Natetronn

Every once in awhile I like to hang out over at Ustream.TV. Sometimes I watch Chris Pirillo making a fool of himself as one of the nets biggest self proclaimed Geeks. Chris makes a living doing what he loves. Most people can’t say that so, you’ve got to give him props. Sometimes I watch Leo Laporte in what everyone calls the Cottage. I learn allot with Leo and his hoards of cool guests. Other times I just wander around looking for a show that is half way interesting. I chat a bit here and there, make jokes when I can and usually have a bit of fun in the process. It can get addicting if your not careful.

Anyways, A few weeks ago I stumbled upon on a show called Pimp This Bum (PTB for short). At first I didn’t know what the heck it was. The first show I watched had a guy on who looked like he had been down on his luck, talking about his experiences and life on the streets of Houston. There were two guys on the show that night, one ended up being John who is a homeless person and the other was Sean who is the part of the Dolan family. The Dolans are the ones who are doing the live show and organizing everything from all that I can tell.

They are finding new and innovative ways to support and help the homeless. One bum at a time. The title is kind of deceiving at first but, basically they are helping those in need get off the streets with a free ride to rehab. Rehab for the two men was donated by an organization called Sunray Treatment and Recovery. I think they are alcoholics and they have to be willing to go through the process of rehab to actually get help and to be considered one of the PTB alumni.

John, as far as I know, is the second “bum” to make it into rehab. Tim, who is another homeless person and a friend of John, was the first PTB. The two of them are both still in the rehab facility doing well from what I understand. I haven’t seen Tim or any of the videos of him but, they have them up if you want to watch the re-runs. I also suggest to go over the PTB site to catch up a bit on what the whole thing is about if you have time.

The show I saw of John was live and a week or two before he was actually admitted into rehab. There were a lot of people in the chat room that night and they were asking John questions about his life and how he became homeless. At first I thought the whole thing was kind of intrusive but, as I watch I realized John was getting therapy in a whole new and different way. Therapy only the Internet could provide. As it turns out John had a live audience and everyone for the most part was very sympathetic to his plight and were very encouraging towards him and the recovery precess he was about to begin.

I swear it was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Pull of bum of the street, clean him up, sit him down in front of a computer, show him how Ustream works and how to understand the chat room, give him an audience who cares about him and watch this all take place live. What can I say, en-genius!

Sometimes finding people who have time to give a little attention is hard. But this makes it so easy to do. You really should stop by the show and see the magic happen.

Donations are welcomed and according to the Dolans 100% of the proceeds go to helping the homeless. I personally have not verified this to be true or false but, I think you will be able to see for your self that PTB is legit.

I wish John the best of luck and I hope somehow this really works in a positive way for the homeless, which appears to be the case at this point.

I would love to hear your opinions on the show. Is it right for them to do it in this fashion, is the name kind of demeaning and if this is really a good way to help combat homelessness? I would also love to hear what Dr. Phil’s take on this is. So use the power of “six degrees of separation” or maybe just Twitter and contact him immediately! I mean immediately, please.

Make sure you click on the image in the top left corner of this post to see the bling bling PTB logo I made.

————————————————————–UPDATE————————————————————–

Apparently the live PTB show has been password protected over at Ustream. I contacted Sean and this is the response I received:

They just need to send me their First Name, Address, and Phone Number and Ustreamer Username. . . I will reply with password. A handful of people are ruining it for the rest, it’s sad, but we must protect the guys in recovery.

I won’t actually put my seal of approval on this because it’s your information and not mine. So with that said, if passing on this info is okay with you then I would suggest contacting Sean, he should be able to help you get a password.