Introduction

Ants, mammals, lovers and renegades alike, my name is Stephen J. Weed and I don’t care very much for any of you. I live a quiet existence, a nomadic life-style. I have but two friends, one is more like an acquaintance, while the other is really more of a gas station cashier who’s had a restraining order pending against me for the better half of a decade now.

I publish to you a document I came across while attempting to nestle into a raccoon’s den after it had gone out to brunch with a fox.  A man, who referred to himself as ‘Archibald Box-Top’, originally wrote this scribe.

And so it is my most genuine of pleasures to bring it forth to a computer screen near you (I’ll never acknowledge the iPad as anything more than an electric whiteboard for chronic masturbators.) Archibald Box-Top felt it, and I have published it. Sink your thought’s into, ‘The Homeless Man-ifesto.

 

The Homeless Man-ifesto

A duck quacks, a car drives, a bird fly’s and men live. Living, that is the underlying moral dilemma of conventional ethics and behavioral patterns. What is it to live without understanding truly what is a home?

I, Archibald ‘Reuben’ Box-top am a man that knows of home well, and thus have opted to lead all those without it. I am the infamous leader of the homeless peoples union (for those without, and not currently seeking, homes). We demand better soup in our kitchens, lower interest rates on the loans for boxes/refurbished hammocks, cinnamon as a primary dinner table condiment and the effective resignation of all political leaders as well as janitorial staff members.

Society is supposedly offering one the opportunity to own property and have it be private.  It seems absurd in light of the discriminating against same-sex marriage and charging immense tax rates to this property that is supposedly ‘private’? Hell, even my favorite carnival (Reagan international airport) has become another dentist’s office where they see through my clothes and shove their thumbs up my ass for cavities. Now I know what you're thinking, 'well its better than needles', but I ask you this, is a lack of privacy for security really better than the injection of that nova cane? Is there not a man in freshly powdered scrubs attempting to numb our fears in both instances?

But I digress. I am a trendsetter. I was the first man to sleep in plaid shorts and put a urinal in his sauna. I sacrificed my plaid and sauna however to become the activist I am today. An activist for those who know what it is truly to be free, independent and own the only property that is truthfully private; yourself.

Although Rudy Giuliani executed the order for the great homeless exodus of 93’ (I’m still waiting for my free apology biscuit voucher you prick), my clan has moved on. Like Moses leading his people through the desert, we hustled through the Bronx and laid down new shelter in other areas.

Detroit Michigan is my current residence for its grit, subversive social nature and the wealthy suburban fools who come down and throw change at me while I hum ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ in my sleep. I've come here seeking truth through insurgency. I can smell the winds of winter howling through the Cass Corridor. As acrylic siding begins to wrap itself around the newest buildings, natives are evacuated from their own homes for having a separate interpretation of 'art.' I know what I must be for these people, and for my long lost plaid.

Stay true to your mission, your vision and only borrow what you can afford. It's not the size of your box, but how you utilize the space within it. I remind you all, I live this way as a means of choice because I have experienced what it's like to live inside of a house.  Though, it was not until now, I truly found a home.