People say I'm crazy, doing what I'm doing.
they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin.
When I say that I'm okay, well, they look at me kinda strange.
"Surely, your not happy now, you no longer play the game."

People say I'm lazy, dreaming my life away.
Well, they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me.
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall.
"Don't you miss the big time, boy. You're no longer on the ball."

I'm just sitting here watching the [rubber bands] go round and round.
I really love to watch them roll.
No longer riding on the merry-go-round.
I just had to let it go.

People ask me questions, lost in confusion.
Well, I tell them there's no problem, only solutions.
Well, they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind.
I tell them there's no hurry, I'm just sitting here doing time.

I'm just sitting here watching the [bands] go round and round.
I really love to watch them roll.
No longer riding on the marry-go-round.
I just had to let it go.
-John Lennon

I am a white male (Cuban by ethnic descent but white nonetheless). I grew up in a middle class, relatively "functional" nuclear family in the Miami suburbs. Both parents were college educated and employed.

I am college educated myself, yet I choose to live as a starving artist, busker, freegan, and activist. I choose to live on a shoestring in the most expensive city in the world. And hard as it is to accept what follows, that choice is itself a luxury.

I am privileged.

Does that diminish what I'm doing with my life or in the city? No, it's what I've been called to. My willingness to leverage my privilege on behalf of the poor, for God's Kingdom, brings God glory all the more.

But there are many more people who live in poverty every day, not by their own choosing, who are also following after the heart of God. I hope to join their ranks in solidarity, to cast my lot with theirs. It is an honor to live and serve alongside them, even to be served by them as well. 

This is the kind of radical community I am after - marked by generosity, care, love, and justice - til it can be said that there are no needy folks among us.

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had... God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them."
Acts 4

Moreover, I am an "American" heterosexual Christian. I am Privileged with a capital P. Just thought that I should acknowledge my privelege before I post anything further on this here blog.

From Good Morning Joe blog...

My head was probably half-submerged in a clear plastic bag on the corner of 115th Street and Broadway when I first made Al's acquaintance. He looked on with apparent curiosity as three freegans procured their weekly groceries, free of charge.

In our usual friendly manner, we offered him the food that we'd already acquired. He seemed amazed about the sheer amount of waste and interested in taking some food home. We handed him a plastic grocery bag and he helped himself to a few items: an apple or two, cucumber, perhaps a microwave meal.

He could not take much more, he said, "because the library doesn't allow food. I've been camping out there for the past couple weeks."

I wouldn't have guessed upon first glance that he was homeless. With his unkempt long white beard, otherwise clean cut, beady eyes set behind square spectacles, and walking cane he looked like any old cooky university professor. Indeed that's precisely the kind of man we had on our hands: a former cooky professor who had fallen on hard times.

"They let me hang out in the library for free, it's a great perk of working for the school..."

Yes, and he knows when and where to catch museums, shows, film screenings, art galleries - all kinds of entertainment around the city - for FREE. My kind of guy.

"…but they don't allow food. Either way, I won't be staying there long."

Al(bert) explained that he worked for Columbia some years ago, the reason they allow him in the library. Students are in the throes of finals, so the library doors are open at all hours. But not for long. He must soon find another place to stay and does not have much money for rent when that time comes. 

He accompanied us to our next stop, a bakery some blocks away. This location is well known amongst freegans for its lavish gourmet pizza, though their occurrence is somewhat seldom. This week we were in luck! Plenty of cheese and pepperoni slices for all. I had no interest in taking it home so we partook then and there. I helped myself to a cheese slice and passed another along to Al. He was very thankful and in a bit of disbelief. He had learned how to get almost everything for free - even "lodging" for a few weeks now - but had never considered this method for finding food.

He asked whether we knew anyone with a room. I offered to spread word of his need, but I couldn't promise a successful effort. Either way, I was glad to have helped him learn how to subsist in NYC. With the amount of food wasted and the facility of acquiring it, there is absolutely no need for anyone in this city to go hungry. We hope to prevent hunger and food waste before our valuable resources hit the waste bag.

Someday, perhaps. Someday.

In the mean time we can help ourselves to the city's discards, keep some good food out of landfills while keeping our own bellies full, and seek out viable living situations for brothers and sisters in need, like my new friend Al. 

Baby steps.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.

FREE HOUSE SHOW MAY 6

Featuring solo acoustic acts:
Owen Pye (IL) --- http://owenpye.com/
GioSafari --- http://facebook.com/giosafari

FREE vegan food at the show.
All ages, all the time.

281 Edgecombe Ave #6B

PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY (at or near 7) IF POSSIBLE. Please also consider a donation for traveling musicians and/or a freegan dish to share! (use the stuff in the back of your pantry that you forgot you even had).

Folks who RSVP "Attending" on this here event page will receive a notification prior to the event with the apt number.

Edgecombe house is one block from ACBD subway station @ 145 st, Manhattan. Contact the host at giosafari[@]gmail[.]com with any further questions about the show/venue.

I was interviewed for amny, a series of articles they published in honor of Earth Day. Find the article below and/or read my own commentary on my blog/portfolio page at gandollo.weebly.com

Gio Andollo, 26, couldn't convince his four roomates to install a worm-driven composting bin in their Harlem kitchen.

