PERMATECT'S [OPEN] NOTEBOOK

…and It Continues to Morph (Report-back 3/13/13-4/1/13)

This is the longest I’ve gone without posting since I started this blog, and, while it is going to be difficult to recount everything that has happened in the last few weeks, it means that I have been even more busy actually doing things than documenting them, so I am pleased with the way things are going.

This period began with the continuation of my paralysis related to not having my own place, so I decided not to fight it for a day and just watch movies at home with my friend in the East Village.  First, there was “Detachment”, a fictional film with Adrian Brody about the NYC Schools system as seen through the eyes of a long-term substitute teacher.  It was one of those films that makes one feel a lot better about what is difficult in one’s own life when it is compared to those much worse.  It portrayed how the system wears down people who care and the struggle to hold on to hope.  Then there was the two-part “Mesrine”, with Vincent Cassell, about the legendary French bankrobber Jacques Mesrine- what was interesting about it was how his rebellion was still politically poignant despite the brutal violence and excess that defined his life.  The figure of the outlaw always carries the aura of a free man, despite the inherent narcissism.  Anyway, quality cinema always serves well to restore my perspective, so I felt a little more inspired to work the following day.

The remainder of that week, on Thursday and Friday, I spent at The Bean, researching properties’ legal information and sources for graphics and images for the PDC final project.  Regarding the former, I intend at some point to write-up a small guide on how to navigate the many online sources of information I use for this research, but most of it is provided directly by NYC government websites and its more of a question of knowing how to look for the key information, present and missing, in the documents found.  On some level, this does just take a certain amount of experience in the field, while some can be taught.

On Friday evening, I went a presentation at The Brooklyn Commons given by Scott Kellogg, based on his work in Austin, TX (The Rhizome Project) and Albany, NY (The Radix Center), and his book “Toolbox for Sustainable City Living”, and learned a lot about permacultural techniques especially applicable to the urban environment, which is primarily defined by its space limitations, high amounts of unused waste, and potential cultural dialogue.  There will be a lot from this presentation and book showing up in the design of my final project for sure.  After this event, I went to a party held in the huge ballroom of a local church where there was good music but few people dancing- this left me all the room I needed to let myself fly into spins and the like.  It was certainly an important release for me.  I took Saturday off, returning to my preferred rhythm.

On Sunday, I returned to Rockaway, caught up with my friends where I stay, moved some picnic tables to the dome, and had a brainstorm for the PDC final project- I sketched preliminary design ideas in my moleskine and came up with a new name – A Way Station – that I feel really embodies the mission.  It is merely showing a way to resilience and it’s significance is in its existence as a point of convergence in a larger local and regional economic resource network.  It will be a place for people to visit on their way, from the inner boroughs to the beach as a tourist, from other parts of Rockaway to work on a farm outside the City, and food from farms going to homes, among many other paths.  I also decided to focus on the one vacant lot, editing out the one with the house, primarily because I visited and met the couple who lives there and they seemed pretty settled, despite the run-down condition of the structure.  Also, there are plenty of other buildings in the neighborhood that are much more ready to come down and provide their materials for ‘new’ construction.

DESIGN SKETCHES

The following day, I finally went to the Queens office of the NYC Department of Finance in order to see what more I could find on the vacant lot in person.  It turns out the trip was fruitful- I managed to obtain the direct phone number for “Mooring Tax Asset Group”, which, along with “Tower Capital”, is a servicer who purchases NYC tax liens and, if they fail to collect from the present owner, they must eventually send them to public auction.  Appartently, the vacant lot is due to go to auction this year and there is indeed no other liens against it, so there is a solid chance of actually getting it at an undermarket price.  Also, the fact that the auction will not be for a few months, I have some time to focus and raise funds without worrying the property will slip away before that.

That said, I must note that the tax lien process that has been in place in NYC since 1996 is another 'good’ example of how banks have the upper hand with government at every level.  As of that year, the City, instead of trying to collect the back taxes and wield the power to foreclose if they’re not paid, they  sell that power when they sell the lien, usually at a 30-40% discount to face value.  See, the banks [obviously] have the cash to buy these liens when the City sells them in one bulk sale yearly, and the City can then recoup that last income immediately, even if its not near all of it, its now.  It all sounds relatively fair to those involved, except for the fact that normal people have been completely shut-out from the disposition process with these properties.  When the City used to actually foreclose on properties, this would begin their path to community-based cooperative forms of control and ownership  of these 'neglected’ properties, but now it is all cloaked in a murky process visible only to people with specific experience in the field.  As I am one of those people, I intend to use that privilege to reverse the cycle of neighborhood alienation that these new financial processes beget.

