TONY
“Phil, you should hear what happened to me Saturday night:
I was paying my respects to Silvio, the homeless guy who got killed in September down at King and Ronces, the guy I told you about and we wrote in the blog. So I got on my bike and I start coughing and coughing and coughing, you know, because of my pneumonia. Anyway, I was riding down King Street while I was coughing my ass off — guess who comes around the corner down near Dufferin? I’ll tell you who came around the corner. It was that same fire truck from 426 Division, you know the one that saved me from being run over last winter and it’s also the same one that ran over my friend a few months back. So I nearly hit this truck — but I don’t — but there’s this car behind the truck and this car is totally new, shined up and everything. Plus, believe it or not, it’s a new Porsche 911. I’m not kidding you. So I try to miss hitting the Porsche but I wiped out, into into the back quarter panel. So, of course, the guy gets out of the car, of course he’s pissed at me, and I’m telling you, he’s six-foot-something and he’s got biceps that could crack walnuts. So he looks at down me and says: ‘I know you. You’re homelessmanspeaks.com.’ So he’s was pretty nice to me considering but now I owe him $100.”
November 13, 2007 at 1:21 pm
The power of the press! And even Porsche drivers want the world to be a happy place.
November 13, 2007 at 1:37 pm
What a great story! Not the collision part, but the power of this blog to be heard. Very cool.
November 13, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Umm, great he knew who you are, but to make you pay 100$. Doesn’t he realize that you don’t have that kind of money?
November 15, 2007 at 10:19 am
ohh what a wonderful story. Yes, it is a cyclical life, through the portals of the internet – to the street – then back again. Now about that Porche guy, doesn’t he owe you something Tony – for the ad :). Like a $G or 2!
November 15, 2007 at 11:01 am
http://www.blogschmog.net/2007/11/15/
The power of personal transparency was exhibited on Homeless Man Speaks, a blog giving voice to Tony of Toronto. The entire blog, which has frequent posts by Phil, the transcriber and bridge in this particular digital divide, is filled with personal accounts of living on without a home. One of them occurred this week involving a dangerous bike maneuver:
“So I try to miss hitting the Porsche but I wiped out, into into the back quarter panel. So, of course, the guy gets out of the car, of course he’s pissed at me, and I’m telling you, he’s six-foot-something and he’s got biceps that could crack walnuts. So he looks at down me and says: ‘I know you. You’re homelessmanspeaks.com.’ So he’s was pretty nice to me considering but now I owe him $100.”
This is why something so innocuous as 140-character updates on the minutiae of individual lives is so interesting and important. When we are able to connect the little things we read with the humans behind them, the world grows significantly smaller.
November 15, 2007 at 6:58 pm
The guy in the Porsche is a ture ass hole to think a homeless man can pay him $100 dollar for a mishap , The guy should get a life ,
January 2, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Being from Red Deer, AB seeing some on sleeping on the street is hard to believe, I’ve never seen that before. It’s sad reality and eye opening. TO the guy in the Porsche, drop the debt, and pay it forward twice for even thinking it.
May 9, 2008 at 4:44 am
[…] of local connections cannot be underestimated. The impact of transparency is routinely exhibited on Homeless Man Speaks, a blog about a man experiencing homelessness in Toronto, as transcribed by a neighbor: So, of […]
December 17, 2009 at 11:30 am
я считаю: спасибо…