The rhetorical question “you don’t want to grow up and be a bum now do you?” , is one of the most common phrases that parents threaten their children with in their effort to motivate them and do something with their lives. Of course 99% of children will say “No!”. But what would happen if a child said “Yes!”
He is the living proof that art does not inhabit only the expensive galleries and halls and does not derive only from wealth. There is a bum on the corner of your street that might have something of significance to say.
He is a self described “career homeless bum”. But he owns a cell phone, iPod, and a Macbook Pro. He has traveled in through out America and Europe, self-published a book, he has hundreds of thousands of views on his videos on youtube, he made a movie about his life, he is acknowledged as an artist, and he goes by the name “Bumdog”.
“When I was 22 I left LA to travel. You know in this world there’s only two ways you can really travel, with lots of money or no money. There was never any hope of my ever making allot of money so I decided to do it with no money and just started bumming around (which is how I eventually got my nickname)
“I traveled across the United States then I was in England (London), Amsterdam, Paris, South of France, Spain and North Africa” says Bumdog about his life so far.
As a “complete nobody” he has emerged as edgy art-figure, Bumdog manages to deliver the vibe of living in the streets and every day struggling, in his film “Sketches of Nothing By A Complete Nobody” sections of which are featured on his personal Youtube channel.
“IF BUMDOG CAN DO IT…YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES” is written at the end of the trailer of his film “Sketches of Nothing By A Complete Nobody”. Can really a Bum(dog) be better than any of us?
Bumdog, armed with his imagination, experiences and passion for art, turned his life into a feature length film that managed to touch thousands of people in L.A and across the world.
I stumbled upon his video of Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolllin’ Stone” during one of my endless time-killing explorations on Youtube. I tend to read the description on the side and it never seems to fail that its usually another ramble about what the song means to the person that posted it online. but this time the story of the homeless owner of the channel and the creator of the video intrigued me to keep on reading.
It went over some of the detail of the creation of the video. How the creator had heard the song as a teenager and had an instant vision of what it should look like. This vision lead to the creation of a two and half hour movie based on three days of his life.
Bumdog, since he was a teenager showed his interest in fine arts and especially writing. After reading works of the most acknowledged barflies and constant travelers, the likes of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac, he decided after the several other professions that used to attract his interest, that he wanted to be a writer… and a bum.
“I wanted to do allot of things. Wanted to be a basketball player, real estate, movie director. But all those things seemed to take up too much time to achieve. I eventually realized I had a talent for writing. I also realize I didnt want to under any circumstances wanted any kind regular job. That left only writer or bum” reading Bukowski and Kerouac he realized “I could do both.”
“If this man is so talented to win an artist grant why would he become a bum?” you might wonder, as I did when I first started talking with him and researching about him. And came upon his myspace page.
He dropped out of school after finishing the 7th grade, because he “didn’t learn anything new that wasn’t taught in 6th
“I am a career homeless Bum. Always wanted to be a bum ever since I was a teenager. It was my destiny. Reading books on Buddhism, Christianity, Socrates and books by other authors that I mentioned before simply gave me the intellectual justification for this otherwise insane bent in my brain.”
The situations that he’s been through might be similar with every other bum’s, like eating from trash-cans, sleeping on the street, been jailed but as one of his favorite authors would say “he’s got class for a bum.” The way he puts it is this:
“I got in a lot of trouble when I was younger but as I get older I consciously avoid jail. I’m too proud to beg, too lazy to work, and too dumb to steal. So I create ‘art’ and sell it on the street. CONart is what I like to call it.”
Before he focuses completely on his art he spent some time as a reporter having a monthly column in an L.A local newspaper for exactly one month. “The second month the publisher objected to the word "cunt" in my story. So I changed it. But she REALLY didn’t like what I changed it into. At which time our two paths were amputated. “
The “CONartist’s” talent and love for art, apart from his feature film and videos, can also be detected in his small stories about his everyday life adventures and unusual situations like in the tale “A Christmas Carol: A Real Story” or “Job And Punishment”.
Bumdog carries with him a limited amount of copies of his self-published book call “Sketches of Nothing By A Complete Nobody” and he also sells his 2 ½ hours feature film for $25 to people who contact him over the internet but as he says “his buyers are becoming less and less as youtube keeps putting down his videos”. He had printed up 300 copies of his book but most of them were sold, so now he sells his last copies for $250 to rare book collectors.
“Its not a thick book, mainly just beginnings of things I didnt finish (I was hoping to get some interest in it somewhere and get the money to settle down and finish it all). I printed the book cover in real sketching paper, Which means you can draw or even do water colors on it. I often have artists do work one them. I photoshoped each book differently, so each one is like a unique work of art. Theres only 300 in existence, I only have about 20 left myself. I think it could be worth something someday. Harry Potter only had 300 copies in its first edition.People scoffed at me when I jacked it up from $20 to $50.”
Right now, his travelling path and wonder lead him in Hawaii, in where he’s stuck, and via e-mail he sends me his impressions and thoughts for the place, and his plans for the future.
“My perfect day begins with me having something to eat and ends with having something to eat. But, even at that low threshold, I can’t say I have been having many perfect days lately.
“The money for traveling IS difficult. I get STUCK in allot of places, which is what I am now. Stuck in Hawaii, trying to get to India. But of all the places Ive been stuck in this is easily the most beautiful. But its also one of the most expensive, definitely living out the starving artist routine since Ive been here. I fast 7 days out of the month because I figure if Im gonna go hungry anyway might as well get some health benefits from it.”
Bumdog fought through the toughest situations and till today supports every choice that he made in his life and does not regret about a single thing finding happiness and comfort in music through his iPod.
“Like most people there are many things I regret, but more often then not, I could only change them in retrospect. When they were happening I did the best I could.”
m.f
Like every artist , he too wants to achieve something through art. Every artist has a unique goal. Either that’s fame, money or glory. Bumdog’s target is one and simple and no one could put better than his own words: “a moment that is worth living for”