Anyway, that evening, I went to Lisa Fithian’s 'OWS Action Lab’ gathering, where I was again perplexed about how 'action’ in the 'activist’ community pretty much means ’re-action’, or 'counter-action’.  As I feel the solution lays in the balance of dual power—protest/reform and pre-figurative societal forms—I am always somewhat irritated when the emphasis is put on the former, which it usually is, when it comes to 'action’, because I believe the work we need to really catch up on is with the latter.  I believe this bias in the 'activist’ community is indicative of the training we all are subject to—to expect immediate gratification.  If nothing else, a march, a petition, a blockade, etc. makes one feel much more like they are doing something now—certainly more than waiting for plants to grow.  My intent is not to de-value 'direct action’, only to suggest that it is over-valued in the current environment.

After spending some time catching up on writing and doing more design and research for A Way Station on Tuesday, I started working Wednesday with my old colleague on salvaging the last bit of boardwalk wood, and that is pretty much what I have been up to since.  Obviously, it fits right into the deconstruction mission of the Permatecture Design/Build Worker Cooperative project, as although the boardwalk itself had already been taken apart, all the material was dumped at Riis Park and needed further processing to be able to bundle and store, primarily that of clipping nails and screws for future complete removal and stackability for transport. 

'WASTE’ PILE

CLIPPING NAILS/SCREWS

The thing about the wood itself is this- it is old-growth rain forest hardwood from Guyana that should have never been cut down in the first place.  The NYC Parks Department uses it because of its extreme rot-resistant properties—it's  either that or creosote treated domestic soft-wood, which is so poisonous that it has finally been banned for future use—but that doesn’t change the fact that the ecosystems destroyed in harvesting it took 1000’s of years to form.  Anyway, the best thing we can do now is re-use as much of it as possible, as it is absolutely beautiful and incredibly hard material great for making furniture especially.  My colleague estimated that of the five miles of boardwalk washed away, maybe one mile was deliberately salvaged—who knows what happened to what was hauled away as trash at great state-of-emergency justified contract costs.  The portion we salvaged wouldn’t have been saved were it not for the fact that my colleagues worked out a deal where they would be paid in the wood directly, thereby allowing Parks to not come out of pocket at all.

LOADING TRUCK

The other great thing about the job is that I was charged with the task of finding local labor to do the paid preparation work.  This allowed us to effectively assess and possibly recruit people to the worker cooperative, and we have definitely grown our potential numbers.  My colleague brought some in and I found some through Sal Lopizzo over at YANA services over at B 113^th St, and about half didn’t work out for that long, but it was exactly the kind of blind interview process that we didn’t even know we could achieve.  As I mentioned before, the wood makes for great furniture, so this has become another vital part of the plan—that the deconstruction work be coupled with small scale furniture production.  To that end, we are currently hammering out details for a certain amount of 'seed’ boardwalk wood to be donated to help get the coop started, so it is quite exciting to see all this happening.

SHARDY!

In closing, I’m happy to report I have finally secured my own place to stay!  That 'community facilitator’ I mentioned before just purchased a house he intends to rent out for the tourist season and he needs someone to manage that effort in exchange for a place to stay—so there you have it! I have finally arrived.  Also, as if things couldn’t get better- the basement will be storage and shop space for the furniture making! 

With regards to a fuller description of A Way Station, the next post will be dedicated fully to this, as all I will be doing over the next couple weeks is working on that presentation, which I will certainly post in digital form here.  Wish me luck and, until next time, peace…

Everything Changed… Again.

If you’ve been following these posts, you may have noticed the increasingly chaotic nature of my experience.  Over the last couple weeks, this has proceeded apace, and has resulted in a significant change in course in my approach.  First, the initial prospective plot on Beach 96^th St has faded (yet not completely) from view due to the fact it was revealed that the owner does indeed have the intention and resources to renovate the property himself, so I finally began to seek out other options.  The Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) weekend classes have continued to be intense and left me no time to breathe, as I have become accustomed to having my Saturdays for that—this is the first time in 17 years I have committed to being anywhere or doing anything on that day, but that’s a Jewish story for another time.  Thankfully, we have the next few weekends off to work on our final project presentations, so I’ll get that back, have two more occupied, and then return to my old rhythm.  The experience has shown me indeed how important this Sabbath practice of mine is to my peace of mind.  On that theme, please see today’s other post for other disturbances.

