We spoke to Rob a couple of weeks after his move from the street into housing. Here, he describes how different life is with housing and the meaning behind his passion for fixing bikes.
This is to give you some idea of the delicate ballet of chaotic balance that is my life. It’s all packed in the closet there, quite conspicuously as you can see, and my battered guitar case, and my hooks that are still waiting for something to hang on them. I’m prepared for it, I’m just not always right there for it.
It looks like a bunch of nothingness but I don’t keep it unless it’s essential. I’m really like a Zen buddhist minimalist. I look like a hoarder, but the things I keep, I keep because I know I can see a purpose for it.
This is the top of my fridge. This is a clock with no gears inside of it, so it’s whatever time we want it to be in Margaritaville. And my radio there flashes noon all the time and it can’t be changed. And we’ve got an air horn there in case there’s an emergency.
And there’s my guitar. And she is laying on my bed, laying beside my bed. That’s where I lay quite often. I sit with my bum on the floor and my back against the bed and I can arch my neck back against the edge of the bed. It’s quite a comfortable spot. And my guitar is waiting for me.
That’s a tent set up in my room there. Just to keep it familiar.
So this is a wagon full of bare bones again. Except it has a metal deer head there, which is kind of interesting. That’s what that is. The antlers, that’s a spooky looking deer head really. I just thought it was a fun picture. So this again is one of those beginning shots, just, in the middle of nowhere, you’ve got a shot of the cranks and that’s what makes the thing go round, but it’s not cranks, you’ve got sunglasses for one of the pedals there and I just thought it was a bit abstract. And it’s not even connected, it’s in the right spot so that it looks like it’s connected, and I think that’s kind of cool.
This gets a nifty effect here as well. Is that a saw blade or is that a tree? What is it supposed to be? It’s kind of my abstract Christmas tree there. Every day is a new day for Christ to be born in my life.
When you have a place to live and you want to make the very best of it, I don’t want to go anywhere. I love being at home, I really do. I love to think about things I can cook and cook them. I like my friends coming over. I like being alone. It’s great to have a place.
This is a picture of chaos again. And so this again is kind of a just before the explosion. You got some components of a bike here, you got the handlebars and the wheel, which are kind of major, you know. They’re both relative to the steering and the driving and whatnot, and the seat is there as well. And it just looks like it’s ready to burst forth. And the deer head in there again, just to show some sort of idea that there is life in there. There’s something in there that it’s going to become.
This is my personal bike. It’s an Eastern Growler, which is really cool. It’s light and it’s long and low and was painted black and blue. And so when I’m riding my bike, I miss my guitar. When I’m playing my guitar, I want to ride my bike. They really go hand in hand together.
I used to build mechanisms on the back wheel, like a saddle bag, and I would devise various different methods of strapping my guitar to my bike so I could have them together. And it’s not easy, and if you wipe out, it’s detrimental to Lucille’s cousin here. That’s what B.B. King calls his guitar, Lucille. This is my guitar, I really like it a lot. It’s a great guitar.
They just need to be together because it’s almost like kids, if I show one more favour than the other then the other one’s going to be mad at me. To me, they’re very similar, just with the shapes and what have you, the chain and the strings and the wheels and the body and the frame and the neck, the tune pegs and all the hardware, there’s a connection there between the two. I know they’re very different, but there’s something that connects them in my life anyways.
Like when I’m out riding, I’m thinking about music and I have a cadence, a timing to my way of pedalling and my way of riding. And I have a soundtrack that plays inside my head always. When I’m playing my guitar, it makes music for me, and when I’m riding my bike I’m thinking about my guitar and music playing inside my head, and when I’m playing my guitar I’m thinking about cruising on my bike.
It’s very romantic, because
my bike in my imagination
is smooth and fast and I
can fly. I can do anything.
So there’s certainly opportunity there for lyrics and rhythms and stuff that just kind of comes naturally.
I’m very proud of my bike.
I build good bikes. They run
good, there’s no loose spots.
