NevBlog

Got back home, immediately through everything I was wearing (shoes and
all) into the trash. Took two showers and am enjoying my newly shaven
face. I was starting to forget what I looked like!

So tonight is the last night of my Homeless Exeriment. I'm sleeping
under the same bridge I did the first night.

Tomorrow morning when the sun rises (which is generally what wakes me
up) I'll pack up and head back home. All my clothes, shoes and
backpack will go straight in the trash. A shower will immediately
follow.

I will leave Black Mike my sleeping bag, hoodie jacket, jeans and my
extra pair of socks. I really didn't use those much this trip, and I
was going to throw them away soon as I got home.

Mike's out grifting right now, and is supposedly bringing back a pizza
later tonight.

This will be my last goodnight as Homeless Nev! GOODNIGHT!

Sent from my iPhone

Just got boxing lessons from Black Mike (my under the bridge mate who
is apparently an ex-boxer). Would YOU mess with THIS guy now??

Bored under a bridge reading some free magazine. Look at my Scorpio
horoscope. How accurate right now!!

I made the 5 mile trek from Downtown to Riverside this morning.

Just got back under the bridge. Homeless Mike is here, he's working
off a hangover from last night, he went out drinking.

Weather is excellent right now, nice cool breeze under the bridge and
I'm cooling off on my cardboard floor:

Written on Saturday 06-06-2009 at 9pm from a park.

So the results of the Drinking While Homeless Experiment went good and bad:

I started drinking around 12:30pm, and soon the time after that passed quickly. I slowly started becoming less aware about my degenerating appearance and social status, I spoke with more people than I usually would (even had a long conversation with Crazy Cat Lady in the park) and the time in general was more tolerable than simply doing nothing.

I laid my head down around 4pm I believe (once again, I still don’t have much sense of time unless I turn on my phone or netbook) and took a nap. Some loud noise woke me up at 6pm and I had a pounding headache. Newton said, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Yea, the opposite reaction is called a HANGOVER.

I woke up by a tree laying in the dirt. So far I’ve managed to stay “relatively” clean, but now my one and only shirt is completely covered in a permanent layer of dirt. The whole thing is brown now instead of white.

I downed an entire 375ML bottle of cheap, strong bourbon. For those that don’t know, think of a normal sized alcohol bottle: it’s half of that. Needless to say I got buzzed (I wasn’t completely ass-drunk, but more of a very heavy buzz). If I was driving and gave a breathalyzer test I definitely would’ve been hauled off to jail.

This is also the day I am supposed to sleep Downtown at a non-shelter location (because that was obviously WAY too easy), I brushed off as much dirt as I could and started the journey.

For the first time in this experiment I TRULY FELT HOMELESS when I woke up in the dirt by a tree with a pounding head. I struggled to open my eyes, clumsily got up and started to gather my dusty backpack and garbage bag. To the outside observer I must’ve truly fit the homeless stereotype.

I walked through a charming neighborhood area for a while, noting places I could possibly sleep for the night. I’ve ended up in a park somewhere around 9th St. I found a large slap of concrete, brushed it off and laid down to work off this hangover. It’s now 9:00pm, sort of dark and I think I’ll sleep here for the night. It’s hot as hell and there’s no way I’m pulling out a sleeping bag in the heat.

I’m just goind to sleep on this slab of concrete and hope there’s not too many bugs biting.

Laid out in the park last night. very nice waking up this morning to
birds chirping.

Wish I had a hammock!

Still hungover from the drinking experiment. Wrote a post but no
wireless access at moment.

I was resting on a slab of concrete in a park Downtown, it got dark so
I decided to stay here. WAY too hot for sleeping bag, so I think I'll
just lay here for the night like this.

Hope the bed bugs don't bite (seriously, I'm just laying in the woods
and hoping I don't get eaten).

Sent from my iPhone

From past dealings with homeless people I know they drink a lot. It’s not that they’re alcoholics (necessarily), but that they’re bored.