So, as to that final project: we are to present a full site analysis and design to the rest of the class and the public on April 13^th at The Brooklyn Commons, so come by if you can.  I had always expected that the effort would be applied to whatever site I was focusing on for the most promising actual work of the worker cooperative, and since the Yellow House is no longer that, I have indeed found another site.  Located on Beach 92^nd St and Holland Ave, it is actually two corner properties on either side of of the street, one with an old house and one vacant land.  However, a large part of the reason I chose this site was due to the fact that there are a variety of healthy trees on both of them, along with some other vegetation.  Much of the focus of the PDC classes over the last couple weekends has been on trees and their importance in diverse/stable eco-systems and the process of succession after disturbance events, and the Yellow House site had none whatsoever, so it helps me to see that loss of opportunity as fortuitous.

The other idea I have been able to incorporate into the project is deconstruction, as there is a good chance the house will have to come down due to structural deficiency.  As I wrote before, manyof the old wooden beach mansions and bungalows will just end up getting demolished, and while they are indeed rotting from the bottom up, there must be millions of board feet of the beautiful old-growth pine and fur they used to build with here, and unless the structures are mindfully deconstructed, and not just torn down, this wood will be rendered largely useless, especially for building again.  Also, the first step in learning how to build is learning how to disassemble.  As we intend for the primary purpose of the cooperative to be increasing local economic capacity in construction—achieved through direct training, setting a precedent with our cooperative, and facilitating the formation of others—the effort to create and fill this niche of deconstruction seems to have the best potential to achieve these multiple aspects because the jobs are there to grab, the task is specific and straightforward, and it leads directly into a longer term training program.  I have also re-connected with old colleagues who are in the reclaimed lumber trade and so happen to presently be working with NYC Parks in salvaging the teak wood from the boardwalk.

House Occupied Lot

The sandy, partially vegetated, vacant lot across the street was known for a guy named Bill who used to live there in a tent, maintain a small garden, and sell things at the curb.  Even though I have been surfing out there for ten years, I only have vague memories of the flea market, but not him, strangely, as there are many people with fond memories of him from the neighborhood—he passed away three days after Sandy, sadly.  Several folks have gotten together to discuss bringing back the garden in memory of Bill.  I have spoken with one of those people and hope to coordinate with them in contributing my design work.  I have also thought of making a short video of people’s stories about Bill as part of my site study, out of both curiosity and respect.  Regardless, the existing human narrative of this site is vital to honor and continue.

Vacant Lot

Another part of the reason I chose these properties for my site is their legal status.  First, they have the same ‘owner'—the house occupied property has about $275,000 in delinquent debt on it, which was assigned to US Bank in 2009, and re-assigned/corrected again in 2012.  The original loan was made by now notorious Countrywide Home Loans, so it is doubtful anyone ever intended to pay it back, it being merely a vehicle to issue the junk derivatives that crashed the economy.  The vacant lot property has a $173,000 real estate tax lien, the certificate of which was sold by the City for custodial collection by Bank of New York in 2011, but it is unclear the present status.  Also, perhaps most significantly, on the exact same date back in 2007, $950,000 was lent to both properties individually ($1.9M total) by an entity in Westchester, but then paid back in full less than three months later.  If you know that the money in a new loan doesn’t actually exist before it is lent, then its not difficult to figure out what probably happened here—this money was generated by this initial loan, 'paid back’, and re-lent, likely a few times over, and plenty of interest collected.

The point is this—this 'owner’ is hardly that, it being made clear by the public record that his only interest was pumping as much money out of the properties as possible, and doing nothing to maintain or improve them, including even pay the real estate taxes on the vacant lot—those on the house property are being paid by the lender directly.  Presumably, this is why Bill was able to essentially squat the vacant lot without much trouble.  Also, there appears to be one person occupying the house, so I have to find out what the situation is there.  Regardless, my thinking is that making a deal directly with these debt-holders is the approach to take to gain control of these properties that compose the site.  I am visiting the Queens office of the NYC Department of Finance tomorrow to investigate the status of the tax lien, having reached that conclusion after many calls to various city agencies, and plan to start making phone calls to US Bank to find out where the outstanding mortgage note on the house has got to.

