Originally pressed in 1996 PROFANE EXISTENCE is bringing this quintessential anarcho punk masterpiece back in circulation.
All original artwork (label logos updated) with three different vinyl color options.
In 1996 AUS-ROTTEN released their first LP “The System Works For Them” on an unsuspecting punk scene. It spread like wildfire in a pre internet era within a genre that mostly depended on tape trading. (at least is was pre internet for us penniless punks) “The System Works For Them” was the perfect mix of anger and intelligence that the scene needed at the time (and still does today). It was like a wake up call that opened the eyes and ears to many punks the world over. The messages where crystal clear and most us were hooked as soon as the beginning shouts of “Boycott” bellowed over the speakers. I don’t believe any of us ever expected their message to resonate so well within the scene, but even more surprising is how the songs are just as relevant today as on they the day they were written. Which is why PROFANE EXISTENCE has decided to repress this record. We feel that that messages that AUS-ROTTEN brought to the table are to powerful to ignore. We feel that this LP is important and therefore should be highly available and priced affordably.
“The Battlefield Is Still Red” Bloodsplatter Edition.
PROFANE EXISTENCE has worked out every last detail of this release with the members of AUS-ROTTEN whom have been involved from step one. All tracks have been re-masted by Jay Matherson at the Jamroom studios. To be 100% honest we didn’t want to do a complete re-master of what we already considered a good recording. However when we opened the tracks on protools we noticed a few balance issues that required fixing. These fixes resulted in a tremendous upgrade to the overall quality of the tracks. We painstakingly scanned, puzzled, and photoshopped the original artwork to make sure that it was as close to authentic as it could possible be. We then went for broke by pressing in three different vinyl color combinations! Overall to say that we are pumped to release this would be an understatement, we are absolutely ecstatic to bring you this LP on PROFANE EXISTENCE!
“What Good Is Money, When There Is No One Left To Buy” T-shirt.
To top this all off we worked with AUS-ROTTEN vocalist Dave Trenga on redrawing the classic “What Good Is Money, When There Is No One Left To Buy” design for a T-Shirt to concede with the albums release. This is a fresh take on an old image to create a new and original design.
See through “Smoke” vinyl. Available at SKULLFEST/ PROFANE EXISTENCE 27th anniverseray party / record release show.
Vinyl options are…
1. Standard black vinyl
2. “The Battlefield is Still Red” Bloodsplatter vinyl.
3. See through “Smoke”. – Available at SKULLFEST only
Silence are a highly active post-punk/peace-punk band from Pittsburgh, PA. “The Deafening Sound of Absolutely Nothing” strives (and succeeds) to achieve the perfect balance between peace and post punk. By taking influences from The Mob, Bauhaus, Zounds, Killing Joke, Amebix, Crass, Conflict, Internal Autonomy and Joy Division SILENCE have created what can only be described a brilliant debut LP. At one moment this record is dark, heavy, and atmospheric and then the next moment it makes you want to dance and sing along. Lyrically SILENCE are much closer to the anarcho side of the previously listed influences. Lyrics focus on a variety of topics but often have a strong focus on the way punk and activist communities deal with political struggle in our current political climate.
“The Deafening Sound of Absolutely Nothing” comes with a 16 page magazine size zine containing lyrics, personal writings and song explanations. Designed, printed and assembled by the band themselves in true D.I.Y. fashion.
Silence will be having a record release show in their hometown of Pittsburgh PA at the Rock Room Friday April 22nd with SHADOW AGE and SKELETON HANDS. Then later this month SILENCE will embark on a full United States tour to support “The Deafening Sound of Absolutely Nothing”. Here is a list of dates. Be show to check in with the bands “bandcamp” or “Facebook” page for show updates.
When all that remains is a world in flames. Is that when they’ll say the wars are finally won? That wars are finally done?
They’re beating on the drums again, they’re fueling up the planes. The congressmen fall into line and sing the old refrain. In the name of peace they’ll burn the land and drop a thousand bombs.
Meanwhile we’ll just stay at home and go back to our sitcoms. It’s the same old song, we’ve heard it before. They’re beating the drums and they’re calling for war. What it’s supposed to accomplish, no one is sure But the victims are always the hungry and the poor.
Once the drums of war begin it’s hard to make them stop. The noise silences the dissidents once the bombs begin to drop. All those who call for peace will be mocked and pushed aside. In 10 years they’ll admit we were right after many thousands more have died.
PROFANE EXISTENCE RECORDS PO BOX 647 HUNTINGTON WV 25711 UNITED STATES
Finally after many delays from the pressing plant the WARWOUND Demo’s LP “A Huge Black Cloud” is out and copies are moving fast!
Recorded in 1983, this record contains 15 songs from 3 sessions. With a few different takes you get a total of 25 blistering tracks. For those unfamiliar with WARWOUND, they are a UK band formed in 82. WARWOUND recorded 3 demos in 83 before disbanding and members went on to join THE VARUKERS and form SACRILEGE. These demos never received an official release… until now! Highly influenced by DISCHARGE, WARWOUND is one of the first bands ever to take D-Beat Punk to a raw and intense level. Recently reformed in 2015, original guitarist Damian is now joined by Ian Glasper on bass and Rat Varuker on vocals. After a few gigs in the UK word is spreading fast of the relentless onslaught of a live show these veterans put on. WARWOUND have also recently hit the studio to record for the first time in over 30 years. Needless to say WARWOUND is back with a vengeance!
Yes! Finally, after what turned out to be a gigantic task of moving the PROFANE EXISTENCE distro from Minneapolis to Denver, transferring tons of data, and rebuilding the web store, we are finally set to open back up. To access the new store follow one of the many links from profaneexistence.com or access it directly at http://profaneexistence.storenvy.com
The first official PROFANE EXISTENCE title of 2015 is out and ready for order! We are proud to bring you the RIFLE DIET – “NO SOLACE”LP
Rifle Diet’s No Solace is a 12in 45 that combines the Classic Minneapolis crust sound with Swedish hardcore, D-beat and Epic crust (think somewhere between Servitude and Wolfbirgade, with hints of Tragedy and Fall of Efrafa). The beautiful cover art by Hannah Benoche sets a bleak mood for the dark music within, plus a cover of His Hero is a Gone – Chain of Command (ex-members of InDefence and Garmonbozia) This LP is a joint release between PROFANE EXISTENCE and BLOOD OF THE YOUNG RECORDS
To honor both the opening of the new store and our first release of 2015, we are giving a free copy of the RIFLE DIET – No Solace lp to everyone that spends more then $50 from Monday January 12th to Monday January 19th!!! This deal is for one week only. DO NOT MISS OUT!
*Note*Rifle Diet are playing a record release show 1/17/15 at the Dogplex in Minneapolis with Kontrasekt, Aziza, and Fucking. To coincide with that show all orders that contain the RIFLE DIET – No Solace lp will be shipped out on Monday January 12th.
The next release in the works is the new full length lp from APPALACHIAN TERROR UNIT – “We Don’t Need Them”.
We Don’t Need Them is the second full-length record from West Virginia punx Appalachian Terror Unit. ATU have become known throughout the years as being one of the most politically charged bands in the current punk scene. This new record is an all out attack on today’s society that takes ATU to a new level of intensity both lyrically and musically. The combination of the beautiful and thought provoking gatefold cover art designed by Stivart along with the brilliant recording and mastering job by Jay Matheson at the Jam Room take this record even further. Song subjects include the horrors of war, police brutality, destruction of the environment, rape culture, consumerism and much more. Expect a very heavy and much angrier approach from a band that has been around the block and matured their sound. Seven raging new tunes including the epic fourteen and a half minute track “We Don’t Need Them”, a song that will one day be ranked among similar greats as the SUBHUMANS “From the Cradle to the Grave” and AUS ROTTEN “And Now Back to Our Programming”.
APPALACHIAN TERROR UNIT – We Don’t Need Them will be pressed in the United States on PROFANE EXISTENCE & in Europe on SKULD /RUIN NATION
WARWOUND – “A Huge Black Cloud-The Demos 1983“
Another record we are very excited about is the upcoming WARWOUND – A Huge Black Cloud-The Demos 1983. Recorded in 1983, this record contains 15 songs from three sessions. With a few different takes you get a total of 25 blistering tracks. For those unfamiliar with WARWOUND they are a UK band formed in 82, and released 2 demos in 83. Members went on to join THE VARUKERS and form the almighty SACRILEGE. Warwound are one of the first bands to take the politics and d-beat influence from DISCHARGE and combine it with the blown out sound of CHAOS UK to achieve total destructive raw d-beat ear bleeding chaos!
WARWOUND – A Huge Black Cloud-The Demos 1983 will be a split release between PROFANE EXISTENCE and ORGANIZE AND ARISE.
It will be available in the spring of 2015.
Other records and projects we have in the works for 2015 …
VASTATION (pdx formally night nurse) vs WAR//PLAGUE Split EP
Including a resurrection of the PROFANE EXISTENCE printed zine!
Stay tuned – Stay Active – Stay Punk
PROFANE EXISTENCE 2015
…MAKING PUNK A THREAT AGAIN!
Make sure to catch PROFANE EXISTENCE bands ROAC and WAR//PLAGUE at this years crustock 3. Also keep a look out for an APPALACHIAN TERROR UNIT West Coast tour of the United States and Canada this July.
KRANG are a new band birthed from Chicago’s DIY punk underbelly. They play a brutally powerful brand of thrashy riff-laden crustcore and have an intense live presence. They have recently recorded for a few vinyl projects, including PE’s own 7″ singles series. Check ’em out!
Interviewed by Brian Poulin (NEGLIGENCE). All photos by Adam DeGross.
PE Who’s in the band and what does each of you do?
AUSTIN: guitars / backing vocals / song writing (synth & keyboard on 12″)
ADAM: bass / backing vocals / song writing
BRENDAN: lead vocals / lyrical content
DEVAN: drums & percussion / backing vocals
PE: What’s a brief history of the band and how did you guys form?
Austin: We started circa 2009. We had an additional guitarist: Louis C. He went on to start a blackened crust band called Welkin Dusk, based in Chicago that he plays drums & lead vocals for. We used to have an additional lead singer as well: Hannah B. Hannah was a part of our first two releases: the out of print “Onward Desolation” demo tape, and also the out of print “Bog of Eternal Stenchcore” 7″. Hannah is now the front-woman in a band called Despise, based out of Minneapolis. Our original drummer, Brett, is on the two recordings I mentioned before, as well as our “Sounds of Death” 12″. Brett now drums for a Chicago / northwest Indiana band called Asphixiate. Devan is now our permanent drummer and he will have his first appearance on the “Broken Waves” 7″, released by Profane Existence, which is coming out in June. Devan will also be on our next 12″: “Bad Moon”, which we are writing right now. I, as well as Krang, are totally stoked on Devan and really happy to have them. Devan is active outside of percussion as well with assisting in writing, assistance in lyrical content & structure, and the internet stuff. This line up has been solidified for over a year and is totally fucking Krang! It just works perfectly.
Bog of Eternal Stenchcore 7″
PE: You guys are based out of Chicago. What are your favorite parts of the scene there? What are your least favorite things about Chicago’s scene?
Devan: Chicago’s an interesting place. I feel like the pros and cons are often directly related to one-another. For example, the mere size of the city. There are so many people – new to here, young, old, whatever – that there is basically always something going on and a handful of solid DIY spaces at all times, regardless of whether people leave or places get busted or whatever. The downside is that the physical structure of the city makes it difficult and/or terribly time-consuming to navigate. Especially if you don’t have a car. And even if you do, parking sucks. Anyway, as a result of the city being as segregated as it is, people are often inclined to just stick to what’s going on in their neighborhood and it results in a lack of exposure or attention paid to some really cool things. It’s unfortunate. But then there are some events like the annual Black and Brown Punk Show (shout-out to Monika!) or other fest-type shows where the attendance is crazy and bullshit is minimal. It’s rad.
Sounds of Death LP
Austin: I used to live in CHI. I reside in northwest Indiana (NWI). It’s really close. You can compare it to how close Jersey is to NYC. The rest of the band does live in CHI. My favorite things about Chicago is the “don’t take shit” attitude that at least me and the scene we’re involved with has. We’ll kick you out if your a piece of shit human or kick your ass if we have to. I also like The Void Haus in NWI for gigs. My personal least favorite things are cliques, hype, division, etc… the things that you see in every rather large city, I suppose.
Adam: I love Chicago’s unspoken rule of everyone being down to get down when shit hits the fan and nobody lets bogus comments or derogatory gestures fly. My complaint for the longest time was how there is the same hierarchy that we all hate in daily life at a lot of the gigs. It seems like those “in crowd” wanks have come and gone though, or maybe I just don’t surround myself with such fools anymore. My main complaint, and I know I am sounding super negative, but for such a large city there is a lack of bands playing what I am into personally. There are a lot of great bands doing great things…but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am into them musically. Haha! I have a particular taste and its not being fulfilled. I usually go to shows to hang out and have a good time and just show support but its rare that I actually shit over a band that I see locally. I do really, really get down to Population though. White boy can’t dance but when I see this band I start doing shit I didn’t know I was capable of.
Brendan: Chicago is simultaneously the best & worst place to live; which I’d imagine is a critique most other big-city dwellers share. There is no shortage of great folks, bands, eats, cool nerd-haunts (comic & record collectors rejoice!), and beautiful neighborhoods/communities in which to live. The same is true for all of the awful yuppies, gold cost bourgeois, & assholes who get your friends hooked on hard drugs. A lot of the time I wish that I lived in a vast expanse of lush nature with no human presence save myself. When I’m not wishing for seclusion, I’m loving how hard of a time I have sorting out which of the 5 awesome punk shows I get to go see any given night. Chicago has everything I love & hate at once; most of the time its worth it.
