Early yesterday morning, my friend/landlord/employer called me and told me a guy was outside the building huffing paint, and he wanted me to either run him off, or call the cops on him.

The "guy" was actually huffing cans of electronic air one uses to blow dust out of their computer, and he was high as a kite. I went to go talk to him and he could hardly get his name out. The poor guy could hardly function. Clearly he was homeless and destitute.

We get a few "bad apples" of homeless people around the building. They like to camp out back and do serious drugs. We find used needles, and some unused drugs on occasion. They've learned that between like 2am and 6am, nobody really watches the video monitors covering the back area.

Every now and then a few will come to the office asking for money or bothering our clients in the parking lot. One does not allow the homeless to accost A-List artists in your parking lot. But then again, sometimes dumb ass a-list artists leave the god damn office door open and invite the world to steal anything, while their not looking. (A-list artist can be real assholes sometimes.)

Twice in the last year the owner has run out of the building to stop some homeless people, high on some kind of drugs, trying to steal his truck. And when he does, he's armed with a browning 45 ready and itching to shoot someone. He does have a handgun license, conceal and carry permit, as well as professional training. Fortunately, he hasn't shot anyone, yet. He wear's his pistol on his hip around the studios. You can tell his "mentality" by the sign posted in the front office.

There is one of those "Extended Stay" hotels about two blocks from our building and it's a "known" hang out for hookers and serious drug dealers, usually coke or meth. When I got temporarily evicted by the City, I stayed at that hotel, and boy, it's not somewhere you wanna stay. (It was the cheapest place I could find with a vacancy.)

Almost none of the "guests" were practicing social distancing or wearing masks. I had just received my "stimulus" check the day before I got evicted, and wound up spending about half of it on the fricking hotel bill.

Of course since we are close to a major freeway, a little off the beaten path, 18 wheeler's like to illegally park up and down our street, causing blind spots for people exiting the post office next door. And of course with the 18 wheeler's comes the string of hookers walking up and down the street looking for truck driver johns, as well as meth dealers too.

I've always empathized with the homeless and felt their pain if you will, because I know it's not just them, the reason behind their homelessness. While some "choose" be to homeless, most do not. I'm one emotional outburst from my friend/landlord/employer of being in the same position.

While I've spent a lot of time with helping people detox from hard drugs, this was my first encounter with someone "huffing paint" and totally whacked out on it. I talked with the guy for a while, and got him a couple of bottles of cold water and determined he was for the most part, harmless.

I was able to get the owner's wife to call an ambulance rather than the cops. The guy was not bothering anyone, and not vandalizing the "property", so no need to potentially end his life with a call to the cops for being fucked up on canned air. (Which is really a bunch of toxic chemicals.)

I stayed with the guy till the ambulance arrived. The EMT's were quite professional and very low keyed when they approached him. When the guy noticed the EMT's, he slowly began to gather up his belonging, while the EMT's asked him questions, 'Do you know what day it is, do you know who the president is, what's your name, what's your birth day etc..

While the guy was a bit slow and tipsy, he was coherent and was able to answer all their questions correctly, for the most part. He wasn't quite sure if it was still Friday or Saturday. Both the EMT's and my self tried to convince the guy to go to the hospital and get some help, but he politely refused and flung his bag over his shoulder and slowly walked off. I felt / feel bad for him. I truly wish there was more I could do for him.

I hope he's ok.