Alec Working the Traffic
Today, March 6, 2010, a student from Plant High School found himself on the unseasonably cold streets of South Tampa begging for money. It was at the corner of Howard and Swann that young Alec paced back and forth panhandling, along with his unnamed friend, who seemed to be present more for moral support than for panhandle assistance. Within the first hour Alec’s pan, or rather, small cloth basket was filled with nearly $20. Put into terms of a career, at 40 hours a week, that’s $41,600 before taxes. Of course, that’s luck, and those numbers wouldn’t always be that successful, even in the affluent area of South Tampa, and especially not for a homeless person.
So what for has forced the two South Tampa teens onto the streets?
World of Warcraft has them there.
Each time the light turns red, Alec treads down the sidewalk in front of Panera Bread toward Armenia holding his donation box, “World of Warcraft $$$$” and looks into the faces of the drivers. Every time he gets a dollar (or $5) he lets out an excited yell and runs back to his friend and the two engage in some sort of celebratory activity of chest bump and high five variety.
A seemingly straight laced and somber middle aged man walks by the two. The sort of man who otherwise appears to be involved in no form of video gaming and possibly no form of fun. Without stopping, the man asks the beggar, “horde or alliance?”
Alec answers him, “horde.”
The man stops and fishes in his pocket for a moment, then produces a bill and places it into the basket.
It was quite surprising that they were sincerely not participating in any sort of social experiment or school project. They were just earnest in their intent to raise money to fund their gaming. Alec has two toons at home to feed, and he has to earn enough cash to buy not just one copy of WoW’s latest expansion, Lich King, but two. One for himself and another copy for his camera-clad partner in crime manning the corner with him.
Alec says that he wants to keep coming out each Saturday until he has enough to support his monthly membership so that he can keep gaming and of course to buy the two Lich King expansions. Alec plays on Gorefiend, a PvP server and has a Troll Hunter and an Undead Priest, one in the 40s and the other in the 60s.
The best of luck to these young men, but back to Alec’s earnings.
What does $20 dollars in an hour advocating a teenager’s online gaming endeavor on one street corner during a major recession say about Tampa?
What does it say of the city’s charity to the homeless and impoverished?
What about the choice to be frugal and fiscally conservative when a person passes the sun burnt, broken and frowning 45 year old homeless man standing at 275 and Westshore this morning?
And also the choice to be affectionately generous and charitable when presented with a smiling, bouncy and clean 18 year old (maybe a little less on the clean side and a little more on the grunge scene and Bohemian side)?
Some are just hesitant about giving actual money to the homeless. It’s simple: the least that a person who will give freely to online gaming (absolutely no offense to the young man who shares this writer’s addiction to WoW and gaming) and drives an $80,000 two seater can do is to carry a few cans of food with pop-top lids in their car.
To put it in perspective, Alec earned around $20 in bills in under an hour, or enough to buy about 18 cheap pop-top canned goods to give 18 homeless people a meal or feed one homeless person for about a week. One has to wonder if that same sort of money could be pooled by so called compassionate conservatives to develop an industry to specifically employ homeless Americans, or as the conservatives call it, “teaching a man to fish.”
Comments
This was good man. I laughed a lot. I am glad you wrote this. And I think it can't be more true about people just being afraid to give homeless people money.
LOL! I play a Nelf priest on Farstriders.
It's just interesting to me when, where and why people choose to spend or give their money. Thanks for letting me poster-child you a bit.
So- You criticize people who give to panhandling teenagers & then somehow segue into an attack on conservatives. Talk about self-serving and indulgent. But I digress. I am writing to tell you about my experience trying to help a hungry homeless man. It was a very hot day as I drove past this man with my 10 yr old daughter in the car with me. She has the good fortune to have never experienced real hunger, lack of shelter or clothing as I had in my youth. I wanted to teach by example to think of others & treat strangers kindly. So I pulled into the nearest fast food joint bought some food & something cold to drink & took it back to the dirty disheveled man with the sign stating he was homeless & hungry. What did I get for my efforts? I was yelled at; told that he did not accept food only money because people routinely tried to poison him. Great. I think we all learned a lesson that day. It wasn't positive.
Karen, It's pretty clear, if you took a moment to read my comment to Alec below, that yes, I am a bit self serving and I thanked Alec for allowing me to be such.
