The Danica Complex

I cannot help myself but rail against Mama Edda's Gourmet Pizza as the owner recently demanded storage here under some unreasonable terms and offensive language. Perhaps the pizza is good, but this angry, insulting little man sure knew what he was doing when he cursed me and my day. I don't like how much I don't like him. When you're the king of your own dominion, I suppose the rules of reasonable social interaction get screwed a bit.

Edda is his wife, but the national pizza chain is his own.

He stored some old equipment from another store with us; it was brought here from Michigan and partially used to open the new store in Old Town Pasadena. What was not used at the store was left in the unit to be sold to another local pizza restaurant. I can imagine that, not unlike the way he surely handles business and relationships, it was accidentally forgotten when its usefulness was exhausted and, thusly, he became late and owed an extra fee. It was this unfortunate conveyance of information that lead to a series of back-handed insults at my inability to run my store well. Grrrrrr... In any event, he eventually paid, transferred the unit and its contents to a new "sorry sap" who could "waste his time storing his s*** with [me]" and the he unhappily, if purposefully, went on his way - to return on the day when the transfer of s*** was to take place.

During the their exchange and the updating of the contract (which took place in our store), the man who bought the contents saw, for some reason, in this rollie-pollie, ghastly fellow a person whom had achieved pizza greatness; he milked the few minutes they had together in the office for any pearls of pizza wisdom he could glean from Mr. Mama Edda. He truly only had a few moments as Mr. pizza tyrant was late to the transaction and had to waddle off to another equally amiable engagement... Grrrr.... Jim, the new owner of the goods, was the owner of his own very small, local franchise called Sweet Basil Pizza. He asked questions of the man that pertained to how he got started, where the locations were, how much capitol it took to build & start his pizza empire and how the economy was effecting it. Mr. Mama held his composure, addressing the questions like the were simple and bothersome, but Joe was eager to hear - even if he already knew the answers.

When it was only Jim in the office with us, he turned to us beaming at the good fortune of such an interaction. I wanted to correct him in his joy and reveal to him the depravity of the awful person whom he felt sincerely graced by. I had no chance to educate him, though, because he was already rambling about the encouragement for his own pizza restaurant the conversation had given him.

He said to us, "I could pick that brain for hours and hours - he is a successful owner of his own pizza franchise! I want to know how he did it!" To my ignorant position I thought Jim was not different, he had a few stores himself. He explained that he had "only just started to franchise" and was "only opening his 3rd store in Ontario." From Mama Edda's he had bought chairs and a new stone firing (?) oven in hopes of turning his place into a sit down restaurant with "a nice patio and such."

And then, as if one topic naturally led to other, he told us about how only a week before he had been held up in his own house with his family at gun point. In one breath he transitioned from his hope for the future of Sweet Basil to an unknowable violation in his recent history. A guy charged in through the front door, they were just watching TV, and demanded the family's valuables . "The next day I told my manager what happened to my family the night before–"
"You went to work the NEXT day?!" I said.
"Of course, I did. What else was I going to do? That's what I do. Ya have to keep going– that's what I do," he said referring to running the pizza place, "Stuff happens and you gotta keep going even if it's not easy cuz it's what I love. It's what I do, it's what I want to do... I made the dough myself, ya know? I came up with my own recipe and made that dough and made the restaurant. You hafta to take a risk, you hafta put down all that money and worry about it tanking all the time but thats just what I do. I'm not getting rich of it, heh, maybe I'll spend my whole life putting money into that place, but [Sweet Basils]'s what I want. It's my place and it's my restaurant and I blow 'em all outta the water – you just come get a free pie from me tonight, I'll show you – and I'll be there tomorrow if someone holds up my house again tonight."

I can't quite put my finger on what was so humbling and edifying in what we heard from him. After he walked out Matt turned to me and said, "He is the pizza martyr."


Despite Google mapping and calling Jim directly, Sweet Basil was hard to find as it was rather un-remarkable. I think, in spite of myself, I was looking for a Mama-Edda's-all-lit-up-&-clean-cut restaurant. The store, sandwich between some other forgettable store and a 7-11, was made up of basically the giant pizza oven and a counter. No drinks, no tax, a flat screen TV and broken cash drawer where our $5 bill for the salad went and sweet sweet basil in the dough. It was the most magical pizza I've ever had.

(sorry for the delay.... several drafts of this disappeared... and then I got shy realizing this is not my best writing... and then I started teaching myself CSS & HTML and forgot to post this two weeks ago... thanks for your comment PC - it reminded me to blog!)



