Austin, TX

Austin has a nice layout– it’s easily bikeable, with the Colorado River running through it, creating a peaceful view while you ride over the pedestrian and bike bridge. There is a food co-op called Wheatsville, where you can get bulk foods, and a good assortment of natural and organic groceries.

Access to good food is something I really took for granted when living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Within a bike ride from my North Oakland apartment, I could get to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, and Monterey Market– all of which have healthy, organic food. I was even able to be picky, and get the best from each (produce and bulk from Monterey or Berkeley Bowl, snacks at Trader Joe’s, fancy stuff from Whole Foods).

On this journey, I have found myself in the Dollar General, trying to find something that I would be willing to eat, calculating so many factors in my head on corn syrup proportions, craving, cost, any vestige of nutritional value. My last bout at that store turned up canned olives from Spain, prunes that I later gave away to a man asking for money for food, a bag of Lays potato chips that made me feel yucky when I ate almost the whole bag, cheese crackers, and peanut butter. This was just over the bridge from the ninth ward in New Orleans, but I digress…

In Austin, you have at least one decent option in Wheatsville.

While in Austin, I stayed in my van on the street for a couple nights. The first night there, I went to a Food Not Bombs benefit show at the 21st Street Co-op. Over a hundred people live in this large cooperative compound, all of which are supposed to be students at UT, officially, although I wonder if there are unofficial residents who are not students. The benefit show took place in a large event space on the second floor. Someone made really bomb vegan banana muffins encrusted with sugar. I sat around and chatted with people there while drinking wine out of a bottle. My sociality was low that night, however, and I turned in early. I had parked my van on Rio Grande. I slept well, only bothered by the yells of drunken college students walking the streets.

The next day, I drove to 24 Hour Fitness to get some exercise and a shower. Ran errands around there. Then to a cafe on the east side called Thunderbird. I sat with my computer at the cafe bar. It was evening, so I didn’t want to drink coffee particularly, but what I nice surprise when I saw that they also served beer. Three bucks for a pint of yummy brew. They also had an art opening that night, so people mingled with glasses of wine around me. The next morning, I went in for a coffee, and saw that many paintings had been sold. Wow, I thought, I should move here if I want to sell art. Thunderbird also has music shows– everything you could ever want your favorite cafe to be!

I was interested in the many co-ops that exist around campus in Austin, and was told by some Marfa folk that particularly Royal co-op was a winner, so I emailed them, as well as the House of Commons. Both are members of the ICC (Inter-Cooperative Council). It’s essentially a co-op of co-ops. Unlike the College Houses co-ops, ICC is not strictly UT students, although most residents are. A resident of Royal responded and also offered me a place to stay. I drove my van there the next day and was able to park my van in the driveway for the next week. Royal was a lovely house. It’s close to campus but divided from the loud, partying, college-y atmosphere that exists right across the street. The yard was green and lush, and Simon had a good ‘ol time running around it.

Royal holds communal meals Sunday through Thursday, with rotating teams of two cooking each day. My first day there, they held a meeting, and my staying there was opened for discussion. There were no objections, so it was decreed I could driveway surf, and I introduced myself to the group. I pitched in a bit of cash for food and utilities, and got to know some of the co-op members.

I’m not sure I could go back to living in a restricted nuclear family household, or even with just one or two other roommates. Living in a co-op certainly requires that one give up certain amounts of control, but it also makes life easier, I think, to know that dinner will be cooked for you four nights a week, and you will cook for everyone one night a week. Royal was nice in that there was often people to hang out with in the evenings, but the house was quiet during the day, and was not a party house by any means. Certainly more of a ‘mature’ co-op.

I visited House of Commons to help cook one of their communal meals, and partake in the food with them. I cooked pumpkin pancakes, and found a much-needed propane tank in the free zone. The HoC meal was larger than Royal’s, about twice as many people at the table. A couple members spoke about a fire that occurred in the house recently. Someone had left a hot glue gun on in a bedroom, which was filled with cardboard (they had been making intricate cardboard suits of armor). The third floor burned extensively. The ICC, as the governing body of all member co-ops, handled all of the insurance disbursements and repairs. Further, there was a pre-existing web of co-op houses where HoC residents could stay while their home was being repaired. For busy working people and students, a community of this sort provided a large supply of aid. How many homeowners can tout such benefits?– or even renters for that matter! Not many landlords will so quickly repair damage, and provide a place for you to live in the interim.