PE: Musically what are you guys going for?
Devan: I’d say sincerity, first and foremost. In sound, words, and delivery. And the connections we can and have made with people based on that. My musician’s answer would be just to write the best songs we can and perform them at the highest level at all times.
Austin: I just want to stick out and be a little different sounding. I still want to have that essential formula for great punk. I personally believe we found the introduction to our sound with the “Sounds of Death” 12″. We have two formulas: triumphant, galloping crust metal and simplified, pissed off, to-the-point stuff.
Brendan: Initially we formed with the idea of writing over the top odes to crust circa late 80’s/early 90’s; stuff you could flail your overgrown dreadlocks around to. We all fell into a groove with each other over time, where we don’t really need to define what we’re gonna write before we do. We approach releases with general outlines (theme,length, format etc.), but when writing songs I’d say we aim for mean, earnest & impactful.
Adam: I think naturally all being into different types of musical backgrounds, our finished product ends up being a thing of its own, but we all have similar enough interests to where we end up with the result that we initially were trying to go for. I personally am really into trying to sound like the bands I am into. It doesn’t end up exactly that way which is good but I love when bands obsess over old school sounds/bands/records and try to make their contemporary music sound as authentic as possible whether it be tone or style or whatever. At the end of the day we are trying to sound pissed, like we worship the 80s and have our music sound anarchy as fuck!
Krang slaying Minneapolis : Photo by Adam DeGross
PE: What bands inspire you the most?
Austin: I listen to EVERYTHING. I don’t know where to begin but musically, keeping personal interest aside, I think we’re inspired by 80’s UK crust and a lot of Japanese stuff as far as writing collectively. This is something me and you will have to nerd out on when we’re in Boston next. Haha!
Adam: For Krang, bands that influence the writing process for me are Masskontroll, Deathraid, Sacrilege, Hellshock, Deviated Instinct, Sodom, Axegrinder and Amebix as well as Instinct of Survival. Personally I am all over the water but my all time 2 favorite punk bands have always and will always be Discharge and the Dead Boys.
Devan: I could go on a long rant about every band I’ve ever loved and how they’ve all stuck with and influence me to this day and blah blah blah, but I’ll spare you the cost of ink and just say Sacrilege, Crude, Amebix and Discharge. That said, we are quite the eclectic bunch.
Brendan: Musically, anything running the gamut from Paintbox to Elliot Smith. I enjoy a lot of soaring Japanese hardcore with that Burning Spirits feel, 90’s screamo, early black metal & hip hop. Any band that has a way with words gets me going, but mostly I enjoy music that you can’t help but feel.
Broken Waves EP
PE: What are most of your songs about? What inspires the lyrics?
Brendan: Lemme preface by saying that Discharge is rad & “The More I See…” could be the soundtrack to my daily tedium… but i think punk rock has much more potential than to rehash our dogmatic & oftentimes simplistic politics. Having been a few places where the punk scene eats itself inside out with depression, addiction, & apathy towards the struggles of those around us, I think its real important to allow ourselves to be more open in the way we express all of the things exploding in our minds. I am not blowing my own horn, or any horn for that matter, but I really enjoy taking the personal route when it comes to writing & am constantly attempting to better address the common threads that run through all of our lives. Our first wave of songs covered some of our political leanings in regards to vivisection, arms manufacturing, rape culture & the willful destruction of our Earth. The “Bog of Eternal Stenchcore” 7″ reflects on the weight of stagnation on the “politically motivated”. “Sounds of Death” is the result of an obsession with death and a years worth of hurt; friends making irreversible decisions in regards to their lives & some of us falling into those spirals ourselves. There is absolution in acceptance though & I think a glint of hope in such dark subject matter. Our upcoming 7″ deals with cycles of change in our lives, moments of mania & madness; a counterpoint to our last 7″. The songs we are writing & playing now are an extension of that, focusing on moments of change in our lives, wanderlust & really just form one big, loud, pissed love letter to the DIY community, punk rock & time spent on the road. Inspiration comes from any human I’ve met that has dared to be open, honest & shameless about it.
Devan: Passion in all its forms and extremities is what inspires us. Totally.
PE: You guys have done a few extensive tours. What’s your favorite city you guys haveplayed in? What’s your least favorite?
Austin: I love Boston. Detroit, New Orleans, and the Twin Cities (Minneapolis) are up there too. I don’t really have a least favorite. We have had some bad experiences, though. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and not mention them. Hopefully things will be better when we return.
Devan: New Orleans is my favorite city ever, and our most recent gig in Boston totally ruled. I’d have to say, though, that many of my favorite shows have been in non-major cities. Birmingham AL was awesome, Asheville NC, Cincinatti OH, Grand Rapids MI…basically anywhere with a really tight-knit but wide-ranging DIY scene in terms of age, music, spaces, projects, etc. It’s always super encouraging to see.
Brendan: I’ll echo the others in saying that NOLA, Asheville, Cincy, Birmingham, Boston & Baltimore all kick ass. I’m usually super appreciative of all the towns we’ve been lucky enough to play in, though of course we’ve played in towns that seemed to embrace the anti-PC attitude/sense of humor that I am so fucking sick of. Some cities are really 50/50 because you’ll either play an amazing show with bad-ass folks & have the time of your life, or you might end up wanting to eviscerate some fuckhead who only listens to GG Allin & doesn’t get why a confederate flag hanging at a show space might ruffle some feathers.
Austin: We as a band aren’t about making sure we are politically correct all the time, but we definitely are hellbent on showing one another respect and are willing to give respect back to those who are legit. No single city is bad. Like I said before, sometimes there are some bad experiences. Fuckheads are everywhere.
Adam: Yes, Cincinnati, Birmingham, Boston, but most of all NOLA and Minneapolis. New Orleans and Minneapolis…no other city can live up to the debauchery that is expected to happen when we arrive in these two places. We need a week of recovery after being in either place for just a day. Also I love playing Madison a lot. Fuck, I love touring. So many amazing friends are being missed right now as we speak.
PE: What are some of your favorite bands you guys have played with?
Lord Krang: Scum from Detroit, Appalachian Terror Unit, Antisect, In Defense, Nu-kle-ar Blast Suntan, Kontrasekt, Cognitive Dissonance, The Skuds, Coelacanth, WrathCobra, Wartorn, Negligence, In Ruins, and definitely D-Clone; but honestly, it’s great to play with anyone and everyone who aren’t assholes and give a shit about “punk rock”.
PE: What are some of your favorite local bands from Chicago?
Lord Krang: Asphyxiate, Decay After Death (Decay A.D.), Cemetery (RIP), Culo, Die Time, Slag, Escalofrio, Sex Bunker (RIP), Birth Deformities, Gas Rag, Welkin Dusk, Daylight Robbery, Dirty Surgeon Insurgency, The Breathing Light, La Armada, Black September, Kontaminat, Ooze, Tensions, The Busy Sugnals, Population, More that we’re forgetting to mention….
PE: What does the future hold for Krang?