In the "comments" section of the last blog, I addressed Pasadena Cafe briefly on the topic; and, to some extend, PC pointed to one of the predominate frustrations I have with the act of dumpster diving in how it is received socially. I fancy myself a slightly skilled observer (given I must have gleaned something useful from my newly acquired Sociology degree), but I am not separate from the social expectations for behavior that clearly, if unspoken, do exist. One of them being that dumpster diving is unsafe, unsanitary, and an activity of the desperate (Forgive me if I sounded desperate in my last post - but, aside from curiosity, truly I thought of myself as being economic) and the other that it is "better."
I first found myself wondering where the line between desperate and economic really is. I wonder how many of us (particularly those who could in some capacity afford their B.A.) consider economy sub-par, or perhaps equate it with undesirable or at best, less-than-comfortable. I do not mean to insult the wisdom in avoiding eating things left in a bacteria-infested garbage bin; but, along side the easy-to-damn Man, I do intend to bring into question the collective judgment, in which I participated, that deemed this not just a reasonable activity, but an important, healthy, better one.
I understand these Houses choosing to live as Freegans because it is 1) economic, 2) offsets the waste created, 3) is a form of subversive consumerism, & 4) it creates a standard for the House where consumables were truly expropriated (no one could be mad at the person who grocery shopped because they didn't get the right granola bars, nor could someone defend their peanut butter against the rest of the House).


I began this article with the title and thought "The Irony of Dumpster Diving" because in my research to find out legal and safe practices (and during the event itself) some very interesting things came up.
While we were sloothing through the treasury of meat, eggs, and bread, I happened upon a box of Camel Reds (a brand I'm particularly fond if I do get the rare treat of sharing a smoke with someone). In the same fashion I happily retrieved a frozen, sealed package of rack of lamb, I reached for the carton. One of my friends said "oh don't take that! It's been opened, it's not safe!" And the absurdity of the statement hit me, "They can't possibly be any worse for you than they already are!" Together, we laughed at the truth in the statement; earlier in the night one of my compatriots had offered a round of cigarettes to the divers of their own, fresh purchase.
Over the next several days I ogled and feasted on my goodies. I noticed my bank account was not as drained as it generally is at week's end. I could not help but speculate on what I would do with the extra income (for the most part, I put it toward my Legends of the Hidden Temple graduation party). In the relief of dodging anxiety over a tight grocery budget, I immediately thought of the many wonderful ways I could entertain myself with the extra dollars for the month. The correlation between saving and recreation was not lost on me. It dawned on me that if I made smoking a regular, perhaps even just a weekly habit, I would quickly shell out what could be spent on rack of lamb.

What kind of consumer was I really becoming? It's a fallacy to consider my saved income from the dive as "free" or "unspent" money (I think, too, this is an attitude that pervades the self-righteous who look at people of privilege and think "hmm, they could be paying for so many meals if they weren't making car payments on a BMW..."; it's also foolish and untrue). For all intents and purposes, I was just as wealthy/poor as before I decided to feed my family from a dumpster (after all, I am a member of privilege - as we all are, more or less - and that is a difficult thing to exclude from wealth). But the question still remains: what do I do with those extra dollars? The only fair and real answer I could come up with is consume. Cigarettes, a completely superfluous, un-fulfilling and arguably damaging activity, are not outside the logical or moral confines of such subversive consumerism. Instead of existing only in privilege, I found myself walking a line I couldn't quite put my finger on - the better line....

The elitism I was edging my way towards was found roots in a quote from an essay called "Second-Hand Dresses and the Role of the Ragmarket" by Angela McRobbie:

Although there seems to be an evasion of the mainstream with it's mass-produced goods and marked-up prices, the "subversive consumerism" of the ragmarket is in practice highly selective in what is offered and what, in turn, is purchased. There is in this milieu an even more refined economy of taste at work. For every piece rescued and restored, a thousand are cosigned to oblivion. Indeed, it might also be claimed that in the midst of this there is a thinly veiled cultural elitism in the operation...

Forgive a rough landing to this blog - but, ultimately I realized that narrow line I walked was between economic & elitist/subversive & snobby. I was still consuming, even if I wasn't paying for it and my means of consumption were even empowered by dumpster diving - an activity, by the way, that comes at the cost of time and energy that many people more depraved than I simply cannot afford (i.e. I am young, have no children, don't commute to work, only have on job, etc). This is not to say that I "should" fully adapt an impoverished lifestyle - I don't mean to say that dumpster diving isn't truly helpful or the idea subversive economics requires a change of socioeconomic status to justify it. But I do have to reconcile my own privilege with a socially abnormal practice, lest it become a snobby hobby or a creative delusion of self righteousness.

At the end of day it is 1) not more economic - I could simply work more with my free time and afford the food I spent time diving for; 2) makes room for other waste as I am still capable (and do) consume; 3) subversive? yes - but better... not so sure; & 4) may find it's only and better purpose in expropriation - but only if expropriation is the philosophy of all involved and towards all property.

But like I said... this is a rough landing and that last thought is for another day.

