Trash people
People have to pick up the trash on their own time. Nobody does this for you. If you leave the trash to its own devices, it reproduces by sporing, somehow, carried by the wind, exponentially increasing in volume until it swallows us. Enter Trash People, a thing that should not have to exist but does.
We try not to think about the fact that Trash People solely exists because we live in a failed state, a neoliberal hellscape where people just throw shit out of their cars on 90/94 all the time and it is literally carried, en masse, into our neighborhood, with nobody to help. We’re there to throw on gardening gloves, hang out, and fill a couple of sacks with detritus. Within two weeks it all returns, which is another thing we try not to think about.
It is hard to make friends as an adult, so it’s fortunate that Trash People exists, because that is the real value of Trash People. If your vibe clicks, and it probably will, you will be hauled onto a monstrously large group text where people invite you to make soap, go to bar trivia, or show up at their dinner party. There is no faster way to ruin your schedule than to roll up at Trash People and be friendly.
What caused Trash People? Don’t think about the hellscape for a minute. There is something more benefic happening here, something that shows people actually give a shit about their neighborhood and exist at enough of a critical mass to organize around it. When I first moved to this neighborhood in 2008, this critical mass might have existed solely on the boulevards, or we might have not had all of our essential services defunded quite yet, whomst can say. And yet now there is Trash People as response, Trash People as community.
The organizer of Trash People also organizes a bunch of other events around town, and she probably does not sleep. She has a London accent. Maybe one can chalk this up to the result of a person coming from a place with some semblance of civic collectivism, watching what we do (or don’t do) with horror, and correcting the record. I don’t think the answer is that clean, and I’m deliberately holding off on finding it out. That will come in due time.
I had such a good time at my first Trash People that I bought a grabbing pole and now everybody thinks I’ve been there forever, which is something I’m good at deceiving people into thinking. I waited until writing any text on Trash People until the season of garbage collection ends, because it is too sacred to pop off. Apparently it’s hard to get 50 people to trawl a neighborhood when the ground is frozen and there are 20mph winds coming straight at your face. So now you have to try to remember to do anything with this for six months. You’re welcome.