Devan: As Austin mentioned earlier, we have our “Broken Waves” 7″ being released in June, at which point we’ll be doing a small tour with Coelacanth. Also, as previously stated, we are well along in the writing process for our next full-length LP. Look for us around the Mid-west this summer and keep up-to-date and get in touch via the following:
crustardpunx[AT]gmail.com – krangcrustards.bandcamp.com – krangcrustards.blogspot.com
Austin: More touring, more albums, more blood spit nights, more everything! We’ll do a more extensive tour when the new LP comes out.
Brendan: “Bad Moon” 12″ – Skull Fest – Split(s?) – Self-Destruction With A Gusto
Lord Krang: Record labels that are interested in helping us with our next 12″ (which is more than half way written) get in touch with us!!! It will be even more galloping, pist, and triumphant than our still available “Sounds of Death” 12″!
Poet and author Max Wolf Valerio recently reviewed one of my poems; I had asked for feedback from a few people I knew who were themselves poets who I respected. Max’s review was so thorough and interesting I asked him if I could share it. So with his consent, here is the review of my newest poem Killing God. The poem being reviewed will follow at the end of this post.
This is a skilled rendering of your beliefs and perception of the world, and of the divine, and our present situation. I mean, you lay it out coherently and with precision – with craft. The line breaks are skillful, leading the eye from one place to another carefully. I like how you use parking lots, and museums to illustrate your ideas, and even bring in the number of years that civilization has been in existence and — Christianity (2,000 years). The idea that civilization is “killing God” is an intriguing one, and it is also interesting that you use the term “culture of death”. Seeing the term used here in this way is intriguing to me as the other place that one sees “culture of death” is in the writing of social conservatives, often Catholic social conservatives, who see the far left as a “culture of death” (abortion, euthanasia, movement toward less reproduction or no reproduction, the breakup of the family into smaller units — single mothers and the subsequent marriage of women to the state and not a man). BTW, I am not, of course, a social conservative, though I share some of their concerns and grapple with all these issues, as do you– obviously from this poem and what I know of you. I mean, you grapple with reproduction, death, technological interventions… etc. Your use of this term “culture of death” is not ironic, but is your take on a world that is increasingly artificial and alien. Now, I think you’ve done a good job here of rendering your beliefs, and carefully making them manifest in the use of actual objects and places: museums, parking lots, shopping malls, desecration of burial grounds. I think there is another step however, and I challenge you to go farther. I can see this poem as a statement to either preface a book of essays, even “poetic” essays or better — a kind of manifesto to a book of poems that take each one of these ideas, separates them, and really brings the experience alive to the reader in an actualized, concrete way. Or you don’t need to separate each idea, but show how they work together. Well, you can get creative as you write… Poems that make these ideas really come alive — that’s what I mean. Poems that leave less room for disagreement since they feel less like opinions. Possibly, they feel more like dreams or visions? You can experiment.
Now, one problem with political or ideological poetry is that it is the poet’s opinion. Often, political poems are turgid and each thing they say is entirely expected so the poems are not as “alive”. However, they can be instructive… But there is that issue… I mean, I can read a poem like this, and agree or not. There is space created for my agreement or disagreement that is easy to enter. There are poets who excel in this type of poem, and while he is not a leftist radical, to say the least — Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. He has that poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” which is ideological or a poem of ideas. It uses metaphors liberally, and is attempting to convey ideas the poet believes are important. This is a poem that conservatives love, and for good reason since it makes their cardinal points quite vividly. I mean, it makes them plain and is persuasive. While you are in a whole other place ideologically, look to this poem for clues as to how to proceed. I’ll link to it. Also your ideas, while very different, are also talking about a returning, a refusal of present values. In your case, it is not principles that are eternally true, but a return to some kind of elemental and pristine wildness that you believe is more essential and good and holy (you identify it with “God” in the poem) than the present morass. If you want, you can use the poem you presented to me as the first, and build a whole book from these ideas. Take each one, take the poem apart, and find ways to animate these ideas. My own approach to ideological poetry is that I try and make it less about my “opinion” and more about SHOWING the reader why my perspective is persuasive. You know, that old adage, show don’t tell. That can be applied to poetry as well. Even in Kipling’s poem, he shows the consequences of each set of wrong ideas and links them to his refrain of the “copybook headings” and finally to the copybook headings themselves like “the wages of sin is death”. The examples he posits, bring those crusty adages to life. This can be done with your ideas as well. ..Possibly really take us into each idea, show me the ceremonial burial sites, and what desecration is — don’t tell me, but show in image, metaphor, or — detail. I like detail, and a concrete detail can be imaginary, but must be entirely feasible. Because it is feasible, when the detail can be heard, felt, seen — it is persuasive.
Also the idea that “God is dead’ is not a progressive anthem, but a rallying cry for actual death, is interesting as it takes a conservative theme I’ve seen, that we have killed God, and either takes it further or – to another place entirely. I mean, in some ways, you are very, very conservative since you want humanity, I think, to return to something very ancient and before language. In that way of thinking all human revolutions or “evolution” that appears to have created “progress” are not progressive at all. In this worldview we need to go back, very far back — and things have to be brought back to extreme basics. Of course, that makes you more of a revolutionary, but in an interesting way. Anyway, show more, tell less. Try different voices or ways of showing, and maybe when you do tell, try something playful also. Anyway… thanks for showing me this poem! Very interesting. Here’s that Kipling poem, ironic I would think of him — but there you go. Poetry is a place of strange coincidences and odd conflations. Any way, take care — have a great day – Max V.
I hate cement
A concrete statement of the hatred of life
that your world is built on
Paved over earth
worms
life
Yet you cannot kill the wild
that grows
even under the pavement habitual wildness
as civilization
cracks
A plant reaches for the sun again
Anarchy!
Uncontrollable
Feral
Wild
Life!
All my life people have been telling me how lucky I am.
There was a time in my life where I was jumped by 3 men, who held my head to the ground while one jumped up and brought his foot down; all over a hundred or so dollars. I tell people, and they tell me I am lucky. Oh so lucky to have survived. Or the time I was hit to the head with an aluminum baseball bat. So lucky.
If this is what luck is I wish I would quit getting it.
Recently I was approved for PWD (Persons With Disabilities) after years of struggling through the hoops of bureaucracy. Sometimes when I tell people this they reply “wow you are so lucky.” “I wish I didn’t have to work for money, and could get a BC wide bus pass, free camping, and ½ off at the ferries”
Yeah, lucky…
I wake up in pain, nearly every day. When I awake my feet ache from sleep, and my back is often sore too. I deal with crippling spells of fatigue that shut me right down. If I walk too long, or go up too many stairs my knees remind me of when that drunk driver said to the cops “no, I didn’t hit him, I just drove up and he was laying here.” At the hospital as I came back to consciousness the nurse said to me “You are pretty lucky… It was pretty stupid to be riding at night without any lights.”
Dumb luck.
