Douglas J. Buege--Various Articles
#7
Appeared in Isthmus, Madison's Weekly Alternative Newspaper, June 6, 2003, under their title "Screw the American Dream." The editors changed the title without my permission.
In America, bigger has always been better; and money--lots of it--fuels the allegedly prevalent belief system we term the American dream. Every once in a while, though, a story circulates detailing how some multimillionaire abandons the rat race and enters a Buddhist monastery, forfeiting all worldly goods in favor of personal enlightenment. Even if these tales prove apocryphal, they expose an underlying disappointment with the traditional American consumer culture. Here in Madison, where our idealism drives a wedge between the dominant philosophy of "earn, earn, earn" and our awareness of a greater social good, a rare breed lurks: the fringe dweller. Not easily categorized, fringe dwellers subsist--by choice--toward the bottom of our economic food chain, never reaching their true "earning potential."
They share varied degrees of disgust with our economic system, finding reasons for choosing poverty. Some seek regime change here at home through political action. Some simply want to defer the planet's rapid decay by consuming less. Others follow artistic visions or ideals of craftsmanship, refusing to prostitute themselves or their skills. Still others crave experiences they'll never get from a 40-plus-hour work week.
(Several of those interviewed elected to mask their identities, knowing they're living under the powerful gaze of a state and society critical of their lifestyle.)
Bum rap
I am a bum, a jolly old bum,
I live like a royal Turk.
I have good luck and I bum all my check,
And to heck with a man that works.
--"The Great American Bum"
Elected 1995's "King of the Hoboes," Luther `The Jet' Gette began traveling seriously 32 years ago, after completing a doctorate in French Literature at the UW. Rail-thin, clad in fatigue pants and a flannel shirt, Luther identifies as a "scenery bum," a person who rides the rails for the aesthetic experience.
For twelve years, Luther balanced a seven-days-on, seven-off work schedule at the UW Hospital with his wanderlust. "I wanted to run around," he explains, so he'd schedule three 21-day trips each year while still making $200 monthly payments on his mortgage. At the hospital, he earned roughly $12K a year. Today, retirement provides him a meager $750 a month when pension and social security are combined, a sufficient amount given that the mortgage on his humble home is paid off. Luther's a chronic fringe dweller.
"I don't start out with a philosophy of doing this," claims Gette, who had little interest in plying his academic skills. "I just didn't want to get a job and work 25 or 30 years."
It's been four years since Luther last hopped a freight, in part, because "It's hard to sleep on concrete floors. They seem to get harder every year." At 64, he's quite pleased with the life he's lead so far. The author of several articles on rail history and hobo living, Luther's also recorded a CD of a cappella hobo songs and shares his stories at public events and on friend Jean Feraca's public radio show.
Life `on the bum' is cheap. A true hobo, in the old timers' eyes, exchanges labor--spading gardens, raking leaves--for cash and a meal, termed a `square.' Tramps and bums, on the other hand, disdain work. "I don't eat much until I can bum a meal," Luther says, noting that as a "streamliner," one who travels light, he'd subsist on nuts and raisins. Other hoboes, Luther explains, plied "tricks of the trade, you know, catching fish, snaring rabbits, knowing where to find wild asparagus." Others termed `stamp tramps' worked two or more cities, collecting food stamps under various names and social security numbers.
Shelter comes where the hobo finds it. Any place with enough cover from prying eyes can serve as a good bed. An unfortunate hobo might find a roof in the local jail. A few years back, Luther awoke in the station wagon he'd slept in as a worker, armed with acetylene torch, dismantled the car's front end.
Fellow travelers pigeonhole Luther as a `weekend warrior,' a hobo by choice rather than need. Luther realizes that privilege allows him to leave the rails at any time, but hobo life is more than his hobby. The railroads have beckoned him since youth when he'd passionately gaze as the Pennsylvania Railroad's trains steamed out of sight, wondering where they went. Drawn like a starved tramp to fried chicken, Luther rode trains to see the world, connect with the hoboes he admired and to satisfy that internal drive he shares with Kerouac and others `on the road.' On Luther's romantic ventures, he rescued tales he fears would have been lost, stories he shares through song, as well as written and spoken word.
