Malibu residents hear tales firsthand about what it’s like to live on Skid Row.
By Ryan O’Quinn / Special to The Malibu Times
The Malibu audience listened, transfixed Saturday night as two homeless men highlighted the course of events that led them to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, which they described as “a microcosm of the rawness of America,” in a presentation from the popular Malibu storytelling program “Tales by the Sea.”
“Tales From the Row” came to life at Malibu United Methodist Church where Malibu residents got a chance to hear firsthand from the two homeless men about what life is like on the streets.
Edward Barriner and Romeo Cruz have been working with director, writer and performer Michael Kearns to preserve and present their stories about life on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. The workshop where Kearns met the men is co-sponsored by the St. George Hotel and LAMP, or Los Angeles Men’s Project, a nonprofit organization providing housing and support services for homeless men and women.
“I encourage them to be who they are,” Kearns said. “You can’t really teach writing and acting. You can hone it. What you really need is somebody to say you’re okay.”
Barriner, who has worked with Kearns for a year, told the story of being born legally blind in Africa.
“I didn’t know racism or prejudice [before I was seven years old] because I couldn’t see [until then],” he said. “All my life is about this moment. I came 9,000 miles from Africa to say I know you and you know me.”
Barriner spoke of growing up in Ocala, Fla. where he was one of five black children who were bussed to an all-white elementary school. He quickly discovered he had a knack for the arts and became infatuated with Shakespeare and classical literature. Barriner said academics came easily, he was a straight A student and was accepted to the theater program at the University of Florida where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. He said he eventually ended up in New York where he became a schoolteacher and worked as a counselor at a health center. Following the terrorist attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Barriner moved back to Florida to live with family.
Anxious for something more exciting than central Florida, Barriner said he bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and found himself attempting various things and relationships he had not tried before. Admittedly, he said he was doing things he never thought he would do and discovered that he was infected with HIV, and eventually ended up in downtown Los Angeles on Skid Row.
Cruz told his story in a third-person format as he eloquently chronicled his life from growing up as a light-skinned African-Puerto Rican-Italian to eventually ending up homeless in downtown Los Angeles.
Cruz grew up in Brooklyn, where he learned quickly that he had to be tough in his neighborhood, but did not fit in well with his peers.
“I’m going to tell you a story about a boy who was white, but not white enough,” Cruz began. “I prided myself on being a chameleon. My family and friends were living vicariously through me.”
Like Barriner, Cruz said he also found a family in the theater early on, acting in television commercials as a child, and was earning income from professional plays and residuals by the time he was in middle school.
His parents divorced and Cruz moved to Chicago with his mother. Cruz said his grades were failing so his mother banned him from doing plays and he packed his belongings in a bed sheet and left home by age 16, hitching a ride back to New York City.
Following high school, Cruz said he attended various schools and colleges including Howard University, the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Royal Shakespeare Academy in London. He said he also worked with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York and, due to a chance meeting in a night club, ended up on the design staff for fashion designer Vivienne Westwood in England.
Cruz came back to the United States to care for his diabetic mother and worked in assorted design jobs and theater positions before moving to Los Angeles with the promise of a career as a production designer for a motion picture studio.
After arriving in L.A., Cruz discovered the position was no longer available and he lived for a short time on Balboa Island. Later he moved in with a former high school friend who lived in Van Nuys. He said the living situation was chaotic and unhealthy; he eventually ran out of funds and found himself looking for food in the dumpster behind a gay health club in the Valley.
After the presentation, the two men came out for a Q & A session and informally talked about their experiences.
One of the evening’s most memorable moments came when Barriner asked the audience if anyone had ever slept in the rain. One Malibu family responded that they had recently been camping and it had rained. The audience and the men roared with laughter as the men explained there is a difference between taking a family camping trip and sleeping outside “not on purpose.”
Ann Buxie, program director for Tales by the Sea, said the performance was an opportunity for the men to share their experience as well as help eliminate stereotypes.
“There’s so much to think about after seeing them speak,” Buxie said. “They were so articulate. We live generally day to day with so many expectations, but you go to Skid Row and there are no expectations. It’s very interesting to shed those expectations to find out who you really are.”
“I loved it when they said to the audience ‘all of us are Skid Row,'” Kearns said. “It’s about breaking down barriers of what we think something is and what it really is.”
According to LAMP’s Web site, on any given night, as many as 88,000 homeless people live on the streets of Los Angeles county.
In addition to the creative workshops that LAMP hosts, there are various outlets and jobs for the homeless that encourage them to progress. Among them are nonprofit businesses including a commercial laundry, a coin Laundromat and a convenience store.
More information on “Tales by the Sea” can be obtained by contacting Ann Buxie at 310.457.2385. Michael Kearns is the artistic director of Space at Fountain’s End in Silver Lake. For more information call 323.856.6168