Crustypunks

A blog dedicated to documenting the crustie subculture. Here is "Ketchup":

So I woke up one day and I was fucking fifteen years old, ran away from the fucking group home. Decided it was in my best interests to become a crack head on the streets. And spent the last two years losing my mind in Oklahoma City.

I started traveling after I got clean off of meth and was discovered by some hippies on the street. They asked me what I was doing on the street. I said, "I was trying to score another bag of meth." They said, "hey, you want to go somewhere with us?" I said, "where are you going?" And they said, "does it really matter?" And I said, "no I guess no it doesn't really matter." At that point I was eighteen years old and I went on my first trip to Knoxville. Stayed with all these crazy bio diesel hippies. They make bio diesel out of corn. That's when I figured out you could travel. That homelessness didn't mean you had to stay in one place and rot away or be a drug addict. That you were actually allowed to move around and do something interesting and explore the world. You know you didn't have to be stationary and miserable. So I took up to hang out with hippies and fucking drunks and train riders and made my way around America. Met a few interesting people. A few not so interesting people. Got in a couple of fights. Got my ass kicked a couple of times. Break my glasses about every six months due to one of those events. It's really hard actually being blind on the road. I'm legally blind.

Meet more of photographer Steven Hirsch's subjects here.