Homeless person begging For a buck on bended knee Advertisers pandering For bigger bucks from me Which is worse In my mind? Or are they of The same kind? One asks for pity But puts up barely a fuss The other tries it all To win my lasting trust One forces weathered hand Toward avoiding face The other crams it down my throat To make sure I get a taste Beggars beg to pass the time Floundering at rock bottom In society’s eyes they amount To nothing more than rotten Begging businesses hide behind The mask of free enterprise And disguise their begging pleas In hyperbole and lies Vagrants are rounded up And shoved into a corner Corporate America targets And demonizes the former In places I can easily avoid Beggars hang out…here and there Not so the other beggars For they are everywhere Billboards, TV, radio and Web At the movie theatre and video store Hell, they even got stinkin’ ads Right on the supermarket floor! I’m Steve Wynn And this is my new hotel Coke is it, just do it It’s better at the Bell Plop plop fizz fizz The proud, the few I’m Tom Bodell And we’ll leave the light on for you Seventy zillion served The ultimate driving machine Viagra’s gonna help you Get it on with Mr. Clean Can you hear me now? Good. Chicken of the sea The king of…ahhh, crap! Give it a rest, please I could go on forever With slogans in my head Now that Madison Avenue Has replaced life with ads instead But ‘brother can you spare a dime’ From vagabond or bum Is a tagline of another sort One heard quite seldom It bothers me hardly at all Pervades my life far less Of both the beggars I’m crystal clear Which one of them is best The homeless man can have his place In this lucky life I lead But take away the di-ad-rhea And give me the balance I need Yes, give me homeless, give me stench Leave me penniless and alone But take away the corporate filth Trashing every American home I dream of a day to come When millionaire moguls across the land House the homeless, feed the hungry And put a dime in that weathered hand