The paradox of being a homeless entrepreneur

Bad selfie, while sitting outside the downtown library in Richmond, Virginia, where I was living homeless, earlier this year.  I had just walked a long ways, carrying all my stuff, on a hot humid day, and I found this little ledge to sit down on and take a break.  I turned around, and saw this sign.  This photo just seems to sum up being homeless, anywhere you go, you're not wanted, it doesn't matter where it is.

For the last 20 years, since I left my good paying job as a "Hollywood" lighting technician, because of an injury, my life has been this crazy struggle, skipping along the bottom of society, struggling in and out of homelessness.  When I mention that, or people see me and realize I'm homeless, they jump to all sorts of conclusions, nearly all of which aren't true.

I've now spent about 10 years in some form of homelessness.  About 7 1/2 of those years, I was working full time, way beyond full time (70-100 hours a week as a taxi driver), or near full time.  Here's the kicker, I don't do drugs, legal or illegal.  I don't drink at all anymore.  I'm not an alcoholic who went through a program to quit, I pretty much stopped drinking (which I didn't do much, anyhow) while working as a taxi driver. After driving drunks home every night in my cab, I just stopped drinking, I just got sick of the world attached to beer and booze.

I did struggle with depression, in a serious way, after my dad's death in 2012.  That got serious, but I went through group therapy, took meds, worked through all that. I weaned myself off the depression meds a couple years ago, while a friend from group kept an eye on me in case I got sketchy. 

My main issue, the thing I've struggled with most, was simply not being able to find a good paying job after taxi driving went down the tubes in about 2003.  I struggled in the taxi until 2007, then had to quit for both health and business reasons.  Like millions of other people in other industries, the taxi industry got disrupted by new technology.  First computer dispatching replaced the old CB radios in the cabs, which changed the game, and then Uber and Lyft popped up.  Boom!  Business over.  Like millions of people who lost factory jobs in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's, I had to find a new way to make a living.  And I have struggled with that.

During that same time period, there has been a ridiculous amount of outside pressure and influence on my life, from a variety of sources.  I can't really tell the story of this, though it's been the dominant theme of my life for 17-18 years now, because it's so ridiculous.  Finally part of the story came out, and all this weird stuff happened, supposedly, because I scored absurdly high on an I.Q. test 34 years ago.  Someone, somewhere, decided they needed to control my life because of that.  Supposedly.  So I've struggled through nearly two decades of crazy adventures, busting my ass to simply survive, and I can't explain this whole mess to anyone.  The story is just too fucking crazy.  It would be more believable to more people if I said I got abducted by aliens in 2001, brought back ten years later, then dropped in the woods of Oregon where I lived with a Sasquatch family for a few years... and now I have to start over.  That kind of crazy tale is actually more believable than what's actually happened in my life.

So I have 20 years of craziness I can't really talk about.  Now I'm 53, homeless, living in the Hollywood area, with a mouthful of broken teeth (20 years of no dental insurance after a life of too much sugar), and working to rebuild my life and start a viable business around my Sharpie art and my writing. 

What I do have in common with many of you reading this (hopefully), is that I'm working to build a creative/artistic based business, and make a living from that.  What I don't have in common with most of you is my starting point.  I started actually selling my Sharpie art, 4 years ago, while living with my mom, in a small North Carolina town, literally without a dime to my name.  After applying for about 140 jobs over a year or so, and not getting called back, it became obvious a traditional job wasn't going to happen.  So I decided to focus on my Sharpie art, which made me a few buck now and then. 

I've sold over 80 major pieces of art in four years, nearly of all which took 35 to 45 hours to draw.  So while most people look at me and see only a complete failure, I've actually sold more pieces of art than most of the best known masters of painting in their lifetimes.  My drawings may suck, in your opinion, compared to the great artists, but 80+ people thought they were worth paying for.  That's something.  No I'm not making a "good living," at this, even after four years, but I have survived through some tough times, by selling artwork.  However lame my life may seem, there are thousands of people out there who wish they had sold 80 pieces of original art.  That's something.  Yes, I have a long way to go, but I have made quite a bit of progress in some areas.