You can pick my bike up to
your chest and drop it and it
sounds like a basketball when
it bounces. There’s no rattle
or shake, nothing like that.
Do you have any idea how many bikes you’ve made?
More than 100. And I’ve lost more than 50 guitars. I generally make them to replace the one that has just been stolen. I generally have an assembly line of bicycles behind me, so that when this one is missing I need a couple more pieces and put the next one on the road. If I’m fortunate enough to have both of them running at the same time I have a guest bike, but that’s hard to keep track of as well.
But generally I have an assembly line of them coming towards me, so that I always have one to ride. Because I don’t like to walk.
It hurts to walk. My feet hurt, my
knees hurt, my hips hurt. I’ve had
a lot of trauma to my body and
I prefer the effortless glide of a bike.
This is the natural habitat, okay. I like all my things right there on my bed and I would lay right on top of that just as if I was laying outdoors somewhere. And that’s for security. A sense of security. Like a lioness. And also security in terms of keeping ahold of my things. It’s just a habit.
That’s the way I’m used to it now. I sleep with a sleeping bag. I’m not really comfortable until I’m zipped inside my sleeping bag. Some people brush their teeth and put on their pajamas and they’re ready for bed. I’m ready as soon as I zip that zipper up and I’m inside my sleeping bag.
What I hoped to get was kind of the industrial nature. What I like to point out here also is a steam engine is very much like this I would say, except, pound for pound, I would say that the BMX puts out more torque than a steam engine.
Because a steam engine has no transmission, same as this, there’s no changing gears. There’s one gear. And a steam engine will go all the way up to 60 miles an hour and achieve its top speed relatively quickly for one gear. There’s a lot of power there, a lot of torque.
Now the difference with the BMX is the chain is kept tight, so there’s no opportunity for it to slip off its cogs. It’s placed so that you’re not going to injure yourself, it remains in place. 25 and 9, you’ve got 25 teeth here and 9 here, so you’ve got a ratio of roughly 2.78, 2.8. So now you’re pedalling, and you’ve got the handlebars here so you’re pulling down, so you’re pushing your body weight into it again, you’re pumping up and down with it so you’ve got your body weight throbbing, you’ve got your backpack on your back, now the torque that’s being applied to your back wheel now is exponential.
And at 5 pedals you can achieve full speed. So you can be right up to full speed in 5 pumps.
I can keep up with traffic around town.
I can achieve 40km an hour. I wouldn’t
say maintain that, but certainly in spurts
I can hit 40km an hour easily.
And sadly, much like ourselves, as soon as we’re born we begin to die. A bicycle of mine, as soon as it’s ready, runs a pretty solid risk of getting stolen. Somebody’s waiting for that bike. It’s a thing of beauty and people know how well I put them together. It’s not going to let them down. There’s somebody who’s got their eye on it right now I’m sure. So I’m prepared for that in some way emotionally. So here’s a photo that kind of says so. This one’s heading back to the beginning so we can start the assembly line process again.
In our homelessness, we have a sense of forsakenness. Even Christ himself in his last moments said “Why have you forsaken me Father?” He feels the same sense of abandonment. And in that forsakenness is your freedom. You can grow in your sense of freedom. As you do, you’re going to be made aware of your sense of forsakenness when somebody doesn’t bring you a meal at mealtime, or somebody doesn’t give you a coffee at coffee break.
And then when you move into housing, you come on board with this program and workers and whatnot, and then all of the sudden, it’s not a sense of forsakenness anymore. And freedom, it’s quite the opposite. You’re marching to the whimsical rules of that particular institution, and sometimes they seem a bit arbitrary. Rules for the sake of rules. Rules to enforce other rules. Rules set up to add structure and strength to the other rules. It’s a small step from that freedom/forsakenness to the restriction and forced adherence to the rules. It’s a very small step between one and the other, and yet it’s a very big difference. It’s night and day to us. Night and day to me.