If Luther regrets anything in life, it's not writing more. He's forgotten some of what he's seen and wishes he'd recorded more back then. "I'd like to live to be 105," he claims. He jokes that he hopes that his two maiden aunts, 97 and 94 years old, remember him in their wills.
Biker beatnik
Twenty-nine year old Brent Tobin has spent the last fourth of his life repairing bicycles in Madison and, briefly, in Milwaukee. "I've always survived on $15,000 a year or less," he informs me as he cleans some gunk from a crank at Revolution Cycles. "I guess I aspire to make more but I'm really passionate about what I'm doing. It's a noble cause."
Brent•'s never considered himself "career-oriented." Comfortably attired in a baggy blue sweater and jeans, feral hair held at bay by a tie in back, Brent's the antithesis of the corporate stereotype. Though he sheepishly confesses to contemplating more lucrative careers, Brent vows he could never manage the businesslike demeanor these jobs would require. "I could comb my hair, shine my shoes, for $30,000 a year, but it's not worth it." Going `corporate,' for Brent, entails a heinous identity theft to which he'd be a willing accomplice.
Brent reveals a conception of corporate America that brings to mind Mike Judge's savage portrayal of cubicle life offered in Office Space. Threats of double digit work hours daily, contrived relations with obnoxious co-workers, and the de rigeur JCPenney wardrobe prevent Brent from accepting job offers from a friend goading him to fill a niche in his computer networking start-up. Brent declines in style, rhetorically asking, "Why should I give a shit about big corporations networking their computers?"
Brent prioritizes meaning over income in choosing work. Defending his chosen career, he cites numerous ways bicycle shops contribute to Madisonians' well being. His concept of social good drives him to labor toward Revolution Cycles' ultimate success, a success contingent upon the business's ability to remain true to its philosophy of providing quality service and improving the quality of life in our community. (Since being interviewed, Brent's moved on to other familial pursuits. Revolution Cycles has also traded hands.)
Does Brent survive by living some monastic lifestyle? Not really. He drives a Series 5 BMW for one thing. This sleek machine only set him back $2,800, though, since extensive hail damage earned a serious markdown. "I just live on the necessities" he explains, noting that he neither buys new clothes nor eats in fancy restaurants. Until recently, he minimized living expenses by renting outside Madison. Now he's moved into a room in a house shared with three others, keeping rent low. Healthy food, though, proves pricey, leading the mechanic to "scrimp and save" at Woodman's rather than his favored co-op.
Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, revealed a compelling force for idealists such as Brent who question our technologically confounded lifestyles. Brent's clearly driven, like Pirsig's protagonist, to produce idealistic quality rather than materialistic quantity through his labors. This need for quality compels Brent on a deeper, gut level, to avoid compromising his values. For people like Brent, the corporate world epitomizes an ethically bankrupt `consumerist' system they believe is responsible for many of our social woes. Rather than opting to maximize narrowly defined personal gain, they seek to dovetail their careers with the community's social needs. Work becomes a source of meaning as well as modest income.
At $15,000 a year, though, Brent's still earning more than a lot of folks out there.
Different family values
Fringe dwelling is not strictly a solo venture. Katerina and Tyler, in their early 40s, live in harmony because they share key values. Recently, the couple purchased their first house on Madison's eastside, a cozy cottage they share with their two boys. Though the family currently thrives on roughly $40,000 a year, they gained expertise as fringe dwellers, living on less than $25,000 annually a few years ago, placing them lower on the earnings ladder than Brent. Katerina believes that no family could live on $25k/year today.
Tyler describes his family as "privileged poor," explaining that he's "not tight, just careful. Some people think I'm cheap." Katerina boasts, "Up until I was 35, I never had a credit card." The two espouse beliefs in frugality as an ethical norm.
Philosophically, Tyler questions the values he attributes to most Americans. "There's no ceiling on how much they have to earn," he observes, referring to people for whom the pursuit of wealth has become an end in itself. Our cultural norms dictate that we prioritize work over all other aspects of our lives, in Tyler's assessment, a view that neglects family life, artistic expression and simple acts such as cooking. Katerina adds, "That phenomenon is so foreign to me."
