preaching to the choir, rambling pt. 2
Yesterday, I saw a shitty comic do a routine about a shitty article in the Chicago Red Eye which is of course the shittiest of shitty, shitty papers.
"So there are these kids, who don't believe in waste right? That's cool, I don't either, but these kids dumpster get all of their food out of dumpsters and squat in abandoned buildings...have we gotten so PC that we can't cal;l these kids what they really are? Y'know, bums?!"
You can tell a joke is going to suck when the comic uses the word "P.C." (unless of course they're talking about computers, in which case it's only most likely to suck)
The article was called "Meet the Freegans", about kids and adults who dumpster dive for food and fun. I think it's because of the internet, that otherwise clueless writers, upon learning about something they were unaware of, that they think it's a trend. Most of the people I've ever known were Freegans in this sense (I've always thought that a 'freegan' was someone who was otherwise a vegan, but would eat meat or dairy if it was free. but I'm sure the term has a million colloquial variances). They were punk rock kids and art students, thrifty people like my Mom who for years has been dragging pieces of furniture we didn't need out of alleys because, like clothes we would grow into, they would become useful.
The article was nice, but rather condescending, treated the kids (all people in their early twenties) as the "wacky other", the same way the paper does when it runs profiled of drag queen cabaret performers: Wow, these people are way out there, but kinda like you and me. Isn't it neat that they exist.
I don't think that there is an underlying community, although I think a number of preexisting communities and subcultures, some that overlap and some that don't, have been doing this for years.
The thought of scroungers as a community did appeal to me, though, cause in its overgeneralization, it touched on my ideas about the Wifi Flophouse.
The Wifi Flophouse is a term I created for middle class people slumming it, getting as dirty as they can over a really secure safety net, dirty as sin but always just a shave, a shower, and a suit away from redemption. It comes from the notion of these houses I come across, they used to be in Wicker Park, now a lot of them are in Pilsen, where these kids lwith mysterious incomes ive out their dirty rock and roll hedonistic fantasies. They're these shithole places with blood and paint and whatever on the walls and then...the computer room. It's usually locked but there it is. A wall of high tech software and hardware, glistening , binking and beeping.
It's not soething new. Every generation seems to have a group of people acting poor (or being poor) just to get laid. From 90s grunge kids 70s and 80s punks to 60s hippies and 50s greasers. I don't know what it is about it that bugs me, partly because it strikes me as insincere and partly because I've never been able to go full-bore and live like shit. I've always had my folks' support, so why pretend I don't? I have a lot of things that I'm attached to, mostly music and stupid toys holding me down. Perhaps I'm just a hypocrite, I've always been the first to call myself out as one. A few years ago, when I lived in a flophouse in Andersonville. If you count girlfriends and guys-on-couches and guys-on-floors there were between five and ten of us living in a three bedroom at any given time. We were getting our food from a church and the whole place was a cesspool, but Mom and Dad paid my way the whole time. I guess the difference was that we never had that secret room of treasures, tried to keep the place nice but there were just too many of us, and I tried to be independent so I wouldn't ask my parents for more money than I needed for rent or bills, so I ended up scamming everything else when I didn't have a job.
I'm not trying to pass judgment here, although I've already tossed a fair amount this way and that. Some of these kids who could easily turn tail, conform, and have a good job are completely sincere. The net is there but they aren't looking down. Some are just trying to get their dicks wet (which is a noble enough goal whn you don't account for my own jealousy) and they'll have moved on in a couple years. I don't really know what the purpose of this is. I'm just bloggin'.
a response from my friend Misha Star
I agree with you on the topic of the these kids with safety nets trying to be poor. I dislike it so much, because they look at me like I am their enemy cause I dont thrift my entire wardrobe. Although unlike you, I am not hyprocitical for living in a shit house. I grew up in poverty. I live with my dad taking care of him in the same house he has had for thirty years the same house that I was concieved and born in. I guess in a way i have a safety net, considering my dad pays part of the bills...but if i didnt have a job....we would loose the house becuase i pay the mortgage and house insurance.
Anyway, point being, I know what it is like to dumpster for stuff. I know what it is like not to be able to eat for days as a child. I know what it is like being "poor". I dont want to live that way again. I have tried my whole life to set up my situation differently than that in which i was concieved. It angers me becuase people dont see that. I have lived in the city my entire life...and these suburban fucks come here and pretend to be poor for a few years, and then look at me like I am the ass hat. What they do is their own agenda, I wont wrong you for it. However, I am being wrong by changing the fate I was dealt.
Sorry for the ramble on your blog.
xoxo...hope that doesnt equate to making out...ha!
my response to her response
there we go. that brings me back to the point of it all (i think)
the differences between real poverty, secret poverty, assumed poverty, and pretended poverty. it more than makes sense that someone would say, dumpster dive because they were poor or dumpster dive to have more money to spend on other things or dumpster dive because dumpster diving is fun and sometimes nets you food that you wouldn't otherwise be privy to. It just seems that the people who champion the cause, or who have made it a cause to champion, are the ones who are trying to show of. i'm not talking about the people in the article (i'm actually a little curious as to how they went about finding dumpster divers to interview), but more the most vocal proponents of livin' low tese days.
never mind a ramble on here
everything i write is a ramble
and finally, her response to my response to her response
I never called it dumpstering...or dumpster diving before i met the kids that were interviewed for that article. I called it garbage picking. I would be so embarrased when my dad would pull over in the alley and pick something from the garbage. He still does it. There is a school in the neighborhood...that throws away the lunch that doesnt get eaten, in those foil boxes..and my dad goes there right when they are throwing it away..and gets something to eat if he doesnt have the money. Most of the homeless people in the neighborhood do that too.
