What it will take for me to get off the streets

This is Gary Vaynerchuk, and he cusses a lot.  He also took his parents' New Jersey liquor store from $3 million in sales to $60 million using Google Adwords and YouTube in the early 2000's.  Then he and his brother A.J. started VaynerMedia, a digital agency, what people used to call an advertising agency, in 2009.  The company surpassed $100 million in sales in 2016, and is estimated to be doing around $200 million now.  Gary gets how business works in today's tech enabled world, that's why I listen to him nearly every day, along other 21st century entrepreneurs.  He's also going to buy the New Yorks Jets some day and win  a Superbowl or 12.

The path that led to my current homelessness is a long one.  My story is a crazy one, and is far from the typical homeless story.  From what I've gathered from other people talking about me, I apparently tested as having a ridiculously high IQ when I was going to join the Marine Corps Reserves, to get money for college, in 1985.  My recruiter never told me the Corps would have to question my friends about me if I needed to get a security clearance.  They told me that the third day (long story) I was supposed to ship out.  So I told them that I never mentioned that I sold drugs for a couple of months in high school, crosstops, as we called them.  Probably ephedrine, about as strong as NoDoz, I think.  I stopped on my own, decided it was a bad idea, and never did that again.  But my lie of omission got me dropped from the delayed entry program.  I never shipped out to Marine Corps boot camp.  I was told the Commandant of the Marine Corps made the final call.  I had to ask who that was.  It never made snese back then.  I was just some recruit from Boise, Idaho, as far as I was concerned.

I went back to my restaurant job, and went on into the BMX freestyle world and industry.  It seems that the IQ score I got on the military testing exams stuck on my record somewhere.  I've literally had people walk up to where I sleep now, in the middle of the night, and I wake up hearing them talk about my IQ score from 33 years ago.  This has happened many times.  The number they seem to think I scored is ridiculous.  I was never told what my IQ was on that test, and haven't been officially told since.  I scored a 132 IQ on a test in 7th grade.  And I didn't finish the test because I worked to slow then.  Apparently I scored a bit higher on the military test.

So why all the talk about a fucking test score from 33 years ago?  I was good at taking tests, then.  It was one score, on one test, on one day, when I was a far different person than I am today.  But apparently that score, in addition to my taxi driving, other odd jobs, and a little too much talking about conspiracies, got me pegged as a potential homegrown terrorist shortly after 9/11.  A whole lot of crazy shit happened since then.  I've struggled financially.  I've been turned down for jobs I should have been hired for.  I've had a lot of random people come into my life and ask me odd questions, and I've been unable to find a job, except a year of taxi driving, in ten years in North Carolina. 

THAT'S WHY I decided to focus on making money with my artwork, and now some writing.  I simply couldn't find a "real job" for years.  I don't know the whole story of my own life.  I know there's been a ton of outside influence on my life, and I couldn't get completely back on track.

That craziness seems to have finally run its course.  So now I'm homeless in a new city.  I have one old friend from BMX here, a few new ones, and a cool, young art gallery that wants to help promote my work.  I've developed a form of unique Sharpie marker art that often stops complete strangers in their tracks.  Ten or 12 different groups of people stopped to talk to me while I was working on the David Bowie drawing for Scotty Z. two days ago.  I'm good at what I do.  I'm in this for the long haul.  I've actually sold 50 major pieces of art in the year after my first art show, at Earshot Music in Winston-Salem.  I sold them mostly for $120 to $160, about $3 an hour for my time, just so I could survive and keep working.  The price is now going up to $350 for an original, 18" X 24" drawing.

They will sell.  Maybe not today, maybe not next week.  But soon.  I'm in this for the long haul.  I'm not going to stop.  I started this "business" without a dime in late 2015.  I moved out of my mom's apartment, which was just a toxic environment, and was always in financial crisis, in June 2017.  I lived in a tent for 9 months, through last winter.  I kept drawing.  I went to jail for buying donuts ("trespassing").  I had a bug get stuck in my ear for a month.  I had a bunch of yahoos march out to my tent one night and threaten to beat me with baseball bats last May, saying that if I didn't stop blogging, they would "teach me a lesson."  I told them I was going to keep blogging.  My blog, just over 18 months old now, just hit 60,000 page views.  Check the counter on the right.  That's why I left NC.

Now I'm in Richmond, Virginia, a city with a ton of great art scenes, and a good BMX scene with a few old school guys around.  I'm building again.  I landed here, by accident, in August, with $3 in my pocket.  I'm selling some art.  I'm selling some zines.  Things are slowly improving.  SLOWLY.  That's a function of money.  In the past couple of months, people have begun to help me out, old friends and a couple Facebook friends.  But it's still going to take a long time.  Homelessness costs me $12 to $15 a day, mostly in food so I can use restaurant wifi from early morning to late evening.  All I want to do is work.  But much of my energy is still taken by surviving.  I go to sleep each night knowing that I could be attacked, I could get hypothermia, I could die before morning.  It's not a huge chance, but it's always there.  I'm used to that.

Here's where I'm headed.  I need to get a new ID (about $50 total and 2-4 weeks).  I need to get a new bank account (Paypal helps, but I can't do everything I need).  I need to get a storage unit ($65 to $80 a month, depending on location).  You guys know my clothes and one sleeping bag were stolen recently.  A storage unit also allows me to buy items to "flip" on Ebay or elsewhere, and store them safely, like Gary Vee talks about in the video above, to earn some extra money.

But most of all, I need a room.  Richmond doesn't have a big roommate culture like SoCal does.  Especially for a an old, sketchy looking, guy like me.  The rooms I've seen for rent here seem to mostly be in super low income places, or outright crackhouses.  Not an option.  The only real option is a "cheap," weekly motel room.  And that's $285 a week.  So I need to build up to an income of about $1400 a month, minimum, to make that happen long term. 

That's going to take a while.  Unless one of you (or a group) is willing to loan me $3,000 to $10,000 to jump start my business, the way most businesses start, then I'm going to have to deal with the snow this weekend, and cold nights, and just keep plugging away slowly at all this.  I'm OK with that.  I know some of you worry about me sleeping outside.  But that's just the way things are.  In all likelihood, I'll survive to build a pretty cool little business creating art, writing zines, and (pretty damn soon) books, and giving workshops.  But it's just going to take several more months to happen.  I'm OK with that.  Well, not OK, but I've survived the REALLY crazy shit 10-12-16 years ago.  I can deal with things now.

So stop worrying.  It'll happen for me.  It will take a while, but it will happen.  I'm in this UNTIL it happens.  Then I'll really do some cool shit.  I'll hang in there.  I need those of you who are worried to hang in there, too.

I really want to thank all of you who've helped me in one way or another.  It has helped.  It's working.  Just slowly.  It takes thousands of dollars to fully escape homelessness and rebuild a life.  And that takes time.  It'll happen.