People Interacting with People
A podcast about People Interacting with People. In April 2015, I became homeless. I decided to embrace this homelessness and what followed was five years of nomadic life, over 250 moves in Canada and the United States, on an average budget of roughly $22 a day.
While sitting in a 24 hour diner in Toronto on my first two homeless nights, a young man sat beside me and when I told him about my experience - spending 9 hours each night at the diner, getting a free coffee and a brownie on my second night - he turned to me and asked:
"Do you think you'd be having the same experience if you were Black?"
Over those next five years, I had a series of "chance" encounters with Black people and had some very interesting conversations. I documented some of them in writing but when I compiled them into a 300 page script during the pandemic, I realized that - in writing it myself - I had lost the authenticity of the other person's voice.
And so, I decided to hit the road and reconnect with some of these wonderful people while also leaving myself open to meeting new ones. These are our conversations.
People Interacting with People
S3 EP2 Part 2: Living in Your Authenticity, Being Blessed But Bullshit, Performing Poetry, Living as a Same-Gender-Loving Male, & Liberating Yourself w/ Artis aka DJ ART.IS in Anacostia, D.C.
In part two of my conversation with Artis, we talk about living in your authenticity, Artis performs some of his poetry - including one about living as a "same-gender-loving male" which leads to a longer discussion about this - and we talk about how being blessed still comes with its bullshit.
Artis has written over 600 Haikus - some of which he shares with me - and has over 1000 poems compiled in a series of books he is writing. And he's doing great things as an arts activist and curator in his local community in DC.
You can find him on IG @art.isempowerment or @djart.is or @art.ispoet
To see photos of Artis and I, head to my IG @pipsperspective