Now please examine your anecdote and ask yourself if it's an intelligent thing to take a single case and base your life from it. Have you ever stopped chewing food because you bit your tongue? Stopped speeding because you got a ticket? Stopped walking because you tripped? No. So don't use a crap story as an excuse to be indecent.
Karen, also, please set out for me on what planet a challenge to HELP people, terribly poor and sometimes rather disturbed individuals is an act of indulgence or self indulgence? I'm not sure where you learned your values, but I'm willing to listen and learn.
Dearest Ryan, You certainly have my permission to continue being self-serving. I am actually laughing as I write because you certainly give the impression that you actually believe one solitary experience would define a person's life. Seriously? I could write a book on my experiences in the medical field, in volunteering at a free medical clinic for the homeless & under served, in working at California's prisons for men and last, but not least, my own brother who chooses to be homeless.
My comment that I find you self indulgent & self serving was in relation to using a story about teenage panhandlers to somehow attack people with conservative values (whatever that label means to you). You took an opportunity to challenge all people of all walks of life with a variety of political leanings and turned that instead into sniping at one segment, which is your apparent preferred target. I did not say we should not help or should not care. My first 2 sentences are clear and stand alone.
Please continue laughing Karen. You're the one that wrote the condescending story about learning a lesson when you fed the mean ol' bad man.
Absolutely I targeted. Most of the self identifying conservatives that I know (again, label being self given by individuals) scoff at homeless and say that common crap line, "why don't they just get a job?" So I specifically targeted that audience. I also challenge everyone to do something to help, but liberals aren't the scoffers, they're the crazy hippies that actually go volunteer. Granted, I am lumping about 150 million people into two categories, but everyone knows that labels are just to give us ideas to work with and don't actually mean every single one of the 150 million people in each category. So no arguments about lumping. We all know that I'm attacking a certain small percentage of vocal self-proclaimed conservatives who harbor animosity toward the homeless or the the poor or some other inoffensive group. Ok, time for actual work no
Dearest Ryan, You certainly have my permission to continue being self-serving. I am actually laughing as I write because you certainly give the impression that you actually believe one solitary experience would define a person's life. Seriously? I could write a book on my experiences in the medical field, in volunteering at a free medical clinic for the homeless & under served, in working at California's prisons for men and last, but not least, my own brother who chooses to be homeless.
My comment that I find you self indulgent & self serving was in relation to using a story about teenage panhandlers to somehow attack people with conservative values (whatever that label means to you). You took an opportunity to challenge all people of all walks of life with a variety of political leanings and turned that instead into sniping at one segment, which is your apparent preferred target. I did not say we should not help or should not care. My first 2 sentences are clear and stand alone.
Karen I really don't know why you have posted this repeat message for yet a third time. It was effective enough, or rather ineffective and bland, the first time.
Since when do homeless people ever ask for or want canned food? It's always, "give me money".
At least this kid was being honest about what he was going to use the money for, whereas, in my experience, real beggars are far less forthright.
I think you're right Steve. I usually treat kids like that too. They never want food, just money, so I just ignore them-serves'em right for bein kids. Shoot, I hope they starve, maybe they'll stop standing around so much and begging me for the change in my ash tray.
Thanks for a good article/story. You have inspired me to go out and donate a few cans of pop-top food to the first homeless person I have a chance to meet.
As for the kids asking for money and giving the reason why, I have to respect that. At least they're not going out and buying booze/drugs with the money. I would not however, give money to them because they are not in "need" of the money. That is, they do not have to play the games. A homeless person, on the other hand, does have to eat.
I truly believe in "teach a man to fish", but since I am not in a position to hire a homeless person who is willing to work for his/her money, all I can do is donate something to them that they can use(give them a fish). The pop-top can idea is ideal because it is difficult to poison a sealed can and it also insures that my donation will not go to feed an addiction or otherwise useless purchase.
"..if that same sort of money could be pooled by so called compassionate conservatives to develop an industry to specifically employ homeless Americans, or as the conservatives call it, “teaching a man to fish.”
..and what would the liberals call it? Gathering votes? Community organizing?
denerd, it looks like you forgot to close the other quotation mark. Good job.
There is no such thing as an Undead Hunter in World of Warcraft.
10 bucks says he begs for gold on Gorefiend too. Probably uses the excuse that he has to buy food for "undead hunter"'s pet. We'd all hate to be responsible for that pet dying or running away due to malnourishment.