So he stores his coffee grounds, vegetable peels, fruit pits and other organic waste in the freezer and hauls it to the Union Square Greenmarket once a week. There, a group from the Lower East Side Ecology Center intercepts the vegetarian's trash and nurtures it into rich, dark soil.

Better than zero impact "is having a positive impact," said Andollo. "With composting, you're repurposing your trash into future growth" while preserving landfill space.

Andollo, a self-described Christian pacifist freegan vegetarian anarchist, never stops thinking of ways to live more lightly on beleagured planet earth. 

"Over-consumption is hurting us and our culture," said Andollo, who pays less than $400 a month for rent and earns about $14,000 a year as a subway busker and music teacher. 

He forages for almost all he eats. Tuesday night sidewalk sorties through store trash in Morningside Heights yield an astonishing array of slightly bruised fruits and vegetables, baked goods deemed unsuitable for next day sale, prepared salads and frozen vegetarian entrees. "I don't see it as garbage. I see it as food," said the frugal gourmet. "Most of what I get is organic."

He shoots out requests on his church listserv, where he also volunteers his services as a mover, if he needs a camera, bike helmet or iPod. And he gives away what he doesn't need and takes what he does at the The Really Really Free Market 3 - 7 p.m., the last Sunday of every month at Judson Memorial Church. 

There is one conservation measure he has yet to implement. "Do you know about greywater?" he asked breathlessly, "You take a pipe out of the bathroom sink and replace it with a bucket. Instead of flushing the toilet, you grab the bucket of dirty water and pour it in the toilet."

"That," he said wistfully, "is something I would LOVE to do."

In a previous entry I mentioned my rubber band collection and intent to create a freegan rubber band ball. So I bided the half-hour waiting for my laundry in my buildings basement, stringing the bands around each other. 

My ball has gotten off to a good start!

Later in the week I received this message through the NYC freegan discussion list-serv:


I have an apartment full of items I need to pass on.  I will be backpacking through Asia for the next 6 months to a year and will be giving up my apartment. I have not been to any of the meet-ups but I do try to live by freegan principles... I am on a plane to Beijing on Tuesday, so I would like to have an open house this Sunday for anyone to take what they want... 

He then listed many items that he had available, including media (CDs, DVDs, books), appliances, furniture, electronics, and more. But the one item which really caught my attention:

-a crashed iMac, replace the hard drive and you are good to go

And I've needed a new computer since January. I jumped at the chance and was apparently the first. So I brought home a like-new iMac computer on Sunday. "Excited" doesn't quite capture the feeling.

Most of the stuff was passed on to me, so I now wish to pass it on. This will help me shed the sedentary life for the simple life -- living out of a day pack.

I'm about equally thankful as jealous. Living up the slightly-less-simple-though-certainly-FREEgan life in NYC! And yes, the rubber-band-ball photo was taken with my new computer's built-in camera. This technology is novel for me, lol =D

A student journalist made this documentary about how the internet is facilitating freegan living. I feature pretty prominently =)

Last week I went to Boston to talk with student chefs at Newbury College about freeganism. Great times and great food were had by all. As seven student chefs prepared the meals pictured below, I snapped pictures and marveled at the great dishes they could serve up using only freegan food and their imaginations! Inspiring!

To read more about that experience, click here!

On Tuesday evening I went on a trash tour with a couple folks from freegan.info. We made our first stop at Morton Williams and began rumaging. It wasn't long before passers-by began asking questions: who were we? what were we doing? why?

Before we knew it there was a group of 10-15 people standing around the enormous pile of trash bags (all filled with delicious, edible, usable food), talking about how terrible it was for so much food to go to waste. We hung out there for 45 minutes, rescuing food and talking with other concerned citizens.

I rescued a whole lot of fruits and veggies that night, as well as bagels. Lots and lots of bagels. I also nearly snagged a package of veggie lo mein, but somehow another person got to it before me :/

After I returned home and put all my food away, I had an e-mail from the nyc freegan discussion group indicating that a fellow freegan was planning a backpacking trip throughout Asia and wanted to bestow all his possessions on other freegans in the community (he said that all the same possessions had been gifted or passed down to him as well. Love it!). On the list was a iMac computer, 20-inch 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo purchased December 2007.

WHAT!

Picking it up on Sunday. God is good =)

I started a twitter account yesterday on behalf of nyc-based freegan.info, quite possibly the largest and best organized freegan group in the world. If you're on twitter, please follow! I'll be posting frequent updates (hopefully with help from one or two others) regarding freeganism, freegan activities in NYC, media coverage, and related topics.

I don't know about you, but rubber bands are just one of those items that I can never find when I need them; and I find that I need them rather often!

In the past few months there were several instances when I actually considered going out to buy a bunch of rubber bands.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Then one day my eyes were opened. As I walked to the nearest subway station I saw not one but two rubber bands on the floor. Laid to waste.

"Freegan rubber bands?" I thought to myself. I can do this.

Over the next few days I found several more and figured I should collect them til I had enough to make a freegan rubber band ball. The photo above is a collection of twenty-three rubber bands I accumulated over TWO DAYS walking around Boston. That's a dozen bands per day.

Ridiculous.

Good to know I'll never have to buy rubber bands. Especially if I move to Boston. I'll be making that rubber band ball soon enough =D

On a related note, I've also found my fair share of paper clips. Any ideas what I can do with them?