Call Me and Let’s Talk Trash

The only time I have ever been in jail was for a locative media art project at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  The only way I’ll ever end up in jail is if other tenants don’t start recycling soon.  I will kill for paper and plastic.

No, I’m not a Green Machine or one of the fools running around New York City as if my hair’s on fire screaming, “Global Warming!”  Nor am I the person with the clipboard on the sidewalk who deliberately gets in my path asking, “Excuse me, ma’am, do you have a moment for Gay Rights?” My answer, “Yes, but that was one drunk night in college and I can’t even remember her name.”

I can’t save the whales because there’s none in the Hudson but I have boycotted Canadian products (except for the syrup) because those Eskimos are still clubbing baby seals.  Oops!  Racist.  Did I say Eskimo?

I have always recycled but I am beginning to really hyper-focus on my garbage. And everyone’s garbage around me.  I have three pails: one for recycled paper/cardboard, one for plastic and glass, and one for food. They don’t ask much from us in New York except that we recycle.  We can jaywalk into four-lane traffic and not get a ticket like you would in Seattle.  We can blow cigarette smoke into the oncoming faces on the sidewalk and not get pulled into a dark vehicle as you would in San Francisco.  Smoking, the Ultimate Crime...

I know of a tenant above me that is not recycling and whenever I help take out the building garbage, I have to sort out his trash.  So I left a note on his apartment door that read:

Call Me and Let's Talk Trash.

He never did.

Last night, around 12:30, I am outside, leaning against the wall, shadowed by the building next door.  I see the tenant from upstairs bringing out his Un-Recycled garbage. Perfect timing to nail the MoFo.

I crept up behind him and whispered loudly in his ear, “Yo, Kimosabe, is that a Pizza Box?”
He jumped.  “Oh, hey, I didn’t see you. Yeah. Good stuff”, he said mashing his Kohl’s department bag of trash into a can. 
“You’re a big man with big feet”, I said.  “Why don’t you stomp on it or should I have your Mommy do it for you?”
He looked at me as if I had a hunchback.  “Huh?”
“It gets recycled,” I sneered at him as I took the box from his strong man-hands and performed the Riverdance on it until it was the size of a Post-It pad.
“What else you got in the bag there, buddy?” I asked him lovingly as I pulled out three perfectly round Tuscan loaves of bread, most likely baked early this morning. 
“What the hell’s up with the bread?” I asked.
“I catered tonight.  They had us take it home", he said witness-stand style.
“I realize you’ve been spoon-fed as a child, but this bread can feed a couple of homeless people in the neighborhood. Why not leave it a nice bag with a note, MoFo?”
“What, are you homeless?” he asks ans he grabs the bag from my hands.  “Mine your own f*ckin business!” he says and opens the front door of the building.

“So, you wanna talk trash?  How about I go to the local pet store down the street and release a bag of mice in your apartment?”  I only fantasized that line but it made me smile.

Not recycling makes me angry. So, if I do off the deep end, will Wayne Newton bail be out of jail?  He bailed out Dana Plato for gunning a video store in Vegas. Of coarse I didn’t do Different Strokes but maybe he’s a Vincent D’Onofrio fan.

If you have a hard time with breaking down those cardboard boxes, here's a How-To video: