A tip for the homeless

I am here to share the secret of a phenomenon I noticed a few years ago and have been taking advantage of ever since. Bums listen up.

It all started when I decided to quit smoking cigarettes. The problem with quitting is that as soon as a drop of beer hits my tongue, I NEED a fucking square. You smokers know what I am talking about.

So I had gone a few weeks without a deathstick, but then I was at a party with a house full of beer and smokers, so I decided I had to have one. In the past when this happened I would just go around begging, but a pack costs about $8 in Chicago so I started to feel bad about it.

When some drunk dude politely asks to bum a cigarette at a party, you can't really say no or you look like a stingy asshole. At the same time you realize that you are basically giving away your hard-earned money.

I would have just bought my own pack, but I knew that the next morning I would wake up with a hangover and a nearly full pack of cigarettes, and I would go right back to smoking on a regular basis.

So I dug through my pocket and found two quarters. I thought "as long as I exchange fifty cents for a cig, I'm not a beggar. I am actually giving them a return on their investment."

I set out for the porch and made my offer to some guy I had never seen before.

And I got a confused stare.

"Umm, I'm not going to make you pay me... how about I just give you one instead?

I didn't argue. But a half hour later I felt like another smoke, and i still had my change. So I went back outside and saw some random girl smoking camel lights. I decided she would be my new best friend.

I felt kind of weird about the reaction I got previously, so I decided to just ask her if I could bum one. But when I did, she gave me that look. You know--the look that somebody gives you when you ask for a favor that they would really prefer not to do it but feel obligated to.

So I busted out my change. She looked at the quarters, and gave me a look that said "the only thing more pathetic than being the guy walking outside clutching small change and going person-to-person begging to pay for a single cigarette would be to actually be the smoker stingy enough to take the money."

So from that night on, every time I went to a party I remembered to have two quarters in my pocket. I have probably bummed $50 worth of cigarettes by now, but not a single person has taken my $0.50.

But the best part isn't that I get so many free cigarettes. It is that when i wake up hung-over the next morning (or afternoon), I don't even have the option to smoke. Unless I want to go out in the daylight with my quarters. But there is no way in hell I could be that desperate until I get that sweet taste of beer on my tongue.

Good hip-hop

So all weekend I felt like I was going fucking insane.

I had this fucking cool beat in my head. The percussion was like nothing I had ever heard. It was like I could ALMOST hear the words that would go perfectly with it.

Hearing a good hip-hop beat in my head that doesn't exist isn't that weird for me. In fact, if you ever walk by me on the bittercold sidewalks of Chicago you will probably hear me beatboxing, humming, whistling, or rhyming. Bypassers probably assume that I'm just another crazy, but that is because they can't hear what I do.

ANYWAYS... the funny thing about the song that was relentlessly playing through my head Saturday and Sunday was that I couldn't tell what the hell the words meant.

Sometimes I will become immersed in a song that I think is my own only to realize I am humming a beat that has already been created, but the words I think of are always in English.

I wanted to forget about the song completely. But it kept playing itself through my head. So last night, even though I had a ton of studying to do, I spent at least an hour searching through every hip-hop video I had recently watched on youtube. I started with Aceyalone. No luck. Then I realized the voice I was hearing was deep, so I thought it might be Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5) but I haven't really listened to him for a month, so it had to be somebody else. I knew that the voice was not of a white rapper, so I started looking at every black rapper I have listened to recently. That was when I realized even though hip-hop is basically my life, the majority of my favorite songs are by white guys.

I had listened to some guy named "Papoose" recently, so I started searching through his shit. It was really good,! But not what I was looking for. I looked through some Talib Kweli, but it didn't take me long to realize that his voice isn't deep at all. At some point I remembered that I had heard a Snoop Dogg song on the radio last week that made me think "wow... this actually doesn't suck," so I became convinced that he was the rapper I was seeking.