I deal with 4 different conditions that each manifest as different forms of chronic pain, AS, fibramialgia, soft tissue damage to my knees, and migraines. At least one of them I was assured will only get worse throughout my life, and likely will cripple me permanently. Eventually. All products of poverty, and living in the disaster we call civilization.
but hey, its ok cause I get a free bus pass… Well, actually it is $45, but still, so lucky.
When I was a kid, I was bullied in school. Although bullied doesn’t even begin to describe it accurately. Terrorized would be more honest. Daily I would get my ass smacked, or my crotch grabbed, while I was called fag, tripped, spit on and they would destroy my locker so I had to carry my binders with me all day in my book bag. They even once tore my pants off my body, in half. Tore them right off of me, and laughed. I was suicidal until I was in my mid 20s, and still struggle with depression and anxiety. When I tell people these stories they often tell me “man, you are lucky you got out of there alive.”
Apparently choosing to hitchhike across the country and live on the streets to get away from there had nothing to do with it…
It was just luck.
I find the word luck dis-empowering.
Luck implies that fate or random chance of the universe just fell in my direction.
It takes away all agency, and neutralizes participation,
As if nothing I did had anything to do with why I survived, and even thrived despite it.
I don’t think I have been lucky, I have been unlucky. But I persevered, in spite of it.
My life has been a struggle, it hasn’t been easy. Sure, I wasn’t a child soldier, or sold into sex slavery, so many others have definitely had it worse – but that doesn’t undermine my own struggles and hardships.
I survived because I fought, and had the support of friends, allies, and community.
“You’re so lucky to have such a great community.”
No, sorry, I have to disagree.
I have community because we have put in the work to make it a reality.
To build and maintain those relationships which are important.
Community, relationships, they don’t just happen accidentally.
I once read a article about sexual assault, where the author meditated about how almost every woman she knew had bad it done to them
and she kept saying “I am the lucky one, lucky it never happened to me.”
Like the drunk driver who ran over me, or the people who assaulted me, the perpetrators in her story didn’t do anything, the women were just “unlucky.” Where the fuck is agency?
We live in a world, where species go extinct every day, where forest get paved, where women are prey, where most of the world (human) population lives in poverty. Yet we are constantly told we are lucky.
Fuck luck. We need action, compassion, and empathy.
We need to quit giving up our agency, and most importantly, to take responsibility.
And never be so lucky
When I was a kid Halloween was by far my favorite day of the year. I have a distinct memory of the year I got chicken pox, I was 4 years old living in Ardrossen Alberta, and oh boy was I upset that I couldn’t go trick or treating with my older sister. She shared the candy with me, but it just wasn’t the same. Every year my mother would take me to the thrift store to find a cheap ski-suit, then come Halloween I would get on 2 pairs of long johns, don the ski-suit, and my mother would get out rolls of masking tape to cover me head to toe – I went as a mummy, with the help of mommy. And since I couldn’t bend my knees or elbows, I walked like one too!
As I got older, the costumes became more complex. My mother hand sewed me a Beetlejuice costume when I was about 12, and I spiked my hair for the first time (using green Halloween hairspray). I remember one year working for weeks with liquid latex to hand make a Halloween mask for my Lich costume (a Lich is like a zombie mage from D&D, what happens when evil wizards take a potion to extend their life at the cost of dying while staying alive so they can continue to gain more power). One year I went as the Devil, and even spent hours dying my skin red with watered down food coloring which stained for weeks, but looked awesome! Or there was the year I dressed up as a mafia guy, including a Tommy gun I spent week making, with a copper pipe barrel, coffee can magazine, and oak, hand cut and stained rifle butt. The cops pulled me over to confirm it wasn’t real – and of course to run my name for warrants – cause you know, they are assholes. That incident lead to its own humorous story, but I will tell that one another day.
Eventually I began setting up Halloween parties as a community event. This was really the first DIY organizing I ever did, years before I ever organized DIY all ages punk shows or anarchist bookfairs. I would rent a hall, get my (former) friend Pat to DJ, and my friend Yvonne to run the bar (this was years before I went Straightedge). People donated to get in, and the bar would usually break even, even after the costs of a liquor license and me setting the prices far below normal. The majority of attendees were people I played Vampire or D&D with.
The reason I loved Halloween so much as a kid, and even until I was a young adult, was that it was the one holiday where you could be dark, dress up scary, as something evil. Where you could embrace all the things normally frowned upon in this fake Christian and legalistic culture. It was the day the freaks, geeks, artists and picked on kids could shine. It was DIY, and encouraged youth to be creative, and use their imaginations. And it was the only holiday where you went out into the community, often with friends to meet your neighbors, and knocked on the doors of other people (who you would threaten with pranks if they didn’t give you candy). Every other holiday meant staying home with family to celebrate some weird depiction of a dead deity and gorged on dead animal carcasses. On Halloween, instead of consuming a carcass, you would try to create a costume that made you look like one! Halloween for me was the collective accumulation of everything missing from every other day of the year all wrapped up into one dark night. I was always drawn to darkness, just as I was always drawn to be creative.
But Halloween has been recuperated by the consumer capitalist mainstream and drunken party culture. Now it exists as nothing more than another excuse to buy more junk (made by children in a sweatshop in China), consume, and get drunk. Whereas the costumes of my childhood were mostly homemade, even if people occasionally bought a mask or the fake blood, or whatnot, there was always a DIY element to it; now the norm is to purchase your costume at the mall, 100% plastic shit, shipped from overseas, and throw it out the next day. Mom’s and dad’s no longer take their kids door to door in many cities, as the fear of poisoned candy and sexual predators has become so pervasive (even though no one has ever actually poisoned candy to hand out, and the vast majority of child molesters are family, close friends, or people given authority over the kids; not a stranger in the bush) that the new tradition for many parents is to drive their kids (in their gas guzzling SUV) to the mall where they go store to store instead of door to door, and managers or employees of corporations hand out candy along with promotional materials. Because as we all know, Corporations are far more trustworthy than the people who live down the street from you.
For young adults and teenagers, the new trend is a mix of sexist shit costumes such as “Slutty Nurse,” or “Breast Inspector” and the always popular cultural appropriation and other racist ‘costumes’ such as white people wearing blackface. And have you noticed the disturbingly sexualizing Halloween costumes being marketed for young girls these days? Costumes become more and more sexualized by the year, for both adults and children. From “Slut Shaming” to sexualizing children, the corporations who make and sell this shit have no problem profiting off of rape culture. Just as the bars have no issue with profiting of addiction, and binge drinking.
Then of course there is the Halloween candy, made of shit and chemicals that are toxic, glued together with processed sugar, and often containing the milk of abused cows or other products stolen from the bodies of animals which our species domesticated who live tortured lives in industrial farms and feedlots before being shipped to the slaughter house. This poison cocktail then gets wrapped in a couple sheets of plastic “to make sure it safe from contamination” before being shipped halfway across the world so you can give it to kids to ensure they become addicted to sugar. TRICK OR TREAT!
Even the horror movies have gotten worse, turning into movies that fetishize and sexualize torture for 2 hours straight.
