Letter to the Neighbors
   
   
   
   In the first week of May 2006, three neighbor households made an
anonymous written complaint about my house, with photos, to the land use
department. I think that Cammie (with the house at the end of my alley
that Ray Robinson owned), her boyfriend Kim, Dave and his wife Kelly
(in the ranch style house next to mine) and Amos (who used to own the blue
house in my alley) did the bust. Cammie, Dave, Kelly and Amos said
explicitly that they didn't. I observed Dave with a large camera taking
photos of my property from the alley the week before the bust. Cammie's
friend Kim told me on the day of the bust that he was part of the group that
did it, and we talked for awhile about it. His perspective was very helpful
in coping with what for me was a horrible tragedy. My roommate Isaac had to
rip down the amazing triangle shaped building that he'd made a couple years
before and Kim said that that was a misfortune to him also. Amos had stated
explicitly, about a year earlier, shortly after he purchased his house, that
he was going to call the city and bust me for what ever appearance changes
they would enforce.
   The bust cost me five 20 hour work days of remediation in direct
conflict with my values, about $1400 in expenses, six months of
negotiations with the planning department and close to a year fretting about
confusing heartless threats from Randy Sangder, the code enforcement
official, who refused to clearly answer any questions I asked or clearly
state any criteria for me to meet.
   I was not assessed any actual fines. All of the land use demands were
low cost to do and new to the record, and I did the remediation quick
enough to avoid the 500 dollar a day fine. The 10 dump runs cost about
$150. Code enforcement was quite expensive though. I paid $500 to my
architect sister for the required structural inspection, one set of porch
drawings and coaching on a huge array of other drawings. I paid my
electrician friend Shelby $250 for the required electrical safety
inspection. I paid the city about $300 for porch rebuilding permits and
spent a couple hundred on materials. Almost none of my work made any visual
difference to a passerby.
   With reference to my house, Donna, the land use woman, decided to tighten
the definition restricting tenancy to five unrelated persons to mean five
people with any materials on the property. Three friends had to completely
remove all their stored materials from my property within the five day
remediation period. For two of them that was an enormous amount of stuff and
a heartbreaking loss of most of it.
   The bust left me quite spiritually shattered about neighborhood rapport.
Kim has remained as unable to befriend me as ever but still overtly
humanizing of me. The years of friendly visits with Cammie and Kelly and
occasionally Amos, and long friendly discussions about life, had established
no common humanity between me and any of the others though. I could not face
even eye contact with Cammie, and the others have avoided me. For several
months Dave Wilson took to glaring viciously at me whenever we saw each
other, which happened at least once a week. My girlfriend expressed approval
of the bust, seriously souring rapport with her also. Amos suddenly put his
house up for sale and left town.
   All of those who I think did the bust have been quite vulnerable to
vandalism or calling the building department, in the time since the bust,
and their anonymity made attack on them fairly easy to rationalize
emotionally as tit for tat. But I need to avoid the militaristic approach,
such as calling in official thugs or doing vandalism, because it directly
conflicts with my life direction. My usual approach to an attack has been to
create an appearance of success for the attacker, and then reach out back
with a utterly different subject of focus. That worked fine with the land
use woman and the planning department people, but the neighbor people remain
anonymous and unreachable in that way. Randy Sangder likewise withheld
recognition of my humanness, preventing any genuine resolution with him. He
has still not officially closed the case against my property, though he
appears to be taking no further action.
   A year and a half later a very similiar attack happened to Danny, whose
backyard meets the alley where it ends at the bikepath. The neighbor across
the alley from him, a woman named Linda, called in the complaint. She was
horrorified by the presense of Danny's friend David, who had been camped
for a year or so in his van, right off the alley. David did not take their
meeting as a bad thing, since he was camping legally. But a week or so
before that, Danny's friend Sebastian had got out of prison and parked a
camper van in the front driveway, so the bust required one camper to leave.
Danny was feeling leeched on by David, so David had to move.
   The bigger issue for Danny though wasn't part of Linda's concern. Donna
prosecuted Danny's bust also, and had him do a fairly expedited tidying of
his entire property. As with my place, all rotting lumber and yard debris
had to disappear. He had a huge pile in his front yard from his lawn
maintenance work. The end of the alley had an immense pile also, from years
of deposits from Cammie's yard, and from others that she had encouraged to
dump there, in a gesture to discourage people passing by her house.
Ironically, the alley debris had only discouraged passage by me and other
respectful people, resulting often in lively drinking parties by less
reserved street drunks who viewed the junk pile as a welcome.
   Danny was not up to the task at all, and David likewise did not even set
to packing anything. Danny came to me a couple days later to tell me and
remark about the three cars he was storing in his backyard for my
girlfriend. He was not entirely clear on what he had to do and when, so I
