Some of the greatest minds Iave ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores. It was at their feet that I first embraced the love of knowledge, and through their tutelage, learned to define self-worth in my own terms. These are the aEulipiansaawriters, poets, musicians, painters, and uncommon drunksathose shade-tree philosophers who contemplate the fungus within the cracks of society. While these obscure intellectuals stand well outside the mainstream of academy, I watch with astonished delight as their students infuse the various philosophies of these ghetto thinkers into the mainstream of human knowledge. As one such student, I fully embrace the proposition that knowledge is free, and will, thus, transcend attempts to contain it through barriers of caste and privilege, leaving manas innate thirst for knowledge free to overwhelm his lust for stupidity. It is in this context that I relate this message from the bowels of society.