Tags: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, homeless, homeless veterans, veterans shelter, Korean Conflict, Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, blue collar disease, hypertension, Garrison Keillor, The Book of Guys, MC Hammer, crackhead, Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant, Slumming, factotum, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Revver, viral video, Bukowski, Book of the Dead, Hollywood, Hollywoodland, Inglewood, U.S. Vets
Hey! I'm still in the homeless veterans' dorm in Inglewood. Everybody here is a veteran. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. My god, there are homeless Marines here! I never would've thunk it.
And these guys span our country's military adventurism, from the Korean Conflict to Vietnam to Grenada to Panama, even Desert Storm One and Two vets are here, the young whippersnappers! And Afghanistan vets. It's weird to see a 22 year-old burnout. Just weird.
I went to the VA hospital Friday and they gave me hypertension. Shoot. Another blue collar disease. They've got me on blood thinners now. Nothin' sexy about having to pee like a horse 20 times a day.
Hey, wanna see something funny? Go to your nearest library or book store and see if they have a paperback edition of Garrison Keillor's "The Book of Guys". Look on the front cover at the picture of four men. Look at the middle guy wearing glasses. Does that guy look familiar or what? Yeah. That's me.
So I'm lying on my rented top bunk bed here at the homeless veterans shelter and one of my assigned roommates comes in. Not the cracker muncher. The other one. The one who thinks he's MC Hammer. He's a Desert Storm One vet. Recent occupation: crackhead.
I show him my picture on the cover of the book and he says, as if on cue right out of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant: "Man, what are YOU doing here?"
"Slummin'," I answer truthfully.
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