R.I.P Stinkee Mike!

[Douglas T.]

It's hard to lose someone you love! Then there's people in the world you "dislike" ... until their gone! Homeless people come and go around my studio in the city! Then there's the ones that hang around for sometimes years! I've gotten to know one guy named Stinkee Mike and yes he' living on the streets surving on crack & weed sales! I've loaned him countless nickels that's he graciously requested! You wish that someday something would just snap in these people and they'd get with the program. Last time I saw Mike he took my last dime and said "Thanks! I take what I can get!" He had a bandage around his head and told me how he'd been robbed! He was homeles and walking around with a cart load of weed! LOL! Well he was found dead on the sidewalk for reasons unknown! The EMT said it was probably swelling in his brain! He was about 25 years old.


Rough life to the end for some! You was a bum, but we'll miss ya Stinkee Mike!:mad:

[Terry]

Had a longtime friend kinda like that. Knew the dude since we were eight. Had a lot of good times hanging with him, later on in our teens and twenties getting fucked up, going to shows, etc. Dude was like me, in that we both came from well-off families, had solid educations, etc.

Dude sort of vanished 7 years ago. Had spent most of his late 20s and early 30s getting stoned, couch-surfing from one friend's house to the next after his parents got tired of supporting him. Not a bad dude. Just utterly lazy with no ambitions to even so much as get a job. Never had any money to contribute for food or expenses at all the houses he flopped at, yet always had at least an ounce of weed on him at all times. About a year ago, I got a heads-up from a mutual bud that the guy had resurfaced, showed up at the friend's house with the usual excuses of "can you put me up for a few days" etc. few days turned into a few weeks, finally the friend kicked him out. Told me the guy was asking around for my number.

About a week later I get a call from the guy, asking to "hook up". He's kinda stalling, looking for a conversation opener to ask for me to put him up. I don't give him one. Told him that when he got down here I'd be happy to go have a meal with him somewhere, but if I suspected he was holding I wasn't gonna stick around and order. He said, "Um...okay," and hangs up.

It's fucked up, because we were like brothers at one point, and I feel guilt over not extending the helping hand, but I know that if I let him crash at my pad he's gonna bring dope into the house even if I ask him not to, he's not gonna make the first effort to get a job or even pay me for the food and utilities he's sucking off me, and I'm basically gonna be getting up and going to work in part to support having him sit around my house getting stoned all day long.

Upshot of it all is as much as I would have liked to see him, fuck that shit. We're hitting forty, and he's still out there acting like the bastard child of Tommy Chong, looking for a free ride. Fuck that shit.

[Douglas T.]

Ya wonder ... does Stinkee's family even know where he is or even care?
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bLxS78H3GuA&rel=1&border=0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bLxS78H3GuA&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

[Terry]

Might have been a case of them just cutting him loose, in spite of how heart-wrenching that may have been for them.

Everytime I see homeless people, I just don't understand how someone lets themselves get to that point. Especially the same ones I would see day after day...shit, even if it's a hopeless uphill battle, no reason to quit fighting.