Last night, I went to see The Take with a few of my closer San Francisco friends at the Red Vic on upper Haight. On the way home, we crossed paths with the street poet Malibu [name changed, as he hasn't agreed to be an informant and doesn't have the means to respond to this blog], whom I mentioned in my last post. Malibu was a little tipsy, and hanging out with three other (apparently homed) guys. This was my second interaction with ‘Bu, that day. In the morning, I’d gone outside to read, and had bumped into him near my house, where he sells his CD’s. About a week ago, I’d bought a copy which was defective ั apparently, by ‘Bu’s account, part of a larger problem (he’d had to replace five CD’s, already, by the time he found me). Yesterday, we finally met again, and he gave me a working copy, straight from his stereo. He had a few blank CD’s on-hand, and I offered to burn them for him. When we met up on Haight, last night, he was very vocally grateful. ‘I love that man!’ He then explained to the three other guys standing near him what I’d done.

As we passed, one of my friends turned to me and said ‘What was he trying to sell?’

Malibu wasn’t trying to sell any of us anything, right then ั he was simply expressing his thanks. When he is a salesman, ‘Bu doesn’t push: He plays his poetry, gets your attention, performs, and then mentions that he’s selling his CD’s. That’s all. The situation’s remarkably low pressure. He thanks people for listening to him even when he doesn’t buy.

Even so, nothing he said indicated that he was interested in making a sale. How could my friend have heard that?

But I’m white, as were all the friends walking with me. ‘Bu’s black, and homeless. Our learned assumption is that such people only interact with us when they want something (material) from us. I’m as guilty as anybody else.

The first time I met Malibu, I lived in the Upper Haight. I was returning home from work, carrying Cocoa Programming, by Scott Anguish, which is one heck of a fat book. It is also purple. A supersized anemone is on the front cover. This is a book that stands out. I was walking toward my house, and Malibu was walking toward me. He stopped me, shook my hand, introduced himself, and asked what it was that I was reading. I, because I cannot ignore people who talk to me (which means that I’ve had more interactions with drunks and crazies than your average twenty-four-year-old, but which also means that I hear some incredible stories), told him. I explained what Cocoa was, told him I was trying to learn it (’You don’t try to learn something: Either you set your mind to it and you do it, or you don’t.’), and waited, all the while, for the ask. Why else would someone stop me in the street? He had to need something. Money, probably. Possibly directions. Maybe he wanted to sell me drugs, or to get me to make a donation for his church or his kid’s after-school program. I waited more while ‘Bu told me about his poetry, about coming out of prison, about being homeless, about working part-time cleaning a barbecue joint down the street. Then, he thanked me, blessed me, and went on my way.

I got home shaken. Why had a stranger stopped me on the street just to talk? Worse, why did it bother me so much that that was it? Why did I assume he wanted something from me? I told my housemate Jeff (different from my current housemate Jeff), who thought this stranger sounded creepy. (So Jeff.) I set my book aside, and went back out to find ‘Bu.

It didn’t take long. He greeted me warmly, apparently surprised to see me. ‘What’s up?’ ‘This may sound strange, but I’m curiousษ Why did you stop me to talk to me?’ ‘You came back to ask me that?’ He explained that he’d been curious about my book. That I’d made eye contact with him as he’d approached. That his mother had taught him to always treat others like his sisters and brothers. He described the multi-cultural Jewish/Black/Korean Haight that he’d grown up in. (He didn’t mention the gentrification of my neighbourhood ั houses to the left and right were selling to white newly-weds and old gay men for half a million dollars, but three blocks down black teenagers hung out in empty parking lots. Seven years earlier, the entire neighbourhood had been black.) And that was that. No ask.

So it irked me when Friend asked me what ‘Bu was trying to sell ั any people has more than one thing to say. But I also understood where he was coming from. His bias is just as much mine.

As we walked away, I flashed ‘Bu a peace sign and said ‘See you later!’ My friends wanted to know who he was, and what had happened. I explained in brief, stilted terms, not wanting to mix two (inevitably to-be-mixed) worlds. A few minutes later, one of the three apparently-homed men whom Malibu had been talking with caught up with us. ‘Hey, man. I just want to thank you for buying that stuff for Malibu. [I bought nothing ัสjust burned blank CD's 'Bu already had on hand.] I’ve known him for a few years, now, and no matter what he does, he’s genius. He’s a real artist. You did a good thing.’

Doing ethnography in my own backyard is no doubt going to be an awkward affair.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, 31 May 2005 at 17:34 and is filed under Race and Racism, San Francisco Streets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.