"I have nothing and everything"

January 26, 2024 9:49 AM

Michael Joseph's compelling portraits of America's young travellers
posted by goo (38 comments total)

These are beautiful photos. My kneejerk reaction has something to do with the Fisherking. Romanticizing homelessness is more of a bug than a feature, imo. Can't say I haven't done it. But the program has run long enough. It's reasonable to start picking sides. I wouldn't say this is pro-program, anyway.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:04 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Beautiful photographs. There's a couple of second-generation people there, which I found interesting.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:17 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes, I am the happiest man alive. “
Henry Miller
posted by JohnR at 10:21 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]

I remember the gutterpunks of New Orleans when I was living there back in the mid-90s. They really were--for the most part--lovely people who had run away from bad home lives and came there because NOLA never really gets cold like it does up North. It takes courage to deliberately live on the margins.
posted by Kitteh at 10:46 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

There is a definite beauty in a life of travel. A life lived IN the world instead of observing it. I have lived in an RV since 2015 and I would never go back to a house shaped box that can't move. I know, it's a lot more gentle than the lives these folks are living, but I get the traveling aspect.
posted by routergirl at 10:54 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]

Leave out the Tragic Parts by Dave Kindred is a grandfather's memoir of his grandson who was a traveler. Kindred goes out looking for the young people who knew his grandson. It's not a great book, but the story has really stayed with me. I'm also impressed with the beautiful and honest obituary the family wrote for Jared "Goblin" Kindred. Honest and loving.
posted by Well I never at 10:59 AM on January 26 [2 favorites]

I remember the gutterpunks of New Orleans when I was living there back in the mid-90s.

There's a big gathering in New Orleans every year as well. Dave Kindred talks about it in the memoir I mentioned in the previous comment.
posted by Well I never at 11:01 AM on January 26

These are gorgeous photographs. I love the focus on love and joy. It's easy to only catalogue the hardships of this kind of life, but this essay is a great balance of both, the highlights and the lowlights.
posted by capricorn at 11:25 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

There's overlap between travellers and the houseless community, but they're not the same.
posted by rikschell at 11:26 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]

I have seen portraits like this before and often these collections tend to *only* have subjects who are not only young but pretty, skinny, and mostly White.

Presenting beauty, self-expression, and autonomy is great. But there also seems to be something a little... fetishistic... going on, especially when the photographer isn't from within the group.

Contrast with Rex Hohlbein's pictures, which don't rely on pretty/skinny folks and IMHO do a better, more honest job of celebrating the humanity of people living outside. (Rex Hohlbein is a housed person but one who has spent a long time working to really connect with and unlearn/learn from unhoused folks, not just in a superficial way, and his pictures show the difference.)
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:42 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]

I'm not any kind of podcast listener, but one production that really drew me in was City of the Rails, about a journalist whose daughter disappears after her high school graduation to hop trains. It follows her search not only to connect with her daughter, but to understand the culture of both sides of the traveller story, the travellers themselves and the authorities that encounter them.
William T Vollmann also has written about this subculture in Riding Toward Everywhere

It's also interesting to me how much conformity (in looks) that there is among nonconformists. most notably, among these, are the nose rings.
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:45 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]

There's overlap between travellers and the houseless community, but they're not the same.

And somewhat confusingly, these aren't Travellers in the capital T ethnic group sense, as I understand it.
posted by hoyland at 12:02 PM on January 26 [6 favorites]

> It's also interesting to me how much conformity (in looks) that there is among nonconformists. most notably, among these, are the nose rings.

For the most part people aren't noncorformists because they are attracted to nonconformity as a purely abstract end goal in itself. Rather, they are trying to reject (and sometimes literally running away from) capitalism, authoritarianism, parental and/or institutional abuse, homophobia or transphobia, etc.

This doesn't mean that they reject each other; on the contrary they tend to form communities with like minded folks, and find safety in these groups, and it is not surprising that such communities should form common markers or esthetics. Piercings and tattoos are quite unremarkable among many young people today anyway.
posted by splitpeasoup at 12:41 PM on January 26 [20 favorites]

I'm guessing it also provides some signaling of being like-minded and potentially safe.
posted by kokaku at 1:05 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]

It's also interesting to me how much conformity (in looks) that there is among nonconformists. most notably, among these, are the nose rings.

I think this is an unnecessary snipe at the subjects of the photos, especially when "nonconformist" doesn't appear in any of the published quotes.