Now that this has all been laid out, its rather easy to describe what is the basic concept for the project: deconstruct the [two-family] house as a proof of concept for future work in that niche, rebuild a 'mini’ single-family house on each property that serves as the base for in-grid/off-grid, flood cognizant, urban homesteads that cultivate both restoration of natural habitat in concert with production for human needs.  Even if the project itself does not come to fruition, it serves as a template for decreasing dwelling footprint and restoring habitat across the Rockaway peninsula and beyond.  There are many unused lots and failing structures throughout, and this model I believe presents a more conscientious adaptation to climate change than perpetuating the old model of defiance, which this time seems to entail demolishing and throwing away the old buildings, and building elevated, up-scale towers, or restoring existing structures exactly as they were, boilers in the basement and all.  To that end, if the house is in good enough shape to save, then the restoration plan worked out for the Yellow House will be applied, and it can serve as the base for both lots.  Clearly, this new scheme still ties in with my underlying agenda of showing people happy pathways out of the city by making discrete displays of rurality in the urban environment.  I will of course post the results of our progress on this project, it being the subject for my PDC final presentation gives it the benefit of a deadline, at least for a well-formulated initial scheme.

As for the rest of what happened since my last report, there are a few things. I worked most of last week, actually, working on a team building a platform and geodesic dome commissioned by MOMA/PS1, Volkswagen, and Michael Stipe (apparently).  It was paid work, so some of my immediate financial pressure has been relieved.  To that end, I also received my first donation (!) of $200 from my mother- thank you Mom : ) I haven’t actually spent any of it because I got this work, but WePAY took their 3.5% cut, leaving the official balance at $193—I will provide the accounting as I spend that money.  First thing, I still have to catch up with payment for the PDC.

MOMA/PS1 Dome 1

Anyway, building the deck and dome was a lot of fun, as it was very simple construction and the crew from PS1 was cool.  A local 'community facilitator’ (resident, building owner, restauranteur, and cultural ambassador) coordinated the whole project and so got Noel and I the work, which was definitely a 'good look’.  On Friday, at the ribbon cutting ceremony, I 'incidentally’ met Stipe—I was heading out to look at the surf , saw him and honestly asked “How do I know your face?”, to which he replied “I used to be a pop star.”  We had a good conversation about sculpture and 'the end of the world’ (naturally) until the cameras caught up and started clicking.  I can say about him that celebrity has not gone to his head, as he seemed quite a balanced, kind person.

As I mentioned before, I discovered some old colleagues now involved in boardwalk wood salvage, and one expressed the desire to cut a video demonstrating the practice and benefits of deconstruction verses that of demolition, specifically for the work they’re doing, but obviously also applicable and expandable to our project, so a lot of things are coming together.  To that end, at the ceremony, I was introduced to the “Ideas Wanted” columnist for The Wave, the local newspaper, I told him about deconstruction, and he subsequently passed on a contact for Friends of Rockaway, who is apparently currently receiving grant money to do demolition work (my impression was that it is still of directly flood damaged material and not entire structures), so I have also to reach out to them.

I mentioned briefly before how the last weekend’s (3/2-3/3) Permaculture classes affected my project site decision—that was because they were all about trees and water.  I learned no less than that water is life’s medium, and trees are its primary vehicle of circulation from land back to sky.  Of course, there was a lot more information imparted, but this was the basic message.  Just this past weekend, we actually got outside and both days were beautiful—on Saturday, we walked around Prospect Park and 'read the landscape’, applying a lot of what we had been discussing in the classroom, which was certainly refreshing.  We learned how to identify a few tree species as well. On Sunday, we started the day in Fort Greene at a community garden with an 1000 gal collection tank for water coming off the adjacent church’s roof, and then went to Carroll Gardens to see Eco-Brooklyn's show house.  It embodied pretty much everything I want to do with Permatecture down in the Rockaways, save for the flood adaptations. I had heard about the outfit back when it was first starting (and I was first taking hiatus from green building), but I had no idea how far they had gotten, so it was inspiring to find out such a radical approach was staying afloat.  Finally, I played some basketball at Carroll Park and we got back together to discuss in detail the parameters of the final project.

Cherry Tree

Eco-Brooklyn House

These last few days I have been pretty unproductive, feeling the pressure of my immediate financial situation, to which I have dedicated a separate post.  I did, however, help my friend I stay with in Manhattan clean and fix-up her apartment, installing coat-hooks, a headboard, a shelf-box, and making some decisions about the shelving unit yet to be built.  I certainly feel better after writing all this, as seems usually to be the case. I hope you have seen value in it too. Thank you for reading!

I need a roof!

It’s all come down to getting a roof over my head—to restore private space for myself is what I most need now, ironically, in my quest for community living. I have learned invaluable lessons in this time of transience, but the time has come—I must establish a base. Everything else is going great—the ideas are proving feasible, and I am connecting with the people vital for them to happen, but my exhaustion from being homeless threatens to make it all come crashing down! The feeling you get when ‘just going home to relax’ is just not an option becomes incredibly taxing over time.