called Donna and got her story direct. I then put the front yard debris
into Danny's trailer and went with him to Rexius.
   The next day I spoke with Linda. She officially denied making the call,
but then explained to me why she did it. I requested her help clearing the
alley but she said the whole pile was on Danny's side of the alley (which it
was). So I cleared the alley. Eugene, who has the huge metal garage on the
alley, volunteered his dump truck, which turned out to be adequate in a
single load. Kim joined me and stomped down the pile on the truck, though
Cammie spoke discouragingly, to whoever would listen, saying most of the
stuff wasn't hers. I deliberately dodged her.
   After that I commenced packing David's camp. He was quite opposed to my
handling of his things, so I began with stuff he didn't want (hauling it to
my yard), and stacking of his building materials that were to remain there.
Then I took down his rain shelter and hauled it to my yard. With Danny's
help I brought the yard work trailer down the alley. David demanded that I
let him pack it, so I quit for awhile. Donna was scheduled to review the
scene the following morning, so I returned at sundown, loaded the last of
David's items, and used my girlfriend's van to haul the trailer to the
street. I got David's garbage out of my yard and took it to the trailer
later. With nothing left but his van, David was able to exit uneventfully
at sunrise. I did a final policing of the area right after that.
   Over the next several weeks Danny continued to move his stuff around and
take loads away, on a looser schedule, but still under threat. A year and a
half later he is still altering part of his fence, as a part of that bust,
still living under the axe.
   Though Danny is no advocate of industrial moderation, he cannot abide
roommates, he has several insane animals, and he drives a huge smog
belching vehicle wherever he goes, he is nevertheless graceful and calm and
he has only enthusiasm for my house, my lifestyle and my personal
appearance; and he is too feeble to do much industrial damage. I am glad to
see him and he is glad to see me.
   The bust could have cost his mother thousands of dollars and have been a
serious tragedy. The heartlessness of this kind of cultural enforcement
totally sickens me. And I have an intuition that the government enforcement
stays the hand of a neighborhood lynch mob that would really sicken me. I
wish I could express, somehow, to any neighbor with an interest in the
dilemma presented in the neighborhood by my household, the nature of my
present cultural expression and life direction. Though I sense little
interest in such presentation, I perceive much misconception about me.
   I recognize that my antagonists' feelings are intense and not petty, but,
in my sensibility, their lifestyle, and that of nearly everyone in the
neighborhood, feels actually criminal. I need somehow to convey that my
feelings are also intense and not petty; that what they object to and perhaps
feel is criminal about my life expression is not the result of neglect, but
a result of heartfelt idealism and aesthetic reverence for a kind of
industrial wildness. I experience comprehendable people, in their direct
physical presense, to be valuable contributors to useful psychic reflection.
I experience garbage to be an object of wonder and a potential resource. And
legitimate ambition to me means ambition related to direct and vital
personal maintenance.
   I tolerate the private living, the zen sterility, the "normal" level
consumption, and the opulent ambition of my neighbors, as part of the range
of human expression. But, like with the games of children involving the
imaginary maiming and killing of others, I feel a serious lack of what I can
perceive of as nobility or benevolent human intent.
   For me, garbage and general rotting filth are like the colored leaves
falling off of trees, the refuse of a valid amazing life form. People marvel
at the colors of the leaves and politely rake them from areas they wish were
clear, without snarling about the vile stupidity of the tree's heedless
waste. The city authorities have no problem with my leaf debris, even if I
dump it in the street. But the equivalent from the industrial wildness of
people causes mean remarks from many people and is only legal within a
narrow definition that the neighbors would rather narrow even further. For
me, only very smelly or poisonous refuse, whether natural or not, is an
issue to address, and still an object of wonder.
   I have the same fascination with decaying materials and human debris of
all sorts as others do with autumn's brightly colored leaves. Even if I have
no use for the material, I am fascinated, and reverent, the way many people
express a view of nature. I have no wish, on my own, for anyone to "clean
up" their own refuse. If someone will object to what I might do next with
their refuse, or someone else will snarl and wreck the vibe with remarks
about it, then I am inclined to wish the refuse gone, just to cope with
that. But I would rather everyone would just ease up about refuse.
   Where someone's refuse presents a trespass on a shared or claimed space,
such as a vehicle across the sidewalk or stored on the street, I see an
offense, but not to the stuff, only the trespass.
   The serious air pollution and wild habitat destruction of domesticated
industrial activity has the opposite affect on my feelings. Having worked a
lot in industrial jobs, I have horrible associations of pollution and
devastation of natural wonder when I see brand new materials or brutally
tidy presentation, or cars driving by. Though I have a stronger than usual
fetish in favor of devices, new ones don't interest me as possessions.
   Thus I feel that normal but excessive industrial or consumptive activity
