Be A Bum

"To be born in the street means to wander all your life, to be free. It means accident and incident, drama, movement. It means above all dream. A harmony of irrelevant facts which gives to your wandering a metaphysical certitude." The Fourteenth Ward, Henry Miller.

My last full day in the 9-5 world was January 30, 2002 and I'm still here. Not in debt. I don't think I've paid for a restaurant meal with anyone since that date. Which is to say that everyone knew that money was tight and were more than happy to treat me to lunch or whatever as I was the poor artiste. One of the most important things I learned was that it was okay to toss what you used to think of as your dignity out the window. I'm not claiming to be Blanche DuBois (living off the kindness of strangers) - but in the days when I did have money - I tossed so much of it away on other people and now family and friends are only too happy to treat me to something or other.

In the days when I went and sold prints in front of the Metropolitan Museum - the tossing of your dignity was important. I am just a lowly street vendor; a wanderer without definite purpose; without definite income. It probably would be a good exercise in humility to get a cup and beg on the corner. Having done that once or twice many years ago - I would advise you all to try it. But if you do - do it with some style.

Give up your false sense of dignity - because you are doing a job that society needs, supplying the passersby with a sense of superiority which they may not get anywhere else. Wear the ratty clothes. Apply a scar. Drool if you can manage it. And when someone gives you a few coins say, "God Bless You" or "have a nice day, sir."

Do this once a week, even if you have a good job. Best therapy in the world, and cheaper.

"Few are those who can escape the tread-mill. Merely to survive, in spite of the set-up, confers no distinction. Animals and insects survive when higher types are threatened with extinction. To live beyond the pale, to work for the pleasure of working, to grow old gracefully while retaining one's faculties, one's enthusiasm, one's self-respect, one has to establish other values than those endorsed by the mob. It takes an artist to make this breach in the wall. He does not respond to the normal stimuli: he is neither a drudge nor a parasite. He lives to express himself and in so doing enriches the world." The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

[Additional educational tools for teachers: Sullivan's Travels by Preston Sturges (movie); The Man With the Twisted Lip by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Dharma Bums]