Don’t be surprised if someday soon a man named Eric “Protein” Moseley is invited to the White House.
It could happen.
If all goes as he hopes, the formerly homeless Moseley, 49, will travel to the nation’s capital. His aim is to show President Barack Obama around the poorest parts of Washington, D.C.
If Moseley could be involved in making three film documentaries — and he has been — it’s not such a long leap to imagine him taking a next step, into Obama’s White House.
Moseley’s latest film, “A Cry Out to Obama,” is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Friday on WHUT, the Howard University public television station in Washington, D.C.
The film was shot mostly in the Tenderloin area of downtown San Francisco. In interviews on the streets and with social service workers, Moseley posed a question: How did Obama do in his early months in office? The movie also shows a young rap group, Tha Giantz, making music at a San Francisco YMCA.
For the past year, Moseley has lived near Snohomish with Jennifer Clements. They met online, on Craigslist, when Clements answered an ad Moseley posted.
“He was looking for someone,” said Clements, 36, adding that Moseley was upfront about his homelessness. Clements said he told her that after living in a San Francisco shelter, he had come to Seattle, where he first stayed at the Union Gospel Mission.
“We hit it off right away,” she said Tuesday. “He moved into my house. I took a chance.”
They have been together more than a year. Clements, who works in home health care, is listed among credits on Moseley’s film, which is available at Sno-Isle Libraries. She helped him with editing the San Francisco footage, shot by Jeff Greene, and with technical aspects of producing the DVD.
On Monday, I had coffee with Moseley, who outlined a rough personal history. He said he spent his early life in Detroit, where his mother still lives. In the Los Angeles area, he said he was no stranger to gangs. A crack cocaine habit dragged his life down to the streets.
Ironically, it was Moseley’s homelessness in Columbia, S.C., that in 2008 gave him a chance to make another film, “Down But Not Out,” in association with South Carolina ETV, a PBS affiliate. Before that, Moseley made the film “Skid Row Journey” in Los Angeles.
Moseley said his life wasn’t all trouble. He has a daughter, now 21, in California, and a granddaughter who’s almost 2. He worked in landscaping and at other jobs. “I never burned any bridges,” he said. The drugs? “I was getting tired of it, the dangers of drugs,” he said. And that nickname, “Protein?” Moseley said it’s a reference to his fitness efforts.
Reunited with his daughter after she spent time in foster care, he said he lived with her at San Francisco’s Compass Family Shelter. “A Cry Out to Obama” includes Moseley’s interview with the Compass Family Shelter director.
Moseley said being a parent helped him clean up his life. At a shelter, he said, “a lady told me, ‘Anywhere you can’t take her, you don’t need to be.’ ”
He has shared his story with Snohomish County teens as a motivational speaker with the Cocoon House WayOut program. The seminars help low-risk youth offenders, said Chuck Whitley, the program manager.
“His basic message was, don’t go down the path I went down,” Whitley said. “It’s a real simple message — working with your parents, staying off drugs, and watching out who your friends are. Kids love him.
“He’s got our full support,” Whitley said.
Moseley wants to take his hard-earned experiences “from Washington to Washington.”
And if he meets Obama?
“I want to show him his back yard, show him the homeless in D.C.,” Moseley said.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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