Posts filed under ‘community’
March 1st, 2010 |
A friend from my church started an organization dedicated to helping sexually trafficked women and children escape from forced sex work. Susan hatched this idea almost two years ago, but honestly up until yesterday I had my doubts about whether anything would ever come of it. But yesterday GenerateHope opened the doors to it’s first safe house here in San Diego, and two women moved in. I am utterly amazed and really stoked. Today Susan was interviewed on local public radio station KPBS.
In our North Park neighborhood prostitution is common as the day is long. The intensity on our corner fluctuates, I guess, as vice herds it east and west along El Cajon Blvd. But Mellie and I have had multiple run-ins, from flushing johns off our street, to finding out a woman had been working in the vacant apartment below us, to intervening when a girl was being bullied by her pimp. Parked in the alley, Mellie accidentally left her car unlocked one night and the next day we found, um, “evidence” in the front seat. My job that day was to get the interior detailed. Walking home late one night I passed a girl sobbing on the sidewalk. I stopped to help her and we ended up talking about her life over tacos at Taco Bell. She had been hassled by the cops and was afraid of getting arrested again. Nothing but spike heels, so I drove her the 15 blocks back to her place in City Heights. Her night was a bust so I gave her $20 as she got out of my car. What do you think that looked like to anyone watching? When I got home and crawled into bed I whispered to half-asleep Mellie, “Sorry I’m late, I was with a prostitute. G’night.”
Some girls are doing it by choice, obviously. But in my limited experience it seems like things get murky pretty quickly. The girl who lost her john when I told him I was calling the cops cussed me out and asked if I was going to come over and feed her 3 kids that night. The girl I met sobbing on the street was a freelancer, but had been beat up several times and was looking for a pimp that could protect her. On the phone to SDPD to report a dude I had just watched drop off one girl and who was now picking up another in my driveway, I was told that the police could only arrest the guy if an officer witnessed him exchanging money for sex, but if I gave a description of the girl they would send an officer right away to pick her up. What? That seems pretty messed up to me. Seems like there are a lot of factors that might push a woman into a bad situation, or contribute to making a bad situation worse.
Susan has some pretty crazy stats on the numbers of girls—some as young as 13, 14—who are coerced to hook or escort. They are actually enslaved—unable to leave their pimps either through force or intimidation. San Diego is one of the top US cities for sexual slavery. WTF. This is some messed up stuff. Check out the interview above and support GenerateHope if you can—donations are tax deductible.
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: community, culture, jesus
February 4th, 2010 |
Plus cupcakes!
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: community, culture, lost, nonsense
January 19th, 2010 |
Joining a Sacred Harp singing is now on my short list of highly recommended, along with New Zealand and guacamole. The physical power of this strange, haunting, apocalyptic music is not captured at all by this video (sorry Richard). Mellie and I stumbled across Sacred Harp a few years ago through this great documentary. We’ve been waiting for the west coast convention to arrive in San Diego ever since. Very nice folks took us in and even let us lead a song or two.
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: adventure, community, culture, mellie, music, sacred harp
September 18th, 2009 |
A cross section of my neighborhood’s visions of a perfected city, taken from the Harbor Art Show guestbook.
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: art, community, culture, Harbor Art
August 17th, 2009 |
Harbor Art just pulled off a pretty bitchin art show. Over 30 pieces from 22 San Diego artists exploring the theme Visions From A Perfected City. We partnered with Zagrodnik+Thomas Architects in North Park, who have a really unique and awesome gallery space. They even lent us the talented Mr Dan, gallery consultant extraordinaire. Heather, Matt & Erika did an outstanding job pulling everything together, from artist recruitment to webpage building to finding the gallery space to marketing to live music to refreshments and decor. We estimate somewhere around 250 people showed up, and by all accounts everyone had a great time. I had some cool conversations with the artists, two of which told me it was one of the best shows they had ever been a part of. Our tiny brains are already rolling with ideas for the next event. Hit me up if you want to be part of it! Check out harborart.org for pix and other cool stuff.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: art, community, culture, Harbor Art
July 18th, 2009 |
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Welcome To The World
©2009 Words & Music by Cameron Gray
This song was written for my new friend little McGinnis “Mia” Turner, and recorded in honor of her momma Carolyn’s birthday. Hooray!
Special thanks to Johnny C for the piano and mixing expertise, Papa Will for adding a little violin for his daughter’s song, Mellie, Nate & Sarah, Matt & Erika, Barbara, Richard, and Wes for the voices, snaps, hand claps and barely-stifled laughter. And most of all thanks to Will & Carolyn for giving us little Mia, definitely someone worth singing about!
Entry Filed under: cameron gray, music Tags: birthday, cameron gray, community, Mia Turner, music, rough harbor music, songs
March 29th, 2009 |
God never makes private, secret salvation deals with people. His relationships with us are personal, true; intimate, yes; but private, no. We are a family in Christ. When we become Christians, we are among brothers and sisters in faith. No Christian is an only child.
-Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: community, found object, jesus
March 21st, 2009 |
Today we went to the unveiling of Jeremy Wright’s incredible mosaic. The project covers the outside of God’s Extended Hand Mission, wrapping around the entire front of the building at 16th and Island in downtown San Diego. I say it’s Jeremy’s mosaic, but it is actually an amazing community project, created by over 90 people over the past four years, including homeless, students, neighbors and friends. It is truly magnificent to behold, and it was super cool to see it finally completed. Jeremy was on hand chatting it up, taking pictures and telling stories from the last four years of this project. He’s already making plans to expand to the intersection’s other three corners.
I stumbled across the work-in-progress about a year ago and immediately knew Mellie would dig it. We came back together and it turned out that she knew Jeremy’s mom from her north county days! Small world. We were super stoked when Jeremy invited us to join in. We went back a few times to add our little bits to the project and even brought Nate and Sarah along. It’s fun to think that the pieces we contributed will probably last longer than we do.
God’s Extended Hand is the oldest rescue mission in San Diego, and has been providing meals and shelter to homeless folks since 1925. Over the years the building had fallen into serious disrepair. When Jeremy showed up the city was threatening to declare it a blight and give it the wrecking ball. You know you look bad when you’re declared an eyesore in that neighborhood. I love the fact that this beautiful community art project adorns the ugliest building around, and has brought new life and hope to a pretty hopeless place. What a picture of grace.
Check out all the photos here!
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: adventure, art, community, found, jesus, mellie
March 2nd, 2009 |
appendix, one kidney, one lung, half a pancreas, bone marrow, a good portion of your liver, tonsils, gall bladder, ear muscles, thyroid gland, adrenal glands, vomeronasal organ (look it up), tail bone, wisdom teeth.
The above is a list of body parts which you can have removed and still maintain a manageable lifestyle. From our experience, one thyroid gland equals one week’s worth of friends bringing us tasty home-cooked meals. There are 14 items on this list. That’s 14 weeks worth of food. Multiplied by two people, that’s a solid 7 month stockpile of supplies.
In these tough economic times it’s good to know what you can count on.
Entry Filed under: Blog Tags: community, mellie, thyroidectomy, write
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