Strange Coin for Bums

A few months ago I found a strange object in downtown Manhattan and I have been puzzled by it and would like to learn its origins.

           

            I spotted it as I walked past Delmonico’s restaurant. I noticed what appeared to be an odd coin sitting on the edge of the landing.

            The coin is roughly the size of a quarter and appears to be plaster. It resembles a quarter that has been plastered over and it might be. On one side reads “Give Money,” and the other side reads, “To Bums.”

            So far I have not heeded the strange coin’s advice. Giving money to bums is a bad idea. Most of them will spend the money on drugs and alcohol and giving money to bums will only encourage them to stay bums. There are plenty of legitimate homeless charities you can give to if you want to help bums.

Underneath that is the cryptic “bw 12.”  Should I take that to mean that this was created by an artist with the initials B.W. this year?

Is this perhaps a coin created by a mysterious artist? Some anonymous artist has been handing out coins with the insistence that recipients leave one in a public place. Have I found such a coin?

If you have any clue as to the origins of this coin, please let me know.

I promise to keep the coin as an interesting work of art, and, using a broad definition of the term, assume that I’m close enough to being a bum to keep the coin in good conscience. 

Explosions in The American Sky

It is a few days after July Fourth but we’re celebrating and I’m lighting fireworks with clown makeup on. A fellow partygoer asks me to hold two sparklers while he takes my photo. I oblige him.

            “Sorry, but this photo is too creepy to pass up,” he says, apologizing for interrupting my important task of setting off fireworks.

            My clown makeup is creepy; it is that of Pogo the Clown, which is the clown character that serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Wearing face paint at these events is a two-year tradition for me (last year I was painted as Gene Simmons of KISS) at my friend’s Fourth of July Party, which is a tradition going back much farther.

            Steve Quilliam is the party host. He turned his one bedroom house into a three bedroom house, built the patio that now serves as a central party area, and showed me the ins and outs of hunting. He’s an intelligent man who can work with his hands, thinks things through logically and doesn’t need church. He’s the kind of man America needs more of but is killing off as quickly as it can. I won’t miss his Fourth of July party.

            More recently, a few of us have formed Premature Strangulation, a cover band with punk and heavy metal aspirations. If only we could stop some of the members from wanting to play Bon Jovi covers, we could make progress.

            Fireworks have been a party tradition since we were all in high school, drunkenly lighting them off in Steve’s mother’s back yard. Another friend, who lives farther south than the rest of us, has access to REAL fireworks, the stuff not legal in these parts. He and a few others are getting ready to set those off, but first it’s my display of the local, legal stuff that is still interesting.

            Every year I try to make a trip to Uncle Guido’s Fireworks and stock up on legal fireworks that I think will explode nicely. This year is no exception and a few other partygoers have brought some store-bought legal stuff that they pile in with mine.

            A few people join me so that we can set off multiple fireworks at once. People oooh and aaah when the fireworks are pretty and heckle us when they don’t live up to expectations. We soldier on. I take mental notes of what fireworks are the best and will try to remember that next year.

Some of us were meant to be that creepy clown setting off explosives in front of children. I embrace that role whole-heartedly. 

A New American Revolution

It’s Independence Day and the next American Revolution is slowing happening around us.

Today we take time to honor those Americans brave enough to stand up for their country against their government and create an independent republic from a smattering of colonies. Thomas Jefferson’s advice that governments need to be brought down through revolution from time to time rings as true today as it did more than 200 years ago.

Today Americans are asserting their independence and saving their country from their government once again, but not in the way we did in the 1700s. I don’t think there are any realistic plans being made to overthrow the U.S. government. But Americans more and more are doing things without their government, not because they want to make a political point, but because it’s a better way to live their lives.

The U.S. government today operates under a system of legalized bribery. Our political officeholders answer first to the wealthy interests that financed their political campaigns. Our administrative services are often corrupted by those same forces, with a revolving door between industries and the government offices meant to regulate those same industries.

The branches of government are in an almost constant state of stalemate. Very little actual legislating get done. More and more conflicts end in courtrooms or in recall elections.

For example, we can’t trust the government to keep our food supply safe or to require truthful labels on our food, so more and more of us are acting on our own to set up local food co-ops.

Our public education system is mired in political and cultural conflicts, saddled with ridiculous regulations that get in the way of actually educating kids, and are often required to house violent juveniles. More and more parents are demanding charter schools. More parents are home schooling kids or looking for affordable private schools. If it’s not happening already, educational co-ops will start to spring up. Some parents are even setting up illegal daycare centers for their children because the waiting lists for government-approved preschools are too long.

The federal government and its corporate masters and allied ethnic lobbies want illegal immigration to lower wages and divide the working classes through cultural conflict. More and more states begin passing their own immigration laws.

These are all nonviolent revolutionary acts in their own ways. Like the original American revolutionaries, most people who take part are only trying to save the America they know.