Suelo.

Just started a book called "The Man Who Quit Money" about Daniel Shellababarger, known as "Suelo," an Indian word for soil. He gave up money in 2000 and has been living on dumpster diving and squatting ever since.

The book jacket calls him a modern-day Thoreau but he sounds more like a garden variety bum. Interesting so far.

Among the interesting aspects:
1.  He has gotten sick several times -- from eating spoiled or poisonous food -- and claims he'd rather die than pay for medical treatment or have somebody else pay for it.  Shades of Timothy Treadwell.

2.  He was raised in a fundamentalist household and was prone to visions of the rapture and other literalist biblical claptrap.  It sounds like living on the edges of society has largely cured him of being god-addled.

3.  He realized, in his late 20s, that he was attracted to men.  This shook up his fundie world and caused a rift with his parents, who would rather see him dead than gay.  Real xtian values. Interesting that it took him that many years to come out -- to himself.

Finished "The Man Who Quit Money," it was a quick and engrossing read.  Suelo's desire to "live without money" does not preclude him from accepting rides and food and goods from friends and strangers, or using the computers at his local library (paid for by taxpayers, of which he's not one) to maintain a blog.

Bit of a cheat, that.

The guy's fundamentalist upbringing (in my biased opinion) caused him to grow up stunted intellectually.  Why else would he assume his whole family had been taken up to the sky in The Rapture when he came home from school one day to find the house empty (they were next door, visiting)?  Why else would he ascribe holy miraclehood to everyday coincidences, or divine intervention to the fact that he only injured himself when he tried to commit suicide?  And his dealing with his homosexuality is nothing short of pathetic.

Interesting read.  Fun to second guess!


Now, back to the book on the evil Billionaire Brothers, "Sons of Wichita"!