Mamas, don't let your babies grow to be hobos

To the freshmen now flooding the sidewalks and congesting the thoroughfares, welcome to Valdosta! We’re so glad to have you and your money (and your parents’ money). Most of you are coming from communities much smaller than V-town, places we refer to as the Boonies, or BFE. As such you’re going to experience things that you never would at home. For instance, Valdosta doesn’t shut down at nine each night. The bars are open til two, followed by late night trips to the Waffle House. You could actually stay out all night and be thoroughly entertained. And we have two (count them, two!) Wal-Marts. We refer to them as Wal-Mart, and the good Wal-Mart. Valdosta is almost an actual, bona fide metropolis. Our downtown scene is really spectacular– on top of the multitude of bars at which to wile away hours waxing philosophical in an inebriated state, there are beautiful boutiques, superb shops, great galleries and rad restaurants. And the bums are the bomb. Any metropolis worth living in has them. We have a standard assortment– there’s the sweet guy who sleeps on the bench but doesn’t bother anyone, the old, thin one who talks to himself, and the one who isn’t homeless but looks like he is, who chases you around on his Rascal asking you if he can “warsh yer windahs,” which I think means “wash your windows.” My bike has no windows, though, so he usually leaves me alone. The standard urban legend about the homeless is that they’re secretly super rich, with a stash of gold doubloons hidden somewhere in the sewers. Heck, some of you doe-eyed freshmen may some day, if you apply yourselves correctly, join the unwashed masses and become bums yourselves. Yes, a leisurely life of panhandling may be in your future, if you play your cards right. Imagine how at peace you’d be with no school, no job, no family, no cares in the world. Just you, your bindle (that’s the hobo stick with the handkerchief at the end) and perhaps a mangy mutt as your faithful companion.

If you’re now considering a life as a vagrant, you’d better first figure out what type of bum you want to be. There are a few varieties of vagrants. A hobo, for instance, tends to travel more than a standard bum. Hobos wonder from city to city, with no real base of operation. They’re the type who travel in open train cars. If this appeals to you, consider becoming a hobo. If you’re prone to motion sickness, consider a more stationary vagrancy, like being a tramp. They travel by foot. If you see a tramp on a bike, feel free to kick him off. Tramps aren’t allowed to use vehicles of any sort, so by his violating that rule he forfeits his right to the Huffy.

If you, like me, like to drink– a lot– then you’d be most comfortable as a wino. I know what you’re thinking, you don’t like wine. Me neither, but the modern wino doesn’t necessarily have to drink that potent potable. No, winos enjoy all varieties of liquors. Gin and juice is popular for black bums, but white bums prefer whiskey. To each his own.

Unlike success in life, becoming a bum doesn’t require hard work nor discipline, but it does require practice. You can tell the difference between a bum who has been on the street for decades from one who is fresh on the job– there are subtle panhandling techniques that one masters only after years on the job. But don’t worry about that, it’ll come with time. If you really want to free yourself of the burdens of society and start a carefree life as a vagrant, all you have to do is ignore every piece of advice your mother ever gave you. It turns out all that nagging was geared toward preventing you from becoming a bum.

Brush your teeth. Oral hygiene may be the most decisive factor in becoming a street urchin. Regardless of their individual situations, all bums have bad teeth– it’s as if they’re British. I’ve never seen a bum with Da Vinci veneers. According to a statistic I just made up, the average street beggar has six teeth, and when you think about it, you don’t need any more than that. Three teeth on top, three on bottom. Two molars for crushing, two canines for ripping, two bicuspids for cutting. When you live your life on the move, you’ve really got to streamline your body, dumping excess weight that only slows you down. Considering that, losing unnecessary teeth only makes sense. Dumping two ounces of teeth makes you two ounces faster. And while you might not think that small weight would make a difference, it could be the deciding factor in whether you clear the chromed bumper of the rapidly approaching H2 as you jaywalk across the interstate. So if you want to be a bum, stop brushing. Also, consider trying meth, as it’ll help you rid yourself of unwanted teeth.