Over the last few years I have pondered various strategies to try and re-appropriate what is left of the once very DIY and community oriented former Pagan holiday. As much as I am disheartened by what it has become, I still do see some hope in the darkness. The continuing popularity of the Halloween screenings of the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show give me some hope, and honestly dressing up in drag and throwing toast in the air can be quite a blast! The overt queerness of Rocky Horror may be what has saved it from being appropriated and recuperated entirely by this consumerist and homophobic culture.
Guy Fawkes Day 2008, Victoria, unceded Lekwungen territories. A group of people built an effigy of Harper to burn on the lawn of the Legislature
I use to see some possibility as well in November 5 – Guy Fawkes Day, before the iconic V mask became mass produced and adopted by the right wing Libertarians and conspiracy theorists who never bothered to read Allan Moore’s anarcho-antihero epic, nor taken the time to learn the real history of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament. But alas, I have given up on Guy Fawks day after burning only 1 effigy of Steven Harper.
And of course there is the Pagan revival, people going back the roots of Samhain. There is definitely something encouraging about people, especially settlers on stolen land, wanting to go back to their roots. The potential for decolonization is there. Yet I am not entirely sold on this either, as those pagan roots are often from cultures that have already engaged in the domestication of animals and plants, and worship warlike patriarchal gods, or gods who offer the control of nature for faithful servitude. Spirituality has also been largely recuperated by civilization and turned into an escapist retreat from taking action and creating change. Then there is the questions of cultural appropriation whether it is neo-pagan Wicca and reinvention of Samhain, or the appropriation of Día de Muertos.
Another thing I have attempted with limited success is to organize sober spaces that are alternatives to the drunken Halloween party culture. There is many people that can’t be in spaces where alcohol is, whether it is cause they are struggling with addiction, a youth who legally is not allowed into a space that sells booze, or someone who just doesn’t like being around drunks or doesn’t feel safe around them do to past experiences.
A new idea I had this year was to make posters which read in large text something along the lines of:
“GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS
Halloween is suppose to be about building community
DON’T TAKE YOUR KIDS TO THE MALL
trick or treat & meet the people you live next to.”
Another idea I have played with is to make vegan treats, which may not be healthier but are a lot better than the toxic corporate crap candy most folks are handing out to trick or treaters. I have a simple recipe for Vegan rice crispy squares for example, and I thought if I was to make them with a note attached explaining who made them, why, and all the ingredients including a phone number and address to accompany my name; perhaps, just maybe, parents would let their kids actually eat them??? A connected idea to make this one work better, was to make a batch of Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, using Sarah Kramer’s awesome recipe, in about august/September, and make a note with the ingredients that reads “hand made for you by your neighbor,” then take these door to door and hand them out for a few blocks, as a good opportunity to get to know the people who you share geographical locality with. This way not only do you meet them which can help build community, but also make them more open to homemade candy come Halloween.
The other type of strategies would be to find ways to use the current consumer culture and appropriate it’s energy for anarchist purposes. Thousands of people in the streets wearing generic disguises can offer a perfect smoke and mirrors type of potential for low level warfare against capital. Although with the enormous police presence and normalization of snitch culture amongst yuppies, there are some real risks to this. Alternatively one could try to use the trendy hipsters as a funding base for anarchist projects. Put on an event or sell something targeted towards pop culture (Zombie paraphernalia?) and use the money from it to pay the rent on your infoshop, to restock your punk distro, buy media or AV equipment, send to prisoners, or to cover travel to conferences, summits, or elsewhere for people who should be there but can’t afford it. There are many projects that are in constant need of funds in the anarchist movement. However, this strategy also runs into some risks of recuperation or wasting our energy on projects that don’t help further our own.
Halloween has been reduced from the night to creatively celebrate horror and the dead to a dead holiday where zombies dressed as in costume celebrate the death of creativity and consume the horrors of capitalist civilized reality. Is it time to bury this tradition? Or can transform into wild beasts and enact a séance to resurrect it from the death that is this modern reality called of civilization and destroy the monster called Leviathan?
The grass IS always greener
When you’re standing in a desert
That use to be a forest
Like the Fertile Crescent
Or the great Scottish rain forests
You know, where now what we call the Moor is
Or parking lots and paved roads where the meadow use to live
But you see the trick isn’t to get over to the other side of the fence
But instead to tear it down altogether
A world free of false man made borders
Walls and fences
Cages are for captives
And we are meant to be free
As all life is meant to be
I hate walls and all the people who love them.[i]
I hate bars and prisons
And bars built to keep people drunk in
Captives to their own inebriation
Wasn’t that drink suppose to give you escape?
But there is no escape when the whole world is our prison
Just another bottle do drown in
Not until the people have risen
To tear the oppression down
Bring the bastards down
No crowns
Royal or otherwise
[i] This line is a play off a line from anarcho-pop band Chumbawamba “I hate wars, and all the people who love them” from the song Here’s The Rest Of Your Life from their second album Never Mind the Ballots
I only began eating quinoa about a year ago, but since I started I have quickly learned to love it and been constantly surprised that many others don’t! “I tried liking it” or “it’s rather bland” are common replies I hear from people when I ask if they like quinoa, some are even more crass making statements like “you actually like that stuff???” Yet whenever I make quinoa for one of these folks the response I get is quite different “wow, that’s good, how you make it taste like that?”
Truth is, cooking quinoa and making it taste awesome is really fucking easy. Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah for those who are new to it) is super quick to cook, and super healthy, a super food loaded with great nutrients and a complete protein. So making it part of your diet can help make being healthier a hell of a lot less work. And don’t worry, for the poor folks out there quinoa doesn’t have to costa lot if you follow the advice Emma Goldman once offered to a group of poor workers “Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.” In other words what I am suggesting is that if you can’t afford good food, don’t eat shit, just take what you need. Big corporations steal from the workers on all levels, then fuck over the consumer (also generally a worker) by overpricing, so don’t feel bad about taking what you need. The simplest way is to buy from the bulk section and mark it down as something similar looking like bulgur wheat or couscous or whatever. Look for the teller in training, or if they have those electronic self serve tellers use those. Even if the teller notices, most will not say anything as they are not paid enough to care.
So here is how I cook it to make it taste awesome.
The most basic method is to cook it kinda like past or rice. I start by pouring some quinoa into a mesh tea strainer, then rinse it under the tap until the water runs through easy. I then throw it in the pot on medium heat and let it fry for a few seconds before adding water. I just add water like I would to pasta, and I am not the type to measure.
At this point I ad bouillon, I use about half a cube. Many of the basic soup bouillons happen to be vegan, even the ones that are chicken or beef flavored, just check the ingredients.
Next I add some black pepper, and if I have any ground garlic, I toss it in too. That is really all there is to it… Sometimes I also like to throw in some dried stinging nettles, which you can either get from a tea shop or you can just go outside and pick some and dry them. Fresh nettles work fine as well as long as you cook them for at least 8 minutes. The nettles are optional, I tend to like how the grassy flavor of the nettles compliments the grainy taste of quinoa and pepper. Cook it until the water is out, and I tend to turn down the heat to ¼ when it begins to get close. When the water is gone, fluff it with a fork.