My apologies, I mixed the toons up. Undead priest apparently. Fixed. Though the next expansion, "Cataclysm" is supposed to have undead huntaz.
Homeless people don't want food. A guy I know was walking down the street once carrying half a sandwich he hadn't finished from a restaurant in a take out bag, and this homeless man came up to him, saying please help, he hadn't eaten in days. So he said, here, offered him the half a sandwich. The homeless guy flipped out on him, told him he didn't want "that $%#@". They can get food if they want it. They want money for booze or drugs.
Vero, you're a dikkless fukk who should goddammn die and rot in helll. I hope you fukking die of hunger :)
...and depression.
Hey Ryan, I did not post repeatedly. Weird. Maybe glitch in the system somewhere? btw- I think carrying pop-top cans with a plastic utensil is a very good idea. Many homeless people have some sort of mental issue so this would help them with the fear of poisoning thing. I have also wondered how receptive homeless people would be to being given a gift card to a local eatery. idk- just a thought. I also wanted to share this other thing with you. In Chico, Ca there is a free medical clinic for anyone, homeless, uninsured etc where they give pharmacy gift cards to those who need to obtain a prescription. That is such a good idea!
The thing that bothers me in these discussions is that too often people can not discuss an issue and disagree without one party or both resorting to disrespectful dialog. Respectful discussion brings about change. Disrespect shuts down communication. On this board Vero relates an experience and Mark calls him names & hopes he dies. Seriously, why act like that?
Ryan, I see you are well educated & pretty much an all around smart guy. But this following post of yours is intellectually dishonest because I DID NOT say what you are saying I said.YOU: "Ryan Baham: Generation Y Examiner- Some conservative called me "self serving and indulgent" for writing that story about the panhandling kids which turned into a challenge to help the poor." MY COMMENT: The Challenge to help the poor is great. Wonderful even. With some interesting & helpful ideas. What I found to be not so great was attacking a certain group of people. I feel you did yourself a disservice. On a side note, I find it quite interesting that you found what I had to say provocative enough to comment about it on another site. :) And- to set the record straight, I would call myself socially liberal-ish & financially conservative. I do not identify with either of the two major political parties. Both bother me. As you know, labels bother me. As do generalizations & prejudice.And name calling
Self serving and self indulgent are also name calling Karen. You've really changed your presentation from your first comment. However (!) you did provide some really great suggestions with the gift cards and free services. I think one of the next articles that I write will be a lot more action oriented and look toward ways to help people off the streets through employment programs as well as safe warm places for those who simply can't work, but live on the streets. It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge in this area and I'm sure you that could provide some valuable insight.
Your picture does not look like a FL location, it looks chilly. You have improved since selling miniature candies for 4 for a dollar tip.
The article may have had more irony if the XBox game mentioned was "Left For Dead". That would have been a political position on the homeless.
Thanks for putting my business out there David, haha. Also, WoW is a computer game, not an Xbox game-not that it makes much of a difference. I think you're right. "Left for dead" is probably the most dominant political position on the subject. Feel free to email me and let me know how you're doing. My email is somewhere hidden on my main page I think. If not it's cyclist5187@aol.com
Congratulations, your sugar coated past is washed away with your writing skills. My use of inexactitudes and no context will keep the meaning in the white space. Just when you thought you were out they try to pull you back in.
Well just Dammit all David. They DO try to pull you back, don't they? And hey, no patronizing my writing skills. I do what I can-I can't personally make language beautiful, so that's why we have poets, to make the language beautiful so that I don't have to make it that way.
Be aware based upon my research your writings are being sent back to Prague in the Czech Republic. Please write a column about whether an Anthropologists believes a personality is a point of view.
Haha! Personality isn't an either/or thing. It's a combination of biological traits and social traits.
-Not to mention that "personality" is not a definite thing either. Personalities are ambiguous and fluid. They change and shift and adapt to settings, hormones and respond to social evolutions over time. I mean look at what were Republican war hawks during the Bush years. I know SO many conservative war hawks that are such anti-war libertarians now that Obama has accelerated the Afghanistan war. My how personalities change.
You describe the sources of a personality, but the end result is a Point of View. A POV is free to change just like you described, but it's still a POV. Biological influences result in a POV. A bad mood is a point of view regardless of it's from a physical pain or losing a large bet.
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