So now I'm dealing with a weird paradox, as I work to build my art/writing business in a new area, in the cliche' of all cliche's, Hollywood, California.  On one hand, as a homeless man, struggling for food money, bus fare, and basic need money, day to day, my main focus is simply keeping my spirits up, and not getting deeply depressed.  The struggle of homelessness is a struggle not to succumb to depression and give up.  The hardcore street people you see in large cities have mostly given up.  I've found the way to keep my spirits up while homeless is to give myself little "gifts."  In my case, it's mostly food, I'll spend a little money on a caramel sundae at McDonald's, or buy a $6 pepperoni pizza at Little Caesar's.  Little gifts to myself help me keep feeling like an actual human being, a person who will do cool stuff again, some day, not the "homeless person," most people see me as.

But as an entrepreneur, trying to start a small business, I need to spend as little money as possible, to put every dime I can into my little business, buy more art supplies, or copies of drawings to sell, or money to promote somehow.  So my biggest struggle right now, is making small amounts of cash day to day, and to try not to eat too much, but to eat enough to keep my attitude positive, because I get really grumpy when I don't eat much. 

We all have our struggles, the things we battling and struggling with right now.  That's mine.  What's yours?  What's keeping you from the small business, or small creative business, you really want to have?

Taking my artwork to Laguna Beach First Thursday Art Walk

 I took one copy of my "I (heart) Sunny Days" VW bug drawing, and went to Laguna Beach for it's First Thursday Art Walk last night.  This is the first time I've hung out in Laguna Beach during the Art Walk, and I wanted to show off my work, and see what people thought. 

I learned years ago that people don't really buy original art for the beauty or look of it, for the most part.  People tend to buy the artist, and the artist's story, as much as the work of art itself.  So I had no idea how people in a city full of all kinds of very good (and some not so good) artwork, would react to the Sharpie drawings of an unknown, homeless guy. 

To my surprise, this simple drawing of a convertible VW bug stopped a lot of people in their tracks.  That's hard to do, and that's pretty freakin' cool.  Most seemed to think it was a painting of some kind as they walked up and saw my drawing at a distance.  When they got closer, quite a few people seemed to realize (because I wrote "Sharpie drawings" next to it), that it wasn't a painting, and it was done with Sharpies.  While most of the people walking by didn't notice, busy with their own stuff,  two or three dozen people stopped, looked closer, and gave me really positive comments.  Two or three people said they'd never seen anything like this (with Sharpies), and a couple called it "amazing."  I said, "Thank you," and told them no one else in the world draws in this style, it's my creation.  So while no one wanted to buy a drawing, or commission one to be done, the reaction from Laguna Beach passers by was really good. 

 I posted up on a bench on the corner of PCH and Forest, in front of an ice cream shop, and this gate hangs on a pole there, about 8 feet out of the ground.  I'm sure there's a story to it, but I don't know that story.

 This guy, who looked a lot like a pre-heart attack Kevin Smith, poured a little water on the ground and busted some dance moves.  Crazy as it sounds, he had some really good footwork, aided by the wet bricks.  He also had some print on canvas he was trying to sell, and showed me a video he edited for some rapper, who was having an online contest to make a video to his song.  Not epic, but quite creative.  There are a lot of weird characters wandering around Laguna Beach, and that's always a good sign.  There's also a lot of really boring rich people.  Gotta take the good with the bad. 

 A lot of people walked their dogs around during Art Walk.  This St. Bernard was the big guy, and the mellowest, of the four-legged bunch.  Remember, St. Bernards were some of the first "service dogs," they carried casks of brandy around their necks, seeking out people who were lost in the snow, in the French Alps, if I remember correctly.  Something like that. 

My little art portfolio sitting below the dog waiter statue beside the ice cream shop, in downtown Laguna Beach. 

What is Content Creation and Why Should You Do It?

When it comes to describing what good "content" is for a business to put out, Patagonia, the company, is my go to.  I went to YouTube and searched "Patagonia," looking for videos by the company, not about the region in Chile, and this is one of the first videos I found.  There's the "patagonia" logo in the beginning.  That's it.  There are no Patagonia commercials in the middle of the video interrupting you.  There are no fashion videos at the end, promoting a certain jacket or shirt by the company.  People in the video may be wearing clothes Patagonia clothes, but I didn't notice.  There were no close-ups of logos that they sneaked in to the video on the down low.  This is a well made video about a group of surfers looking for huge waves they'd heard rumors of near Selkirk Island, off the coast of Chile.  This video is a gift to you from the company Patagonia.  No strings attached.  That's the mark of great content. 

When we talk about "creating content" for today's media platforms, "content" is simple.  It's written words (text), spoken words or music (audio), photographs, or video.  To create content, you make something with text, audio, photo(s) or video, and you put it on some platform where people can experience it.  That's it.  