This is the most basic way I cook it, it only takes about 15 minutes, and this type of quinoa is perfect for putting on a wrap with other veggies, or to eat alone.
I also like to sometimes add canned beans in tomato sauce to the quinoa right when it is just about cooked. Another similar addition is to mix in frozen mixed veggies (like the mixed peas, carrots and corn bag they always seem to give you at the food bank) when the quinoa is nearly cooked.
One of my personal favorite dishes to make witch is very easy and tastes great using quinoa uses quinoa with wild rice and lentils.
I begin by pouring wild rice into a pot, add lots of water (more than you would for other rice). Heat should be on medium. I add the soup bouillon cube at this point, then take off and do something else for a while, wild rice takes a while to cook so it is good to go do laundry or check email or plan an arson (JUST KIDDING😉 ) while it cooks. After about 20 minutes, I add quinoa, I like using red quinoa with this variation if I have it, but any kind is great. I also add lentils at this point. It will take about another 15 minutes after this, so I add some pepper, or garlic, then go off to play video games or write a letter to a prisoner, or whatever. Again I cook it until the water is gone, then it is done. Simple.
I generally like it as is, but if you want you can always add a bit of soya sauce or other stuff to your taste.
A spark has ignited in 2013 as nearly every day lately I have been reading about another new action taken against businesses that profit from the exploitation and murder of animals. Yes, rising from the ashes of Operation Backfire and the Greenscare, the Animal Liberation Front appears to be back in full swing again!
David Barbarash spent time in jail in the mid 90s for his involvement in the ALF, freeing cats from an Alberta lab, along with other smaller actions. He later founded the North American Press Office of the ALF, and was the official spokes-person until he retired in 2002. I asked David what his thoughts are on this recent increase in actions. “Brings a smile to my face!” he told me. “Even after all the new laws and repression animal and environmental activists are now subjected to, the spirit to resist and fight back continues. It seems there will always be a new generation willing to make sacrifices for animals and our planet, which in itself continues to give me hope for our collective future.”
If you haven’t been keeping up on the ALF news, in the last few weeks there has been nearly an action per day; ranging from low level insurgency like gluing locks and graffiti, to full on liberations such as the release of 2400 mink from a Idaho fur farm on July 28, 2013, or the release of farm pheasants on July 22. “This period reminds me of the early 1980’s when animal and earth activism was at the beginning of an upward trend, which peaked in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.” David said.
Perhaps our new adage should be an action per day keeps the Vivisection doctor away! (on stress leave that is).
I first learned about the ALF through punk songs by bands like Conflict, and DROPDEAD – back around the time David was having his house raided by the cops – I have been a open supporter ever since. The ALF has been active for over 40 years now, freeing hundreds of thousands of animals world wide, with the activity waxing and waning at numerous points over the decades. It seems to me that we have not seen this level of ALF activity in the colonized nation states of North America since the 90s, and definitely not since the FBI attack on the activist movements in the mid 2000’s. Or as David put it “After 9/11 and the FBI crackdown, activism saw a downward trend. It will never disappear, it simply ebbs and flows as all life does. Perhaps now what we’re seeing is a new cycle beginning.”
This type of resurgence of course doesn’t happen in a vacuum; a lot of other rad shit is going down! In recent years there has been an increase in interest in eco-defence campaigns and campaigns of Indigenous resistance to colonization and destruction of their lands for resource depletion. Also in the last year has been the release of
the first feature length documentary on Vivisection Maximum Tolerated Dose, which is currently on tour with the Open The Cages Tour, as well as the debut of the ALF action comic book Liberator, all of which helps to raise awareness on the issues and keep topics like animal testing or environmental destruction in popular discussion. Perhaps one of the most ironic sources for keeping the discussion open on animal abuse in the last year was the animal industries and their political front-groups, who’s recent attempt at getting new legislation passed legally banning the videotaping of animal abuse industries turned into an industry PR nightmare, thanks to the work of good dedicated journalists like Will Potter (author of Green Is The New Red), who worked to expose these bills to the public.
For those who don’t know, the ALF is a clandestine, leaderless movement of human allies who risk imprisonment to save the lives of animals. The ALF originated in the UK in the mid 1970s, formed by former Hunt Saboteurs. You can not join the ALF, rather you take actions and in doing so you become the ALF. The ALF guidelines are:
1. TO liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. laboratories, factory farms, fur farms, etc, and place them in good
Flaming Arrows, A Compilation Of Works By Rod Coronado. Probably the best book on animals liberation ever written. Fuck yeah!
homes where they may live out their natural lives, free from suffering. 2. TO inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals. 3. TO reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors, by performing non-violent direct actions and liberations. 4. TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.
Any group of people who are vegetarians or vegans and who carry out actions according to ALF guidelines have the right to regard themselves as part of the ALF.
David was part of an earlier generation of ALF activists, a generation where they took some very serious risks, “I hope this new generation has learned the hard lessons my generation had to face and are still dealing with, and are taking security and secrecy in the most serious way” he told me. “With each new generation of the cycle, hopefully lessons of the past are learned, and strategies evolve. It’s more dangerous now to an individual’s personal freedom to participate in a resistance movement, so i hope security culture has also evolved.”
In the words of imprisoned ALF warrior Walter Bond “Animal Liberation – Whatever It May Take!”
I have decided I want to get a tattoo of some Dandelions and Stinging Nettles, because:
a) both are considered weeds (unwanted species, pests)
b) they are super healthy, both as foods, and as medicinesc) both grew wild in the areas I grew up as well as in the Cascadian bio-region where I currently live
d) Nettles are good for arthritis, which I have a bad form of called Ankelosing Spondalitis (AS), as well as Fibramialgia which Nettles are helpful with
e) both are invasive species brought over from Europe by whites, which as awesome and healthy and healing as they can be, they are pushing out native species and taking over, so I think it is a good metaphor as a settler person who is anti-colonial.
I have also been thinking that white settlers should be harvesting our traditional foods and medicines which are now invasive here, these plants are our heritage, and thus are attuned to our bodies so they make sense for us to consume. But also because by harvesting them we could be helping to push back their spread if enough of us were doing it; and in doing so we would be helping native species to thrive which are the traditional foods and medicines for the indigenous people (both human and non-human people) who have always existed here. I think it is important to have an anti-colonial analysis when engaging with practices like wild harvesting or rewilding, as to not perpetuate colonialism. I remember a Lekwungen woman who teaches about traditional foods and the importance of Camas to her people, saying that now when she teaches settlers she tries to ensure not to teach them too much. She wants them to understand how and why it is so important, so they will respect the plant and not harm them or even to help protect them from invasives; but has learned the hard way if you teach too much people will go take them all and there won’t be any for Lekwungen people to harvest.
