The homeless blogger

Kevin Barbieux sleeps in abandoned buildings or shelters -- and writes a daily journal that has made him an Internet celebrity.

By Noah Shachtman

Oct. 14, 2002 | If you want to know what cereal a total stranger eats for breakfast or how he feels about invading Iraq, there are hundreds of thousands of Internet journals, popularly known as blogs, waiting for you. But to find out where the best soup kitchen is in Nashville, Tenn., or how it feels to pick up trash until dawn for $30, or what it's like to sleep in a '71 Ford Granada, you'll have to go to Kevin Barbieux's Internet diary for answers.

Most "bloggers" bleat from a computer in their home or office. But for Barbieux, that's not possible. He doesn't own a computer. He rarely has a steady job. And for years, he hasn't had a place to call home.

Instead, Barbieux catches a few furtive hours of sleep at one of Nashville's shelters, in a public park, or underneath an abandoned building. During the day he hangs out at public libraries, spending hours updating his journal.

The idea, he says, is to use the intensely personal medium of blogging to demolish the near-universal negative stereotype of homelessness. In place of the image of the dirty, stinking wino, Barbieux hopes to insert the story of himself: clean, articulate, spiritual, busy, taking in a favorite cigar -- the Excalibur No. 1 Maduro by Hoyo De Monterey -- but staying away from junk and booze.

"My intention is to legitimize homeless people, to show them as worthy of being treated like human beings, with compassion, acceptance, and assistance," Barbieux writes.

Quoting everyone from Tom Waits to Carl Jung, Barbieux writes about the joys of going, on a donated ticket, to hear the symphony. He describes his fears of walking into the event unshowered while so many others are in formalwear. He posts passionately on man's ability to have an intimate relationship with the Divine. And he rages against "homeless shelters [that] promise to help homeless people, but only on the condition that the homeless person worships their god."

Barbieux's entries grab the gut in a way typical blogs can't. Early in September Barbieux detailed how "Bull," a fellow transient, jealously guards his resting place: a 5-foot ledge jutting out from a parking lot beneath an empty building.

"'Hey, we can't have a bunch of homeless people coming up here!' Bull stated, and he was right. Once news got out about a good sleeping place, EVERYONE would know about it, the wrong guys would show up, there would be a ruckus. [Then] the police would find out about it, [and] chase everyone away."

Two days later, Barbieux updated his journal. Bull, he tells us, has been beaten to death.

It's not the only time violence rears its head in Barbieux's world. A journal entry in August described a clash outside a shelter between an elderly Mexican man and a young African-American woman:

"He kept walking away, muttering Spanish obscenities as the crowd tried to provoke an altercation. Suddenly the woman bolted toward the old man -- he didn't see her coming -- and she landed a hard fist on the right side of his head. The crowd howled. The man stumbled. She turned to receive the crowd's cheer, relishing her victory. She wasn't aware that the old man had pulled a knife from his pants pocket, stumbling toward her. Only his drunkenness prevented him from attacking with a force of vengeance. As the old man neared, a couple volunteers from the shelter ran out to stop the fight. The old man reached out for the woman, trapping the two volunteers between them. The old man held his knife up, as if for God to inspect, then brought it down in anger. Simultaneously the four fell down to the ground. The police were called. A fire truck arrived soon after the police. The shelter opened, and the homeless began to filter in. Four officers held the old man to the ground as his clinched fist would not relinquish the knife. Several hands grasped against the wrist and forearm of the old man, keeping the knife away from everything. Then an officer mashed the old man's hand against the asphalt with a baton until the old man cried out in pain, releasing the knife."

Next page: Praying for his kids ... and a book deal