I think a kinder and more meaningful interpretation is that they are aesthetic markers in a community, that there is a shared culture at work, that these are not isolates from society but rather part of a society that they make and share.
posted by entropone at 1:21 PM on January 26 [15 favorites]

I think it's also worth considering that tattoos and piercings are very often things that people do when they're bored.

I used to work for a body jewelry manufacturer and it was super-common for staff to go into the bathroom on their breaks and give themselves new piercings because, eh, it was a slow day. Once our head of production didn't have anything to do and he pierced his left hand with 12 gauge curved barbells between each knuckle. The turnaround of action to consequence was fast on that one; about a week later he made a fist a little too quickly and two of them tore right out.

My ex-girlfriend is a truly excellent human being who also spent eight years in prison. When she got out she had (I think) four tattoos that she didn't have when she went in, and when I asked her about their significance she said it had been something to pass the time.

I spent a little time in the early 2000s hanging out with the street kids in Santa Monica who had gravitated to the area to squat in the many, many buildings that had been condemned after the Northridge earthquake. This was at the same time I was working for the body jewelry company so they were regularly trying to hit me up for piercing supplies. Again, it didn't mean anything, it was just something to do.

Of the gutter punks and crusties I knew when I was younger who lived and/or avoided lengthy prison sentences, some eventually got out of the scene and went on to live lives that were not exactly conventional but were significantly less precarious. Addresses, jobs, that sort of thing. It was sometimes surprising to see who wound up where. Looking at this photo collection I would guess that the dividing line between who eventually rejoins somewhat mainstream society and who doesn't probably tracks pretty closely to the allocation of facial tattoos.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:40 PM on January 26 [17 favorites]

The last thing I need to see is another gallery of attractive people selected to be photographed in black and white.
posted by groda at 2:57 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]

I feel a bit sad for them
posted by Czjewel at 3:47 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

How did I know there would be a ton of New Orleans photos here?
posted by brundlefly at 4:33 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]

Nothing is everything.

No.
Nothing is nothing.
Share half of my nothing.

The photographer will go home.
posted by mule98J at 4:35 PM on January 26

Photographer’s Instagram
posted by Ideefixe at 4:45 PM on January 26

They look like they just left Burning Man. Maybe some did, probably most did not but they would blend in well there.
posted by waving at 6:14 PM on January 26

Burning Man cost more than $700 in 2023; I'd expect most of these travelers wouldn't be laying out that kind of dosh to attend what used to be a very alternative experience, but is more of a rich man's hedonia today.
posted by lometogo at 6:49 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I first heard about Burning Man 20 years ago from the security guy at the Bourbon St. tourist shop I worked at. He went every year. I cannot imagine people in his income bracket being able to afford it now. My aunt who is a corporate consultant went last year though.
posted by brundlefly at 7:53 PM on January 26

I think some of you would be shocked at how many people who are as generally attractive as the subject matter of these photos attend Burning Man without spending one thin dime.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:05 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]

Can we talk about Smiles and Ophelia, the child young enough to be in diapers?
posted by Nelson at 8:16 PM on January 26

(Yes, North American travellers with a lowercase t are different than European/UK Travellers with a capital T. Both are clearly identifiable subcultures (different from each other), but the North American version isn’t also a separate ethnic group.)

The travellers I’ve known were skinny mainly because they didn’t always get enough to eat, combined with lots of walking. In some cases, drug use may contribute, though alcohol and pot seemed (at least from my outside perspective - I’m sure there’s a lot of details I’m ignorant of) to be the easiest intoxicants to obtain and those aren’t make-you-skinny types of intoxicants. (And some travellers who settled down seem to have started to put on beer bellies.) Folks I know who mostly had/have settled lives but who did some travelling or overlapped in crust punk communities also tended to be vegan when they had a choice, or worked jobs with significant outdoors/manual labor components. But likely the photographs have also been selected in part based on the attractiveness of the subjects, yeah.
posted by eviemath at 3:52 AM on January 27

Scrolling through his instagram, I'm looking for some kids I knew - but no, that was too long ago.

I'm touched by this project to humanize young people living a very hard life and often rejected by a lot of people.

I'm very saddened by the number of RIP posts that the photog has made.
posted by entropone at 9:29 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]

In some cases, drug use may contribute, though alcohol and pot seemed (at least from my outside perspective - I’m sure there’s a lot of details I’m ignorant of) to be the easiest intoxicants to obtain

Heroin is everywhere these days.

