A few days ago we had a birthday party for my son Paul.  He got wonderful gifts and had most of his friends come and play to their hearts content.  At the party, we had two birthday cakes because we did not know how many children would be coming.  As it turned out, with the other junk food, the group of 10 year olds could only manage to eat one cake so we had another full cake remaining. 

  The next day my Mom recommended that we take the cake and cover it up so that we could eat it as snacks during the week.  Who likes to eat old dry cake?  No one.  So I had some inspiration.  Why don’t my son and I go out at night and give big pieces of cake away to poor street kids.  I asked my son and he thought it was a good idea.  So at night we headed out. 

   I usually do not go out very late at night for security sake.  I was surprised what I saw on this Monday evening.  There were plenty of kids (under ten years old) running around the street, but most of them were kids from families which had a nice house and plenty of money.  They were not street kids, but they were children who were unsupervised and just playing along the streets.  Along every street, mostly in the area which had more poor houses, there were open bars everywhere.  There was a mixture of a few drunken guys in the bars, children playing or watching TV, and scores of prostitutes.  The prostitutes far outnumbered any other group of people along these darkened streets.

  In the dark shadowed areas there were also groups of guys sitting on the ground, usually in a circle, drinking.  In only thirty minutes we saw several fights between drunken men spilling out onto the street.  Since I was with my son I only stayed to the main streets and stayed out of areas I knew to be more dangerous like dark allies or areas which high concentration of bars and brothels.

  As we spotted the poorest kids, usually noticeable with no shirts or dirty and torn clothing, we would stop and my son would give them cake to eat.  It was really good cake.  It was a vanilla cake with fruit and cashews in the center with a sweet icing.  The kids always came running quick to get some cake.  They were all polite and every one of them said thank you for the cake.  Cambodian’s rarely show gratitude, so this was unusual behavior which showed they truly were grateful.  My son told me we should at least tell them “God bless you”, so he helped talk to the kids even though he told me he was quite nervous. 

   We drove for a while, only looking to give cake to the poorest kids.  Most of the kids were going around collecting any scrap metal, bottles or soda cans they could find so they could sell them.  They were digging through garbage wherever they could find it.  As my son and I drove on we came across one of the main sewer junctions in the city which is so smelly.  At this site there was a huge garbage dumpster; the size that big trucks haul.  From a distance I could see several kids climbing through it.  We stopped and offloaded the rest of our cake to these kids.  As we were standing and talking to them, a cyclo (a pedal powered cart that serves as a taxi) crashed into the massive dumpster.  Clearly the driver and the passenger were drunk.  The driver kept saying to his passenger (who was clearly passed out), “So you are trying to poison me aren’t you?  I will kill you!”  All the kids digging through the garbage and my son and I backed away.  The cyclo driver could not figure out how to get unstuck so he continued his drunken tirade while trying to get the cyclo unstuck from the garbage pile.  Eventually he got away and continued down the road.  As he pulled away, I saw him pull out a huge knife (with an 8-10 inch blade).  All I could do was offer a prayer as they continued swerving down the dark street.

   Our short trip around the streets of Phnom Penh was a good lesson for my son and me.  All around us we saw, under cover of darkness, the sin of the world.  Kids, who should be in bed or in their homes with a loving family, are running around the streets completely unsupervised.  Men were drinking until completely plastered every few yards; some in dimly lit open bars and some under trees next to piles of garbage.  The most painful to see were the prostitutes; they far outnumbered the rest.   Dozens of young girls sat waiting for customers in hundreds of doorways in their skimpy clothing. The sad thing is that nearly all of these girls are prostitutes by choice.  They are a product of a sinful and self-destructive culture and lifestyle which is in desperate need of complete transformation.   Under the cover of darkness we can see how much work needs to be done to save this nation from self-destruction.

A little abstract humor for you today. This was another shot taken in Canton Ohio. While walking through an alley, I found this dumpster marked “Hair”. The sun was bright and created the cool geometric shadows. When I saw it, my first thought was of the musical and movie by the same name. But this seemed to have a more contemporary twist. Click here for the clip of the title song from the movie. Hope you are having a great holiday season so far.

Dedicated to Taylor Pugh – Click here.

Dumpster guy,  I don’t understand you.

Why do you always eat your lunch between the dumpsters behind my work?  I’ve seen homeless people sleep next to the dumpsters but never eat next to them.  You aren’t even homeless.  You sell tours for the company down the street from us. You also have a hunchback.

I pass you sometimes but we never speak.  You are busy eating McDonalds next to the dumpster and I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.

You seem relaxed and natural eating next to the dumpsters.  Maybe I should try to understand you better…..

16 Dumpsters

Originally uploaded by dgray_xplane

Last night, Chris pulled together a light dinner for two of chicken salad, multigrain toast, and bruschetta topping. Though I was initally skeptical of eating a mayonnaise-based dish that came from a dumpster, I am still indigestion-free and kickin’ it new school. Admittedly, I have been pondering the pros and cons of dumpster diving ever since I got to Minneapolis.

