Some Teens Find Desperation in Hollywood

Omar A · Feb 28, 2005

Originally posted by By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer@Sun Feb 27,12:44 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - The hulking letters of the Hollywood sign loom over the homeless shelter where Andrew Stone sleeps, but the teenage guitarist is no closer to stardom than he was on the streets of Atlanta. The gangly 19-year-old tells a story that sounds like the slow lament of the songs he writes.

Got here just two weeks ago in a 1985 Chevy Caprice. Car trashed by thieves who snatched a friend's guitar. Pawned a minidisc player for $27, but a thief stole the cash and a cell phone as well. Got $20 for his precious blue Alvarez guitar. The buyer planned to smash it in a rock video.

Now Stone is broke and doesn't know anyone except the few friends he smokes pot with as they roam the streets.

By day, he still sees a second chance in every new encounter. He's desperate to make music — and to recreate himself — on this new stage. At night, he's one of 64 teens who crash at the Covenant House crisis shelter off Santa Monica Boulevard.

About one-third of Los Angeles County's estimated 10,000 homeless teens and young adults live on Hollywood's streets. They're a fraction of the estimated 175,000 unaccompanied teenagers who are homeless somewhere in the United States during any year, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Here, their hard-luck stories — of gangs, drugs, prostitution and jail — have a Hollywood twist.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is reality and there's no movie stars and there's no one here to take care of you," says Linda Chipres, 20, of the star-struck teens she has seen come and go during two years on the streets.

Chipres, who is addicted to crystal meth and dates a male prostitute, says the new arrivals crowd the best squat spots and siphon away the resources of aid groups.

"It's like, 'Go home, you dumb bastard!'" she says, pushing up glasses held together with a thin twisted wire. "... 'Cause the longer you stay out here, the more you get stuck."

___

Stone says his road to Hollywood began five years ago, when his mother started dating a "crazy guy." They clashed constantly and, within months, Stone and his three brothers were in foster care.

It wasn't long before their mother retrieved them. Then, two days after the reunion, she told the kids they were going to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Instead, she parked at a local foster care office, dropped off her children and drove away.

As he watched her go, all Stone could think about was his brand new drum set that was sitting, unpacked and unplayed, on her living room floor. He had just turned 14.

"I don't care to see my mother," he says now. "My mother had a chance to keep us and she chose not to."

After four years of foster care, Stone turned 18 and no longer qualified for the program.

He says his foster father was a good man who offered to support him if he chose college over music. Unwilling to give up his guitar, Stone quit high school and began life on the street.

"He always thought I was too wild and he always thought my music was a bad thing," Stone says. "He didn't see that this is what I wanted to do with my life."

An older brother is now in college, his foster father adopted one brother and the third was placed with another foster family.

At his lowest point, Stone says, he worked at a Subway shop during the day and slept behind the store at night.

"You just think, 'What did I do to deserve this? What did I do to get here?'"

___

No one is more familiar with Stone's passion for music than Paul Baker, his foster father. That passion may be the only thing Baker would recognize about Stone today.

Baker knew Stone by his middle name, Kyle, as did everyone Stone knew in Atlanta's northern suburbs.

Stone's dirty blond hair, now clipped short, was long and curly "almost like an Afro," Baker said in a phone interview.

Stone never spoke with the British accent he now affects and he wore Polo shirts, not polyester bell bottoms. He was an excellent student, active in a church youth group and was taking a horsemanship class, Baker says.

But when Stone turned 18, Baker says, he became another person. He challenged house rules and "went ballistic" when Baker disciplined him.

Baker says his foster son was so convinced he would make it in music that he "lived in a kind of fantasy world." He says he never forced Stone to give up that dream, but counseled "a balanced life" that included college.

Within three weeks of turning 18, Stone had quit high school and was gone. Baker had no idea where his foster son was until The Associated Press called him for this story 1 1/2 years later.

"This is a bright kid, fully capable of school and college, who made a personal choice to pursue music. But it didn't work out. And when it doesn't work out, he creates a new identity, a new scenario," said Baker, who directs an alternative school for emotionally troubled youth.

"He never had to be homeless."

___

Every outreach worker knows kids like Stone who don't have to be homeless.

There are the young girls who follow their boyfriends onto the street, the kids whose parents wire them money and the teens escaping foster care.

Yet statistics suggest that a vast majority of homeless teens are not on the streets by choice — and many struggle with mental and emotional problems.

Nearly half of homeless Hollywood teens displayed some form of mental illness and almost one in four left home because of physical abuse, according to a comprehensive 1998 report presented at the National Symposium on Homelessness Research, "Homeless Youth: Research, Intervention and Policy."

Once on Hollywood's streets, one-third engage in prostitution. About half of the homeless at a Hollywood drop-in clinic reported using alcohol and drugs, the report found.

Some children use homelessness to get attention, says Susan Ruswick, a former homeless teen who now delivers blankets, food and hygiene supplies to Hollywood teens several times a week.

These children quickly get in over their heads — but are too scared, too addicted or too proud to ask for help, according to Ruswick, who founded Youth Link of America, a support organization for homeless teens.

