Poetry, photos and random musings from the unorthodox life of FunkyPunkyG. Learn a little about freeganism, laugh a little and share in the perpetual journey that is life.
You may remember my post in May about my friend Marie. She was an intern of the LACW last summer and was inspired by my freegan activism, which I got her involved in while she was here. When she got home, Marie started her own dumpster diving meetup in her hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. It's been as thriving as such a thing can be in such a place. :)
This summer, she got another tattoo. Her new addition is in honor of the spirit of freeganism; the graffiti on the side of the dumpster reads "WORK 4 <3 (love), [not for $]". The cat on the left side represents me! I was so flattered when I heard and saw this. Think about it: I literally "made my mark" on Marie's life. :P Not that it's about me at all...
It's been a little while since I last wrote. My last post was about July's Dumpster Ride, and we're going to be having the August one this weekend! Hopefully we will have scouted out some new spots by then...
I took a little break from things this month. It had even been a while since I had gone "bin-raiding" (another term for dumpster diving). Thankfully, I have been getting back into it, now that I am home from vacation. My blog is another thing that I need to get back into.
While I was away on vacation, Eric had been a busy freegan. He had found a whole case of "two buck Chuck" (cheap Trader Joe's wine). It's the same old story: one bottle of wine had broken in a case of twelve. They "chucked" the whole case out, leaving 11 unbroken bottles for my Eric to take home from the trash! He's been sharing them around with friends, hosting little dinner get-togethers and sharing his gardening skills. I didn't actually know a lot about composting until I starting dating Eric. :)
The other day, Eric and I took a friend bin raiding for her first time (another familiar story). We hit the dumpster in the middle of the day, being wary of employees. In less than five minutes, we hauled in two large bags containing a likely $200 worth of quality food.
Our friend's ten year old daughter (who came with us), was so excited about the excursion that she was bubbling about our dumpster food inside the store, when they went in to buy a few things they hadn't found outside.
On Saturday, Eric and I led our monthly "Dumpster Ride and Freegan Meal" event. I discovered that it has been one month more than a year since we started the dumpster tour ride.
This year's July ride was successful and fun. We had a group of about 15 riders, and they all stayed on through the end of the meal. Usually we start with a bigger group and about half of them drop out before we get to wherever we have the dinner. Everything went very smoothly. This was the first ride since our exciting May event in which we were followed by a police helicopter and briefly waylaid by officers after our first stop of the night. no such surprises popped up this time. We finished our raiding quickly, gathering a goodly amount of food for a tasty meal at Throop Church.
One trivial thing I noticed about the ride was that each stop was progressively better than the last. We went to three stores for our food. The first was a 99cent store in a residential neighborhood. The food was crap, but we found a couple of men's collared shirts and had general fun. Then we stopped at a nicer grocery store where we found lots of food, mostly packaged, processed stuff (but damn tasty). Our last stop was the best - a higher-end grocery store that carries a lot of fresh, organic produce. We got a lot of fresh fruit there. Posher stores have higher standards, and therefore throw away more, better quality food.
For dinner at midnight, we had great salads and other tasty treats. My favorite thing (besides the fresh watermelon) was the hamburgers that we cooked with mushrooms and served loaded with vegetables. YUM!
Here's a bountiful basket of beautiful fruit. Eric and I took two of the new LACW interns dumpster diving at our favorite Pasadena spot last night. We hauled home about ten boxes of fresh produce. I'm about to make dinner from it all, including the abundance of packaged mushrooms we scored.
I had a fantastic Fourth of July Weekend, and not because I like the holiday (which I truly don't). It was so great because spent it with wonderful people doing fun and (sometimes) meaningful things. Saturday started, as always, with work at the "Hippie Kitchen". Later, the LACW community went to a rockin' music party hosted by community friends, where I met up with Eric and his charming daughter. That full first day of the weekend ended with me picking up an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a few years (as he lives in Sydney and has just spent the last year traveling in Mexico). My friend Ash is also a former member of the Jesus Christians; he left that community a couple years before I did. He also happens to be one of the main people to influence me towards a freegan lifestyle. You may recognize his name (if you're a regular reader of this blog) from my repeated posting of this awesome freegan video. Below is another video (please be patient through the first 30 seconds of silence) about freeganism that Ash has appeared in. And click here to read an article by Ash that was included in a small booklet the JCs wrote about freeganism.
Anyway, Ash and I went with the LA Catholic Worker Community to celebrate the patriotic holiday on Sunday by mourning the deaths caused by our country's imperialistic foreign policies. We helped to set up the Arlington West - Santa Monica Memorial next to the pier. It was hard and sobering work. I have also mentioned this thing before - in this post from May 4.
The rest of the weekend was pure fun. We met up with Eric on Sunday afternoon. Instead of watching fireworks, we went dumpster diving (of course)! In reward for our hard work, we had a midnight snack/sushi feast. We said goodbye to Ash on Tuesday, wishing him well on his return to Australia.
I was proud to have spent the "birthday of America" doing things that pointed out the two main flaws in America's society - its violence and its consumerism-induced wastefulness.
Since I am short on time, as usual, I will post another article that has caught my eye in recent times. This one was in the New York Times Magazine this month and is about a group Freegans in Buffalo, NY who have set up a community in a squat. I liked the article; it showed the great diversity in the types of people who adopt freegan ideals. It also showed the movement to be more than just dumpster diving. Quotable quote:
Kit is a freegan. He maintains that our society wastes far too much. Freeganism is a bubbling stew of various ideologies, drawing on elements of communism, radical environmentalism, a zealous do-it-yourself work ethic and an old-fashioned frugality of the sock-darning sort. Freegans are not revolutionaries. Rather, they aim to challenge the status quo by their lifestyle choices. Above all, freegans are dedicated to salvaging what others waste and — when possible — living without the use of currency. “I really dislike spending money,” Kit told me. “It doesn’t feel natural.”