I helped cook Food Not Bombs on Sunday, January 31st, at the 21st Street Co-op, where the FNB benefit show had been. It was much like cooking any other FNB meal. The crowd in Austin is younger than in Berkeley, with most regular cooks in their very early 20′s. I asked where they acquired the produce, but the place is now a secret, since they had an issue with an FNB impostor picking up the food. We served at Wooldridge Park at 6pm. There were about 50 people who had come to partake in the meal.

If you’re in Austin, also check out the Yellow Bike Project, the local bike recyclery. The organization is currently in transition, developing plans for a new space. But you can find them still twice a week, Monday and Friday 4-7pm, at 411 W. Monroe Street. Use of the shop stands and tools is free, and you only pay for parts. When I fixed my brakes and cotter pin and was ready to pay, I was even asked what I wanted to pay. I gave them five bucks. Pay-what-you-will is a practice that works surprisingly well, and could be used more widely.

As I found out from a person I met at an open-mic night, Yellow Bike began with the idea that they could produce and disseminate several bicycles painted bright yellow, for use as communal bikes that people the city over could share. However, they were not able to produce enough bikes to make up for the unavoidable loss that occurs when someone decides to keep one permanently. I suppose the take-if-you-will does not work as well as the pay-what-you-will.

Austin has a lot to offer. Many great food, music, housing, craft, and art spaces. I plan, though, to settle for a bit an hour southeast of Austin, on a place called Echowood Farm.

Nowe Miasto

I contacted Nowe Miasto, the co-op that the chick in Iron Rail had told me about. I wanted to check the place out and see what it was all about. Brice, Nowe’s founder, emailed back and invited me to come meet with him.

Initially, I met a couple other co-op members when I arrived there, and talked with them for a bit. One, Maddy Ruthless, told me that six people currently lived in the house. Maddy is a DJ, works at Domino Records, and studies music at the local college.

I asked why there was no Food Not Bombs or similar presence in New Orleans. I was told that sometimes, travelers will come through town and try to set FNB up, but then, they move on after several months, and the organization leaves with them. “Life can be harder here than elsewhere. Giving can be hard when you’re already hanging by your fingernails.”

“Nowe miasto” translates to “new city” in Polish. Creating a new kind of city is the goal of the space.

The Iron Rail Infoshop, which I wrote about in a previous post, used to be headquartered at Nowe, and has now progressed to their own space in the Ark building. Currently, Nowe hosts art and music shows, as well as a Books-to-Prisoners project, where folks collect literature and write letters to those in prison. It is intended as a general meeting/community/art space. Soon, it could be more than that.

When Katrina passed over New Orleans, the building that houses Nowe lost it’s roof and stood in 9 feet of water. Raising money for skilled labor and materials has proven difficult, and hindered a complete restoration of Nowe’s prior condition.

To appease this burden, Nowe is currently undergoing a transformation into 501c3 status. There is a debate within the community regarding this change (as I have seen a couple of times before in other organizations). The question is: should autonomy be maintained at all costs, with funding the sole responsibility of the community, or should outside sources of funding be considered, gained through the achievement of 501c3 status?

Another significant result of 501c3 status would be the possibility of forming a land trust, as Brice explained to me in the sunny, chicken-speckled backyard later that day. Brice and his partner recently purchased the building next door as well, under the plan of incorporating that land into the land trust as well.

Land trusts are often aimed at conservation of natural habitat, or of farmland, but a community or residential land trust operates somewhat differently. It allows people to purchase homes at lower cost, since they are buying the building, and not the land. The land trust holders (the 501c3 board), can decide what qualifying factors to use for potential buyers. For example, Brice intends this land trust to be open for low-income residents only, giving those an opportunity to own or rent a home who otherwise, would not be able to afford it.

