Doug Lief
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Bob Dylan wrote, “when you ain’t got nothin’,
you got nothin’ to lose,” a lyric that went through my
head as I watched the homeless man in the electric wheelchair zip
through four busy lanes of traffic like a rolling stone. Perhaps it
was his religiously euphoric giggling as he cheated death, or
simply the Frogger-esque adroitness of his chariot of crazy, but I
realized that the homeless have a lot to teach us.
Some of them are on campus already, but I propose we invite more
of them as a sort of alternative to a professor emeritus; a
professor detritus. Too often we ignore the homeless because we
find their fervor threatening. One of the problems with crazy
people is that they’re all so enthusiastic about being crazy.
This kind of enthusiasm, however, is exactly what is sorely lacking
in the current habitat-owning professorial staff here at UCLA.
Granted, the uclaprofessors.com score for organization might be
a little low for Charlie Bust-a-Nut (as the kids are fond of
calling him), but will you be the one to stem his passion? I think
not.
It’s a simple matter of hierarchy. Those who can, do.
Those who can’t do, teach. And no one can’t do more
than the homeless.
Perhaps you are not convinced that the homeless could
effectively present a meaningful lecture, but all you need to do is
give them an attentive ear. On the way to see “Ragtime”
at the Schubert Theater a few years back, a man accosted me and my
friend. At first I assumed he wanted money from us, but as he began
to speak he delivered an important history lesson. “I saw
Hubert Humfrey walk out of that hotel,” he said with emphasis
and accompanying gesticulation.
KENNY CHANG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
He began to paint a rich picture of Los Angeles and the
Democratic presidential candidate circa 1968. “He was bald.
And he walked out of that hotel,” he said with further
emphasis and gesticulation.
But that was not the sum total of his expertise. He then deftly
segued from political history to music history, explaining that
George Harrison wasn’t particularly talented, but happened to
be in the right place at the right time. This was explained by the
existence of another band contemporary to the Beatles that no one
but this homeless man remembered. The lead guitarist of that band
“freakin’ rocked.”
Often, UCLA students, myself included, are accused of leading a
sheltered life. Who better to educate us in the ways of the world
than those who have spent time in actual shelters? It’s
fairly hard to profess worldliness in my column when I come from a
neighborhood in Laguna Beach called “Top of the World.”
It’s a tough ‘hood to grow up in, as my fellow LBHS
Artists can attest to. Yes, an artist was our mascot. Stop
laughing!
Perhaps we could offer a kind of exchange program. We give the
students a chance to try out homelessness, and while they’re
out learning the finer points of indigence, we give the homeless
professors those students’ slots in the dorms. Given the
current inflated value of a college degree and the state of the
economy, we Bruins could find the knowledge of how to de-mold
discarded In-N-Out food most useful.
Offering teaching positions at a state run university such as
this one is the least California can do for the homeless. After
all, it was California under the leadership of then-governor Ronald
Reagan that, in the true spirit of compassionate conservatism,
emptied out the mental hospitals and told the patients,
“Closing time: You don’t have to go home, but you
can’t stay here.”
It really says something about this country that we named the
national airport after Reagan even though he fired all the
air-traffic controllers, and that the people he made homeless are
now sleeping under the freeway that bears his name.
“It’s like raaiiieeeaiin on your wedding day,”
except it actually is ironic.
Somewhere along the line we decided that self-sufficiency is the
standard by which we should be measured, and rather than help
everyone to meet that standard, we simply cut off those who fall
short. UCLA, as a subsidiary of the state of California, owes
something to the homeless. We’d go out of our way to build a
wheelchair ramp for a Vietnam veteran with no legs, but we’ve
done little to nothing for those with far less visible wounds. This
campus is ostensibly where minds come to be molded. Perhaps we can
repair a few while we’re at it.