R.I.P. Seymour Perkins...

A busy schedule has kept me out of the loop so to speak, so I'm late with this. In case you hadn't seen it, artist and Reverend Seymour Perkins has passed. I wrote several blogs about his situation in December, 2007.

Albatross has more at Strange in SA.

Seymour Destruction: Five Oh Style...

I had written a few times about the Reverend Seymour Perkins, an artist of sorts and a counselor to the addicted, who has been a fixture on San Antonio's near East Side. Aside from the story making the news due to Rev. Perkins popularity, I wondered if this type of thing happened in "normal neighborhoods". Well look no more, code compliance has made its way to the Five Oh.

Here's the short version: Some folks attempted to build a house in the neighborhood and stopped before it was complete. Hood rats made their way into the empty dwelling and commenced to tag things up, smoke the chronic and pork one another without regard for paying taxes or meeting the minimal requirements of the deed restrictions of our HOA. Following a year of bureaucracy, it was on the owners to tear down the house. We learned that the owners had built a cement frickin' house, roof included. WTF? I get cement floors and cement walls, but cement ceilings and roofs? Nice shingles, dumbass! Talk about Strange in 78250.So here we go. The order comes down to demolish the house and the owner/builder gets started by cutting out portions of the roof. The cement roof. And now we have an unstable situation. Heaven forbid a handful of teens go into this house to tag the place and it fall on them. Well, let me try that again. Heaven forbid an innocent person find them self in that abandon house and it fall on them.So as you might imagine, lots of folks want this place torn down, and now! And I mean with the same interest that the city and the media has going for the Seymour Perkins place.Turns out, demolition was underway today, Saturday. And here are your pictures.Rest easy, you shan't see any artwork here, and apparently, no cheap hookers. Perhaps we need an art district in the Five Oh.

The Perkins Place: We Don't Need a Bulldozer...

What we need is a small tactical nuke...As promised yesterday, I took a drive by the artistic outdoor showroom of the Reverend Seymour Perkins this afternoon and my experience was much different than the first time around. I'm almost embarrassed to complain about the occasional bout of graffiti in The 78250. I won't stop complaining mind you, but it as though we live on two different planets.Knowing where the infamous home is, I drove down Nevada so I could pull into the little convenience store across the street to evaluate the situation. Other than a hooker on the pay phone, the shop was fairly empty. I pulled around trying to get a good angle for a picture and saw lots of folks further down the street on Nevada.I opted to drive around the block and come back from the other way just so I could see what the commotion was about. Turns out, it was just a drug deal. Some white lady in a white car was buying drugs from some black kid on the street. On the block between Cactus and Hackberry, there were lots of people hanging out and several cars seemingly lined up to make buys, or perhaps they were all like me just wanting to drive by and get a glimpse of the place. Sure, that was it.As to calling code compliance, what about this house on Cactus, one of Rev. Perkins neighbors. Really, is this place any better? Oh wait, perhaps that is also art.

I'm starting to get the bigger picture here and I think it isn't about the outdoor display of art or sculptures or the fact that Rev Perkins has some sort of church going on. It really is no more difficult than what some of his neighbors complained about before, and that is all the prostitution and drug dealing taking place by his property. Unfortunately, I think his property may be unfairly targeted. Oh, I don't know for sure, if he is or isn't inadvertently promoting these things by being so open to the ho's and dealers that he is trying to save, but I do know that the problem extends beyond his property line.

I had lost all confidence in an attempt to either talk with Rev Perkins or perhaps stop and at least take some detailed pictures of his art. There were two reasons to be honest. First, I had not come equipped with a shotgun, and second, it was clear to me that as I made my first full trip down the street and back around the block to come to his house a second time, I suddenly looked no different than the other cars who circled the place looking to buy drugs or pick up a quick piece of ass.

