"Way down low where the streets are littered"

The Spirit has been sending music my way for a day or two. In the midst of a lot of worry about who was going to help me out with a recent problem, I got in the car, and, when I started it, heard "I'll be there for you" by Bon Jovi. Someone stepped up and took care of my problem shortly after.

Without thinking about it, I threw in a tape of XTC's "Skylarking," and was met with a number of songs relevant to my current state of life, the last of which was had me singing "Ballad for a Rainy Day." It poured soon after.

But most recently, it was this littel piece, which took me to a very different time:

Way down low where the streets are littered
I find my fun with the freaks and the niggers
I dont want much man give me a little
Or I'm gonna take my chances if i get 'em

I love them whores they never judge you
What can you say when your a whore?
They cast that pearl and it don't upset 'em
They take their chances if they get 'em
[Jane's Addiction "Whores"]

There was a point when things were pretty srung out, in the "2-hours-of-sleep" days in school, and I used to drink wine (out of a coffee cup, both for symbolic reasons, and, well, because my roomies and I had no wine glasses), and I would get a nice buzz going, and lie on my bed in the dark, and listen to Jane's for hours. Sometimes I did that instead of sleep.

Jane's nailed it right with those first two lines. I had some friends that, to be discreet about it, bent the rules. Mostly little rules. A couple of them, big rules. Sometimes they offered to bend the rules for me. I never had them do it, but just the knowledge that I could made me feel better. They offered to actually do something, when other people offered fake smiles and trite sayings. My friends ranged from drunks, to drug users, to people that... well, people that did some interesting things. They were, literally, "the freaks and the niggers." Literally and figuratively, they were the "whores."

I remember putting up letters on a theater marquee one night, and two very drunk, very giggly guys in half drag came dacing down the street. I started to lift the pole I was using out of the way, and one of them yelled, "Wait! Wait! Limbo!" So I held it for these two really nutty half-queen guys so they could limbo. One of them thanked me and called me "sister." It was very surreal, but also very cool. One of my managers, a gay man, didn't seem to have any issues with me. The woman that worked with me who was renound for her very hairy legs used to walk home with me, and once, cut my hair for me in the middle of a movie. (And that is definitely another story.) None of these "odd" people seemed to find me to be, well, odd.

I found that "freaky people" didn't care if I wore orange plaid shorts and workboots, had long hair, painted my toe nails. In their world, there wasn't anything weird about me; in fact, I was kind of normal, even a little dull. They didn't think my ideas were weird, and sometimes, they encouraged me. They thought my stories were cool. They thought the poetry was cool. They thought all the "odd" things I did were cool.

One friend became very distraught because he knew I was distraught. I was having a really rough time, and he finally said, "I wish I could give you a hug. I mean, if it wouldn't freak you out." It didn't. I knew what he meant.

Something marginalizes some people. Sometimes it's sexuality, sometimes it substance abuse, and sometimes it's just their ideas and rantings. The beauty of the marginalized is that, sometimes, at their best, they remember not to judge, since they themselves live so far out on the edge.

"Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you." [Matthew, 21:31]

Hey, he is my patron saint, who am I to disagree?