade’s long plans such as the “Network State.” Joe Lonsdale co-founded Palantir, the Silicon Valley tech company that has countless contracts with the US military and recently used AI to help the IDF automate genocide in Gaza. Lonsdale’s Cicero I...

In this episode I interview Nicole, who was in foster care and became homeless at a young age. She was homeless in my local city Springfield, as well as a period of time where she traveled to Memphis and eventually made it back to Illinois. She talks about her struggles with addiction and the services that helped her in Springfield as a young mother, and how she was able to get through nursing sch...

In this episode I speak with Colleen, who was Donny's fiance and lived with him on the street up to the night when he passed away from freezing temperatures. They were together for 12 years. We talk about how she is doing now, how rough it is trying to survive during the winter, and how she met Donny. We both discuss that there needs to be more done in the wintertime to ensure people have what the...

Donny tragically passed away from hypothermia a couple days before receiving housing and getting off the street. This episode revisits some clips from his interviews, and I interview Pastor Steve from the Washington St. Mission, the religious non-profit through which Donny was connected with a case worker that linked him with housing. Pastor Steve performed a memorial service for him, as he does f...