- [Mark Horvath] Scooter.
- Yes.
- [Mark Horvath] We're in a Walmart parking lot.
- Yes.
- [Mark Horvath] Some place in New Jersey.
- Yep.
- [Mark Horvath] You live in your van, homeless.
- Yes.
- [Mark Horvath] Tell me about it.
- I've been in the van just over three years.
August 24th was the two-year anniversary.
I'm going on the third year now.
I've been in this spot for about a year and a half.
It's been safe, it's been comfortable.
Everything I need is here.
I have Walmart, which if they don't sell it at Walmart,
you don't need it.
I've got a McDonald's, I've got an Old Navy
if I wanna be fashionable.
There's a T.J. Maxx, there's even a Lane Bryant
if I wanna cross dress and put on weight.
And, there's a Bed Bath & Beyond there.
Um, there's, we haven't really had
a homeless community here.
There was one other fellow by the name of John,
lived in his truck that was here for awhile
and he was on the other side of the parking lot.
Recently, about two months ago, he had a heart attack,
then a small stroke, then a major stroke,
and then they found out he was diabetic so
he is actually now living with his brother
so he's much better off, him and his two Shih Tzus.
So, yeah, it's just me.
- [Mark Horvath] But, but now, you lost your house.
- Yes.
- [Mark Horvath] How long were you living in your house?
- 27 years.
- [Mark Horvath] 27 years and you lost it to foreclosure.
- Right and it wasn't part of the sub-prime thing.
It was a lot of bad luck, not the best decisions
on my part and some medical stuff all mixed in together
over the course of like, six, seven years.
- [Mark Horvath] So now, you're, I'm gonna say this
as a compliment, I take you on as a geek.
- All right.
- [Mark Horvath] Over last, you actually
invited me down here.
- Yep.
- [Mark Horvath] And you've been helping me out
if I had a technical problem, you'll DM me,
you're looking at manuals, so like you're wired
in that van.
- Yes I am.
Well, between McDonald's and Panera I've got Wi-Fi.
McDonald's, if you're not an AT&T subscriber
using the free side of it, they throttle the speeds,
but you can go to any web site you want.
Panera, on the other hand, much better speeds,
but they use this service called OpenDNS which is,
it's that blocks certain web sites
and it's for like businesses
that you don't want your employees buying stuff
from Amazon and stuff, but the speed is better
so I use that for streaming like Hulu, Crackle.
I had that free trial subscription to Epix HD.
If anybody out there wants to buy me a scholarship
to Glenn Beck television, I would love that.
- [Mark Horvath] What's Glenn Beck television?
- Well, when Glenn left Fox,
he launched a 24/7 cable television network.
He does his usual show that's at 5:00 but it's two hours
instead of the one.
And, they produce different documentaries.
I'm a big fan of his.
- [Mark Horvath] Yeah, obviously.
- I'm probably America's most conservative homeless guy.
I'm a free market guy.
- [Mark Horvath] So, hopefully Glenn Beck will see this
and maybe comment or post on his blog or--
- It would be great or if there are Glenn Beck followers
out there, I'd like the subscription so I'd be able
to watch the show.
With Panera I'd be able to stream it
and it would look just fine.
I did stream like the, he did like a free two-hour
just before the formal launch,
and same Ustream, the same place you do the mobile.
And, it came fine.
So, yeah, and I've got a Mac
that someone gave me around Christmas.
I've got a VAIO laptop.
I have my webcam.
I have a digital converter box so I can watch TV,
I can keep up on Glee and House and Fringe.
And, I love Terra Nova.
I don't know if you've seen Terra Nova yet.
- [Mark Horvath] No (chuckles).
- Nothing better than dinosaurs eating teenagers.
(Mark chuckles)
It's a really good show.
- [Mark Horvath] So now, you're on Twitter.
- I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook.
I have my own blog.
- [Mark Horvath] And, what's your blog?
- If you Google, this is the easiest way to get there.
If you Google one word homelessadviser,
it'll take you right to the blog.
I haven't been posting a lot lately
because I lost everything that I own for the most part
to two storage bins of mine having been auctioned.
And, that put me in quite a funk.
So, I don't always want to be downbeat.
If you go through it, you're gonna see stuff
where I kinda parody the fact that I'm homeless.
I write about politics, I write about television,
I write about music.
- [Mark Horvath] You write abut the guy at McDonald's
wasting the cup every time
he gives you coffee. - Yes, I did.
I wrote about, about--
- [Mark Horvath] I witnessed that just now.
Buy you a coffee and--
- He did it.
You saw him do it.
- [Mark Horvath] Yeah, I saw him.
- And, this guy Ruben.
- [Mark Horvath] We'll link to that.
We'll put the link there because that's kinda funny
that he does that.
- And, I have a second one called the Pundit Nomadic
which I write about politics, current events.
And, that's where I declared my own sovereign nation
called Afscootistan, which is mobile, it's the van.
I was going to call it, Scootvanistan,
because it puts my name up front, I have an ego.
(Mark laughs)
But, the thing is if I get like a full-fledged motor home,
then it would be Scootmotorhomeistan
and so I left it Afscootistan.
And, I'm the main diplomat and so I figured out
that what our number one export will be is,
'cause I'm a diplomat, I have diplomatic immunity.