Oh, and I shutter to even imagine who the incredibly desperate people are who would engage in anything that involved physical contact with some of the "ladies" along Nevada and Hackberry. Thankfully, my wife keeps a bottle of Purell in the van on the off chance that I may have caught something just breathing the same air. I know this sounds harsh, but please understand, these were some very unhealthy women in need of serious intervention and a good solid scrubbing. These are not the same women I saw the first time I drove by.

The other disturbing thing is, this was in broad daylight and there was nobody even the slightly bit paranoid that I was driving by - a stranger out of place. I could have been a cop or a mayor or a newspaper reporter, but it seemed more likely that I was just another person looking to buy drugs or the aforementioned STDs.Just to be clear, none of what I saw was on Rev Perkins property or even directly in front of his house. You may notice in fact, that he has a sign on his porch that asks people to call 911 or 311 if they see anyone selling dope. No, these people were all along the street around this neighborhood.

It is not my intention to say that Perkins should be able to have such a disaster of a home, or at least, the visible to the public portion; clearly, this guy needs to get his act together in terms of getting the place cleaned up. But what I saw today was that there is a problem bigger than just Mr. Perkins and his yard gallery and ministry. He isn't the only person in that area who could benefit from a visit by a Ty Pennington.

What I did not see was any police attempting to scare off the people openly selling drugs. And bulldozing Mr. Perkins house won't solve that problem by a long shot.

Perkins Report: Update on Artist/Reverend/Code Violator

I recently posted pictures and a few words about the Reverend Seymour Perkins, a well known East Side artist here in San Antonio who has been facing problems with his neighbors and the city code compliance folks. The city plans to bulldoze his house...

But according to the order issued Friday by Judge John D. Gabriel Jr., the home cannot be destroyed until at least Jan. 4, when a hearing to discuss a longer restraining order is scheduled.

The Express-News has more on that.

So if time permits tomorrow, I may drive by just to see if the art has gotten any better or worse. As I mentioned before, there is something wrong here. Maybe some people from one of the historic societies could pull one of their quick legal maneuvers to have his house (or at least the foundation of his church) placed in the national registry or something.

Strange in 78203: Witness for Mr. Perkins...

I first read about Reverend Seymour Perkins who lives over by the Alamo Dome from one of my daily haunts, Strange in San Antonio, and later in the Express-News. I was fascinated with the story of Reverend Perkins (no, not really a Reverend) and vowed to drive over and take a look for myself.

Having seen the place first hand, I can't help but feel sad for this man. First, let's be clear about a few things. South Hackberry is not in The Dominion; you will not see David Robinson or George Strait jogging up and down the street, nor will you be required to pass through gated entry points for access to Rev. Perkins' church. But having said that, the neighborhood is not as bad as you might think. I should have taken pictures of the surrounding homes along the street. Yes, they are old, but most seemed to be maintained and clean. A few streets over, there were even fairly new homes.The freakishness of this man's yard is that it hits you like a carnival that has sprung up in an HEB parking lot between the time you first went in to grab some samples and the time you waddle out to the car. So, driving slowly down the street looking for address markers, I see normal house, normal house, normal house, normal house,... Holy Jesus on a on a surf board in capri's, where'd this come from?My brief glimpse of Rev. Perkins was distressing. He looked at me as I pointed my intrusive camera at his yard and it was as though he was using his eyes to say, "Yea, I'm the one." Or maybe he just had a buzz.

There were several people in his yard, but no discernible hookers as described in the stories I read. I pulled into a convenience store cati-cornered from the house and there were people hanging out, a guy using a pay phone who eyed me suspiciously as I took a few pictures with my lens just to the side of him.I had seen two women walking on the property toward the house and one of the ladies asked me not to take her picture (which of course, I didn't). My entire visit lasted less than a minute or so. Where I had plans to possibly stop and maybe talk to Rev Perkins or one of his disciples, seeing the place first hand changed my mind. There is something desperately wrong with this situation. This goes beyond an eccentric artist who chooses to display his creations in his yard, but seems to be a person in need. Or he could be perfectly normal and just wants to live his life the way he chooses to do so. Thankfully though, he does not choose to do so in my neighborhood.