At the same time, being in this position for some time has expanded my empathy in a very visceral way. It has taught me to take nothing for granted and to pare away wants masquerading themselves as needs. I have found that I require few material things to be happy, but that a space of my own is still fundamental in the long run. This period of deprivation has been both externally and self imposed, moving from the former to the latter as I have embraced the co-evolution, but with that being informed by the realization that I just could no longer play the exploitation game, which entails installing yourself in a pecking order of advantage taking—leverage means that shit flows downhill.

I have been able to accomplish a lot of good work, both theoretical and actual, living on the fringe, that probably would not have been possible otherwise, but I must now return from 'the wilderness’. I believe I have learned enough and gathered the people around me to implement economic systems that support human living without coercion, but I need a push to get over this hump.

Is it audacious of me to ask for this kind of support in virtual space from strangers and friends? All I can say is that I sincerely believe in the wider benefit of the work I am doing. Please also understand that this appeal to meet a very individual need of mine is not something that I’d prefer doing. In the process of dreaming up and starting to implement these systems of community resilience, I have sacrificed that of my own. This is the contradiction I am facing here—it almost feels hypocritical of me to expect these ideas to work if I can’t even provide for myself… At the same time, this is the position I am now—I sense the culmination of a lot of work I have been doing simultaneous to a feeling that I am starting to crack.

I am looking to raise $2,000 here, to be able to pay one month’s rent, the deposit, and have a little pocket cash to cover eating expenses and any from my PDC final project.  I should be able to get stabilized and focus on getting support for project implementation that will account for our individual overheads within it.  Here again is the WePAY link.

(Bi-)Weekly Report-Back: 2/12/13-2/28/13

2/19/13 @ Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn

These weeks keep getting fuller, and I feel my energy getting increasingly pulled in multiple directions, so hopefully this blog will help do what its supposed to do for me: keep me focused.  That I am a day late in posting this is indicative of the gaining pace of activity. 

I just got back from Massachusetts, where I decided to go at the last minute yesterday morning, with the intent of clearing some things up with my car and picking up some stuff in Mt. Washington, only the latter of which did I fully accomplish.  At least some progress was made on it.  Anyway, I now have my surfboard, saxophone, berimbau, and some more books, so I’m in better shape regardless, or will be.  I also got to check in with my friends at Community Cooperative Farms (whom I mentioned in a previous post) to hear the news of the trip one of them took to the west coast to visit intentional communities and look at land.  It sounds like they are indeed going to re-locate after this year, so we will definitely have to strengthen our connections with other farms up there in the Berkshires.  To that end, a butcher who was visiting the CCF house told me he went to a local farmer organization’s meeting recently and the central topic was labor, or lack thereof, so if we could rally some up from the City, it would definitely be appreciated. 

Permaculture Design Certification course report-back, week 1:

Saturday and Sunday were the first two days of the Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) course I am now taking from the Center for Bioregional Living in Brooklyn, and it feels really good to finally engross myself in it, just as our project in Rockaway Beach is slowly starting to move.  The course is completed by designing for a particular site, and it is clear that this will be it.  The lectures and discussions this weekend were deeply informative and also re-affirmative of a lot of ideas already in my head, so I am certainly happy with my last minute decision to enroll.  I figured I was already claiming association with Permaculture, so it’d be good and respectful to enroll in a PDC.  Also, of course, my study and practice of thus far has huge gaps in it, as I needed to at first absorb its ideas on my own terms and those of writers and doers that I already count as major influences, but now it is time to dive in.

The classes themselves were basically a re-telling of the history of the universe—titled Anthropogenic Earth—that really illustrated how we are the universe, and that there really is no separation.  Each one of us is a community of elements common to the entire cosmos, fungi, bacteria, and microorganisms, among other things.  It obviously begs the question how we ever conceived ourselves as so different!  We also discussed how Permaculture is fundamentally different than Restoration Ecology because it is honest about its intent to benefit the human species in its application, whereas the latter takes more of a ‘you broke it, so now we have to fix it, and you can’t play with it anymore’ kind of attitude, which is prevalent among most traditional left environmental conservation.

2/26/13 @ The Bean, in East Village, NYC

So, wow, talk of being thrown off rhythm, this past week has been a doozie.  I don’t know where to start- I know I have to catch up on a lot from the week before, but this past week’s lessons are ringing loud in my ears, so I’ll start there.

Put simply, the carpentry gig with the homeowner didn’t work out, and the timing couldn’t have been worse, as I had used most of the money I earned to catch up on backed up expenses, so I was left with very little in my pocket when I lost that income flow.  Here’s what happened: I didn’t come to work until this past Wednesday, as the homeowner went out of town for a couple days, which is why I took the opportunity to go up to Massachusetts. 

