Bulb Library and Recent Visit.

       It appears the City and PD are going to drag their feet on the eviction so  i may make it out there again but here's how my most recent visit went.. Below i will paste the link to a short video I filmed on Sept. 19. 
 This is how my visit went Sept 26, a Thursday- so on my way in, i pass a group of campers at the amphitheater eating pizza. Next i head out to Amber's camp because although she is yelling about something at the gathering, i know Phyl is more likely to be at home than anywhere else... so Phyl tells me that because there are two "architects" who can't agree on how the library should be built, it had been torn down again.
  The library was dismantled some time ago because of mold and deterioration, so i was thrilled to see it had been very nicely rebuilt after a few weeks, you can see the rebuild in the first minute or so of the video.  But, indicative of the problems present amongst the campers, the Library was torn down a few days later by another camper.
    This is not how "community" functions.  The rebuild was Fantastic. There was no reason to tear down the Library other than one person's ego.  This is how these people function.  It's not a community that makes decisions together, it is one where the loudest and toughest make the decisions.
After shaking my head at the piles of debris around the library, i notice one of the paths had been improved somewhat and decided to check it out- I had run into a Bulb resident on my way out who was working on the trails a little, and I do have to say there are a few areas where these guys are making some actual improvements.  Funny thing is the guy I talked to who was working on building a new trail along the north side- I really like where and how he is putting it in, the north side of the neck has no trail at all and is an interesting area- BUT this guy is one of the people who has been burned out of his camp before and about half the residents hate him. Ooops/
SO from the library i decide to go north and check out the path, then i turn back towards the main trail. A camper with bike and dog are approaching so i make room to let him pass (im on a bike as well). and he STOPS. I am not a little guy, and he was, but he had a dog. Fortunately it turned out his dog was very  not aggressive at all because things got ugly really fast.
WHO ARE YOU? This guy says. Really ? I won't try to recall the exact conversation but it went more or less like this- You do NOT have the right to question me, and what you are doing is exactly why you are being evicted. He was boxing me in with his dog and bike, but the dog was not getting aggressive I will grant him that much. Pretty fast he realized he had made a HUGE mistake, but still did not quite back down- and made it worse on himself.
"Ok, that's all you had to say, you are a tourist" WHAT?! I do NOT have to say any such thing.   and worse-
"You're not the one who found a body out here, I am" WOW. FIRST OFF- that woman killed herself- trying to make the public think there is a murderer on the Bulb is only that much more reason to kick you out. DO NOT tell me about dead bodies. I did not identify myself other than to say i was a citizen. He did not apologize, but kept trying to justify his actions as i was leaving.
I was so angry I head back over to Phyl and Amber's to vent at them rather than run into another camper first. Amber has now returned from the pizza gathering and  course her first question is "what did he look like" - Does not matter Amber you are not the one to make sure the other Bulb campers behave, I am not giving you a reason to go act like sheriff on someone- you thinking you can be sheriff is more reason why you need to go.  At least - Amber, Phyl and really most of the campers are smart enough to know this guy was an idiot. I passed other campers who did not know me on narrow trails and they simplay said hello. Most of them realize they have no right to question anyone's presence on the Bulb, but seems like nearly every time I visit I find the one or two people who think it is their job to ID everyone out there./// i will write a bit more about being in their camp shortly but first COMEDY - As I am leaving Amber's camp, here comes the same guy who thought he could question me-  in short, i did to him what he did to me with a little more volume/ he finally got it and apologized..These guys don't realize how dominated a person feels when trapped by one of them on a trail, so I showed him. However, None of us has time to re educate every camper on how to act in public, nor should we. (INTERESTING- that Amber, the "sheriff", being friends with this guy had not already given him some instructions on how to dea ltwith people on the Bulb) FUNNY how the exact harassment these folks complain they get on our streets, they want to give to us in "their" park..