You personally, or your business, makes some kind of content, and you put it out on a blog, a website, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, a podcast, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, Linked In, TikTok, Medium, Reddit, or one of the other platforms out there for content.  Then you let people experience it.  That's content creation.  These platforms, by and large, are available for free.  Millions, in a some cases, billions, of people check out these platforms.  With today's internet and technology, you can put content that has the potential to be experienced by a huge number of people.  In most cases, you make this content available for free.  You give a gift of some cool photo, thought provoking piece of writing, funny photo, interesting audio bit, or cool video. 

Why?  Why would you "waste" time and money to create pieces of content and give them away for free?  Because people like gifts.  That's it.  You give people gifts of content, and you hope a bunch of them will come to believe in you or your business.  People begin to have a favorable opinion of you or your business, you "build brand."  When people need a product or service you supply, whatever that product or service is, you want your business to be the first one they think of.  People who have enjoyed your content then become customers.  If you continue to do a good job as a business and a content creator, people have a tendency to be fans, and customers, for a long time.  That's why you create content. 

Why the Western world's economy is on the verge of the biggest collapse of our lives...

Yeah, yeah, yeah... massive debt... blah... blah... negative interest rates... blah blah.  $124 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities?  And we have a $20 Trillion economy.  Uh Oh. 

U.S debt clock.   Over $125.6 trillion now.  Bottom right on the debt chart page.

My idea of "The Big Transition" - in a nutshell

The late futurist, thinker, and writer, Alvin Toffler, explaining the "Third Wave" idea that he and his wife Heidi discovered, and then explained in their 1980 book, The Third Wave.  This interview is for their 2006 book, Revolutionary Wealth.

"The Big Transition" is a concept of mine, which is based on, and piggybacks on, the Third Wave idea put forth by futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler in their 1980 book by that name.  Yes, that's a long time ago, but the Tofflers were looking far into our collective future.  We are now in the middle of "the future" that the Tofflers were thinking about, trying to figure out, and writing about.  To get to my concept, let's first get into the Toffler's "Third Wave" concept.

Originally, for somewhere around 200,000 years ago, human beings lived primarily as nomadic tribes of people, hunting wild animals, and picking fruits and vegetables that grew naturally.  We generally refer to these people as "hunter/gatherers" these days.  After thousands of years, there came some huge changes in human society and life, these are the three waves.

The First Wave
About 10,000 years ago, most likely in or near the country of Turkey, people started planting crops.  Agriculture, as we know it, was born.  It spread very slowly.  As it spread, people settled down, stayed in one location, started villages and small towns, grew crops, and fed their families.  Wealth came from owning the land the crops were grown on.  This was the Agricultural Age.

The Second Wave
About 350 years ago, new technology emerged, and machines began to get more important.  This transition happened faster, and villages and small towns grew into cities, as people left their farms, and moved into the towns and cities, because factories were being built.  It was a new economy, wealth came from owning the factories, and jobs were invented.  Before that, people worked on family farms, often on land owned by kings or barons.  The change to living in larger cities and working in factories was a complete change in the way human beings lived in society.  This was the Industrial Age.

The Third Wave
The third wave the Tofflers saw coming was another transition, from the industrial-based society to an information-based society.  They put the start of this era as 1956, the year there were more "white collar workers" (office people) than there were "blue collar workers" (factory people).  This change was fueled by an incredible series of new technologies, which began to fundamentally change society.  Radio, TV, video, computers, biological tech, medicines, all the way up to today's smartphones, A.I., and the like.  There were more and more new technologies that began to change how we communicated, how we built things, and eventually technology took many of the factory jobs humans performed during the Industrial Age.  This change to an "information-based society," the Tofflers realized, was as big and powerful as the changes between the other waves, like society moving from agriculture to factories.  But this change is happening much, much faster. This massive transition in how we live and work and communicate is basically happening in a single human lifetime.  This "information-based society" has been referred to as the "post-industrial society," or "the digital age." I use the term "The Information Age."

In their 2006 book, Revolutionary Wealth, Alvin and Heidi Toffler shared one idea, in particular, that got me thinking.  That idea was that different aspects of our current society are adapting to this new technology at different rates of speed.  For example, "Silicon Valley" our high tech businesses, are surging quickly ahead in using, and bringing, this new high technology into their daily lives.  The military has adapted and uses a lot of new technology, obviously.  But other areas of society, like our school system, our legal system, and our government agencies, among other institutions, have barely begun to really adapt to new technology and the many types of changes it has caused.