What do you want to read next?
	My Small Rant about Community Houses (old and un-posted)
	The Pizza Martyr (a real person we met)
	Peti and Walker (an episode of historical fiction from childhood)
pollcode.com

I wish I had written yesterday – when the event was still fresh in my mind but I had yet to relate the experience to anyone and I was still delusional from sleep deprivation. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I participated because we had run out of funds for the month (although, this is true) or because I had some moral convictions that were satisfied by it (although, this is true, too). The heaviest weighing factor was simply curiosity. I had seen the fruits (literally) of the previous week’s scavenging and I wanted to understand just how much edible waste was actually found in these excursions.

The night began with only two of us who left at midnight for the nearest Trader Joe’s. Initially, I was disappointed by what I saw. The dumpster smelled foul and it looked like most things had yogurt or orange juice dumped on them. It was only about a quarter of the way full which lead me to my 2-minute assessment that there was nothing to be salvaged. My more experienced partner had an eye for this thing, however, and over 15 minutes of poking around, she managed to spot us several dozen unopened bags of bagels, a pair of zucchinis, 4 perfect Fuji apples (and 2 bruised ones), 2 cartons of blueberries and a basket of fresh basil. I was particularly surprised about the apples as they were the only unpackaged treasure we pulled. My friend explained that if the skin wasn’t broken we could wash them with water and a little bit of bleach and they would be sanitized enough to eat safely.
As I was climbing out, we were joined by several other dumpster divers who we spent the rest of the night with. Since it was my first time, they climbed in and double-checked for goods I may have missed. They found a bag of lemons with only one moldy piece of fruit, two unbroken eggs, and a sad looking sweet basil potted herb that they determined could be brought back to life.

We stopped at a few other stores along the way to the site most frequented by my Freegan friends. The ones with management and night crews still out and about we avoided. I have yet to confirm this, but I learned that dumpster diving is not illegal as long as it not on private property (which, apparently, means it is an enclosed dumpster). All the same, we did not want to call attention to ourselves or create an awkward confrontation over this grey-area activity.
We were not the first to get to the prized dumpster, a couple had loaded up nearly two trunks of food before we got there. I got a glimpse before they awkwardly left us to get the last pickings – they had several bags of breaded goods with expiration dates for that day, boxes of produce looking a bit less than pretty but still totally edible, and good deal of shelf-/dry-goods. Apparently, the night of the week we went followed regular shipments at this particular store, so the dumpsters area always full of product that was replaced during that day.
At this site, I, alone, brought home over $70 in grocery foods. This was what was left after we removed all moldy, dairy, warm, or questionable products from our findings. Anything that had not been pierced and could be washed in bleach was fair game. Understanding that I came only from a two-person home, this was a meager portion compared to the amount the other two intentional communities with me took. One of the girls with us even commented that it was far less than normal and they would have to come back the next night; but I was pleased.
The people who beat us to our bounty were a true Freegan couple (eating only free, organic, non-meat products) and so what was left for us to pick from in the dumpster was a large variety of packaged meats. I was extremely skeptical of taking any, particularly the poultry, but the community members assured me that they had never experienced any ill effects from eating the packaged meats they pulled. To accommodate my skepticism, they gave me the meats that were still frozen in their sealed packaging. I hit the jack-pot when I stumbled upon a garbage bag of eggs still in their cartons. I pulled out about ten dozen eggs in perfect condition! This was what the two houses were hoping for as eggs are a main staple, easily prepared, possessing a long un-refrigerated shelf life, and numerous.

At the end of the night, we took out all the goods from our cars (even the ones that had been scavenged by smaller groups in locations I had not been to) and laid everything out. Item by item we asked out loud who wanted what. The divvying was facilitated by questions of amount and preference and gifting all at once; and there was an air of joy and effortlessness to process. In the kind of conversation where it is reasonable to expect conflict, there was openhandedness and an absence of entitlement. Things were not allotted based on what was fair, or even on who needed what, but exchanged in generosity. I am not exactly sure how such an “exchange” of any kind happened because, without sounding communistic, the food belonged to all of us at once. I suppose a contributing factor was that the dumpster would be there the next night and the next and the next…
When I got home, I was nervous that the food I received would go bad or make us sick and so I prayed. The words I heard myself saying were not at all unique, but they had more implication than ever before – I asked that the food I received would nourish us (despite being pulled from a dumpster), that God would protect us (from dumpster bugs), that God would continue to provide for us… The attitude that my friends from the communities had during the distribution suddenly made sense to me. It wasn’t that the food belonged to all of us, it was that the food belonged to none of us.

What do you want to read next?
	The Irony of Dumpster Diving
	Revenge of the Hidden Temple (Danica's version of the childhood game show)
	Pictures Transformers in places they shouldn't be (as edited by Danica for invisiblepeople.tv tour)