BLAHG, BLAHG, BLAHG!!!

Every now and then, I feel like leaving this town, Athens, GA.  Then, I remind myself, wherever I go I'm still homeless, even though I've convinced myself I'm home wherever I am... As recently as last week, Thanksgiving, I was again facing the same feeling.  After all the job leads from New York and New Jersey, and all the other things like Playboy models who once subscribed to my BLAHG years ago, when I started it, I thought about running away and chasing those glimmers of hope. After my first two subscribers were Playboy models, I seriously considered going to Pacific Palisades, on a shoe string and without a hedonist bone in my body!  The sign on the gate apparently said something like, "If you're not into swingin', then don't come a ringin'".  That just grosses me out.  It was at that point I decided I could never be a Hugh Hefner.  Call me whatever you want, but I'm not ringin' on that gate. So, ever since then, I've lived on...

Being poor is immediately defined as not having any money, but a deeper more sincere definition occurs.  Being of a poor mind is the truly defining characteristic of poverty, a poor spirit is never rich. It's not about having money, or even not having money.  Heck, I've been broke for nearly twelve years now, but I'm not poor!  Being poor is a mindset, really.  But, over the years, I have truly been able to be around truly poor people.  In hindsight, I see now, even before my life on the streets, I knew poor people before who had lots of stuff! Truly poor people get stuck in a way of doing things and never seek change.  There is a certain sense of security in being poor and constantly surrounding yourself with others who maybe, speak just like you.  Poor people definitely have a way of speaking. On that note, I have compiled a list of the top ten characteristics, or traits of being poor! ... Traits of Poor People Trait Number 1: Poor peop...

Facebook keeps serving up posts from two, or three years ago that are actually posts from 2004, fifteen years ago; now going on sixteen years. I used this doctored up pic for my profile pic. I enhanced it, a SELFIE- one of my few ever taken, because I am really bothered by the whole SELFIE thing. Before SELFIES, people used to engage someone on the street to get them to take a picture for them. It was a social engagement we seem to have lost. Yes, there are plenty of freaks out there, but I don't think there are really anymore than ever before. It's just that with the immediacy by which we receive information now, we see more of them than ever before. Freaks have always been here, and to some degree, we're all freaks. Dolly Parton counts herself as a freak and loves freaks. After all, this is not a theocracy, and it never has been a theocracy. Therefore, we have all these Dolly Parton fans running around who love to dress up as her! I'm not one of thos...

Synchronicity is something you experience in life, and might often just write it off as coincidence.  But, when things happen so often, and seem to defy the odds entirely, it's hard to write things off to chance.  For instance, on Friday of last week I was sitting downtown when a woman I hadn't seen in over a year was walking.  She said, "Hey Gabe!  How are you doing?" I was not in a very jovial mood, I gotta admit.  My father recently told me that my biggest problem in life was that I wasn't very good at tolerating bullsh*t.  I, in total agreement, said with a HA, "You just hit the nail on the head Pops". Then, she asked, "Where are you working", and that's what was making me blue. Being stuck on the streets in a college town for twelve years, and having worked several jobs that don't pay enough to provide a standard of living, I had just walked out on another one due to some major bullsh*t.  My background is primarily Advertisin...

It is scandalous we have people on the streets of America.  It is scandalous we have people stealing from street people.  It is scandalous to disturb the peace with GRITS! Regardless, of how many homeless people there are in America, there are too many.  A day in the life of a street person begins around 5:30, or 6:00am.  The first thing one has to do is find a bathroom.  Imagine that, if you will. Then, if you're fortunate enough to be poor in America, you wait for breakfast which is served after 8:00am.  Between waking up, taking a crap, and eating breakfast, you might smoke, or some just go ahead and start drinking, and never go to breakfast.  The beer store opens at 7am. However, on any given Saturday morning, you might find yourself at the Sparrow's Nest for breakfast.  It's usually really good.  You listen to a short sermon and then breakfast is served. Now, mind you, I spent a great portion of my life living in a BLUR!  I ...

In preparation for Rabbit Box in September, I began this piece, but was informed Living Positive is for those living with HIV.  Thankfully, I'm not dealing with that and my plight is simply street life.  But, if you can, imagine life as a BLUR, a scatter brained existence to the point where you can't even sit down and fold a basket of clothes because something would distract you and you spend your whole life bouncing around like a rubber ball stuck in a room; not getting anywhere, but constantly moving from one thing to the next and never getting anything done, then you can understand the debilitating affect of brain circuitry filled with shorts. It's difficult, at best, to Live Positive, even without HIV.  From a horrible, undiagnosed case of ADD, environmental allergies, antihistamines, alcohol, and the Bible, you can imagine how much a muddled up mess I was.  I lived in a state of mind one could call Spaghetti City. Now, living positive is something I'v...

A guest preacher was in the pulpit starting off his Sunday sermon.  Before the engines were revving, he calmly announced, "It's better to be seen here on a Sunday morning, than it is to be viewed over there", pointing out the window at the funeral home next door.  It just so happened, besides being the guest preacher, he owned the funeral home too! Whatever your situation in life in these United States of America, life is pretty good, unless you're being held captive by some pervert, or enslaved in the sex trade, or other worse than humiliating circumstances.  It is better to be seen, than viewed! We seem to have the best in life, and the worst in life here.  I'm pretty sure it's that way in most of the world, although I did recently learn there is an island in the Phillippines called Mindanao where Davao City is located.  A highly urbanized sanctuary of sorts.  No public smoking is allowed and there is supposedly very little crime.  This, I learn...