Let’s say you throw a party at your house. In the beginning things get started slowly. The drinks are poured, more and more are consumed and soon people are feeling pretty loosey goosey. Now people are dancing, talking to each other and having fun.

Alcohol is a well known social lubricant because it can help make a dull time into a fun time.
Do you NEED it? Absolutely 100% not, but it can help.

SO imagine you’re one of the homeless people living Downtown or on Riverside. Your food needs are taken care of by either grifting for a few hours or going to a homeless shelter and getting food. You don’t work, you don’t do much of anything….so what can help pass all that time?

Drinking and drugs of course!

On any given day a homeless person whose food/water/shelter are taken care of probably has about 10-12 free hours of the day. That’s a lot of time when you’re doing NOTHING….and doing nothing can be excruciating if you do NOTHING all day long, everyday.

——————————–

So my experiment for today is to get drunk and bum around. From the meager proceeds of asking people here and there for money, I mustered up $6.00. For $4.50 I bought a plastic 375ML bottle of J.T.S. Brown Kentucky Bourbon (whaa???) and started drinking. I’ve got a good buzz going and am sitting here in the “Homeless Park” (aka a park by the library that’s always populated with homeless people) and am typing this up (I can skim the library wireless from here)!

———————

Quick Story:
There is a liquor store RIGHT across the street from the homeless shelter. I’m talking maybe 25 steps away max. As I was buying the bourbon I asked the clerk if, “He gets many of us homeless people in here.” He responded, “Nope, I don’t get many of them in here.” Puzzled by why he classified them as “Them” instead of “You” I asked if he thought I was homeless. He immediately replied, “Nope, you don’t have the tell-tale signs of a homeless person.” I was a bit relieved and dissapointed by this.

Relieved because I didn’t REALLLLYY look homeless (despite entering his store with a beard, ripped/dirty shirt, carrying a garbage bag and asking for only bottles made out of plastic).
Dissapointed because perhaps I didn’t do a good enough job of disguising myself….although I think I did, this is what I look like right now:

(That’s one homeless looking dude from my perspective).

Anyhow, surprisingly he does “Very very little” business with homeless people because he doesn’t carry much they can afford. The store stopped carrying things in the $2.00 price range because, “The sales were too small, took too much time, the shelters didn’t like it and the cops didn’t like it.” Basically it was bad for business AND social causes. Interesting.

——————

So right now it’s 1:39pm and I’m buzzed (actually maybe a little drunk). How does it feel? A lot better than being sober.

This is only because I’m pretending to be homeless and have nothing else to do. Otherwise I’d MUCH RATHER be completely sober and reading and jotting down notes on some Epictetus or other interesting subject at the library.

Well, they woke us up at the ARCH homeless shelter at 5:30am. By about 5:45 you have to be out of the dorm area. As I went downstairs I saw pretty much everyone just sitting in the main holding area. Like a sheep in a herd I just sat around like everyone else. I figured they would let us all out at the same time….it was still early so I wasn’t thinking, “Wait, this isn’t jail, they’re not HOLDING us.”

I eventually got up and left, it was still dark outside. I have no idea what those people are going to do all day. Probably just chill.

Anyhow I figured I can’t kill a whole Saturday doing nothing, I’d go insane, so something must be done. I started walking towards the day labor center….apparently they’ve moved, bummer. Walked back to the ARCH, found a guy with work boots strung around his neck and asked him. It was two miles away by bus and he was going there. I hopped the bus with him, got there. Turns out it was a slow day and they had no more jobs left. The guy who went with me already had a repeat job, so he went off. I waited for an hour for the bus to come back then went back to the shelter.

Ok, NOW WHAT? I went over to the public library, it doesn’t open till 10am. Oye ve.
So now I’m sitting on a bench across the street:

Me with my backpack and garbage bag with a sleeping bag and food inside of it.

Most of the other homeless people are just bumming around doing nothing. What an untapped labor force this is.