That idea, that we have different parts of society working with new technology at very different speeds, intrigued me, and I started thinking about this concept in a deeper way.  One main thought was the idea that we had many different parts of society, which were all in transition from the industrial-based society to the information-based society, which led me to a simple understanding.  We're actually not in the Industrial Age anymore, and we're not fully into the Information Age, we're actually still in the transition in between the two.  This long process of changing from one age into another, is "The Big Transition."  The Tofflers set the start of it in 1956, and my rough guestimate is that it will continue until at least 2040.  So instead of being in either age, industrial or information, we are all living in the in between time.  If you think of our current society that way, it's much easier to understand why things seem so chaotic in so many ways.

My next line of thought after that understanding was, "Is there any part of society that will not have to make the transition from an Industrial Age institution to an Information Age institution?"  I could not think of any part of society that would skip this change.  There may be some aspect I don't see, but I can't think of one.  So that means every single aspect of society has to change, at some point, from an Industrial Age model, to an Information Age model. So that puts us in an era, roughly 85-90 years long (maybe longer), where every single part of society has to be re-invented.  That's big.  That's scary.

"How does an industry or business or institution actually change from the Industrial Age to the Information Age?" became the next, obvious question.  I saw two ways.  1) A visionary person or group intentionally re-invents a business or institution, bringing it into alignment with not only the new technology available, but the new business and social environment created by these technologies, and new social standards, adapted to the world of new technologies.  2) A visionary person or group invents a new model for the business or industry or institution that completely disrupts the older, established Industrial Age model, and build the new, Information Age model, for that business or industry or institution.

In practice, this DISRUPTION, the second form of change, is the way most of these changes are happening.  And that's freaking all kinds of people out all across our society.  For example, in June of 1999, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker uploaded the Napster file sharing program onto the internet.  Using that program, suddenly people all over could share digital music files for free, in large numbers.  That act completely destroyed the business model for the entire music industry, immediately.  It took years ot fully shake out, but the initial change happened overnight.

That's Disruption, with a capital "D."  That really pissed off a lot of people, it put companies out of business eventually, fotunes were lost, and new fortunes were eventually built based on the larger change.  One more thing, it was INEVITABLE that a change like this would happen in the music industry, at some point, because of the new technology that had been developed.  It sucks for the Industrial Age music industry power structure, but it was going to happen at some point.  The same goes for Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify and other online stores, which have disrupted Sears, J.C. Penney's, dozens of major chain retailers, shopping malls, and have lead to what's now often called the "Retail Apocalypse."  This caused major disruption to many businesses, many power structures, and thousands and thousands of people's lives.  But in a world where technology is going to keep evolving, like it or not, these huge Disruptions will keep happening.

The Big Transition began slow, and largely unnoticed, marked at 1956 by the Tofflers.  It's going to keep happening, like it or not.  It's accelerating, and more and more industries and institutions are being disrupted, and changing from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, at the same time, now.  These changes are happening faster, and these major changes are interacting with each other, and also creating major social backlashes.  It's a chaotic world these days.  It will get more chaotic.  But it's not going to stop until all of our human institutions are working with Information Age models, or until society collapses.  Hopefully, it will be the first one.  But it's not going to stop, and it's not going to slow down, until nearly all aspects of society are part of the Information Age.

That's my concept, "The Big Transition." In my mind, this is the overall contest, the macro explanation, for Western Society, and huge parts of other societies around the world.  As I write this, in August of 2019, the retail system is being disrupted.  The economic system is being disrupted.  both main political parties are being disrupted, many other industries are being disrupted.  The music industry, the publishing industry, and the video/TV industry, and the taxi/limo industry, to name a few, have already endured their main phase of disruption, and are moving forward. 

Many things have not hit their main Disruption point yet, or at least haven't hit the critical mass Disruption.  Our higher education system is just beginning to hit disruption, our K-12 education system hasn't been disrupted, our legal system hasn't been disrupted, and our government (in the way I'm speaking) hasn't been disrupted.  So there's A LOT of societal disruption still to come.

The Big Transition is a huge concept.  There could be dozens, likely hundreds, of books, written on the various aspects of it.  I see it as the background theory encompassing all kinds of smaller, but still very large, and very important, changes of all kinds.  I'm just beginning to share and spread this idea, and a book on this concept isn't in the works yet, because of my own personal issues I'm dealing with right now.  Hopefully I'll be able to put more effort into this idea, and provide a much more in depth look into this concept, before too long.