So when it comes down to rules and whatnot, you can see why that rule is in place, because there are those who, like no smoking, I get that, some would maybe fall asleep with a cigarette in their hands. And so on one hand, I can appreciate that no smoking rule. It might save my life. And on the other hand, I am far too frugal with my cigarettes to smoke one at nighttime when I’m so sleepy that I don’t know if I’m smoking or not. You drop your cigarette because you don’t even know what you’re doing.
When I’m smoking a cigarette,
I know what I’m doing. It’s very
intentional. It’s medicinal to me.
It really is. It’s not only medicinal, it’s also cathartic. It’s the same kind of drug that a doctor might prescribe to calm me in some sort of social atmosphere where I’m agitated or anxious or what have you.
There are rules that are in place that make sense, and I for one, need to be very clear on the sensibility of that law and the purpose of it and why is it in place. Often times, they’re just in place for the sake of being there, and it’s a matter of power and control again.
We are created. God loves me just as much as he loves him. And God loves me just as much as he loves you. And he made me this way. He’s not surprised at what I do. He also knows that as soon as you put up a sign that says “Don’t walk on the grass,” most of us want to kick off our socks and shoes and go walking on the grass.
Out here, it’s a lot of the same thing. You get people blaming this and blaming that, all the way down the line. We get to take responsibility for ourselves and step up to these rules and want to change. In order for that to all make sense, and for myself, for me to want to become a part of what you guys are doing,
if I want to become a part of
the moral majority, so to speak,
then it’s got to make sense to me.
If I think you guys are all
marching to the meat grinder,
well, maybe I don’t want to go.
If you guys are doing the marmot off the edge of the cliff, then maybe I don’t want to go.
But if this is going to glory, if this is going somewhere, and I’m going to be able to face my God with a fucking clear, pure heart, then I’m all in. And if the rules make sense, I’m all in. Otherwise it just seems like we’re being pushed around, it just seems like a power and control issue.
The other thing that’s interesting about this whole thing is that the best way to keep control of the group is to keep them uncomfortable. You let them get comfortable and you’re going to have a problem, because they’ll take over. This is a standard rule, if you want people to be manageable, you make sure that they’re not settled and make sure that they’re uncomfortable and nervous. That agitated state is much easier to manipulate than the sedate, feet up on the desk. You want someone who when you ask them to do something they’ll pop right up and move on. Sometimes it’s a divide and conquer thing too.
People oftentimes, not so much lately with my teeth all breaking off – and excuse the profanity, but again, this is a vernacular. I’m emoting this stuff as much as I’m speaking it. It’s an overflow of my feelings on this stuff. And so last night, C. and I were talking, and it’s a very serious matter, man, and it’s interesting to have a conversation of that caliber with a fellow drug addict in a place like this.
We’re basically part of the rat park experiment. And I was telling him about that, they created this apparatus where the rats could nudge this thing and actually inject a shot of cocaine, which is a bell ringing buzz on, I’ve done it a million times, I know how it feels and I know why that rat would go back and do it again, because it’s wild. So I explained to him the rat with no stimulus would keep on injecting himself again and again and again, until he finally blows his heart up and he dies. And he can make his dosage bigger and bigger and whatnot.
And the rats that have stimulus
and the wheels to run on and the
treadmills and rat pool with the rat
umbrella and suntan bed, little rat
bikini friends and stuff like that, he’s
not interested, he’s not thinking about
going to inject with cocaine because
he doesn’t need to.
But you take the same rats, you put them into a lack of stimulus situation with the ability to inject, it’s inevitable that they’re going to bring themselves to death on it.
And so we were talking about that, we were talking about how people oftentimes look at us and say, “You’re how old? How old are you? No fucking way.” People still sometimes, not so much lately with my teeth, but it wasn’t that long ago when, I’m creeping on 50 and people would think I’m in my 20s or 30s. That’s pretty flattering. So why is that?
Well we, as creatures, have a gift – to heal. We get broken or cut open or bleeding, it heals itself. We heal ourselves. And it just happens automatically. Whereas everything else that we build and make, everything else on the planet is disintegrating, breaking down, it’s dilapidating.