Anyway, to provide some context for what’s to follow- on the previous Friday (2/15) we had stayed until 9 pm in order to finish the kitchen tile in one of the bungalows in order to prepare for a group of volunteers that were coming for the weekend to lay the adjacent wood floors and perhaps start on the finish trim work.  When he came in around 5:30 or so, he was rather unpleasant about his impression of the progress I was making and so I tried to explain the importance of morale on the job site—that if workers feel their work is valued, they work better and faster—to relatively little uptake on his part.  The other important factor is momentum, which is exactly as it sounds, that the flow of work should be as continuous as possible in order have good progress.  Of course, these two factors play off each other, in both the positive and negative sense, and external factors, such as a shitty attitude from someone on site or discovery of a missing vital material, can lead to a rather fast disintegration of progress.  So, this guy had demonstrated a habit of popping in throughout the day to tell me about his latest petty vengeance plot towards someone in his who had upset his fragile ego, breaking my momentum, killing time, and bringing down morale.  Then, he would still expect that the same amount of work he expected to be done get finished- this is what happened that day as well.  At first, I was resistant to staying late, as it was Friday and I was tired.  I also have to be careful with my lower back in not working too long any given day, but I had started a bucket of thinset that I had to finish, or else it was wasted.  Also, I did owe him a couple of hours from earlier in the week because I had to leave the site a couple times to meet people about the cooperative, but those were to be made up by 7 pm.  Regardless, I stayed and finished the bucket and the entire floor.  He actually did finally pitch in to the actual work by sponging errant thinset off the tiles behind me as I went along.  The problem is, he wasn’t careful in doing it and moved the tiles around that I had carefully set and had to fix as best I could in my state of exhaustion at the late hour.  He then complained about how they weren’t perfect when I returned on Wednesday!

So, the same thing basically happened that day.  First he told me about how his wife had 'accidentally’ snooped on an email his brother was writing to their mom about how upset he was with how he was being treated.  This conflict was the bulk of what he had been wasting our time with over the last couple weeks.  I now suspect that he may have only hired me to spite his brother.  Basically, his brother, who normally lives in Ireland and is quite religious, had rallied a crew of volunteers from a few churches over there to come over with him to help fix up the bungalows, only asking that they be housed and fed.  I had come on the scene after the other guys had left after completing a lot of work (structural repairs, re-plumbing, re-wiring, drywalling & taping), but all this guy could see was flaws in the work and how the plan for his brother’s wife to cook for the crew hadn’t gone as he expected, so he apparently felt the need to punish his own brother because of this.  Never minding that he had received 100’s of man hours of basically free labor—that is probably exactly why he turned things negative, so he wouldn’t have to recognize what was gracefully given him, despite his foul attitude.  Then, he came in a little later all worked up about how someone had parked a rental van in his driveway and asked me to use my car to block the driveway.  I simply told him I wouldn’t use my car to do such a thing, so he left and came back telling me how he had propped nails behind the tires in case the person tried to leave!  He again tried to enlist me in his plot by asking me to listen for the tire explosion and confront said person if they showed up while he was gone.  A half-hour later he came back again and casually said it turned out to be his upstairs tenant who had parked the van there, completely without any shame!

So, as 6:30 rolled around (I had shown up at 8:30 am, but he was late and decided I hadn’t started until 10, with which I was to exasperated to argue with), I let him know that 8 hours had been completed, to which he replied tried to guilt me into working longer for free because he couldn’t afford to pay for the extra time, to which I replied that I would just show up later the next day by the same amount of time, which diffused this particular attempt to squeeze more labor out of me, or so I thought.  Anyway, I worked until 8:30 that night, finishing the thinset bucket I had started and all but 10 tiles of the floor in the second bungalow.  I showed up at 10:30 the next day, as per our agreement, and he came in at 1:30 all worked up again and berated me for not completing enough work as he saw it and for not cleaning the tile saw well enough, even though I was already using it again and had planned to completely clean it when I finished the job.  I had also miscalculated the night before and told him there were enough tiles to finish the floor, but once I realized that in the morning, I immediately called to notify him of the fact- he didn’t answer and so I left a message for him to call me back.  He was obviously upset about that as well.  I decided at that point that the hours I had worked this day were on me, told him that, and that I would clean and roll it up for the day, as I couldn’t take this treatment anymore!  I also expressed the issues I have laid out here about how his behavior was destroying morale and momentum, that it had to stop, along with the squeezing of extra time out of me.  He didn’t take it well, and I own that I wasn’t exactly sensitive in how I expressed it, so it escalated into a screaming match.  Still, he actually tried to come back a few minutes later and get me to finish the day!  I said no, and that if he wanted to continue the relationship he would have to show me some respect.  Apparently, that was too much to ask, so when I came the next morning he told me it “just wasn’t working out”.

