Standard Deviations: Meet Ogden’s new ‘spokeshobo,’ Artie the Homeless Guy
in this July 20, 2017, photo taken inside Kokomo Club, in Ogden, Arthur "Artie" McCarty talks about his life as a homeless man.
Arthur "Artie" McCarty points to where he'd been sleeping outside the Kokomo Club, in downtown Ogden, in this July 20, 2017 photo.
Kokomo Club co-owner Cindy Simone and homeless man Arthur "Artie" McCarty, pose for a portrait outside the bar in this July 20, 2017, photograph.
OGDEN — I think I’ve found us a new official spokesperson. It’s Artie McCarty, the Homeless Guy.
One of the challenges for many cities is “branding” — coming up with a marketing plan that sets your city apart and encourages tourism, growth and business development. Such branding often starts with a catchy slogan, like “It pays to live in Ogden,” or “It’s all within reach,” or “Still untamed,” or “Could be worse. Could be Provo.”
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At first blush, having a homeless man as the face of Ogden might not seem like the ideal promotional advertising. But once you get to know our new spokesperson, I think you’ll change your mind.
I met Arthur “Artie” McCarty about a week ago in downtown Ogden; he’d only been here about two weeks. Cindy Simone, who owns the Kokomo Club on Historic 25th Street with husband Eddie, introduced us.
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The 47-year-old soft-spoken man was born and raised in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He attended public schools until he was 15, when he had a run-in with the law.
“We stole some cars,” he admits. “I went to the reformatory until I was 18.”
He was drunk at the time.
When Artie emerged from juvenile detention, he got a job running amusement rides.
“The carnival was going through Rock Springs, and I got a job for a week,” he recalls. “When they left, I went with them. I was there eight years.”
Sometime after the carnival gig, Artie started riding the rails. He pretty much rode nonstop, coast-to-coast — living mostly in the woods, or beneath underpasses.
He loved hopping trains.
“What got me hooked was just the ride itself,” he said. “You see stuff from a train that you never see driving in a car.”
Eventually, Artie made his way back home to Rock Springs, where he’s been living the last four years. But he just couldn’t get Ogden off of his mind.
“I was wanting an excuse to come to Ogden,” he said. “I love Ogden. I’ve always loved Ogden. I’d come through here on trains, and they’ve got the river and the mountains. And the people here are the greatest.”
Two of those people are the Simones.
The Kokomo owners told Artie he could sleep in the vacant lot east of the bar; he’s began cleaning up the space during the day. Cindy says the weeds were high and thick and, so far, Artie’s collected eight bags of yard waste.
He’s also been acting as a sort of bouncer for that vacant lot.
“I started running people off,” Artie says.
Cindy is grateful for the help.
“People were doing drugs back here,” she says. “They were coming back here, peeing and crapping,”
And worse.
“One little gal comes back here and does the nasty with guys for money,” Cindy continues, pointing to a corner of the vacant lot where the weeds were particularly dense. “I don’t know how many times I caught her back here in a sleeping bag with some guy — twice in the middle of the day.”
Artie’s good deeds extend well beyond the area around Kokomo, according to Cindy. He goes up and down the street, sweeping business owners’ sidewalks.
“I don’t ask ’em for nothing,” Artie says. “A lot of times they try to pay me, but I tell them, ‘That’s OK.’ “
The Simones have known plenty of homeless people. So why are they giving this one odd jobs?
“Because he’s a working fool,” Cindy says. “… And he’s a genuine nice guy.”
Cindy said they’ve got multiple security cameras in and around the bar, so she had a chance to observe Artie closely.
“I’ve got 16 cameras around this place, and I’m watching him in the morning picking cigarette butts out of the cracks in the sidewalk out front,” she said.
“I have OCD,” Artie shrugs in his defense. “I like everything nice and neat.”
With his first “paycheck” from the Simones, Artie bought himself a $10 AM/FM radio with earbuds. He used the rest of the money to buy packages of socks (a homeless person’s staple), and food — which, according to Cindy, he gave to his homeless comrades.
Why would someone who has so little give so much of it away?
“Because they don’t have nothing, either,” Artie says. “It’s just the way on the streets. If you have something and they don’t, you share. You pay it forward.”
Admittedly, Artie’s not perfect. A quick Google search turns up a few recent brushes with the law in Wyoming — public intoxication charges last year and a March 9, 2017, booking into the Sweetwater County Detention Center for alleged possession of meth.
So, yes, Artie’s no angel. He’s not even a saint. But really, when you think about it, isn’t that Ogden in a nutshell?
So, to recap my case for making Artie McCarty the official spokeshobo for Ogden City:
• Ogden has been trying to capitalize on its blue collar, rough-around-the-edges, “Still untamed” past. Artie personifies that.
• Ogden is all about the outdoor-recreation industry, and no one’s spent more time living outdoors than him.
• Artie hopped trains for years, a nice homage to Ogden’s railroading history.
• And finally, like I said before, Artie positively loves Ogden, warts and all. So much so, that he gave up a perfectly good apartment with furniture and a TV and clothes and dishes and even a dog (the dog actually ran off about a week before Artie did) to come here with almost nothing.
Think about that: Artie traded apartment living in southwestern Wyoming for living on the streets of Junction City.
Now THERE’S a catchy branding slogan for you: “I’d rather be homeless in Ogden than living in stable housing in Rock Springs.”
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.