Sundy Bloody Sunday on The Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Sunday was a sad day on Hollywood Blvd. Started it off with my butt getting slapped by a stranger. I would have happily punched him but he was in a wheel chair and with my luck someone would have seen me respond without seeing the initial attack and I would have looked like a bad person that beat up a disabled man. That was my first dealing with crazy. A short time after the BID patrol (I like to call them the Haliburton of Hollywood) were called because another mentally ill man who has had numerous run ins with law enforcement, was going to the bathroom in public at Hollywood & Highland (the mall). So about 8 bid patrol officers came as well as the fire department because at one time during the initial altercation the person was unresponsive. The BID patrol released the man and then he came back several times and they tried to escort him off the property. Finally after the 3rd or 4th time they handcuffed him and took him away. I watched the story unfold. Earlier in the day he asked my friend for money and my friend gave it to him. I got into a deep conversation with another photographer about Hollywood Blvd because he was photographing the mentally ill man with the Bozo type haircut being surrounded like hunted game by the BID. I reminded him that homeless and mentally ill people have little resources and little empathy in a world that believes everyone should pull themselves up from their own boot straps. It is the same world where during the Reagan administration cut mental health facilities and closed the doors on people getting help. I don't understand this world with the endless deep pockets for the military industrial complex fraudulent reasons to go into wars that deplete healthcare, education, libraries and so many of our civil liberties and rights. We can't cut military spending but we can cut human services to the bone? What kind of nation are we becoming? Are we becoming the STOICS? Only concerned with the false power of the Empire and disregarding and eliminating all those that need help? After a lengthy conversation while I pointed out the beautifully designed Freemason Building that houses the Jimmy Kimmel Show as well as the detailed faces of what appears to be busts of the Night Templar's or Famous Freemasons next door above the El Capitan owned by Disney, the photographer and I shook hands and he was on his way. A short time later I was talking to someone else when I heard a horrible crash. I turned to see a man bleeding stumbling in the street and another man with a bicycle bleeding as well. I ran in the street to help. Both men at first refused my, as well as two other's help. They both kept saying that were running late and they had to get where they were going. One was an actor in a play. His head was squirting blood. I grabbed his arm and begged him to sit on the ground. An off duty nurse talked to him to see if he was lucid while another man and I tried to stop the bleeding. I sat on the pavement trying to talk to both injured parties into stopping and taking care of themselves. It was crazy. The guy with the bike who had a huge gash on his head above an eye was saying repeatedly that he had to go to work. He couldn't be late. He couldn't loose his job. I joked men never listen to me while I held on to the other guy's head to put pressure on the bleeding. By that time someone had gotten napkins. I had blood all over my hands. I didn't have gloves. Oops. I didn't have time to freak out. Someone called 911. And the Fire Department came and took over while we tried to tell them what happened. I rushed to wash my hands and came back to the scene by that time the police arrived and were taking down the accident report. The guy on the bicycle needed stitches but refused to go to the hospital. The Firemen did what they could to close his wound and bandage his head. I saw him get back on his bike and ride furiously to work. The other guy was bandaged up and his friends arrived to take him to the hospital. He didn't want to be taken away in the ambulance to the hospital because he would have to pay for it so he waited and waited and waited for the friend with the car to pick him up at the curb but his friend couldn't because the street was cut off due to the Muppet Movie getting ready for some additional filming. So I told him to sit back down and a little while later a man comes over and starts laughing at the injured, bloodied guy with a huge bandage on his head. His wife comes over too and starts laughing while (the tourist I assume) is snapping pictures. Their little kids come over too to see the damage. I'm watching these so called adults laugh at a guy who just got into a serious accident and his wound is bleeding through the bandage and I ask them, "what are you laughing at?" They say "at the guy". I say incredulously what the hell are you laughing for? He just got hit!" They laugh some more and say "Oh I thought it was a movie!" I said I hope someone laughs at you when you get injured and takes pictures. What the hell is happening? Are people so dumb down with gutter entertainment and violent films that they can't distinguish between real blood and fake? Were they laughing the second time out of embarrassment? Or are they just that stupid, ignorant and careless. They snickered as they walked away. I turned around and the injured guy with his friends decided to walk down Hollywood to the corner of Highland so their other friend could pick them up. Before he left he thanked me and I warned him that he was going to feel pretty bad in a day or two and to take it slow. I watched them make that long walk as his head started to bleed more and his friends tried to help him walk. I thought to myself, what the hell is going on when so many hard working people are afraid to go to the hospital for lack of funds and afraid to loose their jobs after a health scare. Then I remembered that the same thing had happened to me a year before. So many of us are in the same boat. Healthcare is not affordable for us and we would rather do without than have bills we can't pay for. So for all those fools who think cutting our infrastructure is the right thing to do while so many US corporations and uber rich don't pay their fare share of taxes while the middle class dissolves into a pool of serfs, I say FUCK YOU! There are good hard working US Citizens that deserve healthcare and union jobs. It isn't Socialist. It is the right thing to do. All the trillions of our dollars that we Americans accept our government using in our name to fight endless and imaginary wars is a shame and a sham. Sunday Bloody Sunday. Why don't we cut at least 1/4th of Military Spending? And why don't we make sure U.S. Corporations are paying their taxes? Those are two simple suggestions that could help fund healthcare.