Repost- Stereotype busting

This is from my buddy Bugz- he sent me this note the other day...it sounded like a blog...and now it is... to visit his site hit up myspace.com/titpincher ( and i never fucking noticed it was titpincher..you dawg!!)

Stereotype busting


The following was part of an email I sent to my friend Doxie, as she has been putting requests out there for clothes and useful warm winter boots, gloves, hats, etc. for the homeless... (If you can help her in her quest to aid the homeless in Detroit, do it!) and my intended short response about some stuff I had lying around took a turn into a mini story.

I was moved by her blog postings of Mitch Albom's 3-part story of lost dreams and broken lives recently. Read 'em, the stories are good for the soul. You can find her on my top 8. She's the chick with octopus tongue photo. (Another rad thing she did) So, here ya go:

" ...Ya know there was a guy that used to hang at the 8 mile I-75 via-dock, that I used to give beer, or a dollar or two. Interesting thing he ever said to me, one afternoon as I was heading to Theatre Bizaare and all I had on me and in my car was a 12 pack of Coors "I don't drink, but, thanks man." There's a stereotype buster for ya right there.

Long, long ago when I was somewhat normal and used to attempt dating like a healthy human being, I dated a pharmacist. WHY dredge up this crappy piece of history? Well, through her, I learned that a fair amount of homeless in Detroit were Vietnam and other vets. In fact, she would recognize some of them, 'cause she dispensed at the Detroit VA Hospital at the time.

Men with alcoholism and drug problems they were, but all of a sudden I was confronted with a personal issue: I come from a family of military veterans of every major war save this one we're in now. I have a visceral reaction when I meet someone who is military. I was shocked at that time in my past to discover that men who once stood firm in military formation were now on the streets, forgotten.

And, since then, my policies and strategies for giving to homeless people has changed, from a hard-line fuck 'em if they don't live productive lives, to deciding on the spot whether I'm going to do anything at all, like give the person a couple of bucks or something.

I once met a man who asked me for 5.00 of bus fair, saying he was a VET, and needed to get down the road and something to eat. HE offered up his VA ID card, and the pic was a of a similar but much younger looking man, and had a Spanish last name. I started speaking to him in Spanish telling him not to fuck with me and that he was a liar to try and tell me that he was a VET and the guy on the ID card... when he answered me back in fluent Spanish, and told me about where he was born in Puerto Rico... I gave him 5 bucks and he went on his way. "

( There's a qoute, that I once read somewhere, and it goes something like this: "Everyone has lost something, someone or something that is meaningful to him or her."
The key word for me is "everyone".)