Nashville has a lot of problems. Perhaps you’ve heard of our famously self-absorbed blogging community? But unless Branson, Missouri busts your summertime budget, your likelihood of running into our mostly harmless coterie of commentators runs slightly lower than being trampled by a herd of shetland ponies.

However, if you do dare to save your green stamps, turn your head, and timidly stick your hand into our mysterious cowboy hat of horrors, one of the more frequent chips you’ll pull out will bear the belligerent face of the Berserker Hobo.

Berserker Hobo has a tendency to linger near dark alleys by the Greyhound station and interstate off-ramps. Berserker Hobo may not be amused with you if his “I Ain’t Gonna Lie I Need A Beer” sign produces more jingledy-jangledy than foldin’ money.

He fears no cop and unless you wear a cross made out of Dial soap and carry business cards for a temporary employment agency - he doesn’t fear you either.

Fret not fellow travelers. If you’d rather throw your spare change out the window at intersections than at a slot machine, renowned Bat-building photographer Chris Wage is finally going to make Nashville a safe place for panhandlers to peddle their traffic-stopping wares. And to lead by example, plans on inviting one homeless person into his apartment for a month and podcast the hilarity.

But who would be the Jack Klugman to his Tony Randall?

Anyways, he had barely gotten a few words out before out of nowhere a metro cop on her little segway buzzes over and starts lecturing him like a child: “Now, I’ve told you once already not to be doin this, I’m not gonna tell you again, etc etc.” All the while, it’s like my brother and I were invisible. I managed to eek out “hey, he was just talkin to us”, and she never even made eye contact with me. I was left with nothing to do but to slink off while she continued to lecture him.

Nothing to do? Nothing to do?

And then the grinch’s heart grew three sizes as he showed the Berserker Hobo more generosity than he would show to those real societal miscreants - the ones who smoke cigarettes in bars. *Ick!*

This was brought into focus on Thursday night when I was at Cornerstone (the new non-smoking bar on Church/1st) with Kate O’ and I was derisively mocking Adam Dread’s inane and thankfully short-lived proposal to buy bus tickets for the homeless and ship them to Memphis….

Yes. It all came into focus. He invited him into his apartment and offered to pay him $10 an hour and health insurance to sell photographs he took of the city to tourists.

The Living Wage Gallery is expected to open in early fall. The overeducated middle class will finally be able to rub their parents’ noses in their petite bourgeoisie Thomas Kincaid collection while being served the finest overpriced PBR by streetlight and burning trash can.

No more platitudes about helping others. Real, honest-to-Allah help for the gritty and grimey alike from someone who had the guts to get involved and not just standby while the government did nothing.

No more excuses like why in a city with 40,000 illegal immigrants won’t that 6′ 6″ guy who wears an origami pirate hat made out of newspaper and looks like Oscar The Grouch at the 8th and Jefferson BP station just get a fricking job?

Savor the prole-tastic protein of your hobo chili tonight, my friend. For tomorrow we eat Sambuca.

Posted by Smantix @ 10:32 pm
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So your kid comes home from elementary school teary-eyed because, according to the teacher, the last Polar Bear drowned last Thursday.

What do you do?

Check out Climate Police! Think of it as a Drudge for Climate Denialists.

Posted by Cranky @ 1:58 pm
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