Since the building owners would not own the land privately, but only communally as part of the trust, real estate speculation is halted, and gentrification’s most harmful aspects are thwarted. The two buildings that Brice currently owns would be part of the land trust as rental properties, providing low-income folks with apartments and rooms in a co-op setting.

Community boards tend to be “bourgie” (meaning “bourgeoisie”), Brice said, because it’s composed completely of property-owners. A land-trust would decentralize decision-making, Brice explained. Everyone who owns a building or rents space on the land trust has a say in the group decisions affecting that trust, but they can participate as little or as much as possible. He feels that this formation would allow people whose opinions are normally hindered to have a voice within land and real estate decisions in their neighborhood. A land trust would create “something good for renters and property owners… [They could] advocate for the neighborhood with more strength, and improve the quality of life.”

Low-income housing organized by the state, like Section 8, tends to be slumlord property. The land owner does the absolute minimum to maintain and beautify the properties because he/she has no motivation to do more– they receive Section 8 money either way. Section 8 housing also tends to be concentrated in certain parts of the city, creating ghettos, and eliminating any ability to choose residential locale on the part of the renter. “People want a nice place to live that’s affordable,” said Brice. The goal of the Middle-City Land Trust would be to “improve the quality of life for us and the people around us… [because] quality of life is more important than property values.”

Portal, AZ: La Buena Vida Farm

La Buena Vida Farm in Portal, AZ is the home of husband and wife Jerry and Jennifer Racicot, along with their three young children. A woman named Eva also lives on the property in her Airstream and helps out around the farm. Jerry and Jennifer’s friend, Nicole, was also visiting at the time I was there, staying for a month in order to decide if she will also live permanently on the farm, taking her three children with her from Ashville, NC.

A community is what Jerry and Jennifer are trying to form. The population in Portal is 200 and very spread out, and the couple are aware that to make their vision for the farm work, they need more people. Forming an intentional community would allow them to diversify their economy.

The property is a couple of miles down a dirt road, just off highway 80. When I arrived, Jerry showed me around. They have two acres in cultivation. At this time of year, most of what is growing is in a 100-foot cold-frame hoop-house (like a greenhouse, but without any electric climate control— no heaters or fans). The warm moist hoop-house had that chocolately compost smell, and was green with lettuces, carrots, cabbage and kale. The cost of the cold-frame construction was $2200. Jerry said that you can purchase a kit to the tune of ten grand, but by purchasing the tools to bend the steel poles into arches himself, Jerry was able to cut costs significantly. He and a friend built it– he estimates it took 30 man-hours.

The family keeps a large store of food on hand– at least 2 months worth, Jerry said. This allows them to go into town (an hour’s drive) less frequently, and to be prepared in a situation where they may not be able to procure food easily. When I asked him if he thought the you-know-what would hit the fan, he said, “Well, I think the writing’s on the wall.”

But enough with the housing metaphors— I asked Jerry why he and Jennifer chose Arizona of all places to live when moving from L.A. 2 years ago. He said there were many reasons, but the first of which was that they wanted to be “far away from anything.” They had a worrisome feeling that America would soon be changing, and he wanted to be somewhere where they would be left alone. He also wanted to be within a three hour drive of an airport so he could still work as a fashion photographer. Continuing his work in photography did not work as he had planned, however. Jobs stopped coming once he was outside the hub of Los Angeles. Farming was also not in his scope of planning— instead, he and Jennifer had decided to start a small garden for their own use, and, suddenly they had neighbors calling and requesting to buy some of their produce. The community was hungry for fresh, local produce, and the Racicot’s realized this was the niche they were destined to fill.

Now, farming is their main occupation, along with animal husbandry. They have pigs, chickens, a horse, goats, sheep, and geese, although they plan to concentrate their efforts on just a couple of animals in the future. The horse is on its way to working a plow and pulling their produce to the tiny Portal town center 25 miles away, where the family runs a farm stand in the warm months. Jennifer and Jerry feel that, instead of farming as a conscious choice, this path was formed and decided for them by God. All of the forces pushing them in this direction have convinced them that this is where they belong, and this is what they belong doing.

