Name:     keenon "someone worship me" autry
IP:       208.242.251.195
Subject:  Re: The Chicago Homeless
Email:    kingm0b@hotmail.com
Website:  http://
Article:
ok ok ok. I did take that glamorization of bumhood too far. however, there are people who could,
in theory, be good bums.
I have read/seen some examples of urban mythology involving filthy rich dinosaur old men who
decide to go be railroad hobos. yes, it's totally impossible for me to prove, but then again...
what are monks? they take vows of poverty. some varieties (ok, the ascetics from siddhartha are
a good example here) live their lives begging for what they eat. they sleep wherever. and yes,
that isn't glamorous, but they're also somehow content, or else they wouldn't do it.
and maybe the chicago bum situation is worse than the one I saw in san antonio. there were
people on the side of the interstate all the time with signs that said "why lie? I want beer" or
a 20-something guy with a sign saying "Vietnam vet needs work". allegedly (ok more hearsay, but
so what) there are people who panhandle for kicks. they drive off in nice cars at the end of the
day. genuinely bum? of course not.
I'm saying that in that squalor that some people live, amid all the depression and disgust and
all that shit, there might be some great mind lying on a corner with a bottle of thunderbird. I
don't WANT to be homeless - fuck, I eat too much food with too much frequency to resort to
digging in trash and begging to get a meal.
all I ask is this - what if someone willfully became a bum? what if they "renounced all earthly
possessions" and lived among the crazies and all? not to preach to them, or to anyone else -
just to do it. they move past capitalistic desire in my opinion. people like mother teresa chose
to live poorly in a cosmetic sense, but live a genuinely rich life on a different level. does
that relate to this? sort of. anyway I'm going off to eat a lot of food now. which means all of
the tripe I've been spewing forth here just got invalidated somehow...
"we're on the side that has the butter, aren't we?" - Jack Frost (of the Invisibles)
--k----- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
                    Replying to Original Article:Article:
Living in Chicago (a moderately crappy southside neighborhood), I see homeless on an almost
daily basis, and I don't think it's at all as glamorous as you think it is to be homeless,
ESPECIALLY in Chicago.  Let's clear up some misconceptions:
1)  Homeless have to answer to EVERYONE.  They are the absolute bottom of the social pecking
order.  If someone says "Get the fuck out of my coffee shop" they have to; if someone reports a
crime they are the first suspects.  Homeless people have to take orders from everyone in just
the same fashion as ordinary people have to take orders from cops, etc.  Even worse, most people
are so jaded that they don't even acknowledge the existence of homeless people when they see
them.  That's one of the worst fates of all - to be surrounded by millions of people who
purposefully block out your existence.  And it happens every day.
2)  Homeless are NOT off of society's radar.  When people talk about the "homeless problem,"
they mean, "how the fuck can we get rid of all those nasty people who we have to ignore every
day?"  Some people have good solutions - there is a newspaper here called STREET WISE which is
distributed free to "legitimate" (i.e., not buying crack) homeless people who then sell it to
the masses for donations.  So, when there are no jobs available (which can be the case here),
they can at least make money for food by something other than outright begging, which is what
most of them do.  True, some bang on trash cans or paint themselves like robots, but most just
get in your face and beg.
3)  Homeless people are not free of the wants and desires which all humanity possesses.  If you
saw the daily lives of these people and the shit they had to put up with, you wouldn't idealize
them so much.
One afternoon I met a 60-ish homeless guy named Ed in front of my dorm.  It was cold out (snow
had been on the ground for weeks) and he asked for some coffee money.  So, what I did was take
him to a nearby coffeeshop and buy him some coffee and talked with him.  I asked him what had
happened to make him homeless and jobless.  He told me that he worked in a warehouse for
something like 30+ years and then the company closed and moved to mexico, so he and everyone
else at the warehouse was sunk.  He had been living with some friends for a while in a tiny
apartment, but they kicked him out recently.  At the coffeeshop he asked me for food money and
showed me a job application that he was working on (janitor at YMCA) to lend some legitimacy to
it (some people are panhandlers and use this trick to appear more genuine, but after talking to
him I decided that he was on the level).  So, I gave him $10 and wished him luck at getting the
job.  I hope he's doing ok.  But the whole time I kept wondering what his attitude toward me and
all these other college kids was.  Did he really hate us?  Was he using us?  Were we using him? 
It's that kind of line of thinking that bothers people in Chicago on a daily basis.
In this day and age, at least, it is nothing but a bad thing to be homeless.
--ZAPP--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
                    Replying to Original Article:I say leave the pic the way it is. You look
like you just emptied a colostomy bag on someone's car. it suits you. (and it drives me to
insanity, so that means I can post stuff! success!)
while the center of recent talk has been on goals.. I have a different question: can one
actually be sedentary? if you say "I have no goals and won't ever have any goals", you've
already set a goal of not having any goals. ha.
and if you look around, especially you, kenny since you're now in a large city, who actually has
nobody to answer to? I thought about that for a while and the only people I could think of that
really don't have to answer to too many people aren't rich. they aren't famous. they're
homeless. Go up to any bum and talk some shit to them. they'll stab you and take your wallet.
ask them how much they pay in taxes. they'll laugh. Other than the errant cop, a bum has no
authority to listen to. they are off society's radar. are they free? the ones who are mentally
ill might be there because they have nowhere else to be, but these career bums - the ones who
just don't live anywhere and have no job and try to hustle you out of your pocket change - these
people have actually overcome many of the wants and "needs" that (I think) we are conditioned
with from birth. they have no house. no car. no leisure money, and no bills. they have whatever
they sleep in, whatever they wear, and then the booze.are they free?
technically? yes they are. we judge them as pathetic using our own viewpoint based on money.
who's to say there aren't some great minds - creative geniuses - just sitting there in a
refrigerator box. maybe there's more to these people than you'd think
OR, maybe they're just hobos that stink and hit you up for beer money. who knows?