He glanced at my trainer and told him in Spanish to tell me that he was fine, that everything was okay. I decided to at least offer him some money, but then realized, fuck, I had no money! So I borrowed a $20 from my trainer, who was blown away. (Granted, he’d only ever seen me cry doing squats at the gym.)
“This is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” he said, as we walked back to the hotel.
Even after this, I wasn’t discouraged. Sure, I’d been hit on by one homeless guy and rejected by another, but I told myself I wouldn’t stop keeping my eyes open and trying to fulfill my mission. If you’re going to be a helpful being, you have to feel people’s energy and act on your intuition—and you have to be ready to look like an idiot sometimes.
The next time I saw a homeless person, he was sitting on Grand Street with a sign that said “Homeless and hungry. Please help.”
I stopped. “It’s cold out. Can I get you something hot to drink?” I asked.
“Yes, I’d like a hot chocolate,” he replied.
“C’mon,” I gestured toward a deli. “Let’s go get one.”
“That’s okay, baby,” he said casually. “I’ll just wait here.”
As I walked away, he called after me to request a granola bar too. As I walked out of the deli with the homeless man’s hot chocolate and granola bar, I ran into a friend of mine.
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m just working for that guy!” I said.
Outside, the man with the sign accepted my offering with the air of a husband zoned out in front of the Super Bowl. He barely muttered, “Thanks.”
I guess you can’t necessarily expect a lot of gratitude when you wait on homeless people. If you want positive reinforcement, thank-yous, and a marching band to publicize your generosity, this is not the right kind of charitable work for you to be involved in. Homeless people haven’t read the latest Emily Post book and don’t necessarily have the best manners. Which is actually a good reminder that we shouldn’t just do these things to stroke our ego—we should do them because we can.
Do Not Ask What a Publicity Stunt Can Do for You; Ask What You Can Do with a Publicity Stunt
Sometimes, when you start looking around and actually notice all the people and worthy causes that need your help, it can be overwhelming. You might feel like you can’t possibly help them all, so why bother trying? What I have always done is to rely on my intuition. Where and when do I feel called to act? Sometimes you see someone suffering and you have a heartfelt moment of empathy, and other times God hits you on the back of the head and says, “You can’t sit by and let this happen. You have to get up and do something or say something.” Once you’re in tune with that feeling, you can go toward it.
This is what people did in the 1960s, when the youth took to the streets and to college campuses to protest for equal rights or to end the Vietnam War. Fuck, in the ’80s, they even rioted in Tompkins Square Park to protest the opening of the Gap! Nowadays, it saddens me to see that young people are more into drugs and money and fame; these things have completely hijacked youth culture. Instead of a thousand kids lined up to try out for the next Bachelorette, I’d love to see a thousand girls in bikinis lining up along the banks of the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan, looking really hot and holding signs that say, “We want to go for a swim! It’s preposterous that we live on an island, surrounded by water, and we can’t swim! It’s hot, and so are we!”
I believe young people are the ones who can and must put an end to this. I want to see the youth rising up to say, “No, it is not okay that we can’t swim in our water, and why aren’t we studying the effects of all this pollution on our children? And while we’re at it, it’s not okay that we’ve put Indians on reservations! It’s not okay that a plane flew through the fucking Pentagon and no one even knew it was coming!” Let’s be honest: If a plane flew through the tent at one of my fashion shows, the designer would fire me immediately, even if it wasn’t my fault. I know I’ve said the world will change when we change ourselves; that’s why I named my company People’s Revolution. But sometimes, our selves need a little kick-start.
When we start awakening to the suffering all around us, it can be hard to not speak out. Recently, I was in a business meeting with a Spanish client, the head of one of Europe’s largest and most colorful brands, and we were talking about “celebrity gifting,” which means giving free clothes to famous people so they’ll appear in the weekly magazines wearing them. I have done this hundreds of times in my career. But suddenly it just sounded stupid and incredibly wasteful.
“You know what?” I said. “Celebrities have enough clothes. Why don’t we gift fifty or seventy-five pieces to celebs and fashion editors
