CHICAGO—After the wickedly good satirical graffiti he painted below a freeway overpass was discovered by satire news site The Onion, a homeless man became the legendary publication’s chief writer on January 1, only to find after his first paycheck last week that he was actually making way more money living on the streets. Ironically, he said he saw no irony in the situation and was just happy to finally be working in an environment with like-minded—yet still similarly dressed—people.
Jim Gruden, 47, said that he’s been homeless for almost 10 years since getting laid off as a writer at a competitor to The Onion. Disheartened and unable to find work, he’d given up writing until last year, when around April he spray-painted on a building near an H&R Block tax preparation center, “I don’t pay any income tax, ask me how, call 555-321-6866.” He said he got dozens of calls, though no one found it funny when he told them his secret was that he was homeless. So, the next time, he tagged simply, “I don’t have a mortgage, #homeless.” A passerby took a photo of it and posted it on social media, where it went viral—and caught the eye of The Onion’s publisher, who reached out to him.
Though many of The Onion’s staff, especially its writers and editors, thought Gruden’s hire was the ultimate in irony—and perhaps just a publicity stunt during a time of increased competition, especially from rival satire and humor news site The Rapscallion—he said within the first week he had earned the respect of most. He said he also was pleasantly surprised to find that his writing would now reach a slightly larger audience than it did when he was homeless. But, most importantly, he observed that The Onion staff and he definitely felt a kinship with each other. “Satirists and humorists are really just homeless people,” he concluded. “The only difference is the homeless make more. Way more.”