Don’t do drugs. I don’t mean weed, smoking pot won’t set you on a path to bumdom, contrary to what your parents, priest, guidance counselor and favorite NBC stars may tell you. The more you know, my butt! To become a bum you’ve got to do hard stuff. Start with crack, since you don’t have to inject that (though if you do, you’ll trip your balls off). Drinking heavily helps too. If you can manage to sell off all your possessions for drugs and booze you’ll be a bum before you can say “spare change?”


Always wear clean underwear. And, as an extension of that, always wear clean clothes. This one is pretty obvious in it’s effect– bums are always dirty, usually wearing the same clothes until they (the clothes) fall to pieces. Most often you’ll see bums layered in clothing, kind of like a protective shell of filthy fabric. This serves three main purposes. First, it’s insulation against the elements. Second, it’s padding, helping bums to survive the impact of the chrome H2 bumper that clips them as they jaywalk across the interstate. Third, the dirty layers of laundry act as people repellent. Nothing annoys a bum more than people coming up to them. Ironic, isn’t it? But being a bum usually requires a certain degree of antisocial tendencies. Those seven stinky shirts help bums shun civilians.

Eat your veggies. One of the best kept mom secrets is how exactly veggies are good for you. The truth is that green vegetables promote positive brain chemistry. Little did you know that broccoli fights dementia, brussel spouts prevents paranoia, and spinach cures syphilis. Interesting side note: cucumbers can cause syphilis, if used inappropriately. Eating your greens may be the one thing preventing you from a life of giving zj’s under the overpass for fifteen bucks a pop (if you have to ask what a zj is, you can’t afford one).

A few weeks ago I lost my job waiting tables at a local restaurant. I won’t say which one, but I’ll give you a hint: it has an Australian theme and it’s name rhymes with Goutback. I’m estranged from most of my family, by choice, so I had to depend on my friends to survive until I (luckily) got a job. I realized how close I was to homelessness. Good thing my roommates are so compassionate. Otherwise, I would have been one of those perpetually drunk derelicts asking to “warsh yer windahs.” If you find yourself being excessively harassed by a street person, try this trick: keep a few of those tiny two-for-a-dollar bottles of gin in your purse or pocket, and any time a bum accosts you toss one of those suckers to distract him as you make your getaway.

City Gardening

There's a small garden box in front of my apartment and out of some primitive desire to reconnect with nature I've adopted it. My first attempt at taming the wild planter met with moderate success- everything I planted died except for some determined beans and tenacious carrots. I plowed under the abortions of my labor and replanted. This time I thoroughly weeded the garden and am watering it twice a day when there's no rain. So far the outlook is good. I have several rows of corn growing as fast as only corn (and perhaps sunflowers and bamboo) can. As for the rest of the garden, I must admit I made a rookie mistake: I didn't mark where I planted what. In a few weeks I'll have a better guess but for now I don't know if the tiny sprouts I'm fascinated with are squash, cucumbers, onions or what. The determined green beans come up to my knee nearly and have buds that are on this very day opening. In a hanging basket on my back porch the tomatoes I grew from seeds over a month ago have finally produced a fruit. Sure, it's green and the size of an english pea now, but it's drinking milk, so one day it'll be big and strong. Hopefully the radioactive plant food I used won't have any negative side effects, especially side effects that people would enjoy watching in a horror film.

Random News from Valdosta, Ga.

Zombies are having the best week ever! ‘Zombie banks’ are the talk of the town in financial sectors. Like Weekend at Bernie’s 2, these banks goes through the motions of being alive, but you can see in their eyes they’re really under a voodoo curse. Zombie banks, like zombie movies, were invented in America but became huge in Japan in the 1990s. These banks are the walking dead in that most of their assets are in worthless mortgages. Even if they paid off all their liabilities they still would never be solvent.