AND THERE is the biggest problem for many of these people. They really don't get it. They think they own the park. This guy was not big or scary at all really, and did not perceive himself as such, but felt he had a right over his "turf" so it was ok for him to bother me... For one thing- they really aren't nice people at all, but more to the point- the average person is automatically a little wary of anyone homeless, and often the campers make it worse.. most of the Bulb campers will  say hi or nothing at all if you pass them and that's fine but even a tiny little guy is scary when he is blocking a trail and you are alone... Add in a dog, consider he might have a knife and you are terrified. Guy thinks he is just looking out for his neighbors and has no real intentions, but he's scaring most people and MAKING ME MAD. FINALLY I had gotten a proper apology from this poor sap after I made him feel some fear himself and I think he got the message, but this is an ongoing problem. I have been similarly harassed about "who am i" by campers with dogs on many many occasions..  - I can only imagine it is worse for people who don't have any friends out there, then every single person out there wants to know who you are. Granted, I have dreads and riding a mtn bike so some campers might mistake me for a new arrival vs a regular visitor but that is not an excuse. That only shows how it would be for any new homeless over the years- basically you have to fight your way in and show you are tough enough to stay there. There is more or less a gang of some of the more aggressive long term campers, and then infighting among all of the campers. While many claim the Bulb is a "safe haven" for them, others are fighting each other regularly - and some of them claim it is so safe because as yet no one tougher than them is living there- for now. Most of the campers say hello or just keep to themselves, but it only takes one and there is always at least one problem aggressive person on duty out there.
At Phyl and Amber's camp before I left, they have obviously cleaned up quite a bit but again I ask why did they have so much trash in the first place? Why do they need so much land? Next to their camp, what was a wild area is now completely flattened and covered in trash and an abandoned camp. Nearby, where there was one shack there are now three. The camps around the main trails have grown larger and larger, to the point they have completely cut off large parts of what was a park.  When i first saw "Phylamber"(their camp) I thought it was a pretty neat idea, but there is a perfect example of how all these folks operate- they were given an inch for too long, they took a yard. You can see in the video, it clips to a dark tented off area on my left, that is Amber's original camp. It was a tented off area but well hidden under some bushes and not very large/ but more than large enough for two people, it was larger than most studio apartments. Then they started digging it into the ground and it is actually far larger than it looks... Then that wasn't enough and their camp expanded into what you will see as I pan right.   Phyl said "go ahead and put this on the news " and Amber has had herself and the camp in many videos so I will not feel like I am doing anything wrong sharing this- At one point I actually told them i was claiming half of it back for myself they took so much (not that it means anything) and I have given them endless warnings of how this was not good for anyone to be taking so much land..  but all the campers act the same way, take as much land, clear as much vegetation  as they can to store more and more ?trash? why?  Because they can.  I really don't see how people who clear so much vegetation to replace it with piles of trash can claim they are restoring or saving the land, but that's what they tell me. Bottom line, for the people complaining Eastshore will turn the Bulb into a barren boring grassland, the campers will accomplish the same thing given another year.  Other than that Amber did finally figure out who to ask and will not ask us Patch folks why enforcement of camping stopped in the first place, and that they intended to do what they are doing/ go to court etc.(this visit was sept 26)... All I can say beyond that is it is frustrating to see some obvious things going on in the person in front of you and have them go out of their way to deny it.  Anyway we  talked for awhile and I leave and the above comedy happens..  After that i took a little ride around the Bulb and went home, no one else bothered me. I did notice one of the 3 dumpsters had been removed, and people bringing more trash to the dumpsters so the campers are trying to clean up a little.  You can see in this short video there is a fair amount of land on the Bulb that is not camps, but also keep in mind because i didnt want to get harassed for filming, so i left out most of the camps. I'll also add in that the south part of the Bulb  where you can see the large garage (one of several big tan structures) - I don't like to go over there, or into the ravine where the skate bowl used to be - because of the dogs. Too many off leash and even the cages, when you see a large "beware of dog" sign out in the bushes, I avoid those areas, not in the video.. So that's what it is like out there, and why I find the idea "ShareTheBulb" brilliant- it is about time we get to share it again because right now a gang owns it.
Video here, may not work on mobile devices due to a 3rd party soundtrack <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTktXnO5bpY>