Before I get to explaining why I am writing about all this, I should also point out how he has been using New York Cares, a city volunteer organization also providing storm relief, to extensively gut the entire first floor of the main house down to the framing, including the removal of concealed layers on the ceiling, when the water only came up to just floor level and the standard work done in this situation is to only remove the first four feet of drywall. Many dumpsters worth of debris have been hauled away by NYC Sanitation as well.  He, of course, has his rationalizations for why he is entitled to these services, including how many taxes he pays and hard this has hit his savings, but the irony is that, by removing so much in the house, he is only increasing the expense of replacement!

So, what’s the point of slogging through all of this?  -To illustrate in detail the pattern of what this capitalist culture does to people.  Of course, there are also personal and familial issues at work, but those are probably also the result of previous generations being oppressed by the system.  In the end, I can really only pity how he has been turned into such a nasty creature, and furthermore, I knew going in of his reputation for such behavior in the neighborhood, so I can’t be too surprised or upset, although I am culpable of thinking I could be a bridge of some sort.  During our argument, I said: “you’re not my boss!”, to which he replied: “as long as I’m paying you, I am!”—that about sums up the mentality, that people use money not only to pay for the value of work, but also to be able dominate, dehumanize, and disrespect people.  I have been down that road and swore to myself back in 2008 that I wouldn’t ever do so again, and some may call that pride, but I call it dignity.

2/28/13 @ Queens Public Library (temporary unit), Rockaway Beach

First, to wrap up the story with the homeowner once and for all—I went by yesterday to pick up my tools and I mentioned to him that, when I had given him that half-day on Thursday, I had forgotten about the two extra hours I worked on Wednesday, which I never meant to give to him, and that he should know that this was where I was at—what he wanted to do with that was up to him.  He told me this is why it didn’t work out, because I was nickel and diming him, to which I asked: “Isn’t a day 8 hours?”  I could see him get visibly upset and ready to fight all over again, so I backed off and said: “Don’t worry about it, man, relax… I don’t want to argue with you, take it easy.  Everybody has to live their life the way they think is right” and he replied “Yes! They do!”  He finally then stopped talking and walked away grumbling.  I said to him as I left a few minutes later: “Take care of yourself, _____”  It seems like that’s all he’s ever done, or will, and it is sad more than anything else to see the life this has left him—full of conflict, distrust, and acrimony.  I even feel a little strange writing about it now, because I sense how much I indeed participated and how that is probably reflected in the tone here.  The truth of the matter is that toxic people spread their pollution to everyone around them.  I am not saying he is to blame, just that I can learn from this by seeing how much of that I still carry myself, continuing to work on that, and being more careful about who I get wrapped up with moving forward.  Peace!

Now, on a more positive note, I had some great meetings with a couple folks the week before last and the Permaculture classes continue to be very engrossing and inspiring. 

First, someone who had found me through facebook, then being guided to this blog, reached out to me directly, and then came out to the job site to discuss his interest in the worker cooperative, as he was already well involved in similar efforts to launch others in nearby Long Island.  Our conversation was very encouraging, as he was very convincing that he could guide the process of us actually finding and getting jobs, he having a long background in sales and marketing and definitely being in solidarity with our mission, so it looks like we have a new potential and key member! 

Later in the week, I spent about five hours discussing the nature of the local commerce and economy with the guy who owns a building right in the vicinity of the prospective site, is involved with a few of the local businesses directly, the and knows its owner—I believe I have mentioned him before.  Anyway, he gives quite good insight and advice, and we were able to find a lot of common ground as to the best ways to bring the site to life—spatially, economically, and socially—also sufficient for him to agree to finally set up a walk-through for us to assess the condition of the inside of the 'Yellow House’, as we’ve now decided to call the whole project, with the basic understanding that we would come back a little later with a tight pitch once we have incorporated this crucial information.  This is big news—apparently, we’ve been vetted by a key and wise figure in the neighborhood, so now we just have to wait until we hear back from the owner, as the call has already been made.  Fingers crossed!

Also, the woman (with the three children) I wrote about as being fundamental to my existence down here right now has committed to guiding the 'food & beverage’ aspect of the project, as she had already been doing things like this out of another business down here, having a lot of experience with the work.  She has a lot of great ideas to make the place a great spot, and the passion and ability to see them through for sure! 

