This is my first attempt at capturing real stories. Raw, unedited, as is! It is far from perfect, but it’s real! John has been on the Blvd since I can remember. Every time he crawled to a new star my heart broke a little more. I kept thinking of two things. How people are in denial of their circumstance, John kind of talked about everything besides himself, and he honestly believes he works for a company that pays him to polish the stars. Although in Hollywood anything can happen, I don’t believe that is reality because store owners chase him away. The other is how people just keep walking by him. Homeless become invisible. One thing to note, when I walked up on John and started a conversation before I rolled tape, he was complaining about the tourists giving less money. The current economy is affecting even John’s revenue stream.
*** 11/29/08
I was wrong! Two days ago I received an email from a documentary film maker who is doing a story on John informing me John is being paid by a cleaning company contracted by the city. When John told me it was very hard for me to believe just from the liability aspects alone. Plus, I have been on and off the Blvd for over 20 years and have known John for much of that time. But this is Hollywood and literally anything is possible. That all said and in keeping with the honest and real model of this vlog I decided to write this addition to John’s post.
I could have easily edited the above covering up my error, but that would not be the truth and exclude a very important point – street people are real people with real stories! As I was thinking about this I realized how whacked I must have sounded when I was homeless and told people I worked in the television industry, or that I once played a cop in a B horror movie, or that I was a professional musician for 26 years – and all the other real stories of my life. Also, a week after I first met Mark (story above) I ran into him again and he pulled a folder out of his bad showing me photos and documents validating his story. I didn’t ask…he just wanted to show me because he was once proud of his accomplishments and his past is incredibly amazing!
Although I still have no “official” validation of John’s story I do believe the person who emailed me and felt very strongly I should make this correction.
