by Travis Mateer

Did I expect to be removing a homeless sex swing during my ECLIPSE THEIR BULLSHIT urban camp trash removal event yesterday? No, I did not, but it also wasn’t much of a surprise. Getting high and using bondage equipment amongst needles and burnt tinfoil is no longer an aberration in this community, it’s a fucking policy choice. Right, Mayor Davis?

After removing the sex swing from this jurisdictionally problematic spot next to the river (DNRC, do you give a shit about any of this?), the few volunteers who showed up shifted to the stretch between the California Street bridge and the gates to the West Broadway Island, which remain shut due to the amusing need for “vegetation management”.

While a significant portion of the West Broadway Island is off limits to urban campers, the stretch we examined is in DIRE NEED of more trash removal than our humble efforts yesterday could produce. Why? Because this is the kind of shit going on out there:

One camper in this area didn’t like seeing us doing trash removal, and tried telling us to leave, but she was told to either help or shut up. Maybe next time someone thinks they’re going run us out from PUBLIC land, we should give them our Mayor’s phone number, since this is HER political problem.

I was on campus briefly yesterday, wondering if the Kaimin kids were interested in trash, but everyone seemed busy looking up at the sky to see if they could catch glimpses of the eclipse. Here’s a shot I got from a friend in Texas, if looking up is what you were concerned about yesterday.

After the day’s excitement, which I documented in a song I’ll end this post with, I decided to watch Mel Gibson’s movie, Apocalypto. If you recall, this film features an eclipse as a bad omen, but NOT for our protagonist, Jaguar Paw! No, the bad omen is for the political elite, who are making human sacrifices like crazy to appease their gods for crop failures and widespread illness.

Because I followed through with what I said I was going to do, a lot of good things happened yesterday. Not even the drunk homeless man who stumbled over from the Poverello Center to call me a provocative word could remove my smile from the day’s plentiful successes.

The other homeless poetry critic who didn’t like my megaphone performance was more effective in stopping that performance by honking his car horn. After I stopped, he drove off erratically, even opening his car door while driving just so he could yell at me. Where are the police when you need an asshole to be ticketed for reckless driving?

Is the dude driving this car sad that I removed the homeless sex swing? If he is, well, GOOD!

Maybe sex could be an incentive for getting into housing, since those in housing can have all the kinky sex they want, as long as they are consenting adults, of course! Or, we can do what Missoula is doing, which is engaging in the classic TASK FORCE bullshit model of energy-sapping madness that is literally considering doing the same things, like authorized camping sites, but expecting different results.

Thankfully I have my talents as a poet to channel my frustration, and those talents have been quite prolific this year, as the following tune about the homeless sex swing clearly indicates!

If you’d like to help fund my entertaining trash alchemy efforts, please consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Do you know any other trashmen who make art from trash removal?

Thanks for reading!