Let me tell you... that dude has a lot of songs. And you know what? They ALL suck. Even gin & juice. Just because a song is a classic doesn't make it good. Snoop Dogg is one of the main cats responsible for turning hip-hop into the iced-out, pot-focused, pimp-praising, proud-to-be-stupid, gang-driven shit that it is today. After about 15 minutes of listening to his songs, I decided that if I was really obsessing over a song he wrote than I was just going insane.

But then when I woke up this morning I suddenly remembered that on Friday night I got drunk and started looking through the videos on undergroundhiphop.com. So I resumed my searching, and after only a few minutes I had finally found it!!!!

The song is by Los Nativos. It is called Atlachinolli. And a lot of it is in Spanish.


I also ran across another song I had been impressed with. It is called "So amazing" by Termanology. I didn't expect much when I first saw him. A white guy with a big shiny chain and a flat-billed cap rocked to the side. If I saw him at a party I would probably be tempted to kick him in his teeth just so he would have an excuse to get the gold grill he has been dreaming about. And the video starts with him rolling out in a clean new bimmer. "Yawn."

But then I started thinking "Holy shit. this beat is amazing. And the DJs scratching harder than a fucking cougar. Its a shame some brianless suburban poser got a hold of it." And then Termanology ripped that shit. He is a shameless self-promoter and you can tell he is arrogant as fuck (my hip-hop pet-peeve) but you really can't blame him for thinking his "flows so amazing nigga." Plus the hip-hop legend Primo is the wizard behind the curtain making his beats, so there really is a lot going for him.


Anyway, I suggest that if you like hip-hop or you just have a good taste in music in general you watch those videos. There is a whole lot more good hip-hop where that came from, though you probably haven't heard of any of it.

Sociological experiement.

So I am thinking about conducting this experiment. You know, for the further advancement of sociology.

Every experiment needs an independent variable. In this case, it would be the contents of the sugar shaker on the counter at Starbucks. A few hours ago I was buying a venti cup of coffee (which is now on my carpet being soaked up by a towel) and after putting in a little half-and-half I decided to switch it up a bit, go a little crazy, and add a dash of sugar. While pouring it out of the big glass shaker. I thought to myself "I feel like I am putting salt in my drink. How often do you see sugar shakers?" This, of course, led to my brilliant idea to replace the sugar with salt and sit back with my regular venti coffee and a little half-n-half and watch the morning rush.

My hypothesis is that the subjects' reaction will depend on how much of the salt they actually put in their drink. A small dash might not be that noticeable, but any more will definitely change the way their drink tastes. I also believe that once the customers notice how wrong their coffee tastes, they will be unable to pinpoint the reason why. I have never glugged down a big salty cup of joe, but I am guessing that the strong flavor of the coffee mixed with the... salty... taste of salt creates a brew that is too confusing to decipher. They will most likely blame the coffee itself or maybe even wonder if there was something wrong with the cream. Either way, they would hop back in line to convince the baristas to make their drink correctly.

It would really be interesting to see a few things from this experiment. Would all subjects detect the new variable in their coffee, or is it possible that some would be so convinced that it was sugar that they would be able to convince themselves it tastes fine?

How long would it take for the problem to be discovered? How many replacement drinks would be served? Who would finally discover it, worker or customer?

It would be especially fun if a single customer kept demanding new drinks, putting the same "sugar" in them over and over.


Now that I think about it, this experiement might be a bad idea. It would drive people crazy. Coffee is a hot liquid. Caffeine is a drug. And we all know the saying, "never intentionally make drug fiends go crazy around hot liquid."

Also, how the hell would I replace the sugar discreetly enough not to be noticed? Pouring the sugar out and scooping salt in would take too long. I could steal it, take it home, and replace it later. But then I would be stealing. The only option is to prepurchase an identical shaker, fill it with salt, replace the sugar shaker, and set the real deal down somewhere in the coffee shop. That way I could at least get around the theft. But I have a feeling it would still be illegal. Plus, what kind of a crazy person am i if i spend my time and money searching ebay to get a specific kind of salt shaker shipped to my apartment so I can fill it with salt and replace the sugar at Starbucks just to watch people react?