the Trash vitae

Trash is the editor-in-chief of an independent Colorado micro-publisher/ design studio. I dabble in digital photography, the lost art of film image making, and guerilla digital video. DrMAC Studios specializes in books and videos on self-reliance, gardening, dumpster diving, urban foraging and living off the excesses of others.
This blog documents my daily experiences with the rest of the world

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Living with a sellout

When the COMCAST beast added the planet green channel a few weeks ago I was excited to see the Living with Ed show that everyone was talking about. People have said that I am like Ed in that I am an eccentric old hippie living very eclectic and non-traditional. So I began watching this show in earnest. I was excited to see someone with money and prestige living like he did. But alas after a tad I began to follow the adventures of his simple green moving to normalcy and his followoig of whoring products to which he attaches his name. He lost touch of his roots. I guess it was the money and the fame coming back.

Alas as I was dared to by a colleague I wrote to ED and asked him why he didnt publicize and forward the non-corporate green methodologies that we dumpies and freegans and downright poor people follow in our efforts to survive. ie dumpieing, freeganing, rainwater collect in covered garbage cans instead of $300 models, riding dumpied/ refurbished bikes, etc. His response to me was quite short and I will include it here

" I did all that stuff on the cheap for years…from 1970 to 1982 everything I did was home made and scrapped together. Lots of those tips and stories are in my book LIVING LIKE ED as well.
ed"

So he gave up the "living cheap" stuff back in 1982. This is 2008. That is 26 years he has been buying green environmentalism. And now that its chic he is making money and gaining prestige by "pimping" it to the yuppie masses. Another sell-out.

But the show is entertaining as is the entire Planet green network.. As for the producers of Trashed. THank goodness for the stupid waste criminals for without them I wouldnt have half the crap I have saved from going to the landfill in support of my own endeavors.
Maybe I will create the new low-budget" hit comedy for the masses "living withTrashdigger"

1 comment:

Trashdigger said...

FYI. I posted the article to another group I belong 2 and I got this response in email this morning. I never even though of this connection and I almost busted agut laughing so hard. SO I though i would share it

Hi Trashdigger,
When I saw the title "living with ED" I have to say I thought it was about one
of those erectile disfuntion commercials.Im not trying to be crude, but there
are so many of them on TV now that I thought maybe you dived a DVD about the
subject.You can tell I dont watch television often because I didnt even know
anything about the show or this guy Ed.My television at home has not worked for
a very long time ..a mater of yrs and I dont miss it.I am staying here with my
brother in Ca for a while and have been watching Tv for only about the last 5
months and that is mainly because it is on for them.
As for Ed, yeah it is kind of sad he doesnt do all his real down to earth
recycling stuff, but hey we are special people, however I do understand his
angle.Lets face it, when things get really bad, we are going to be the real
survivors, not the sell out yuppie people.