"Frugality can be shameful," warns Tyler, who believes that "TV families," the well-off trendy, meticulously clothed characters of the sitcoms, shape most Americans' perceptions of themselves and others. The need to appear wealthy drives people to overwork, overspend and then waste their acquisitions. Katerina remarks that these consumers really go full bore when they have kids, buying all the high chairs, bassinets and accoutrements of parenthood, things they could easily live without.
Katerina and Tyler's views remind me of my grandparents' tales of the Great Depression. The two, keenly aware that the cultural current flows against them, have no plans to change. Tyler strengthens his resolve, quoting Gandhi: "There's more to life than increasing its speed."
The couple, disgusted by the American mindset, looks at the larger picture. "We compare with global standards," Tyler explains. A few years ago, the family spent a year in the Bolivian Andes, the adults teaching and the boys developing their `global perspective' that contrasts with the experiences of peers. Katerina, who spent two years in East Africa with the Peace Corps, emphasizes the importance for her boys seeing beyond US borders.
Speaking with the family, I'm amazed at how `family values' permeate their lifestyle. They openly discuss teaching values at home, though Tyler focuses on the boys learning media literacy, "the secret language of product placement." These family values focus on daily human interaction in opposition to the consumerist system they criticize. Tyler and Katerina want everybody to live with "a little more modesty" so they start with their own children.
"Even if I won the lottery and had a million dollars, I'd still live like this," proclaims Katerina. The family relies on feet, bicycles and one used car for transport. Tyler finds many useful things on the curb. Katerina buys clothes second-hand. They purchase things they need not want. And they save as much money as they can. They've managed to squirrel away enough money to buy the house, a purchase they thought impossible even a few months ago. They're even saving for college.
Most importantly, the family works together while each follows their own interests. Tyler moonlights as a folk musician. Katerina works six-hour days, so she has energy to do things with the boys. This family has a vision of what they want and they don't let advertising push them from the path.
Renaissance man
"I pretty much fail to register on the economic radar," explains Renaissance man Peter. Since learning stone carving in lieu of earning a high school diploma, Peter has survived on abundant artistic talents. Unwilling to divulge his exact income, Peter vows that most years his income allows him to limbo well below the poverty line.
Peter's fringe dweller training began at 15 when a noted stone worker granted the teen's wish to apprentice under him in Germany. Scrounging enough funds to eat, Peter slept in the artist's studio for two years before returning to the States. This initiation helped him hone skills he's relied upon since.
Today, Peter yearns to give Madison a needed facelift by crafting public artworks. By sidestepping many of the pitfalls threatening to devour his disposable income, he affords an artistic life-style that enriches many lives, most importantly his own.
"A huge part of living on less is linguistic," says Peter, who explains that we need to rethink our conception of `needs.' Food, water and shelter, basic needs, are narrowly construed by most Americans. Shelter, for example, is understood as a house or apartment. Peter contends that "a million variations of `shelter' exist." By expanding our definition to include yurts, automobiles or friends' couches, we open up new possibilities that make fringe dwelling possible.
Peter also prioritizes his needs carefully: "Investing money in furniture is pure lunacy." Instead, by relying on St. Vinny's and Goodwill, Peter spends minimal sums on furnishings that he's free to return when they're no longer needed.
All possessions, particularly gifts, fall under LeMoke's critical gaze. He relates a tale of Diderot who, upon receiving a flashy new robe from a friend, remarked that his favored pipe suddenly seemed shabby in comparison. After securing a respectable pipe, the philosopher recognized limitations in his chair and other belongings, necessitating costly replacement of recently adequate goods. The moral, a la Peter: "Avoid any gift that implies that you need other things."
This maxim helps explain why Peter's never attained a driver's license. This simple decision eliminates a lifetime of car payments, insurance, repairs, and fuel. While reliance on public transportation hinders his mobility, the lower costs afford him a Thoreauvian greater freedom in choosing projects and living his life.