Voodoo economics may keep the corpse dancing for a while longer, if Congressional Republicans get their way. The GOP is pitching it’s old standard of tax cuts as the silver bullet for our economic woes. Opponents of the bailout bill verbalized worries that the tax cuts in it are too small and won’t have a lasting effect on consumer spending which funds two thirds of our nation’s economy. Another concern is the impact the law will have on future generations. “The average person will get $8 per week in their paycheck and they will pass on to their grandkids $1.1 trillion in debt,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Zombieland will be wrapping up its filming at Wild Adventures. Word is the production moves to Atlanta next. For those of you who sleep in your closet with the lights off, Zombieland is a comedy starring Woody Harrelson. You may see some of your friends as extras when this movie debuts October 9. You’ll also see Amber Heard, who played the eighteen year old girlfriend of Seth Rogan’s character in Pineapple Express. The movie costars Jesse Eisenberg, whom you may recognize from The Squid and the Whale and Cursed. Abigail Breslin appears in the flick as well. She’ll be playing the precociously cute girl, no doubt.

Speaking of people who won’t die, Sarah Palin, who bills herself as a fiscal conservative/ excellent marksman, is calling for a $268 million reduction in the Alaskan state budget. Declining oil prices has taken its toll on the state’s finances, causing it to finally enter the worldwide economic crisis. Unfortunately the cuts Palin is asking for are mostly made up of unused tax credits to oil companies, so the they will not really add any money to the Alaskan budget. Maybe Palin will sell her wardrobe on Ebay to help make ends meet. That’s what a savvy hockey mom would do. Meanwhile, her daughter is speaking out against abstinence as a viable option for every teen. In an interview with Greta Van Susteran, the new mom reiterated that the decision to have unmarried sex was her choice, and had nothing to do with her mom’s views.

Girls did not go wild in Remerton. Good taste prevailed as a planned visit from the Girls Gone Wild bus was cancelled at The Milltown Groove. Heath Cox, the bar’s manager responding to a Valdosta Daily Times article, said “The newspaper article got it way out of proportion. It really hurt my feelings that people would think that I would do that kind of stuff in public. Once I got wind of everything that was going on from (Remerton Police) Chief Terrell and from some churches, and they expressed their feelings of how they didn’t want it I canceled it for them, for the good of the city and the council.” The GGW visit was scheduled for the same day as the annual Father-Daughter Valentine’s Dance, which teaches girls how proper gentlemen should treat them. I would guess there were no tatas-for-t-shirts at the dance.

We’re going digital– eventually. The government mandated transition was supposed to go into effect in February and many networks will have switched by now, but the FCC pushed the deadline back to June 12 in order to ensure everyone is aware of the change. So if you turn on CBS and are dismayed to discover you can’t watch CSI: Miami, that’s why. The Congressionally mandated end of broadcast television is aimed at freeing up airwave bandwidth for public safety communications and advanced commercial wireless services. Sounds like the government is coming to get our brains– or at least that’s what our editor’s parents think. They also think Elvis Presley shot JFK.

Hillary Clinton visited Japan as she began her American Idol runner up tour on February 17. Besides obviously the world economic crisis, Secretary of State Clinton also spoke with the island nation’s prime minister about it’s neighbor across the bay, North Korea. “The possible missile launch that North Korea is talking about would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward,” Clinton said in a joint press conference with the Japanese PM. The visit previews a six party talk aimed at disarming North Korea.

President Obama is on his own tour, of sorts. Beginning in Denver, Colorado the President signed his economic stimulus plan into law. He then flew down to Arizona to unveil his mortgage relief plan. When I say he flew down to Arizona, I do mean by Air Force One– so far as I know, flight is not amongst the superpowers our new president has.

Kids everywhere are opening their brownbags at lunch time to find “and jelly” sandwiches due to the massive peanut butter recall. Six people have died and contamination has been reported in 43 states. The Food and Drug Administration traced the outbreak to a plant in Georgia owned by Peanut Corporation of America. General Mills recalled two products while Kellogg recalled sixteen of its products in February.

Does Facebook own your content? Founder Mark Zuckerberg says no. The social networking site’s new terms of use agreement, updated February 4, went mostly unnoticed until consumer rights advocacy blog Consumerist.com pointed out changes. “On Facebook, people own their information and control who they share it with.” Zuckerberg said that in order to share pictures or status updates with friends, Facebook must have license to allow friends to keep a copy of messages or other information a user shares with them, even if you close your account. This is not the first run in Facebook has had with users– in 2007, Facebook initially defended a tracking tool called “beacon,” which broadcasted information about a user’s shopping habits and activities at other websites. Facebook ultimately allowed users to turn Beacon off.