-Steve Emig, 8/26/2019

The Perpetual "IF" of Homelessness

Didn't know until just now, "Everlast" isn't the name of the band, it's this guy's stage name.  So here's Everlast taking a hit off Joe Rogan's joint, and then singing one of the best songs to come out of the 1990's, "What it's like."

"We've all seen the man at the liquor store beggin' for some change, the hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked, and full of mange.  He asks a man, for what he can spare, with shame in his eyes.  'Get a job you fuckin' slob,' is all he replies."

-Everlast, "What's it's Like."

I know what it's like.  I slept on concrete, under an awning of an abandoned building last night.  I had a hand-me-down winter coat for a pillow, and a $9 felt furniture moving blanket from U-Haul as a cover.  I got woke up late at night, maybe 2 am, by people talking nearby.  It sounded like people talking about me, and about actions to intentionally fuck up my life more.  Nobody gave a damn about that abandoned property, until I started sleeping beside it.  That kind of thing happens, in most every city, most every night.

This is the world we live in in 2019.  It's not enough to be homeless for some people, there are people out there, quite a few of them, who go to great lengths to harass and further destroy the already difficult lives of people, like me, who are already struggling really hard, to simply survive.  I may have misunderstood the conversation happening next door.  Or maybe not.  But there's nothing nearby that's open at 2:30 am. 

I was walking to that sleeping place the night before last, in the dark, alone, thinking of the things I wanted to get done the next day.  Those thoughts were interrupted, by a thought "normal" people don't have to be concerned with.  That thought was, "I have these things I want to get done tomorrow... IF I actually live through tonight."  That's the perpetual "IF" of being homeless.  I go to sleep, alone, in a place I'm not "legally" allowed to sleep at, every single night, a place that would scare the living shit out of most people.  That's my normal.  I know that there are all kinds of things and situations that could take my life before the next morning comes.  I go to sleep every night knowing I could very easily be killed before morning.  I've done that for over 3,500 nights in the last 20 years.  I've struggled with homelessness for so long because of conversations like the one I partially overheard last night.  I've made not-so great-decisions, I've lived low budget.  But that doesn't account for the whole reason I've struggled with putting a roof over my head for so long.  There are people out there who work hard to make homeless people's hard lives harder, for reasons I have a really hard time comprehending.

Am I just amplifying my personal fears and paranoia?  No.  Not really, because knowing you could die before morning is part of the survival mentality that keeps me, and hundreds of thousands of other homeless people, alive through the nights alone.  I don't have the luxury of assuming I will wake up in the morning when I go to sleep at night.  I've made my peace with that fact.  I sleep reasonably well, in spite of the circumstances.  But to put it in perspective, here are a few of the things that I've dealt with during the nights of homelessness I've survived.

Once while sleeping under the stars, in an old slave graveyard in North Carolina, the biggest opossum I've ever seen wandered up near me.  It was as big as a good-sized raccoon, and wasn't afraid of me at all.  I leaned up on one shoulder, and hit the ground hard, to intimidate it.  That didn't work.  I yelled, stomped my foot, and it barely looked up.  It wandered within 4 or 5 feet of my feet, sniffing around, looking for food, and finally wandered off.

Another time, spending another night in that same graveyard, I woke to hear the weirdest animal sound I've ever heard.  I grew up watching Wild Kingdom and lots of other wildlife TV shows, I've heard a lot of animal noises.  It sounded like a cross between a mid-sized dog, and a weird bird call, kind of like a crow's caw.  I had no freakin' idea what was making the sound, but it was wandering around the woods 100 feet away.  All I could think of were the compy's, the little dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movie that ate the fat guy.  Not a positive thought in those circumstances.  In the very first light of day, I saw the animal trot by, it was a fox, making a weird little bark I'd never heard before.

I woke one night to the sound of a car door opening in early 2008.  I was sleeping, sitting up, in a large bus stop here in Orange County.  I saw a figure of a man, walking through the shadows, from one section of the bus stop or another.  He had a gun in his hand in front of him.  As he got closer, I realized it was a cop, a young cop, and the gun was actually his taser.  He walked up to my area, where I sat with my sleeping bag wrapped around me.  He turned towards me, 8 feet away, taser pointed at my chest, "How long have you been here?" he screamed.  I didn't know what time it was, but I told him I came in on a bus about 10 pm.  His hand with the taser trembled as it pointed at my sleeping bag wrapped chest.  I thought the voltage would probably blow my heart up if he shot, I was over 365 pounds at the time, the most out of shape I've ever been.  After maybe 20 or 30 seconds, he decided I wasn't a threat, walked off, and continued his search.