So, our number one export will be the flat screens
I shoplift from Walmart and then sell to people
out of the country. (passersby chattering)
Hello, ladies.
- [Mark Horvath] So, now--
- That's a joke, I don't shoplift, I don't panhandle.
I don't do anything like that.
- [Mark Horvath] Yeah, yeah, I, I, gosh,
I mean yeah, you're a nice guy.
I just, from the amount you've helped me
and that I know of you helping other people.
So, you worked in TV.
We're both video dinosaurs, having worked in broadcasting
in trucks and all that stuff.
Why aren't you working?
- I actually, last gig I had was with a major station
in New York, I was running live trucks.
That wrapped up and my version of a midlife crisis
was I wanna do something with my hands,
whether that was landscaping, woodworking.
I wound up in automotive.
And, I started out at a lube shop.
They moved me, and I just wanted to work on the cars,
you know, do the oil changes and stuff.
They moved me upstairs to where I had to do sales
and I was moving so much product
we were running out of fluids, that was that simple.
Went into, took the next step up
which was with a couple of dealerships.
The last dealership I was with
was Towne Hyundai in Denville.
See Joe Ippolito, tell him the Scooter discount
and you'll save 100 bucks.
'Cause I love Hyundai cars.
They're great cars, they really are.
You get a lot for the money.
Ultimately went from there to selling Fios
which is from Verizon, which is the best.
If you can get Fios--
- [Mark Horvath] Well, you're smart.
We're running out of time here.
- Okay. - You're a smart guy.
You know technology, you know cars, you know video,
why aren't you working?
- Um, there just hasn't been much available.
I want to get out of New Jersey.
If you follow the blog, you'll see
that going back to when I first lost the house,
my goal had been to go to Wyoming.
- [Mark Horvath] Right.
- Had a heart attack, had a couple of strokes.
A two-week stint in the hospital, 103 fever
with diverticulitis, it's been one thing after another.
- [Mark Horvath] And, that's painful, man.
'Cause I've been there.
- Oh yeah, it was more pain than I could stand.
When I got the fever, 'cause the thing is,
I had had diverticulosis.
I didn't know what it was called
because I didn't have medical, but when I had the fever
that's when it was a problem.
So anyway, that's one of the things that's kept me back.
Follow the blog, you'll see my progress
or lack thereof.
And, I appreciate what Mark does.
And everybody out there keep your chin up.
And, 'cause it's--
- [Mark Horvath] So, you stay positive even doing that.
- I do my best. - I mean winter's coming,
winter's coming.
You don't even, New Jersey, 'cause we talked about this.
- Right.
- [Mark Horvath] We just sat for awhile.
New Jersey welfare, and it's pretty much, does
a pick a state, doesn't even really give you enough money
for the gasoline cans I see in the background
so that you can have some heat running your generator
over the winter.
- No, but you know, I don't want them to.
I mean, I haven't even applied for disability.
I take that back.
I refused, for the longest time to apply for disability
because I didn't want to get complacent.
New Jersey, and I didn't know this when I first started
with the food stamps, New Jersey has a requirement
that if you're on general assistance,
you have to apply for disability.
So, I did.
If I get it fine, if I don't get it, fine.
I really just wanna do it myself.
I do get help from people.
Churches have helped me with gasoline.
Food isn't an issue.
Sometimes it's tough.
We hit temperatures up here of minus 15,
but God was great and I had heat and gasoline
every night through this winter for electricity.
- [Mark Horvath] Wow.
- There wasn't a night where I had to sleep in there
and it was like 25 degrees or anything like that.
- [Mark Horvath] Because you're the demographic.
More and more mobile homeless, more and more people
living in parking lots and running generators
because they lost their house. - Yeah.
- [Mark Horvath] I mean, you lived in your house
for 27 years.
- Yeah, raised both my kids there, my first wife died there.
- [Mark Horvath] Wow.
- Yeah, and I did what I was supposed to do
as a father.
My kids always had clean clothes, warm food.
I remarried the Una-X, which Unabomber, X from hell
equals this girl.
And, I, we separated and I raised my boys.
My youngest graduate University of Rochester, did great.
But, they're building their lives.
I mean, for example, my youngest has college loans,
he's got car loans, he's got rent.
He lives in Long Island.
My oldest just got a rental house with a roommate
and I don't wanna live with my kids.
They're single men.
If they're Xboxing, they wanna talk dirty,
they don't wanna worry about Dad being there.
- [Mark Horvath] Right.
- And they come and see me.
Oh, there's my friend Howard on his Segway.
So, I did what I was supposed to do.
- [Mark Horvath] You've been here a year and a half,
you know everybody. - I've made some fr--
Oh, Walmart they love, I'm their mascot.
(Mark laughs)
The only, I don't have a furry costume,
that's the only thing, I don't have a furry costume.
- [Mark Horvath] Okay, well if you had three wishes,
what would they be?
- (sighs) Uh.
Uh, Herman Cain as president in 2012.
Um, whatever for my boys
will complete them.
And for me to get on with it, whatever that is.
- [Mark Horvath] Well, thank you very much
for talking to me.
- Thank you.
So, yeah, here, here--