Fortunately for me, it was Chris who took the first step. He and his friends drove out to a particularly welcoming dumpster (location withheld to preserve the sanctity of the hoard) in the middle of the night and grabbed around $50-$80 worth of groceries, including tangerines, lamb, tons of bread, tomatoes, and convenience food.

One of our acquaintances — Chris’s dumpster field guide — boasts that he hasn’t had to buy groceries for a year now. The prospect is pretty tempting, especially now that Snowmageddon 2009 has already hit the Upper Midwest and the outside temperature isn’t even close to the danger zone for food (40-140 degrees Fahrenheit, last I checked). I’m also living paycheck to paycheck, so the added savings are a pretty big draw. As I’m writing this post, however, I’m chomping on a slice of dumpstered Asiago bread, so I think I’m dancing around a foregone conclusion: snobbery is overrated.

I’ve been waiting for my paycheck for close to a month.  Considering that my invoices are to be paid within two weeks, the time line is aggravating.   According to the HR peeps, the checks were mailed.  So, this evening I pull into my complex, whip into the handicap parking spot, turn on the blinkers and dash inside.  Yes, parking in the handicap parking is wrong.  But so is the design of my apartment complex.

I would be fussing at someone doing this very thing on a normal occasion, but it’s cold, and rainy, I’m tired, hungry, irritated at the thought of how long my paycheck has taken and the idea that it might not be in the box, and I want to make this quick.  So I dash inside, almost collide with a woman and her Schnauzer.  At this point I’ve scared the dog and look inconsiderate for many different reasons.  I slide my card through the reader and open the gate.  Wiggling my rickety mailbox door open I see my paycheck and an enormous stack of junk mail.

On a legal day I would go through my mail and dump the junk immediately in the trash.  Being that I’m illegally parked, I decide to wait until parked in my assigned parking spot.

Coupons for many items that no one needs to consume or purchase.  Mailings for $5000 savings on a car.  A coupon from Lucy that I’d like to utilize, but cannot justify.  The electric bill I already paid.  All of this and more goes in a single pile.  While sorting out the junk I stack the bills, Netflix, and much awaited paychecks.  Stick them in my purse, and dump the junk mail in the trash bin.

You see where this is going?  Well I didn’t at the time.  I dashed up the stairs, made dinner, and sat down to kill sometime in front of  my computer before getting to the night’s task of resume and cover letter writing.  I’m not sure when it hit me to look at the amount of the check to see if it matched my  invoice.  Thankfully these days I’m organized and anal about numbers and budgets.  Years ago I would have assumed Companies A and B would have done the right thing so I wouldn’t have to.

I walked to my purse and pulled out junk mail.  All of the mail I’d sorted to throw away was in my hand, which meant the belated checks and Netflix were in the trash.  Ugh.  Ugh. Ugh.  I replayed the event in my head.  Walk out of the car, walk up to the dumpster, hand goes over edge, and drop….alllll the way down into an empty dumpster.

When a dumpster is empty, contents go to the bottom. The very bottom where residue from cat boxes, milk cartons, beer, and who knows what else, has been festering for years.  I grabbed my coat, a ladder and bright flashlight – decided the iPhone was better left inside.  Sadly I stopped a moment to think whether or not I should bring it.  WTF was I going to do with a phone?   I walked down the stairs saying S*IT under my breath with every step.

The dumpster is in it’s own stinky room.  There’s a shoot that takes the trash from each floor and deposits the bags below.  The good news, my mail was in the next bin, which is why it was empty.  The bad news, the trash was definitely all the way in the bottom, meaning I was going to have to climb in.  There was no way around it.  And believe me I tried to think of a way to MacGyver enormous tweezers or a claw to extend my reach.

At the bottom of the dumpster I saw only fliers.  It was very confusing because I had fliers upstairs in my apartment as well.  In this state I decided to check once more just in case I had not seen the paychecks.  I lugged my inconvenient ladder up the stairs while passing neighbors who had just seen me with a ladder, a flash light, and a fowl mouth peering into the dumpster.   I tried to reassure myself that I didn’t care what other people thought of me, or my smell.  The fear of not having a paycheck helped keep any self-conscious notion at bay.

Back in my apartment I checked my home trash, because that’s where I put the actual trash when this ordeal began, to find more fliers, and the Lucy ad, which at this point was just mocking me.

I swapped the ladder for the step-stool, figuring if need be I could toss the step-stool into the dumpster to help me get out, and if it was a casualty, so be it.  Walking to the dumpster for round two a few cars had pulled into the garage.  Bastardos!   I stood by my car while non-dumpster diving neighbors walked by.  Thankfully my car is directly beside the trash shoot, so I could open the hatch and look like I was doing something, or most likely I looked like I was stealing something.  Finally when everyone had left the garage, I went for it.  Gross.  Step stool helped me up.   Once inside I was impressed by how clean the maintenance men keep the dumpsters.  While a little fluid was on one side, the rest of the dumpster wasn’t as scary as I’d thought.   I bent over and picked up my mail.  Sure enough, there were my checks. Hooray! The large pile of junk mail had surrounded my checks and protected them and the Netflix, from any moldy rotten fluids.