Thee rambling shall from now one continue. hehe
"So there are these kids, who don't believe in waste right? That's cool, I don't either, but these kids dumpster get all of their food out of dumpsters and squat in abandoned buildings...have we gotten so PC that we can't cal;l these kids what they really are? Y'know, bums?!"
You can tell a joke is going to suck when the comic uses the word "P.C." (unless of course they're talking about computers, in which case it's only most likely to suck)
The article was called "Meet the Freegans", about kids and adults who dumpster dive for food and fun. I think it's because of the internet, that otherwise clueless writers, upon learning about something they were unaware of, that they think it's a trend. Most of the people I've ever known were Freegans in this sense (I've always thought that a 'freegan' was someone who was otherwise a vegan, but would eat meat or dairy if it was free. but I'm sure the term has a million colloquial variances). They were punk rock kids and art students, thrifty people like my Mom who for years has been dragging pieces of furniture we didn't need out of alleys because, like clothes we would grow into, they would become useful.
The article was nice, but rather condescending, treated the kids (all people in their early twenties) as the "wacky other", the same way the paper does when it runs profiled of drag queen cabaret performers: Wow, these people are way out there, but kinda like you and me. Isn't it neat that they exist.
I don't think that there is an underlying community, although I think a number of preexisting communities and subcultures, some that overlap and some that don't, have been doing this for years.
The thought of scroungers as a community did appeal to me, though, cause in its overgeneralization, it touched on my ideas about the Wifi Flophouse.
The Wifi Flophouse is a term I created for middle class people slumming it, getting as dirty as they can over a really secure safety net, dirty as sin but always just a shave, a shower, and a suit away from redemption. It comes from the notion of these houses I come across, they used to be in Wicker Park, now a lot of them are in Pilsen, where these kids lwith mysterious incomes ive out their dirty rock and roll hedonistic fantasies. They're these shithole places with blood and paint and whatever on the walls and then...the computer room. It's usually locked but there it is. A wall of high tech software and hardware, glistening , binking and beeping.
It's not soething new. Every generation seems to have a group of people acting poor (or being poor) just to get laid. From 90s grunge kids 70s and 80s punks to 60s hippies and 50s greasers. I don't know what it is about it that bugs me, partly because it strikes me as insincere and partly because I've never been able to go full-bore and live like shit. I've always had my folks' support, so why pretend I don't? I have a lot of things that I'm attached to, mostly music and stupid toys holding me down. Perhaps I'm just a hypocrite, I've always been the first to call myself out as one. A few years ago, when I lived in a flophouse in Andersonville. If you count girlfriends and guys-on-couches and guys-on-floors there were between five and ten of us living in a three bedroom at any given time. We were getting our food from a church and the whole place was a cesspool, but Mom and Dad paid my way the whole time. I guess the difference was that we never had that secret room of treasures, tried to keep the place nice but there were just too many of us, and I tried to be independent so I wouldn't ask my parents for more money than I needed for rent or bills, so I ended up scamming everything else when I didn't have a job.
I'm not trying to pass judgment here, although I've already tossed a fair amount this way and that. Some of these kids who could easily turn tail, conform, and have a good job are completely sincere. The net is there but they aren't looking down. Some are just trying to get their dicks wet (which is a noble enough goal whn you don't account for my own jealousy) and they'll have moved on in a couple years. I don't really know what the purpose of this is. I'm just bloggin'.
a response from my friend Misha Star
I agree with you on the topic of the these kids with safety nets trying to be poor. I dislike it so much, because they look at me like I am their enemy cause I dont thrift my entire wardrobe. Although unlike you, I am not hyprocitical for living in a shit house. I grew up in poverty. I live with my dad taking care of him in the same house he has had for thirty years the same house that I was concieved and born in. I guess in a way i have a safety net, considering my dad pays part of the bills...but if i didnt have a job....we would loose the house becuase i pay the mortgage and house insurance.
Anyway, point being, I know what it is like to dumpster for stuff. I know what it is like not to be able to eat for days as a child. I know what it is like being "poor". I dont want to live that way again. I have tried my whole life to set up my situation differently than that in which i was concieved. It angers me becuase people dont see that. I have lived in the city my entire life...and these suburban fucks come here and pretend to be poor for a few years, and then look at me like I am the ass hat. What they do is their own agenda, I wont wrong you for it. However, I am being wrong by changing the fate I was dealt.
Sorry for the ramble on your blog.
xoxo...hope that doesnt equate to making out...ha!
my response to her response
there we go. that brings me back to the point of it all (i think)
the differences between real poverty, secret poverty, assumed poverty, and pretended poverty. it more than makes sense that someone would say, dumpster dive because they were poor or dumpster dive to have more money to spend on other things or dumpster dive because dumpster diving is fun and sometimes nets you food that you wouldn't otherwise be privy to. It just seems that the people who champion the cause, or who have made it a cause to champion, are the ones who are trying to show of. i'm not talking about the people in the article (i'm actually a little curious as to how they went about finding dumpster divers to interview), but more the most vocal proponents of livin' low tese days.
never mind a ramble on here
everything i write is a ramble
and finally, her response to my response to her response
I never called it dumpstering...or dumpster diving before i met the kids that were interviewed for that article. I called it garbage picking. I would be so embarrased when my dad would pull over in the alley and pick something from the garbage. He still does it. There is a school in the neighborhood...that throws away the lunch that doesnt get eaten, in those foil boxes..and my dad goes there right when they are throwing it away..and gets something to eat if he doesnt have the money. Most of the homeless people in the neighborhood do that too.
Thee rambling shall from now one continue. hehe
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