I still don’t know what P. Diddy wants me to take or why he’s so damn insistent about it.
I still don’t know what P. Diddy wants me to take or why he’s so damn insistent about it.
A really not-insane looking guy with a face tattoo came by my house to fix my gas meter last night & explained that I didn’t need to watch him working alone in my basement. He “got this” he said. I felt really bad that I couldn’t take him up on that generous offer because of this weird habit I have of not letting strangers walk around my home unsupervised. I have this obsessive-compulsion to not do that. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve actually put locks on all my doors AND use them. I’m a monster!
I have a very special night planned. First I’m going to go home, maybe turn on the tv, watch a little Judge Judy, you know, just to get the mood right. Then I’ll microwave some leftovers and eat them while I watch YouTube, the way the ladies like it. And just to keep the heat going I’ll probably play some video games before going to sleep early. That’s right, you know how I do. Basically I’ll be turning that mother out, big time.
Scene 1: A house burning down.
Scene 2: Me sitting on the couch, flipping channels.
Scene 3: Me turning on the toaster, walking out of the kitchen & immediately forgetting about the toast.
-My version of ‘Memento’
Scene: Police Lineup. Officer stands with robbery victim behind one-way mirror. Suspects are lined up in front of them.
Officer: Each of you say the line you were given.
Mastercard: What’s in your wallet?
Victim: No.
Visa: What’s in your wallet?
Victim: No, that doesn’t sound like him either.
CapitalOne: What’s in your wallet?
Victim: That’s him! It was Number 3!
Local Bum Inspires Other Bums with “Rags to Slightly Better Rags” Story
By Barnes Hamilton 12/21/2011
Philadelphia, P.A. — Reginald “Gypo” Haines, a local homeless man, who until recently was the frequent target of ridicule by teenagers and other degenerates, has been named one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest bums in the latest issue of Waste Management Magazine, the marginally popular publication distributed freely among the sanitation workers employed by the Waste Management Company of Waller Street. W.M. Magazine, which has now been ranking the wealthiest bums of Philadelphia for three nonconsecutive years, estimates Haines’ net worth to be in excess of $4.21 dollars as of the end of the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Industry analysts calculate Haines yearly earnings to be approximately .83 cents, citing his risky acquisition of a fifth of Wild Turkey from a local liquor vender as a significant source of gross revenue. The investment paid off when it led to the now infamous drunken “Gypo” dance performed before an audience of three college students on spring break. “A lot of people in the industry called the move crazy,” says analyst Brian Deckler of Merrill Lynch Financial, “they said he would have been better off spending the money on food or bandages for his open-wounds, but Haines not only knew the time was right for the dance, he knew those kids had the pocket change to spare with their Polo hats and Abercrombie & Finch attire.” Haines now stands alone as the wealthiest street urchin in the state with nearly double the assets of the next wealthiest street dweller, the bum known only as “Pickles”, who made his fortune collecting bribes from local residents who paid him to stop tipping over their garbage and urinating on their cans. For “Gypo” Haines, the recognition from a prestigious financial journal such as Waste Management Magazine marks yet another milestone in one of the areas most inspirational rags to slightly better rags stories in recent memory.
By his own admission, Haines, who appears to have been born sometime in the early 1900’s, doesn’t recall much of his early childhood, or his formative adolescence, or middle-age years, or anything much before the late afternoon hours of December 21, 2011, but he believes the experiences that he’s forgotten may have largely shaped the man that exists today. “I used to have a dog named Rusty, bit me an’ stole a lump of meat I found behind a Burger King dumpster an’ ran off… I’ll see him in Hell…,” Haines remembers fondly before wandering away mid-sentence. Though much of his experiences have been forgotten in his own mind, members of the community he has called home for the last several weeks provided overwhelming evidence of the extreme adversity Haines has overcome to become the successful, street capitalist he is today.
“He used to sit outside of the 7-Eleven on Upsall Street and beg for change every time anybody came out,” says Anton Mills, a long-time admirer. “I had to stop going there because he stunk so much.” Despite the unfavorable location and the recent economic downturn that has driven many of his competitors out of business, Gypo has not only managed keep his panhandling business interests profitable, he has been able to expand his one-man empire through shrewd business savvy and targeted acquisition of new clientele. “I make signs with cardboard and ink I make out of dirt and piss,” he explains. “An’ I holds my paper cup out like dis so they can’t git ‘round it wifout stoppin’.” By designing his own advertising campaign and using recycled and organic materials, Haines has cut overhead costs by a whopping 38% compared to his last quarterly review. And rather than accepting a performance bonus, he wisely funneled the increased revenues back into his company’s health plan by adding a dental option to his full-time employees. “Don’t ‘member where I put my front teeth,” he says holding back tears, “cats must have took ‘em.” Haines has set new industry standards for CEO performance and resource allocation and has become a model for similar businesses across the tri-borough region.
Though widely regarded as one of the greatest business minds in the world of bumming, Haines himself regards dropping out of school early in life among his greatest business failures. “Teachers were stealing my thoughts right out my head!!!,” he reasons. But he believes that it was the education he received after leaving school that provided him the most benefit. Most prominently, it was the years Haines spent apprenticing under Daryl “Pepto” Brookins, who was regarded as the eccentric founding father of Philadelphia’s transient community, that gave him lessons that no business textbook or episode of National Geographic could ever accurately teach. “Pepto taught me how to make weapons out of used tampons,” Haines remembers. “Cops wouldn’t touch ‘em.”
“Mr Haines is one of those rare cases where the system of formal education was actually holding him back,” says Dr Milliford Pinsky, a professor of finance at the prestigious Harvard Business School, which recently awarded Gypo an honorary doctorate degree in the art of Can Collecting. “The established system would have told him that the business risks he ended up taking, like bathing in public fountains during the day or fighting raccoons for food scraps, were irrational. They likely would have encouraged him to fit into the existing marketplace rather than creating a new market of his own.”
To his credit, Haines has not forgotten his meager beginnings and regularly gives back to the community that, to this day, still spits on him. In addition to the charities that he has created to give back to the local bum population, such as Prick-N-Pass, were used drug needles are donated to the less fortunate to recycle, Haines has also mentors other homeless people on how to survive in today’s harsh economic climate. He has begun a lecture tour that visits alleys around the tri-state area providing information on topics including “How to Wear Multiple Layers of Found-Clothing in the Summer Months Without Suffering Heatstroke” and “Dignified Homelessness: Myth or Just Craziness?” His most important lesson for other homeless individuals, however, can be heard screamed at the top of his lungs even when he’s not lecturing: “don’t settle for the dumpsters behind McDonalds, you can git Red Lobster garbage if you fight the rats fer it.” In his free time Gypo Haines in an avid collector of vintage shopping carts and can often be found refurbishing them in his spacious alley adjacent to the cardboard refrigerator box he calls home.