Now that I’m in good shape pulling myself out of the trash bin was a breeze.  I was  impressed with myself, and thought that if needed I could scale a wall, or climb a fence, or a tree to escape from somewhere or something…hopefully not soon, but if I had to, I could.  I picked up my keys, the step stool was saved, and I have my checks.

Man did I earn them!

And here is the stack of trash, I mean mail.

Their from Jacksonville,FL and their mind altering spazz art  punk rock goodness. Check em out!!

http://www.myspace.com/nationaldairy420

things im more than completely tired of seeing ON MYSPACE

1. people’s twitter-esque updates. seriously. who the fuck cares if you just watched three hours of FOX30? or what the fuck you ate for dinner. or if you are shopping and can’t  decide on what size vegetables to buy. it’s set up by marketing companies to figure out what a large percentage of americans do each day.So they can really figure out how to suck us in. take a shit. go to work. pay bills. ecetera. repeat.

The Jammy Dodgers: GAINESVILLE, FL – Skive Off CD

     This girl-boy vocal trade-off is killer! There might be comparisons out there, but I haven’t heard anybody do lightening fast pop punk with two singers (no, Set Your Goals doesn’t count!!!). I always thought their live performance was great but now I can really appreciate how well their voices compliment each other. It’s like punk rock Daniel Johnston with a whiny girl in the background, but totally in a good way. Skive off apparently means “to skip work to do something fun.” It’s cute things like that that make this CD so enjoyably. Their lyrics are serious but positive, with a whole bunch of playful elements. Imagine a whole bunch of nice kids trying to make “big-meany” music; that’s the Jammy Dodgers. The liner notes read “Let’s fix it [the world] up or at least do our best to not make it any worse. Also: HAVE FUN,” and that really concludes the message incorporated throughout the album as a whole. If the CD art was a little girl, I’d pinch the hell out of its juicy hamburger cheeks. Besides being absolutely adorable, this LP is also on a mission: there are 19 tracks apart of an audio ‘zine. There are non-joke rants and hilarious story snippets. Niki Sabalu should be the official Jammy Dodger poster girl with that sweet, lisp-y voice of hers. This CD is such a great value for everything that’s jammed into it, and it has the best motto ever: if it ain’t 3 bucks, it ain’t punk. (AMBIKA)

CONTACT: http://www.last.fm/music/The+Jammy+Dodgers

As I narrow in on the #100 mark I am continually amazed at the rich abstract subject matter that dumpsters provide. It’s like they are a continuously changing canvas. I really love this one for the contrasts and dark shadows.

Dead Friends: GAINESVILLE, FL : Self Titled  CD

     I know these guys get it all the time, but let me just point it out again. They have a superstar line-up!!!  Merkit, Religious as Fuck!, Assholeparade, Brainstorm, Chronic Youth… damn, these are the band members’ affiliations. How can any product made by people who were involved in these projects be bad? Even if they tried, they couldn’t. That said… I guess they didn’t disappoint (but you already knew that). The 13 tracks are like one continuous song, which is appealing! The singing is kind of different. Instead of raspy yelling, incomprehensible babbling, or any other typical Gainesville vocal style, Daniel’s take at the mic sounds distressed like prehistoric emo. Coupled with the grungy vibrations and speedy tempos, the sound is like a nicer approach to thrash. Then again there are some tracks that are just so damn quick so maybe that’s not the thing to say. I’m just trying to point out the singing is unusual in their field. They’re like a faster Daitro mixed with Ampere. I appreciate each song being less than a minute and a half long; it gets the job done in a less amount of time. I tried soaking in the words and what I’ve gotten out of it is that on the outside they seem kind of morbid, like in “Medical Nightmare” or “Simple Needs”, but maybe it’s just a sick joke. That might call for a band interview, but that’s a whole other story. I caught the line You let this place go to your head like Lee Ving with no street cred from “I Wish You Were in Brooklyn Too”, and I was laughing just at the mention of his name. Recently I had the chance to see FEAR in Orlando but the show was closed down by the po-po, so I never got to see him. Judging by the Decline of Western Civilization clips, Lee Ving seems like a puffed up, “I-created-the-Scene” king. Glad to find my connection with this CD somewhere. (AMBIKA)

  contact DEAD FRIENDS:  www.vinylrites.net or www.myspace.com/deadfriendz or

PO BOX 925, Gainesville, FL, 32602.

at night, the still meat packing district becomes a blank canvas for the renegade street artist. i love discovering new art each morning on my way to the bus stop.

The east wall of the Meadow Brook Egg Co. West Loop, Chicago.