All, But The Street Vendors. By Uncle Monty.

All, But The Street Vendors.
Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.
Part One of Two
==
Not one of the thousands of street vendors of The Big Issue,
except me, was present at the five-day 13th International
Conference of Network Street Papers (INSP) held at Scotland’s largest
City of Glasgow. Not even the conference keynote speaker that was
The Big Issue co-founder and editor-in-chief John Bird was ever a
homeless street vendor as far as I know. Out of all the attendees I

randomly picked at the conference to ask them if they had been or

were homeless, I only found 1 out the 12 to 15 I asked telling me

they’d been homeless at some stage in their life.

==
Of the 6 or 7 delegates I asked, not a single one told me they’d been

a street vendor selling their street publication on the streets of the

country to which they represented at the conference. While over the

course of 15 years, according to The Big Issue Scotland, street vendors

in Scotland alone have earned a staggering £9.6 million (or over $US

20 million) by selling the Scottish edition of the street paper. Yet, not

a single street vendor was present as an official delegate or represent-

ative at the 2oo8 INSP conference that venued at Glasgow’s

august Mitchell Library.
==
There was John Bird puffing and panting as usual with his view
that there’s “a consirpacy to keep the poor” poor and to keep them
poor by UK government hand outs and welfare benefits to them. Then

he goes on about how it took him 20 whole years to get his own life

together. To him, the only way the homeless can become emancipated

from the streets is by them working in the open marketplace or better

still by selling The Big Issue. Looking fatter and older than ever, John

Bird was in his element of showmanship among the very friendly

conference toward him. He’s a Big Name, perhaps even bigger than

The Big Issue, among those who profit or want to profit from the

homeless and marginalized of the world.

==
He seemed, too, to think I was of no importance to him or The Big

Issue despite being one of his street vendors for over three years.

In the past, he’s been very warm and most welcoming to me.

But at the INSP Conference he seemed to resent my presence

for some reasons unbeknown to me, but presumably best known

to him. He didn’t speak to me, he only spoke at me as if I was

an inanimate object or an irritant flea. John’s little brother Peter

Bird was also among the 18-member Big Issue delegation, the

largest of all, at the conference ranging from Lisa Woodman,

publisher of the Big Issue; to its editor Charles Howgego to Ian

MacArthur, its group managing director; and to John Bird’s ever

present side kick, the ex-street vendor John Duffy, 53. He, Duffy,

is now newly based at The Big Issue Scotland at where his Misses,

he told me, is to join him there in the next two weeks from their

former home at England’s Ramsgate. My past harsh criticism of

Duffy, I suspect is one reason now for Bird’s aloofness and disrepect

to me … So what’s all of this got to do with an international confer-

ence on street papers, you may rightly ask? Well, plenty.
==
John Bird with INSP Conference host.

==

It’s all to do with the personalities and attitudes of those involved
in the street paper industry or socially-conscious enterprise.
All street publications evolve and revolve around the personality
and character of the editors or employees in charge of a particular
street paper. If we look at John Bird’s street mag--it reflects his
exclusive view and priority of the world of homelessness. In many

ways he is rather out of the loop of street homelessness after years

now being off the streets and therefore he's looking down from The

Ivory Tower he’s now built for himself over the past 17 years,

instead of looking up like most homeless folkz do. And so, The
Big Issue would be an entirely different publication, of course,

if his morose side kick John Duffy or John Bird’s own little

brother Peter were to suddenly be put in charge of running

such. Or if you or I were running such a street sheet we would

again be different to them. When John Bird told me at the con-

ference that he didn’t read any blogs, that reflects his personality,

too. If he doesn’t look at what others are writing, then that molds

his view of himself and less of others who write via their own

blogs like me. He doesn't have a blog himself, I guess. In all,

the best street papers are the ones that put personalities

aside and presents the raw reality of whatever are the

local circumstances and ongoing ingredients that confront the

issues and problems of homelessness, alienation, marginalization
and social deprivation. And, behind such publications there must

always be an acute and constant awareness of those many

homeless street vendors that provide the blood, guts, endurance
and lifeline of such publications. With "No Vendors, No Street Rag"

– period. A street paper conference without street vendors repre-

sented or given imput at such a conference is derelict by default
of all that it essentially stands for. It flies in the face of its public

rhetoric and stance on the issues of the homeless and the ancilliary

problems stemming from such societal questions and conditions.
==
Ricardo Grassi of Italy.

=
Officially opened by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond
and the Lord Provost of Glasgow Bob Winter, the international

conference held 5 days of workshops and roundtable discussions

ranging from (shown above) Italian Ricardo Grassi’s ‘Promoting

your street paper as unique source of news and information’ to

American Joanne Zuhl’s ‘Catastrophic street paper disasters and

how to survive them’ to Dutch Jeroen de Rooij’s “Working positively

and effectively with Roma vendors” to Kenyan Clement Njoroge’s

and Zambian Samba Yonga’s ‘The unique role of street papers in

the Global South.” At Richaro Grassi’s workshop, I made an im-

promptu presentatioin and skit on being a Big Issue vendor.

