I heard of Jeff Bierk just over a year ago through some friends who were obsessed with his photos. We met through chance, and he invited me to hang out with him to follow him around as he worked. I also met with his homeless, drug addicted friends. I’d soon find out that it hadn’t been long since he’d kicked addiction himself, having gone through almost twenty years of pills, death and struggle for sobriety that informed the bulk of the photos he takes.
Read the rest
You may remember that, a little while back, some very, very high people called VICE, convinced we had asked them to write a blog about taking drugs with homeless people in Bournemouth, England (we didn’t). I asked them to write a post about their adventures, and yesterday they finally sent it to me.
There’s no pictures of what happened as, unfortunately, the “photographer” they “hired” turned out to not actually exist (I fucking hate when that happens), so I’ve created some digital reconstructions of what I think they might have seen. (BTW, I’ve never been to Bournemouth or tried 2C-B and have no idea how to use Photoshop.) Enjoy, alongside their unedited account of events.
Read the rest
O, for the life of a 21st century gutter punk—the endless miles of railroad tracks, the STDs contracted at secluded squats, the distinctive terroir of moonshine varietals sampled at regional Rainbows, and the omnipresent itch of wanderlust and hatching head lice. One can only wonder what happens where they and their bandana-wearing dogs disappear to after they’ve stopped flying cardboard or busking off-key covers for whatever change they can get out of sympathetic ex-punks. Well, they go online, most of them. Even the poorest of runaways and homeless teens—up to 62% of them, according to a study done by the USC School of Social Work—own a cell phone and will spend the money on their data plan over food or shelter, since they can often find that for free. And they’ve got each other, as well as Punk Nomad, to fall back on.
Read the rest
