Oh, Kee-RIST!

Folks, it can be boiled down into one sentence:

It's not how much money you have, it's what you do with the money you have. Compare and contrast:

A photo gallery of American Vagabonds. Notice the tattoos. Notice the piercings. I can tell you from experience that both can be expensive to get done. A decent sized tattoo can cost upwards of $200 or more. Hell, just getting the color done on my wife's armband was $250. And that was JUST TO PUT COLOR INTO AN OUTLINE!

My tattoos cost quite a bit as well. It was money that I chose to spend, but it was rather expensive. When you pick and choose a tattoo artist, you tend to put out a large amount of cash. Why? Well, because I didn't want any back-ally jackass fucking up something that was going to be in my skin for the rest of my life. I wanted to make damn sure that when it was done, it was done right. You only get one chance at it. So I found the best damn artist that I could. But the best artists cost money. But even a back-ally jackass costs money. So a vagabond wandering around with large tattoos on their arms are not going to get much sympathy from me. Piercings can be more expensive, depending on what you get pierced.

There's at least one picture of a guy toking pot out of a soda can. At least, I think it's pot, but it could be just about anything. Hmmmmmmm..... illegal drugs aren't exactly the cheapest thing around, are they?

Look at all the people smoking cigarettes. Even the el cheapo crap sticks are running at around $2 a pack depending on what state you live in. But still... suppose you never left a state where the smokes are cheap. Say, $1 a pack for the cheap ones. That's still $30 a month.

There's one picture of bottles of booze. Now, let's say that they're making their own booze. You still have to buy the grain, you still have to have a still, you still need to buy supplies. That's money, folks.

They want me to feel sorry for them? Hell no.

Now the contrast. You've probably seen this already, but if you haven't, let me quote a bit for you:

Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles­ton, S.C.

But Shepard's descent into poverty in the summer of 2006 was no accident. Shortly after graduating from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., he intentionally left his parents' home to test the vivacity of the American Dream. His goal: to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year.

To make his quest even more challenging, he decided not to use any of his previous contacts or mention his education.

During his first 70 days in Charleston, Shepard lived in a shelter and received food stamps. He also made new friends, finding work as a day laborer, which led to a steady job with a moving company.

Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family. But by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000.

It ain't what you have, it's how you use it. A bunch of drugged out vagabonds with tats, piercings, and cabinet full of booze just makes me scoff. Folks, THEY CHOOSE TO LIVE THAT WAY. I've been flat ass broke before. You look at what you're bringing in. And you look at the bills you have to pay. You then pay the bills with what you have. Does it suck? Yeah, it does, but I made it work, on a MINIMUM WAGE JOB. So what does this mean?

Well, you don't go out and buy drugs. Drugs just eat up your money and your brain.

You don't go out and buy a new car. I've never owned a new car. And guess what? I haven't had to pay $20,000+ to drive around either.

You don't go out and buy the biggest damn TV you can find. Until we found a kick ass deal on a 27" TV, we just grabbed what we could from thrift shops and garage sales. So we don't have the newest TV. So what? We don't have thousands in debt!

If you're struggling to pay the bills, you do NOT go out and get tattoos, piercings, or other body modifications that eat up cash. I got my tats when I could afford them. As in, I had disposable income. NOT when I was deciding what bargain meat to buy for dinner.

If you're struggling to pay the bills, you don't get a bottle of booze.

You make your choices, and you live with them. Period, end of story. The people in those pictures choose to live the way they do. And I bet if you tried to get them to get a real job and pay real bills, they'd bitch and complain to beat the band. They don't want the responsibility. Well, fine and dandy, but that is THEIR CHOICE. And I do not have ANY RESPONSIBILITY to support them in their choice of lifestyle.

They could improve their life if they wanted to. But they don't.