is a crime. I feel that, emotionally, refuse is the same class of material
as colored leaves or duff in a forest.
   Perhaps more important, the direct physical presense of an abundance of
familiar people contributes to what I perceive as the basic psychic feedback
that is critical to what I call genuine sanity.
   I recognize three brands of political evil from my self-centered
viewpoint:
   One is the cop, who expresses undisquised disgust about my self
expression and robs or vandalizes my scene openly, backed by willingness to
engage violence. Cammie's friend Kim related to my bust that way.
   Two is slightly more sinister to me, in the form of the burglar, who
sneak attacks, based on the same dim view of my life expression but
compounded by a complete denial of my humanity in their life. Lisa, over on
Arthur street, was like that in a previous attempt at a bust.
   Three is by far the most sinister, the junkie who fences my stuff for a
tenth my cost to replace it, and then returns with an apparent friendly
rapport and helps me look for it. Kelly and Dave, Amos, and Cammie all
related to my major bust that way.
    I am 51 years old; this household that I call Gooble Dell is the
culmination of 30 years of experiment and development on my part, in what I
perceive as spiritual sanity. It is not the result of any sort of neglect
or nihilism. I am not feeble or inclined to procratinate any matter of
actual importance. I am not seeking notoriety. When the construction of the
ship in my yard inspired the Register Guard and a television station at LCC
to propose stories I sent them away.
   I am not a rebel, I am a common aspirant. I returned all my personal
government paperwork and ID because I sense that the government is sinister
and I no longer need practical assistance from the government; but I am not
in opposition to government. I do occasional odd jobs and I spend most days
unemployed because I spend less than $200 a month, not because I deal drugs
or inherited something. I paid for my house through working temp service
jobs and completing a normal house move, in 1990. I have never had a
mortgage, or any expensive habits. In spite of my small income I routinely
save money. My strange looking house has less work done without required
building permits than almost any in the neighborhood. My current three
bedroom remodel in the basement has a $1700 permit. Due to years of
occasional harassment, I keep the strange looking visible yard area tightly
policed within the land use rules.
   I get along well with drug addicts, petty thieves, mentally ill street
people and the like, because they are open to genuine spiritual engagement
and they offer unconfusing spiritual reflection. They are not afraid of
illusory hazards like more fortunate and sheltered people. Average
legitimate people have nearly all failed me in these ways, due to the means,
ability and wish to remain unknown and private.
   What I request from neighbors is a willingness to either live and let
live, or a presention of overt undisguised threats with explicit well
defined demands. The bust has resulted in no visible change in the
appearance or personnel at my house, so it achieved nothing but a lot of
grief. Whatever issues created it are still present and more paralyzed by
bitterness. False politeness or heartless backstabbing by those who find my
values deplorable has made a bad situation worse.
   Cammie's friend Kim expressed his wish that I would move away. He spoke
as if this was a simple idea. I deliberately chose this neighborhood
because I could put down permanent psychic roots here. Because of my
cultural expression I am less welcome as a newcomer to an area. My house
move inspired four calls to the city suggesting it was illegally done. When
I first arrived, one out of three households had a serious obvious drug
habit issue, often refereed by police, that forced general recognition of
the humanness of many of the neighbors. Children were always present and
forcing neighborhood adults to be human to some degree. Industrial madness
was mostly strangled here by poverty and domestic strife.
   Because of some eighty people having been tenants at my house over the
18 years it's been here, and symbols like the giant ship that captured the
imagination and encouragement of countless strangers, the house carries a
huge and priceless sentimental value to a lot of people, on top of my own
psychic house of cards. It is not even vaguely a commercial item. It is
home in a way few houses can become.
   I have mused occasionally about what sentiment I would feel if my
neighborhood was nearly all houses of garbage and mass roommates, and had
one household of one couple with a monthy overhead of several thousand
dollars and who drove everywhere. If several of my associates came to me
saying that the one remaining criminal household must be terminated somehow
or brought into compliance I would fear those condemning people, as people
on the hunt for a scapegoat.
   I think this is probably never going to happen. That I have seen, people
with an inclination to low overhead and sharing of houses can rarely afford
a house. I am a bizarre anomoly in that way. In this cultural sense, only
those with a house have a vote, so the industrialist culture will always
determine normalicy.
   I don't consider this a letter of friendship, only a letter of
recognition. To me friendship is a visceral thing with no element of the
subtlty that a letter implies. But to be unknown to those whose homes I
pass every day seems sinister, even without the unknown fears and loathing
suggested by the bust. So this is a bid to be known a little bit more by
those people who have been forced by fate to see my personal life.
   
   
    Adrian Wolfe at Gooble Dell
 
 
   
   
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