Howdy, all, I'm El DeLuxo and here's my story.
I'm 57, probably older than most StP folks; did a whole lot of thumbing and bumming in my younger years and now I live in an SRO Hotel San Francisco with my boyfriend and our two pet parakeets. Grew up in Hillbilly Heaven -- ever been there? It's in the heart of WestgawddamnVirginia, and if you ever find out you've got six months to live, move there--bcuz two weeks there feels like motherfuckin' Eternity!
Then I hit the road for a while. Was involved with the Rainbow family for most of the 1980s, then I quit bcuz I got tired of the casual homophobia and sexism and racism and New-Age sanctimony amongst some of the folks there -- also bcuz poetry and magick are 2 of the most important things in my world and I felt that those things weren't taken seriously enough. Still it was a fun time for me and I learned a lot. I was in the Radical Faeries for a while, too, until they got too bourgeouis and rules-happy. Now I don't identify with any groups much at all.
Back then I did a lot of hitching around . Only rode the rails once, from Spokane to Minot; that trip convinced me I wasn't cut out for hoboing. Between road trips and Rainbows I was a late-80s hippie streetkid of sorts, in Denver and Santa Cruz and Eugene (loved them Terwilliger Hot Springs!) and Chicago and Madison and Tucson and Santa Fe and Berkeley and the Olympic Peninsula and a three-week drunken spree in Atlanta with this punk rock dude that picked me up hitching. Oh, and I went to Oaxaca and Zipolite a couple times, and went camping in Death Valley with my boyfriend Racer for two weeks. Now *that* was a blast!
Politically I'm pretty individualist anarchist; but value liberty and aesthetics way more than politics. I was a hot-shit performance poet back in the day when there was a lot of spoken word open mike going on in the bay area.
I live close to the street culture now in SF. I'm gay and I'm weird and on drugs and on SSI, and --yep! I'm proud of it! I live in a world of petty crime and sensuality, right where I belong.
Just recently I found StP while...well, to be honest with y'all, I was Googling for shoplifting tips. I looked around the place for a while and was pleased -- nay, make that DELIGHTED!--to find out that there's still folks out there roaming the roads and rails and living the nomad life. I can see that the culture's changed some -- the road has gotten rougher, and the scene's younger and punker (hey, I was more or less a hippie when I did my traveling!)--but at the core, the impulse and folks are the same basically. And, y'know, you can leave the road but the road doesn't leave you. So I subscribed. I look forward to swapping stories and info and opinions and getting to know folks and making some friends in my sojourn hereabouts. Maybe there's even something an ol' fart like me can school the youth about! Bcuz, y'know, I do know a thing or two, hee hee hee.
Luv,
El DeLuxo
I'm 57, probably older than most StP folks; did a whole lot of thumbing and bumming in my younger years and now I live in an SRO Hotel San Francisco with my boyfriend and our two pet parakeets. Grew up in Hillbilly Heaven -- ever been there? It's in the heart of WestgawddamnVirginia, and if you ever find out you've got six months to live, move there--bcuz two weeks there feels like motherfuckin' Eternity!
Then I hit the road for a while. Was involved with the Rainbow family for most of the 1980s, then I quit bcuz I got tired of the casual homophobia and sexism and racism and New-Age sanctimony amongst some of the folks there -- also bcuz poetry and magick are 2 of the most important things in my world and I felt that those things weren't taken seriously enough. Still it was a fun time for me and I learned a lot. I was in the Radical Faeries for a while, too, until they got too bourgeouis and rules-happy. Now I don't identify with any groups much at all.
Back then I did a lot of hitching around . Only rode the rails once, from Spokane to Minot; that trip convinced me I wasn't cut out for hoboing. Between road trips and Rainbows I was a late-80s hippie streetkid of sorts, in Denver and Santa Cruz and Eugene (loved them Terwilliger Hot Springs!) and Chicago and Madison and Tucson and Santa Fe and Berkeley and the Olympic Peninsula and a three-week drunken spree in Atlanta with this punk rock dude that picked me up hitching. Oh, and I went to Oaxaca and Zipolite a couple times, and went camping in Death Valley with my boyfriend Racer for two weeks. Now *that* was a blast!
Politically I'm pretty individualist anarchist; but value liberty and aesthetics way more than politics. I was a hot-shit performance poet back in the day when there was a lot of spoken word open mike going on in the bay area.
I live close to the street culture now in SF. I'm gay and I'm weird and on drugs and on SSI, and --yep! I'm proud of it! I live in a world of petty crime and sensuality, right where I belong.
Just recently I found StP while...well, to be honest with y'all, I was Googling for shoplifting tips. I looked around the place for a while and was pleased -- nay, make that DELIGHTED!--to find out that there's still folks out there roaming the roads and rails and living the nomad life. I can see that the culture's changed some -- the road has gotten rougher, and the scene's younger and punker (hey, I was more or less a hippie when I did my traveling!)--but at the core, the impulse and folks are the same basically. And, y'know, you can leave the road but the road doesn't leave you. So I subscribed. I look forward to swapping stories and info and opinions and getting to know folks and making some friends in my sojourn hereabouts. Maybe there's even something an ol' fart like me can school the youth about! Bcuz, y'know, I do know a thing or two, hee hee hee.
Luv,
El DeLuxo
