Berserker Hobo Relocation Program
June 18th, 2007 at 10:32 pm by SmantixNashville 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.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Okay, so I’ve read this three times and I still can’t figure out what you’re saying.. Are you agreeing with me? What do illegal immigrants have to do with panhandlers? What? What is going on? Where am I?
June 18th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Can we get the Berzerker Hobo to speak at Prickfest? What’s his appearance fee? Half a sandwich or a bottle of Ripple?
June 18th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I was just taking the time to admire the way you’re trying to help the homeless to harass the locals and tourists. Not everybody takes the time to make the time.
And for that, I psychotically salute you having the guts to put aside those misplaced fears about “Berserker Hobos” and inviting one into your home. Just one.
Because if you can help just one to turn their life around it would be worth all of the blog entries in the world.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:37 am
That brings up another issue. If you’ll recall back in the 1970′s, homeless people were a lot cuter. They hopped on and off of rail cars, carried a stick with a handkerchief on the end and we called them hobos. They were happy go lucky.
Then in the 1980s they became “homeless people” and it was somehow my fault that they were homeless even though I was 14.
If we can just go back to using the term “Hobo” as Smantix has so wisely done here, I believe it will be a public relations boom for the hobos and most of us will disregard their threats and public urination as part of their free-spirited happy-go-lucky personality.
So, on this blog, henceforth, we will not allow the use of the term “homeless”. It’s “HOBO” only from here on out.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Some people have NO sense of humor. Or irony. Even nuance.
I’m looking at you, Chris.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Preston, I think “HOBO” still has a negative connotation. How about “residentially challenged?”
June 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Smantix is always confusing. He’d be better serving his readers (and his own reputation as a writer) if he cut out the cutesy cacophony of overly-clever copy and just said stuff. Alas, he is too enamored with his own intelligence to be intelligible.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Gee Smantix…I’m a dumbass from SoCal, and I got it.
Could it be you’re just too refined for the Tennessee yokels?
Although I am struggling with your PBR reference. Maybe if I had some, I would get it?
June 19th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I’ve already seen this movie. Had colorfully dressed, rubber-soul-sandaled people crashing rent-free in my apartment in the early Seventies — courtesy of my roommate. Had to call the law at one point. Law enforcement?! The hell you say!
I turned out to be the most radical of all.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I’ve got readers?
Shit. Preston, Cranky when were you guys going to tell me?
I had to find out from a concern troll that the audience I didn’t know I had is being cheated by excessive alliteration.
Meanwhile, my rabid hobophobia gets a pass.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Hobos has too much of a romantic, man-of-the-world connotation.
I prefer even-older-school: BUMS.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I’ve been thinking about this relocation program. How about Hoboken?
June 21st, 2007 at 6:59 am
That is a fantastic idea Donna. Or, we could do like Mexico does and send all of our deviants across the border with the promise of streets lined with free tacos and dollar each green valiums.
The romantic notion of hobos got a little help when I was searching for a picture. One of the government sites had a Kerouac era photo of Luke the Sexy Drifter. Clean-shaven, legs hanging out over the boxcar on The Train To Anywhere. A radical departure from Berserker Hobo who has spent his far share of miles on the road.
Our Hobos need a makeover. Like Mugatu’s Derelicte campaign.