Influenced by '60s activist Angela Davis' recent writings, Peter envisions building an alternative social structure that supports like-minded folks in their pursuits. "What I see is a sort of medieval guild where I labor and live in the same place." Money may play a minimal role in that world since barter and other creative exchanges may meet most needs.
Peter subverts the widely held belief that work is a necessary evil that buys us a modicum of leisure time. He's structured his life so he does what he loves while loving what he does. Limited economic responsibilities allow Peter to choose where to apply his labor, bringing personal fulfillment while sustaining him for future projects.
Anarchist in action
"I don't want a job. I think jobs are slavery," proclaims anarchist Juana Machina, appropriately clad in an SEIU T-shirt. Currently a musician and full-time volunteer in radio, Juana retreated from her last encounter with wage labor nearly three years ago. "They gave me a quarter raise after a year," she reveals, adding, "That was my best paying job at that point."
She enjoyed a brief taste of college life before waltzing from one dead-end job to another. Class-consciousness, surfacing in her teens, led Juana to question the wisdom of sacrificing her valued time for minimal wages. While living in cooperatives, she found new potential for living on less.
Politicized through on-going penury and exposure to leftist media from WORT and other outlets, Juana explored the spectrum of political stances and selected anarchism. "Anarchists are opposed to capitalism and other sorts of hierarchy," she explains, noting that she was drawn to the socialist nature of the philosophy. Forming a fluid, ever-changing community, anarchists and punks look out for one another. Madison is one of many cities hosting organizations like Food Not Bombs that help folks like Juana who live on couches, in vehicles or squat because they don't believe in paying rent. Juana argues that owning property that one doesn't live on is another form of exploitation, redistributing wealth from the needy to the already-wealthy.
Many anarchists, including Juana, refuse to spend money on food, opting to survive as `freegans' and `opportunivores.' Freegans try to live up to vegan philosophy, protecting animals from exploitation, but will veer from those restrictions in rare situations when meat or leather would be wasted. These folks may dumpster dive, beg or pre-arrange deals with restaurants to obtain `post-consumer' edibles that would otherwise journey to the landfill. A particularly good haul might ignite a buffet celebration for the larger community.
When asked if she doesn't feel a bit guilty freeloading off of others, Juana doesn't pause, retorting, "Guilt is all about controlling people." Instead, she insists that anyone wasting resources, be it food, shelter or money, should hold responsibility for not sharing the wealth.
Given her experience, Juana, who earns well under $5,000 a year, believes that a Madisonian can live with no income as long as they maintain "connections." "It depends on how you want to live," she clarifies, noting that this life-style might not be possible for long. "This city, especially downtown, is undergoing gentrification, making it difficult for those of us that aren't yuppie scum."
Juana's Achilles' heel may prove the lack of affordable health care. Asked about health care, she chuckles humorlessly, stating "It'd be nice if we had some." She views sickness as a problem she'll need to ignore until she winds up in the ER. At that point, society's safety net, which favors last-ditch `miracles' over preventative care, will cover her. In other words, our society banks on that costly medical Hail Mary to save the day instead of investing lesser sums to detect problems in more timely manners.
Making the choice
If there's one thing that fringe dwellers have in common, it's that they can be just as self-righteous about their lifestyle choices as mainstreamers scrambling over one another to reach the top of the economic pyramid.
And yet, they don't romanticize their lives. Their choices come at significant cost, suggesting a deeper commitment to their philosophies. Even if they are "privileged poor," they struggle with inadequate health care, rising property values and little in the way of security. In other words, before you try this at home, remember that even self-elected poverty has fangs!
Madison at least offers a modicum of support for those who choose to live simply and on the cheap. Cooperative housing, numerous art galleries, thrift stores, nonprofit and political organizations, and sliding scale medical practitioners are just a few of the perks the city offers someone seeking an alternative lifestyle.
As long as Madison maintains the connections necessary for minimal survival, fringe dwellers will sustain themselves, carrying on in their essential pursuits and reminding the rest of us that bigger is not necessarily better, and that opting for few material goods has its own rewards.
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