As a photographer, Jerry was away from home 2 to 3 weeks each month. He barely got to see his children. Now, even though he is making far less money, he feels this lifestyle is much better for his family. Speaking of his children, Jerry exclaimed, “They won’t remember the things I bought for them or all the money I gave them. They don’t care. They play in the manure!” What they do care about, Jerry concludes, is quality time with their parents– a valuable interaction that living at the farm allows.

The family works hard, and they seem to have everything they could ever want in their nook of the world. They truly are living ‘la buena vida’.

Slab City, CA

I rang in the new year in Slab City, an unincorporated territory just outside of Niland, CA. Slab city lies between the Salton Sea and the Chocolate mountains. Desert brush speckles the sandy soil. Abandoned military-base sewage-treatment facilities are painted with colorful graffiti.

Annual around the new year, people gather near the Slabs to be together, play, make music, and generally cavort. The folks are Spaz (spaz.org) people mostly, and SF Bay Area people, mostly. Strange on my trip to re-encounter Oakland-ness one last time before finally leaving California.

The official Spaz bus was parked next to one large empty concrete sewage container, which was used as a projection wall. Synthesized music played throughout new year’s eve and well into the morning. I woke at 7 a.m. to some particularly hyper beats, and could not fall back alseep. I got up in a tired but wired haze, walked into the desert, and sunbathed and stretched.

The landscape mixed with the music and projected moving geometric shapes was enough to make one trip out even without any mind-altering substances.

A trampoline was set up near the Spaz bus and the dance floor. Golf clubs and balls were available to set off into the distance, and a couple of recurve bows and a pile of arrows was set up with a target. People spray painted on the various concrete structures, hung out, partied, cooked in the outdoor Spaz kitchen.

Asa and Dickie from Berkeley cooked up a rooster they had slaughtered (and Asa had raised), and made a lovely rooster soup and stir-fry. For some reason, the desert lessened my appetite. The rooster meal was about the only full meal I ate there. The rooster head and entrails were buried under the dance floor with various plant material and herbs.

The moon shone intensely both nights I was there. The night of the 1st, a bright halo encircled it. A flashlight was not even needed to traverse the nighttime terrain.

So, here’s to Semi-Permanent Autonomous Zones.

Monsanto Writ Large

Below you will find a pasted Mother Earth News article on Monsanto, followed by comments (including my own rant at the bottom):

How Bad Is Monsanto?
12/17/2009 10:53:23 AM
By Barbara Pleasant
Tags: Monsanto, Barbara Pleasant
Recently I spent several evenings reading The Year of the Flood, the newest novel by award-winning Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. In this visionary fiction story of societal and environmental breakdown caused by gene splicing free-for-alls run by the Corporations, the world is populated by strange animals including wild pigs with superior intelligence, and sheep with human hair. Don’t ask where the meat in the burgers comes from, and watch your back when you’re outside a Corporate compound. An extremist cult, God’s Gardeners, welcomes outcasts as long as they are willing to go along with the religion that goes with growing your own food. It’s a cool religion that honors folks like Saint Euell (Gibbons) for his wisdom of useful wild plants

Considering my recent immersion in Atwood’s nightmarish post-gene-stacking world, I had to read the recent investigative report on Monsanto’s growing list of misdeeds (by award-winning Associated Press writer Christopher Leonard) three times before it sunk in. It’s really happening. In 2006 Monsanto bought Delta and Pineland, a leading producer of cotton seed, so that it now controls a huge share of the cotton seed market. Monsanto’s genes are in about 95 percent of commercial soybeans and 80 percent of commercial corn, and people like the attorney generals of Iowa and Texas are concerned that Monsanto’s business practices violate federal antitrust laws that protect free competition. When it comes to licensing agreements, Monsanto is reportedly a big time bully.

Either or both accusations may prove to be true, and while I do care about these things, I also feel like I’m watching dangerous games being played by the mean kids at the other end of the playground. I can mind my own business, grow most of my own food using traditionally-bred organic seeds, and what Monsanto or Dow or Sygenta do shouldn’t be my problem.