So now, when you’re indoors, this trip from standing to sitting on your couch or chair or bed, it’s a short trip.
But when you don’t have a couch
or a chair and you’re outside,
you’ve got to get all the way down,
and you’ve got to get all the way up.
So it takes extra strength, it takes
extra exercise, extra calories, extra
exertion, more exercise to do it.
You’ve got to be in shape… Your body is getting bigger and stronger in advance of the next encounter, so just in case it’s heavier this time, we’re better prepared.
That’s amazing. That means that every cell in your body, every DNA in your body is looking forward. That’s amazing. We, as a person, we don’t look back. “High school was the best years of my life,” people say. Chances are you haven’t seen the best years of your life, so shut up.
So you’ve got this exercise, getting up, you’ve got all your belongings on your back, so you’re carrying that. You’re super human in terms of physical strength.
Now, instead of being out there with the task at hand making you stronger and your body and mind preparing you for what’s going to come next, now, you’re singled, and you’re put into an extra large coffin. Your house is your representation of yourself. So you are a part of your house now, and your house is part of you. And so now, your mind and body knows that it’s dated, it’s got an expiration date, and well, you’re part of it. So there’s almost kind of a magic attachment there, that is also degrading, breaking down, dilapidating. It’s dying, so to speak.
Whereas when you’re out there roaming, you were the opposite of that.
And so now you’re part of the
rat park experiment, because that
stimulus is gone. And now you’re
looking to a bottle of wine, and then
a bottle of wine turns into a bottle
of whisky, you know what I mean?
It’s almost a sense of accomplishment, when you get it done sometimes. They had a grocery cart pushing contest, remember? Because they see the challenge of negotiating a fucking grocery cart over curbs and what not, it’s not an easy deal, especially when it’s loaded with all of your wet belongings. That makes it exponentially heavier.
You come and sit down, all your belongings, you don’t have to hold them and push them around because you’ve got a door and a lock, nobody’s going to take them, you’re not in conflict with any bylaw private property stuff, and you can leave your stuff at home, and that’s where you stay. Home is where the heart is. Home is where my hat is. Home is where my fridge is.
And once you’ve been so long without a home and you know that they want you to get a home, you want to, it’s not even a matter of want to, you find yourself obsessed with the idea of being there. Now all of the sudden you’re agoraphobic because…
You know, most of us are not going out of our way to disobey the establishment by being homeless.
I first thought I was homeless by choice
and then I realized that I wasn’t
being homeless by choice, because
I couldn’t get a place to live.
It’s not my choice anymore, and now all of the sudden I’m fucked. And then it takes an agency to step in and advocate for me and set something up. And you start right here at skid row, bottom of the barrel.
And you know that you’re not allowed to sit on the sidewalk, you know you’re not allowed to stand on the sidewalk, and even though your first habit, you get a place and your first habit is to go down there and associate with your friends, you go down and hang out with your friends, and what happens? The cop comes around and says “What are you doing down here? Didn’t we get you a house? Everything okay?” And you feel stupid about not being at home. It soon becomes clear that the expectation is you’re not going to be hanging around downtown on the sidewalk, it’s against the law. “We got you a house, man! Go hang around your house!”
So you go hang around your house,
by yourself, and all of the sudden you’ve
got an extension of the penal system.
The shirts are hanging in the closet, the socks are folded in a bundle in the drawer, shoes are on the rack, the food is in the fridge and in the pantry, and people are not on the street. And that is a problem, man, it is a problem in every demographic I would think. Whereas it could be done differently, it could be more festive. The other part of this is that exclusionary thing, what’s the opposite of inclusive? Inclusive is good. We’re not so different, but we’re kept apart. And we’re convinced that we’re different, but we’re not, we’re the same. The Bible tells us we’re all one. And we are for some reason, and I have to think that it comes back to power and control,
we are for some reason kept apart
and kept in the neat little place,
and convinced that that is proper.