Everybody there seemed to really enjoy what I had to say.

The key to being a street vendor is to poke fun at yourself
and at those who want to take pity on you. Pity is pitiful to me.

I don’t want your pity, I only want your respect and even better

your money, thank you very much. All too many street vendors

and those who work with them have lost the art of making

and poking fun at themselves and at others. They’re all full of

grimness, damnation and judgement. Pity them, I say.
==

Above: Glasgow’s Street Vendors Natalie Clubb and
Raymond Nesbitt with their pet dog “Kiz.”
==
During my conference break, I hit the streets of Glasgow at where my
own dad was born and raised more than one hundred years ago. It was,
however, my first visit to Scotland’s leading commercial centre that sits
on the River Clyde at Stratheclyde. The Gorbals district, once infamous
as the city’s dirty hole, has long been transformed much like New
Glasgow itself. Here the patron saint of the city is St. Mungo and with
its impressive cathedral thus named after the saint of the same name.
+

I tarried here and there until I happened upon Natalie Clubb and
Raymond Nesbitt at the Royal Exchange, who are ummarried partners
and street vendors of Big Issue Scotland. They were there with some
of their street friends and of one who I caught with his hand half way
in my jacket pocket trying to steal from me. After taking their
picture, Natalie suddenly became suspicious along with Raymond,
who demanded I show them my identification as Natalie in-
explicably grabbed my polariod of them (shown above) and
refused to give it back to me until I could prove I was indeed a
Big Issue vendor. They were unaware of the street papers
conference and Raymond remarked "that Big Issue never tells
us anything of what’s going on." I’ve found exactly the same
myself as a vendor. Luckily, I had my Big Issue badge with
me and both Natalie and Raymond soon apologised profusely
to me and she hugged me, too. That was nice and all was
forgiven. But I think it also tells us something about the
negative mindset and open fears of many vendors on the
streets. Natalie Clubb feels especially vunerable to chauvinistic
and sex-driven males who feel they can come on her like she is
a free gutter prostitute to satisfy their kinky tastes and crude
desires. I myself have even had a pimp once offer me a paid
role in some hetro/porno movie at London’s West End.
I fast told the creepy scumbag to go to hell for I am
old enough to be his grandfather, god damn him …

==

While in Glasgow, I also attended Scotland’s 2oo8
Voluntary Sector Fair held at The Gathering of which my
caption picture above shows it at its best, architecturally. It
almost looks like a miniature Sydney Opera House, doesn't it?
Yeeep … And, if you’ve been to one voluntary sector fair, you're
basically been to them all. They’re so uniformly boring, frankly.
The same was what I found at the Glasgow fair do, too. As for the
INSP conference, "All, But The Street Vendors" were there.
==
In my upcoming Part Two, I’ll present some of the other
individuals at the INSP Conference that will include
Brazil’s Maria Margareth Lins Rossal; Nigeria’s
Yomi Kuku, and Argentina's Patricia Merkin.

So stay tuned, everybody ...
Best regards, Uncle Monty.
+Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 2oo8.

Inside The 2oo8 INSP Conference.

==

Glasgow's Sunday Herald published my

comments prior to attending the INSP Conference:

Posted by: uncle monty, covent garden, central london.

on 5:51am Thu 19 Jun 08
i sell the big issue in london. i plan to attend the street papers conference for the first time. i am interested in helping vendors like me to make a greater profit from selling such street papers than those who publish and promote such for their own profit at the expense, all too often, of the street people. ironically, they talk of getting the homeless a "new life" off the streets, but the reality is they must still have the homeless to flog their papers and magazines on the streets of the world. as for the big issue founder john bird, he is in many ways a spokesman for those on "corporate welfare" more than for the homeless and/or vunerable street vendors like me. the problem is that such vendors can and are exploited, willingly or unwillingly, by the process and not the product. while i don't begrudge some of the aims or profit of most street paper publishers, i do begrudge their failure to provide safeguards for the health and work conditions on the streets, especially during the savage months of bitter winter and boiling summer heat at various locations around the world. the vendors are at the bottom of the totem pole and few, if any, are given a voice to challenge the way the "owners" of street papers do business with the vendors themselves. i sometimes only make a few quid a day, while the big whigs at the big issue continue to bathe in their fat bank accounts and charity status at the detriment of those exposed to the elements of street selling to the sometimes hostile or indifferent public that as a vendor i find is not that uncommon. if i am able, i shall raise some of the points i make here at the conference itself. my blog - http://thebiggerissue.org/ - covers a number of issue about those who are or have been homeless. truly, uncle monty. +before st. alban, 2oo8. ps. when i was asked by one of my customers if i worked for a charity, i said no! i then told her half-jokingly that i was, in fact, my own "walking, talking, two-legged charity." she then gave me ten quid for christmas after i said that!! bravo!!
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