But it is my problem. Monsanto is constantly adding new food plants to its ensemble of “Roundup Ready” varieties that resist herbicide damage, and Dow has soybeans that survive being sprayed with 2-4D. That’s my planet, my water we’re talking about. There is so much Bt corn pollen out there that no garden is safe from it, and rotting residue from Bt plants is messing with the life cycles of stream-dwelling insects. With Monsanto and other companies polluting the world with genetically modified pollen and plants, Bayer killing off honeybees with imidicloprid, and Dow turning horse manure into killer compost, maybe we should worry about big Corporations. A lot.

But what really makes me mad is the way Monsanto is trying to hijack the concept of sustainability. According to the M Company video (which depicts happy, remarkably clean third world farmers), sustainability is about three things: Increased production to meet everyone’s needs, thus improving the lives of everyone; more effective use of natural resources, and improving the quality of life for farmers and their families. It does not mention all the hidden costs of reliance on pesticides, nor does it acknowledge the steady increases in seed prices, with a very small number of companies setting those prices, cartel style. This is where federal antitrust laws come into play, at least theoretically.

And here I was thinking that sustainable agriculture was about using Nature’s patterns and human intelligence and resourcefulness to create systems that run themselves with minimal outside inputs, while creating strong local food economies and a cleaner, more honest food supply. At least that’s how we play at my end of the playground.

As for Atwood’s book, I won’t tell you how it ends, but it will make you feel good about knowing how to grow and store your own food. Maybe it will help you think more clearly about where genetic engineering is headed, and help you make better guesses as to how long we are likely to survive. At this point, I’m betting on the pigs.

Comments:

Diana 12/20/2009 7:32:07 AM

I don’t know if anyone here has mentioned it or seen it, but “The Future of Food” focuses on all the things Monsanto is doing. I watched it for free on Hulu.com.

taggat 12/20/2009 7:04:21 AM

If everyone would share this movie called “Food, Inc.”, I think non-believers would quickly start to think about getting there lazy bum off the couch and start to do something about this big brother big business co-op that is spoon feeding us. Plant a garden, hobby farm, do something to rely less on this corrupt partnership.

Allison Day Bees Action Network 12/19/2009 7:04:22 AM

As the founder of Bees Action Network I read Barbara’s comments about Monsanto with a growing sense of hope. Hope because it is very heartening to know that people the world over are incredibly concerned about the insidious penetration of GM companies into the very fabric of our existence.

At Bees Action Network we believe that bees are suffering chemical overload – (in addition to many people)- and we need to connect with concerned members of the public to fight this global threat on a global scale. CODEX Alimentarius is a series of guidelines which the EU is proposing to adopt EU wide. Despite being ‘reassured’ by our Prime Minister that there is absolutely nothing to worry about – CODEX, amongst other things will give the green light to the planting of GM Crops. This is a nightmarish scenario. We know that GM is in Britain already in animal feed, food supplements and plant seeds – we also understand like Barbara that it poses an enormous threat to human, animal and insect health.

Please see our website www.beesactionnetwork.org for information. Good news is the Alliance for Natural Health in Britain has just linked up with the American Association for Health Freedom to become the Alliance for Natural Health International – on their website www.anhcampaign you can support their fight to ban GM.

Merry Christmas to you all and a hopeful New Year!

Allen 12/19/2009 12:48:57 AM

It seems to me that genetically engineering plants is not so bad, but when it comes to making them resistant to chemicals, well that i$ wrong for these corporation$ and we know what their reasoning i$$$$$.

Amanda 12/18/2009 10:41:37 PM

t.brandt,

There is a HUGE difference between hybrids and gene splicing.
Not only are genetically modified foods unstable (having been shown to change over time, which makes them unpredictable, and useless in many occasions), proven to cause severe damage to animals when consumed (organs, stomach lining, etc) but they are even REFUSED by animals when they are given a choice between natural, and GMO foods.

ccm989 12/18/2009 1:24:11 PM

Monsanto is a really scary business. Sure, I like hybirds too — I have a Golden Comet chicken that’s great — she is non-flighty, she lays her eggs like clockwork and she is as sweet as can be. But she is not resistant to chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, etc. I really wouldn’t want to eat her eggs if she was! Fight back — Grow organic food, eat organic food, etc. And if Monsanto is scaring you too, you can sign the petition from Organic Consumer Association — http://www.organicconsumers.org/
Monsanto gives me the creeps. We need a list of every commercial product that Monsanto has contributed too so we can avoid buying them as well.

