With the holidays, it seems NYC turns out the best of its panhandlers. Not a night goes by that there’s not someone playing xmas songs on their sax or actually crooning in my subway car – last nite, it was a doo wop quartet. Before that, it was a clarinet cover of “Little Drummer Boy.” And tho it’s technically illegal, panhandling is still very much the norm in the subways.

Watching people react to panhandlers is always fun. I love when kids come thru with music and start bouncing around the train, doing backflips in the aisles. They’re swinging around poles, barely missing peoples’ feet. The commuters just clear their throats and rearrange their newspapers.

Most people I know have pretty hard and fast rules when it comes to panhandlers: some people I know will not give money out to someone who’s just begging – they want a song or a dance or something for their change. Other people will only give to women. Others, only to older people (thinking that a young person should go get a job). And still others will give only to the *really* needy, the hard-luck stories: “I’m a Vet, I have AIDS, my apt burned down last week”). You have to have no legs to get any money out of people like that.

I knew a guy from the streets who used to panhandle on the trains. One night, I’m coming home from somewhere, and I see Blackie. He’s got a big ass sign around his neck: “I am deaf and mute. Please Help.”

Heh. I gave him some change and a couple of cigarettes. Just for originality. Well, that and the laughs.

I tend to be pretty egalitarian when doling out the money – if you look needy and I have some change, boom! there ya go. I don’t need a song or a dance, although I’m probably not giving you any money if you’re under the age of 30 (get a fucking job is right).

The infamous squatters of the LES back in the 90s – the kids who took over Tompkins Sq. Park and a bldg on 13th Street – were mostly rich white kids from Long Island. They were out there playing homeless for a summer, and it pissed me off to no end. Now, not all of them were like that, but enough.

Last nite, I was walking down Broadway in the rain and I saw a chick huddled in the doorway of some expensive shop. She was young, cold, alone, and she looked like shit. I stopped and gave her $5. My sister, who’d kept walking when I stopped, started in with her whole “I just can’t in good conscience give them any money,” bullshit.

Course, my sister’s never spent a night out on the street. She’s never gone without money in her pocket. She’s never been hungry or lonely or desperate on a holiday.

“I know it’s sounds cliché,” she said, “but a lot of them do use drugs and alcohol.”

“You know what?” I said. “You’re absolutely right. And if I was out here alone on a night like this, I hope I’d be wasted out of my fucking mind. Make me *numb*.“

So, if you’re homeless in NYC, living on the streets and eating food out of dumpsters, please – take my money and go get high. Whatever brings you a few hours of peace or quiet or whatever you need. In fact, I hope you cop the best shit you can with the little bit of money I gave you. Go find somewhere warm, dry, quiet, and ENJOY.


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Edited by bklyngrrl at 12/26/2006 11:53 AM