Learning about local ecology is important if we are going to both decolonize and to reduce our impact on the land, but I think we need to start leaving the native plants for the natives as much as possible. If you are going to harvest native species, consider finding ways in which that action will directly benefit the people who’s lands you are occupying. Examples of this could be to give a large portion of your harvest to them, especially if you know someone who is unable to harvest themselves do to time constraints or illness and disability, and of course if you do harvest native species don’t take too much so the plants can regenerate. If we are taking this knowledge on how to harvest and identify local species, we need to be giving back to those who gave us that knowledge, those who’s lands we are occupying. It is far past time we began to give back and quit taking. Settlers have taken their lands, their children to put in residential schools and foster homes, their traditions and parts of their spirituality; far more than was ever offered. If we ever hope to change our relationship to this land and the people who are still struggling to resist colonization, we need to quit taking and not act like settler colonists any more.
One way to start is by taking back what is ours instead. We live in a society where governments spend billions on war, prisons, police, and surveillance, while people starve in the streets, meanwhile there is a salad growing in your front yard, down the street and in every park and roadside on this continent. And it is waiting for you to go pick it so other species can thrive!
Dumpster diving can be a blast, and a great way to get healthy food for many of us who were not born into class privilege. I don’t dumpster dive as much as I use to, but I have been doing it off and on since I first lived in a squat on the streets of edmonton, in 1996 at the age of 16.
I also have many friends and roommates who do the dive, and as awesome as it can be I have notice a few common trends and I feel like some folks might benefit from a little basic advice.
In Grime We Crust?
1) While there is many treasures to be found in the garbage, not everything in the bins is treasure. Often things belong in the garbage, sometimes way before they were ever thrown out. Products like Sunny D, or “Orange Beverage” which is sold for $1.00 when new, and tastes like watered down flat orange pop, belong in the garbage. Just because it is in the bin, doesn’t mean you need to take it out.
2) Leave some for other folks, you don’t need to take every scrap of edible materials from the bin. I know some approach dumpstering like it is their social mission to stop every scrap they can from hitting the landfill, but you gotta remember others might also be benefiting from that same store tossing their lunch. If you take everything, you might be taking food away from people who need it just as badly, or worse than you. If you insist on taking everything, consider going later, like 3am, after everyone else has come and gone, so that you are taking the leftovers rather than preempting others bin din.
3) Consider your social position here; if you have access to a kitchen, stove, oven, fridge and freezer – take stuff like produce which requires cooking and storing – and consider leaving products (like donuts, bagels, or pre-made meals in a package) that can be easily consumed without cooking for those who live on the streets and don’t have access to amenities.
4) Just because meat is in a dumpster doesn’t mean you have to put it in your body. Often I have seen formerly vegan or vegetarian kids start eating meat when they start binning, and rationalize it by claiming it would be disrespectful to the animal not to eat it… wait, did they actually just say it would be disrespectful not to eat an animal…? Yup that logical lunacy is a staple in the rhetoric of the ex-vegan ex. If you really respect animals, perhaps consider not viewing them as products to be consumed. Or better yet, join or start an group dedicated to animal liberation – above ground or clandestine – and take actual action to help living animals, or perhaps volunteer at the local rescues, sanctuaries, or adopt one from the shelters. There is so much work needed to be done and frying bacon out of a dumpster isn’t saving any animals, or your health, so quit making excuses. If you need to rationalize something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
It’s also just gross, all ethics aside. If you are consuming the flesh of animals from the dumpster, you are consuming torture. If you put torture in your body, don’t expect to get good health out. Never mind all the hormones, chemicals, and other crap. The flesh of domesticated animals from factory farms is simply toxic on so many levels. It always shocks me how people will get riled up about monsanto fucking with our food crops, or will refuse to eat soy because it is GMO, yet will fork flesh and puss (cheese) into their mouth 3 times per day.
4) Be picky. Dumpster diving is not a starvation economy, it is a fucking horn of pleanty. You can pick and choose and still bring home boxes of food most middle class yuppies couldn’t afford. So don’t eat shit, and don’t say thank you for the privilege. Take the good stuff and be healthy. Leave the garbage in the garbage.
Don’t put garbage in your body
The Dumpster Mafia – Organized Grime!
Simply eating garbage is by no means a revolutionary act, otherwise every seagull is a full fledged anarchist warrior leading the revolutionary vanguard! That doesn’t mean that dumpstering can’t be a ‘part’ of our anarchist practice. A few years back I had a roommate who really did try to make dumpster diving a revolutionary concept by applying ideashe learned from anarchist community organizing. He moved dumpstering from being just a lifestyle choice to actually using it to build community, organize, and increase food sovereignty.
He founded a group he named The Dumpster Mafia, it was organized similar to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, and was by far the most organized and concerted dumpster diving I have witnessed or been part of. It involved a small team of volunteers, and anyone who either donated their time or a small amount of cash to cover costs, got a box of goodies hand delivered to their house every week.
The basic structure worked like this: he got a car given to him, a junker, which they would use to hit up the dumpsters, this way they could bring way more home in one trip, and could hit harder to get to bins out of bicycle range. In our backyard he set up a couple tents which he managed to get donated somehow, as well as a large chest deep freeze he got free off Craigslist. Beside the deep freeze, under the tents he had a series of good quality plastic bins, which he would use as refrigerators by filling plastic bottles with water to freeze them, creating diy ice packs, which were placed with food in the plastic bins under the tent (thus out of the sunlight). Food that needed to be frozen went in the deep freeze, produce and almond milk went in the bis, packaged goods like cereal just went in the house.
One group of volunteers would go dumpster each night of the week, using the car, and usually in pairs. They would go late so as to not take food away from anyone. They would process the entire bin, by taking out every garbage bag and piling them beside the bin, then systemically going through them one at a time taking out whatever food they could get which was worth bringing home, and finally placing the lightened bag back in the bin. Usually they managed to fill a car about 1/2 way by using this technique. They also would make sure to always leave the area cleaner than when they got there so as to not burn out their dumster supply by pissing off the stores.
The next team of volunteers would arrive in the morning, take the boxes of dumpster goods and process them: go through fruits and veggies that came in packages looking for bad ones to toss, or sometimes cutting off bad spots from fruit that could be eaten if frozen. Then they would place the food in the bins or freezer for the next group. The third group came by once per week, and would sort the scores into boxes to be distributed. Making sure to split food as evenly as possible. Finally volunteers would fill the car and make the deliveries to everyone who had contributed. Any money donated went to cover gas and insurance, although with 100% volunteer labor, very little money was ever needed, and the average volunteer only did about 2 hrs per week. It was a smooth operation for sure. And leftovers were delivered to a few local single moms down the block whenever possible, as well as to the local chapter of Food Not Bombs.
That entire year I barely bought food at all, and yet I ate fruit smoothies, stir fries, veggie bakes, and tofu scramble every day. It turned out to be a great way to build community, to get people working together, organizing, and it saved us all a ton of money. Plus we all were so healthy!
Get Dirty!
and remember, it’s even better when you do it with friends!