Michael 12/18/2009 10:30:31 AM

“just an extension of the practice of selective mating to obtain the best possible offspring”?

You have to be kidding!

Perhaps if they mated in a test tube and were stripped down to their individual biological components?

How does splicing a gene from an insect get “selectively bread” into a plant?

The reality of what they are doing is a far cry from what they say they are doing!

So, what PR division of Monsanto do YOU work for?

t. brandt 12/17/2009 3:00:56 PM

While I won’t make any excuses for the ethics of “big business,” I will defend the use of genetically engineered food production. That’s really just an extension of the practice of selective mating to obtain the best possible offspring, started when the first cavemen mated only the most docile wolf pups to eventually wind up with domesticated dogs. We can now select genes across species lines, but it’s still the same principle.
Any change to the gene frequency of a population will be met with reciprocal adaptations in the other species affected in the web.We can’t predict those results, but an equilibrium will be achieved.
But we have the dilemma of feeding a growing population: we have painted ourselves into the corner by supporting population increases with increased farm yield thru technology. To stop now would force a sudden lowering of the carrying capacity and a subsequent die-off of population. Any volunteers?

Darci’s Rant 12/20/2009

To the suspected Monsanto PR rep, t brandt, do you not see that there is a tremendous die-off of species at this very moment, and will surely include us soon if we do not stop destroying what sustains us? 

And it’s not just Monsanto. As Allen implied, there is an ethics of capitalism going on here that is clouding any other system of ethics. ‘Everyone for themselves’ is not working.

We must unify against all rapings of nature and human labor, and not segregate causes. There must be a million organizations in the world fighting for the same cause in one little way, like the Bees Action Network mentioned above.

The people in power rely on our isolation from each other. If we compartmentalize the problem and constantly compete for media attention and funding, there will never be unity.

Now is the time to prepare for needed unified action. It starts with economy. Contrary to popular belief, ‘economy’ is not a massive force hovering above us, full of indecipherable formulas, theories, and figures. Economy is any creation or exchange. Economy is me writing this message (creating/exchanging information). Economy is baking a cake and sharing with a friend. Economy is changing your oil.

To regain control of the economy, and therefore our time, labor, relationships, community, space, and materiality, everyone must learn how to make or fix something, anything. Once we regain craftsmanship and ownership of our own work, we can begin to exchange it amongst ourselves. Systems of taxation, wage labor, schooling, enforcement of laws and codes, and real estate serve to constantly nickel and dime us, and we see next to no benefit.

For example, the recent rise in tobacco taxes. Rolling tobacco, specifically, doubled in price here in California, from $6/pack to $12/pack for American Spirit (also see the ban on Kretek clove cigarettes). Generally, no one will argue with a tax on tobacco, since we have agreed as a culture that smoking the plant is ‘bad,’ and all assume that the tax is going to support public health programs to reduce the prevalence of habitual smoking and health care for those who smoke. Do you see any increase in any social services since the tax increase? There is none. With all that we pay into our government, what do we receive in return? Who knows where that money goes?

It may not seem so, but that money is a translation of our time and energy– essentially our life. Portions of our lives are being sucked away from us to support the money-making schemes of those in power.

Our only hope is to learn how to subsist within our own communities, and form our own connections to food, water, and energy. It will take resourcefullness, skill, and frugality. No more ‘going shopping’ for recreation. Instead ‘go shopping’ for some wild edible plants, or raw  materials for crafting goods. Same pleasure, more pride, and no money or plastic involved.

There is so much hype over Decemeber 2012 as a date. To me, it doesn’t particularly matter wether or not the hype is ’true.’ Rather, it will be whatever we make it. Why don’t we harness the hype and mark the date for ourselves? —when all who have little to no faith in the above corrupt systems stop investing in them and set their alternative system in motion.