The Life & Times of Howie Poindexter: A Beginning

I feel obligated to give you some context so be glad, Citizen, because you've got a hot serving coming your way:

My current living situation finds me renting out a barren, second-floor room in a house situated just south of the tracks in an affluent Southern California city. It's a colorful neighborhood, the kind of place where one can boost their status by throwing some fresh chrome spinners on their El Camino. It's not really rough, you don't have to think twice before taking a stroll around the block. Colorful is the right word, and I really can't get enough of the color that it has to offer.

Now, several years back, I forsook the convenience of temperature control and acquired a taste for sleeping with the windows wide open. One all-purpose blanket is more than enough to keep my bones warm, plus I can still reap all the benefits that the cold night air has to offer. And in my corner of the block, the sonic fruit is ripe for harvesting. Through my northern facing window comes a wide variety of sounds. I've got the large Latino family off to one side, with their highly vocal posse of kids always playing cruel children's games out in the backyard. At eye-level is a nearby apartment with its four super-cute college girls, incessantly gossiping about this and that, busy celebrating celebrities and such. For many in collegiate circles, Thursday night is just an early Friday night, so I always know when I can count on them to do some righteous partying. At least until some hefty cavemen in attendance start brawling over spilled beer. Look at 'em go!

But it is to the east, a rough thirty feet away, that true magic is made. Just over the rotting fence lies a property that looks like it got really tired and just gave up on life. Brambles strangle rusting metal curiosities and scattered buckets harbor piss-like pools, solely for the purpose of mosquito breeding. Mother Nature is staging a comeback in this small patch of land, give her twenty more years of neglect and I bet the place would be a certified forest.

The centerpiece commanding this beautiful chaos is an imposing and appropriately un-manicured palm tree, of which what specific genus type eludes me, but looking much like an unholier version of this. The spread of it's fronds successfully covers the whole of the lot, much like the gnarled fingers of an ophiophile would fiercely guard a prized basket of snakes. But enough of this distracting hyper-link business! Forging on with context, there is a rickety ladder extending straight up and out of sight, into the heart of this forsaken tree. I've questioned one of my housemates about the purpose of this peculiar/permanent ladder placement, to which he could offer no explanation. He did, however, blow my mind with this fun fact: the tree is teeming with opossums. Yikes. I have since seen the godless things prowling about, and frankly want nothing to do with the vermin.

Other respectable witnesses to the condition of this strip of land have offered varied opinions, ranging from "Shit Hole" to "Garbage Dump". And in many other circumstances, I might completely agree with their diagnoses. But they don't sleep where I sleep. They haven't been sweetly serenaded the way I have, basically every other night for the three months I've lived here. They know not of Howie Poindexter.

Howie Poindexter is a noble gentleman who has recently fallen on hard times. I don't actually know that, since I have never laid eyes on, or spoken to the man himself. To be perfectly honest, his name might not really be Howie Poindexter. It just sort of came to me the other night, and to me, it just feels right. So until proven wrong, I shall continue to refer to him as such.

Howie currently occupies an improvised structure of tarps and planks, that even in the daylight hours is well-hidden from view by said palm fronds. I don't know if he owns the property he occupies (the lot serves as an exciting backyard for a modest home), but I suspect he is allowed to stay, out of the generosity of another person's kind heart. As for Howie's heart, it must be made of gold. Here is precisely everything that I know about Howie Poindexter, a profile of sorts:

• Howie is short for Howard, for those who didn't know.
• Howie is primarily nocturnal, that is, he thrives in the dark of the night.
• Howie has a lot to say, but to whom specifically, I can only speculate.
  
• Howie is a passionate speaker and singer (!)
  
• Howie actually has pretty bitchin' taste in music.
  
• Howie is prone to knocking stuff over and cursing profanely soon after.
• Howie is a braver man than me, he lives beneath a tree teeming with 'possums.
  

Again I must emphasize that my intimate knowledge of Howie comes only from removed auditory observation, which curiously only happens in the wee hours of the morning, when Howie is feeling feisty and running strong. I've never once heard him during the daytime. I'm also pretty sure that Howie doesn't know the companionship he provides me, which leads into the next chapter of our story. Rewind to last night.

Stoked off of a victorious bout of psychological warfare against two surly/burly, cave-type Swedes, I retired to my room for the night, amply drunk. My heart soared to even greater heights when I realized I would not be falling asleep alone. Howie was doing his thing just a short distance off in the darkness, howling vaguely recognizable obscenities. It might have been wholly due to the liquor in my system, but nonetheless I was inspired not to let Howie's words and wisdom just die off into the night. I quietly hooked up my neglected WebCam and aimed it into the darkness towards the light that is Howie. YES! I almost vomited due to over-excitement/beer. Though I couldn't capture any visual input (which is fine by me), I was finally chronicling the good word of Howie Poindexter, straight to hard drive! After listening enraptured through headphones for a time, I fumbled around with my computer and promptly managed to lose everything I had just recorded. Dammit Janet. I gave it another round, because Howie was still on a roll. He wasn't being nearly as talkative as on the earlier recording I botched, but the sound was still sweet music to my thirsty ears. Nothing could have prepared me, though, for what I was about to hear next.

"Don't let me doooooooown", belted our good friend in his touching baritone.

I was floored. Was it possible? It hadn't occurred to me that I might hold unknowing influence over him, just as he has unknowingly influenced me. Just days earlier I was pumping the same song he was singing over my stereo speakers. It isn't a very well known tune, what are the chances he picked that earworm out of nowhere? It was all too much excitement for one night, so I opted to wait until morning to decide my next move...

After a great deal of sober moral deliberation I have chosen to meet the challenge before me, to stand up and take hold of destiny. Howie Poindexter has graciously been broadcasting himself for some time now, and I intend only to amplify his signals for the benefit of the mankind, utilizing InterNet technologies. Now begins our Saga, and I invite you on a journey to get to know the real Howard.

I'm still hammering out the logistics of such an undertaking, but with A/V support from my close friend, Ustinjh, my technical/editing prowess should soon be up to snuff. Stay tuned, loyal reader, for continuing installments in 'The Life & Times of Howie Poindexter'.