One night working as a taxi driver, somewhere around 2006 or 2007, I was sleeping in my taxi, in a shopping center parking lot.  I worked yet another 17-18 hour day, and was barely able to keep my eyes open as I dropped off my last passenger in Anaheim.  I slept in my cab six nights a week, and got a cheap motel room the 7th.  I slept 4 or 5 hours in my cab in a parking lot, a different one every night, and then headed to the Huntington Beach Hyatt, and tried to get 2 to 3 more hours of sleep in the taxi line in front of the hotel each morning.  I headed down Brookhurst boulevard, towards the ocean, literally doing head nods, and making a couple of sketchy swerves.  It wasn't safe to sleep in that area, so I pushed my luck to get back to a parking lot in Huntington Beach that I slept in some nights. Tired as hell, I made it, parked my taxi in the middle of the parking lot,  a distance away from some other cars with people sleeping in them.  That particular parking lot was kind of an informal campground for homeless people with cars and vans then.  I leaned my seat back , pulled my hoodie over my chest as a blanket, and I was out.

I jumped awake to the sound of something really hard bashing against my driver's side window.  It was a police officer's billy club.  Someone had me seen me swerving, apparently, and called the cops.  I hadn't been asleep 20 minutes when the club on the window scared the crap out of me.  The officer questioned me, and gave me the "follow the penlight with my eyes" sobriety test.  It was all I could do to even keep my eyes open.  He finally decided I was just really tired, and not drunk.  He told me he was coming back in 15 or 20 minutes, and I better still be there asleep.  He left, and I was probably back to sleep before his car left the parking lot.  If he came back, he didn't wake me, and I slept there until early morning.

I was at the big bus stop another time, in the spring of 2008.  I was sitting on the end of the bus stop, a section not used by buses at the time.  About 30 feet in front of me, a small hill sloped down from left to right.  Just as I was about to doze off, to sleep another night, sitting up in the bus bench seats, I saw a cat wander down the hill in front of me.  A BIG cat.  Another homeless guy there said he'd seen mountain lions wandering around the bus stop at night, at times.  But he had red hair and once claimed to be a Lakota Sioux chief, he lied more than he told the truth.  So I figured it was just another of his tall tales.  I jumped up and followed the big cat, about the size of a Labrador retriever, down the hill along a small ditch next to a road.  I finally saw the cat stop in a little hole in the bushes.  It was dark out, but there was light from nearby buildings, and I could see it pretty well. I was 25 or 30 feet form it.  The tan cat probably weighed 35 to 40 pounds.  It was a young mountain lion, alright.  It was shivering, more afraid of me than I was of it.  Then I suddenly realized that if there was a young mountain lion, there was very likely a momma lion somewhere around.  Then I got scared.  I clapped my hands real loud, and the mountain lion took of running across the street, and around the corner of a building.  I saw it again, about two weeks later, while walking the other way up that same stretch of road.  It was wandering around the same area where I slept in a chair, covered only by a sleeping bag, every night.

These are just a few of the weird things I've seen, or had to deal with at night, in the years I've spent homeless.  There are many other animals, people, and weird situations I've had to deal with, just like every other homeless person wandering out country and world.  

There are a lot of things I want to do in my life from here on out... IF I live through the nights leading up to those days.  We'll see what happens.

Uh...yeah...this is complete BULLSHIT

Hey, guess what, at a big business round table, executives from 200 corporations just decided that the purpose of a corporation is not to maximize value for the people who own their stocks.  Yeah, here's the article, they just said it's all about making sure you, as a worker, make good money and have a great community to live in.  You know, that's why your wages have been stagnant for 40 years, and executive income has risen about 1,000%.

You can read the official statement in the article.  Sorry douchebags, I'm not buying it, and neither is most of America.  You can fool the Trump voters, obviously, but not the intelligent 75% of the country.  You guys are just trying to ward off the pitchforks of the 99% of the U.S. you've financially raped and pillaged the last 40 years or so.  Here's the article from CNBC:

"The CEO's of nearly 200 companies just said shareholder value is no longer their main objective"