Hard to romanticize a way of life supported primarily by begging, petty crime, and dealing. Many are young people treated abominably at home who chose the only path that seemed available to them to address issues no young person should have to face. But there are some (identifiable even in this carefully-selected group) for whom it's just a lifestyle or a lark, and man. Maybe don't compete for limited resources with the 56-year-old black lifelong alcoholic who actually lives here, at least for as long as he's still alive.
posted by praemunire at 10:17 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]

a way of life supported primarily by begging, petty crime, and dealing

Wut? Where did that come from? A lot of these folks make what money they make by busking.
posted by eviemath at 11:08 AM on January 27

(And, for Canadian travellers at least, seasonal farm labor, especially in the Okanagan.)
posted by eviemath at 11:26 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]

And dishwashing, and any other type of job with high turnover and a constant need for "unskilled" (i.e., highly skilled and experienced, but low-paid) staff.

Heroin is everywhere these days.

Heroin is still plentiful here, but I see people using fantanyl openly more often.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:11 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]

Your periodic reminder that many of the unhoused have jobs; they simply can't afford housing, which would be especially true in the current economic/social climate. They clean up at Planet Fitness (still $10/month, I think) and lay their head just about anywhere they can. Travelers might have a bit of a problem with references and whatnot but I still see a fair number of Help Wanted signs, so the job market may still be to their advantage. Maybe there are a few middle-class kids working out their crusty-punk fantasies in there--there do seem to be a few in Joseph's photographs that don't seem particularly street-worn, at least yet--but they are still eligible to be in it for the long haul. We occasionally see them in AA meetings, usually there for the coffee and whatever other refreshments we happen to have on hand, but if they have any concerns about substance abuse they usually choose not to share them with us.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:00 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]

Your periodic reminder that many of the unhoused have jobs; they simply can't afford housing

Always a good general reminder; and also the post is about a very specific subculture that has some overlap with the more general unhoused population but also some important differences. The couple travellers that I’ve known might live for a season in communal houses, or have some home bases that they come back to regularly (Slab City, communal punk houses in a given city that have a rotating cast of residents, some farms or campgrounds in hippy areas like Salt Spring Island, etc.) - in that sense having more in common with the retirees or others who live in RVs as documented in Nomadland. Definitely still part of the mosaic of unhoused people, but with some needs and issues specific to their sub-community.
posted by eviemath at 5:04 AM on January 28 [2 favorites]

Realistically, when you look unhoused, busking is begging. And for every crusty I've seen attempting to play music, there are four more on a sidewalk with a can or something. The day labor market hobos could sometimes live off of in the 1930s is quite different now, especially in the cities, and even in the "unskilled" jobs it's a lot harder to get hired right off the streets (I've often thought that Chris McCandless, who notably worked for his living wherever he went, would've had a much harder time of that now). I just don't think it's helpful to cast any kind of rosy glow over this way of life. It's incredibly difficult for the young people who feel (with good reason) forced into it and get lost in it; the kids sticking it to the man are draining resources that other people on the margins need a lot more.

The crusty population in downtown Manhattan, at least, got a huge shock during the pandemic and doesn't seem to have recovered yet. Not sure whether that's good or bad.

(Also not sure you can distinguish from afar whether a person is using heroin or fentanyl.)
posted by praemunire at 12:31 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]

Are they smoking it off a piece of aluminum foil? Pretty sure I know what it is…

Heroin is just too expensive.
posted by Windopaene at 3:45 PM on January 29

Not sure what the point is of arguing between heroin and fentanyl, when anybody who has spent any amount of time around crust punks/travellers/train hoppers/etc... knows that opioids are definitely are issue (and I'm sure even more of an issue now than they were 10ish years when I last had contact with this subculture). I'd guess opioid use correlates a lot more strongly with "who makes it out" than face tattoos (which are basically normal now, another thing that's changed a ton in 10 years).
posted by youthenrage at 11:57 AM on January 30

I just don't think it's helpful to cast any kind of rosy glow over this way of life.

FFS. Avoiding classist tropes and describing the actual experiences of actual people in this community I’ve known is not the same as ‘casting a rosy glow’. How do you spin not getting enough to eat as a “rosy glow”??
posted by eviemath at 4:24 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]