NevBlog

Well the Homeless Experiment is finally done, I’m back home where I fully showered, shaved and got a haircut.

Here’s what I looked like right before I entered the house:

(Look how disgusting my shirt got)

Feels pretty good to get out of those old, stinky clothes! Some recent observations:

Viewed humans as more of a species than people:
Typically you view humans as much different than animals because of how we live, but when homeless it became more and more apparent that we are strikingly similar.

For example, when staying under the bridge all I could really do was watch several families of birds that nested under the bridge.

As I watched them I realized they’re not much different than I was at the moment. The birds would scrounge around for food for a little while, stop when they had their fill, then go back to their little nests they built out of whatever they could find.

During the time I was (pretending to be) homeless I would do…..well, basically the exact same thing as the birds and all the other animals. Instead of small branches as a nest, I used cardboard and a sleeping bag.

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
This ties in with the above. I noticed when homeless my mind thought about completely different things as opposed to a normal member of society. I realized I wasn’t really thinking about anything. My mind was for the most part devoid of deep or interesting thoughts.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs popped up in my head and I realized how much further down the scale I had placed myself by living this homeless experience.

Normally I think of ways to improve myself, have fun, short/medium/long goals and ways to overall improve my life for myself and others that will depend on me in the future.

When I was homeless I thought about where my next meal was coming from, if I had enough water to last through the night and where I would sleep. The thought process rarely got beyond those simple questions.

This was a true testament to the validity Maslow’s theory. I didn’t particularly care about anything above that first rung because that first rung wasn’t completely fulfilled at all times.

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Day to Day Living and lack of long-term thinking:
This ties in with the Maslow observation….that since my priorities were set on the basic necessities of life, hardly any head was paid to long-term thoughts. I could see this in the people who are truly homeless…they had no goal or long-term plan for themselves.

I’m not saying everyone needs a step-by-step plan…but at least a vague map of where you want to end up is important (well, actually we all invariably end up at the same destination)!

This observation may play one of the many small factors that keeps some people in a perpetual state of homelessness.

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.

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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)!

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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.

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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.