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BA of the Week: Poet/Community Manager Stephen Rosenshein

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Every week we feature a different person from the community shedding a little light on their life of brokeitude. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something about the human spirit — probably not.

Wanna be a Broke-Ass of the Week? Holler at us here and we’ll send you the questionnaire.

Our Broke-Ass of the Week this time around is Stephen Rosenshein.  He can tell you how much new headlight motors for a Saab cost.  He also had this to say when I asked him for an intro:

First of all, I’d like to call out last week’s Broke Ass of the Week, Anvhu. I photoshopped that picture of him with Betty White and he never paid me for my time… that’s part of why I’m so broke. Also, no one seems to want to hire a full time poetry grad student to work at their company these days. It would be nice to work at a startup, but my primary goal is to be an astronaut/poet. NASA used to send poets into space and now we don’t even have a space program. I figure that if I can pay off my student loan debt and get rich enough to buy a rocket from the Chinese, I can still make that dream come true. On that note, I recently decided to start writing fiction in order to increase my chances of making money off of writing, which I find pretty depressing and ridiculous.

Let’s see what other kinds of insight he has into brokeitude for us:

Name: Stephen Rosenshein

Age: 27

Occupation: Poet/Community Manager/Student

What neighborhood do you live in?: The Mission.

What are you listening to these days?: Kendrick Lamar, ASAP Rocky, Wiz Khalifa and always Jimi Hendrix, Outkast and The Pharcyde. Also my upstairs neighbor signing show tunes and tap dancing and my down stair’s neighbor’s baby crying.

Best money saving tip: I like events like free open bars on JohnnyFunCheap.com.

What do you refuse to spend money on?: Water and reusable shopping bags.

Most expensive thing you’ve ever bought: New headlight wiper motors for a Saab I backed into at 4am one night when I was 16. I was about to drive off and then realized it was my friend’s mom’s car and I had gotten red paint from my Blazer all over the hood and fender. No way out. They were almost two grand each. Luckily my Bar Mitzvah money covered it.

How’d that feel?: Really avoidable. I could really use that Bar Mitzvah money right now.

Favorite cheap eat: Dollar tacos at Pancho Villa.

Favorite dive bar: Doc’s Clock.

Best deal you’ve ever gotten: I bought a ‘96 Honda Accord for $2500, got sideswiped, and received a check for $1700 for repairs I never had done. I then sold the car some sketchy guy for $2000 cash. I blew this money travelling and don’t regret it.

Favorite free thing to do: Eat free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Doc’s Clock

If you woke up a millionaire, what’s the first thing you’d buy?: A plane ticket, several bicycles and lots of shoes.

Despite not having money, do you still love your life?: Yea, but if I could afford a hot tub I think I would love it a lot more.

Do you own my book?: No I borrowed it because I’m cheap.

Best hangover cure: Bananas and water.

Are you a hipster?: I just fit my entire forearm (along with my leg) into my pants, so I guess not.

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.