I am a destroyer. I’m a self-destroyer. I don’t have any relationships that work. I don’t have any relationships that last, or I’d be married still. I’m a failure at relationships, because something will happen where I’ll break it off, burn the bridge, and you won’t be able to get across because the bridge is burnt down, and I’m going to keep on going. And do I think about that person? Yes. Do I feel a sense of regret that I hurt that person? I can see it. I can see it.
Johnny Cash sings that song, it’s called “Hurt” – “The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting, see if I still feel,” and then the chorus is, “I will let you down. I will make you hurt.” Because he knows it. As I do. And it’s much easier to let you down one time and be done with it. I know this is who I am, I know this is my MO man. I’m going to let you down. I’m going to hurt you. And I don’t want to, but I can’t help myself. It’s a painfully beautiful song. And I can relate to that.
But chances are we’re closer to success than we are to failure, like it’s almost there. And so many times we turn around and go back.
I want to be loved. I want to be loved
so much that I can’t help but love back.
That’s what God does.
You have to somehow find a way to trudge on. When you are crying out to God, you envision it a certain way and you micromanage it maybe a certain way. We have our vision of what it is supposed to be, and it is not like that. So there’s God, we’ve tried to package God this way or that way, and when we find out that he’s not that way, it’s a bit of a surprise that God’s not our genie in a bottle. He’s God. And you don’t tell God what to do, God tells you how it is.
So once you accept that it’s not going to be your way, it’s going to be a surprise mystery way, and it may even take a bit of elbow grease and it might even hurt a bit, if you can accept some of that stuff, and adhere to the rules maybe, apply that template to whatever you’re doing, if you can kind of go along with it and fake it til you make it sort of thing, put one foot in front of the other and know that God’s going to walk along with you, he’s not going to keep you from pain and trouble but he’ll be there with you and he certainly has experienced pain and trouble, right down to that feeling of forsakenness on the cross.
And seeing that in full colour,
really is worth taking the time
to try to understand it, and worth
the sacrifice of heart. Instead maybe
your diary’s not going to a be a
dear diary, I cried again today,
maybe it’s going to be a
dear diary I grew today.
I’m a 52 year old six year old. It’s damage done to my unit, death of children, broken marriage, there’s probably a post traumatic stress system that’s attached to all these things that has put our shit out of whack a bit.
We’ve got to stop trying to convince
the world that we’re so hard done by
that we should have that, and rather
convince the world that we are of
the monarchy, and that we deserve that.
I’m a bit different from most bums. We’re very much the same, but I’m a bit different in maybe my ability to see things, and the way I see myself. I don’t see myself as entitled, but I do see myself as given the responsibility of dominion under God. You know what I mean? I do have some control of my environment. I can take charge of it. But I see myself as wealthy, even though I don’t have anything. And whatever I need, not necessarily things that I want, they just seem to come along anyways.
And for those of us who don’t go around hurting people every chance we get, but rather, offer some help, I love people, I like to give my best, my best advice. I might not want to take the best advice myself, but I’ll offer the advice for you to take it.
If I have money, I’ll give you some.
I’ll share my food, everything I have.
I think that’s kindness, and I think that
that sort of paying forward kindness
is reciprocated. It has to be.
I know God loves me. I know God is not against me. Nothing is against me. So no matter what they say or how it seems or what I think it is right now, it may be much better than that, much brighter than that. So I generally function in a, the TD Bank has the “You’re richer than you think you are.” And I kind of operate in that same way of thinking, that I’m better off than I think I am. As bleak as it seems today, as bad as it is, it can always get worse, that’s for sure. And let’s not go there.
Become a creator. What you lose here, it’s in the heavens. You’re seated on the throne of Christ – what does that mean? Well you better find a meaning for yourself and find a way to utilize that privilege that is somehow being extended to you, and try to use that gifting to benefit and to improve the quality of your life so that those around you get the quality.
We live in communities.
If I’m doing better, you’re going to do better.
If I’m happier, you’re going to be happier.