"If they don't get it together by the time they're 20 and choose a different life, they wind up with all sorts of mental problems," she says. "Once you're down, that's where you stay."

___

Stone gets up and leaves the shelter every morning with his remaining guitar strapped to his back, a beat-up acoustic with psychedelic mushrooms sketched in black ball point pen.

He walks the streets searching for a job, a gig and a friendly face — anything to get some money, to get a name. He plays on street corners in the rain, on the subway and for hours in the shelter as metal doors slam in the background.

Stone hopes that his donated bell-bottom polyester pants, fading rocker T-shirts and a gray cap stitched with the words "Acoustic Stone" will distinguish him in a place crowded with aspiring talent.

"I have to play my guts out every time I play a song," he says. "Out here in California, everyone wants to be original and they're so original they're all the same."

___

Stone was in Hollywood one week when he spotted the Rockotitlan Cafe. The cozy, out-of-the-way coffee shop has a cramped stage and a microphone no one's using.

Tiny white lights on the awning twinkle in the dusk, and painted black geckos climb the multicolored walls filled with artwork. A brochure on the counter offers: "Are you a musician? Just come by and play."

And Stone does, jamming for more than an hour as the rain washes down the grimy streets.

He smoked some pot a few hours before, and the music flows: a love song to his high school girlfriend, an ode to his late grandfather, a bouncing bluegrass tune that makes his brow furrow and his legs jump.

"My story has been told

I'm stuck in the middle

I have to go now

And make my decisions

You can't be in them

So I turn to dreaming."

At 7:55 p.m., Stone is ready for another set when someone in the audience who knows he's homeless shouts: "Hey, what time's your curfew?"

A few people in the small crowd chuckle. Stone glances at his watch, shrugs and decides to blow off the shelter's 8 p.m. curfew for new residents.

"Who comes in at eight?" Stone replies into the mike. "If they kick me out, I'll sleep in my car and be happy."

Twenty minutes later, he steps off stage, eases his guitar into his backpack, collects a free soda and slides on his jacket.

"I'm Andrew Stone, The Acoustic Stone," he says, but no one is listening. "All-original music by an all-original loser."

And he slips out the door into the rain.
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The Actual Article

minusxerø · Feb 28, 2005

That's a very depressing story.

Makes me have second-thoughts about music.

Mark · Feb 28, 2005

Originally posted by Minus Xero@Feb 28 2005, 02:35 AM
That's a very depressing story.

Makes me have second-thoughts about music.
Click to expand...

It goes to show that having a University education to back you up if your dreams fall through is a good thing.

I wouldn't say "give up on music". But make sure you have some sort of education to back you up if it falls through. Music is a hard business to crack into and become successful.

Jon[athan] · Feb 28, 2005

thats really sad , but he had a chance to go to college, all he needed to do was go, get an education, and after college if he still desiered music, he could persue it, and still have a way out through his degree.

NofxPants · Mar 1, 2005

That's a pretty sad story. But it is reality so.. you never know what to expect from life. And I guess Stone just thought life would just go smoothly for him.

$pvcxGhxztCasey · Mar 1, 2005

This guy at my school that I can't stand (mainly because he has the hots for this girl I like) has his own band, and they're being signed by RCA Records this summer. Of course, my school wrote an article about him in our paper, and they asked if the money he'll be earning will go towards a college fund, and he said he doesn't think he'll need it. Heh.

The lead singer (the guy I hate) goes out to Las Vegas sometimes and records his songs for their CD. It's fucking weird, you know? Here he his, this little shit from a small town in the South, and he's being signed by RCA.

Kind of gives me hope that I'll make it as a writer one day, but then again, shit happens. That's why I've finally decided to go to college and get a degree in something technical, like Computer Repair or something like that.

lp_sk8ergurl · Mar 2, 2005

This is a really depressing story, but he did have the chance to choose what was right for him and disregarded it. He could have went to collage and then worked with his music but he choose not to and so this is how he ended up.

Hybrid Theory · Mar 7, 2005

i hate how fucken crude, and mean people can be , if you see someone a kid especially have the decentcy to Help out. :chaz: GOD DAMM IT do something KIND for ONce in your Freakin spoiled world ANGEL

Evil Angel · Mar 11, 2005

a depressing story.I hope this serves as a warning for all of us

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Some Teens Find Desperation in Hollywood

Omar A Beyond Science LPA Super Member

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Mark Canadian Beauty LPA Administrator

Jon[athan] Sincerly, written from my brothers blood machine.

NofxPants Does your house have stairs?

$pvcxGhxztCasey meanwhile... LPA Addicted VIP

lp_sk8ergurl Well-Known Member

Hybrid Theory Well-Known Member

Evil Angel Ambient

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Some Teens Find Desperation in Hollywood

Omar A Beyond Science LPA Super Member

minusxerø Overflow Supremacy LPA Addicted VIP

Mark Canadian Beauty LPA Administrator

Jon[athan] Sincerly, written from my brothers blood machine.

NofxPants Does your house have stairs?

$pvcxGhxztCasey meanwhile... LPA Addicted VIP

lp_sk8ergurl Well-Known Member

Hybrid Theory Well-Known Member

Evil Angel Ambient

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