Last on the 'Yellow House'—another woman in the neighborhood, who was also involved in the 'Boatel’ project from this past summer, is an artist and maker, of things like jewelry and tapestries, and we sat for a while discussing the personal, internal nature of 'real’ revolution and that it comes down simply to 'people who care’, legitimately, for everyone and everything.  She also shared with me an idea she has had called 'Rockaway Cottage Industries’, where all the people in the neighborhood who make things be networked and supported in their work—this I believe will fit nicely into the project.

Now, for a few random thoughts I have had about the site and neighborhood over the last couple weeks.  From the Permaculture classes, I realized it is really feasible to bring the site literally back to life, in addition to restoring the building.  It will take a few years, yes, and even if we can’t stay longer and the owner decides to bulldoze it, it will be shown that such a thing is possible, so all will definitely not be lost.  Also, as part of this process, the first year will be a slow building back and stabilizration of earth and topography, so there will probably be minimal amounts of edible production, but all in due course, I’ve realized—don’t want to force it.  I also had a somewhat unrelated thought about the Rockaways at large—that many of the old wooden beach mansions and bungalows will just end up getting demolished, and while they are indeed rotting from the bottom up, there must be millions of board feet of the beautiful old-growth pine and fur they used to build with here, and unless the structures are mindfully deconstructed, and not just torn down, this wood will be rendered largely un-reusable!  I’m pretty doubtful I have the bandwidth to pursue this, however.  Anybody out there?

Permaculture Design Certification course report-back, week 2:

Finally, to finish up this rather lengthy post of backed up reporting, I’ll give a brief summary of this past weekend’s Permaculture class and then make a direct appeal to my readers here.  We really started to get into particulars and examples, particularly of the 2^nd Principle of the discipline—Catch, Store, and Recycle Energy—and this includes the potential energy of water high in the landscape to irrigate and power various mechanical operations.  We learned how to spot springs and pump the water uphill if they are low, using energy available on the land, whether it be by a 12V Solar PV pump or the excess energy of existing downward flow, using something called a 'ram’ pump; how to capture, store, and filter rainwater, including for potable uses; the concept of 'Total Embodied Energy’, where the entire process of production of any given product is quantified in terms of energy and waste; how Black Locust trees, which are really a type of Acacia, fix Nitrogen in the soil, which vegetables need; how to perform simple soil tests using a mason jar; the potential of bio-gas methane from manure and compost to replace petroleum based fuels like propane; and basic soil chemistry—N (Nitrogen), P (Phosphate), and K (Potassium)—and how all the components of a healthy soil ecosystem(not that of agribusiness)—clay, sand, silt, sediment, fungi, bacteria, microorganisms, birds, insects, worms, and more—work in concert to promote life for all.

So, as I had been counting on that carpentry gig to be able to pay for these Permaculture classes, which work out to about $75/day from the total $850 fee, I am now in a rather difficult position of having to ask for leniency with the Center for Bioregional Living with regards to my payment plan.  This past weekend, I was unable to pay, and I certainly also don’t have the funds this week, as I’m back to being flat broke until I find another source of income—regardless of how it ended, I had made myself dependent on that job and now I barely have enough cash to eat and pay for transportation, never mind saving up for rent to actually get my own place to live.  I really believe that this 'Yellow House’ project will be a great thing for my new community and that time is of the essence right now, so I am appealing here for any support folks can provide (please click here to give: *note* NOT tax-deductable) to keep me going—the idea is that, once we secure use of the property, we will be able to raise resources more easily because we would have a lease, or deed, in hand, but for now, its a lot of work with no guarantee of any fruits, so please help if you can… ; )  I hereby make the commitment to both continuedocumenting qualitatively the activities it would support, as I already am with these posts so far, and actually accounting quantitatively for the use any dollars I receive here. Regardless of how you support, thank you for reading!

Weekly Report-Back: 2/5/13-2/11/13

Monday 2/11/13 @ Queens Public Library (temporary unit), Rockaway Beach

It has again been a full week. I spent most of the time on the homeowner’s job site just trying to stack up some cash, however, so I am definitely trying to keep my eyes on the prize and not fall into just scraping by on odd jobs, such as this one has mostly turned out to be. As I wrote before, the initial agreement was understood to be a trial where we could both achieve some familiarity between us and so possibly develop a deeper trust. Not to say that hasn’t happened, but some things happened that motivated me to call an end to the trial period and finalize an arrangement that I am more comfortable with. In my last post, I also wrote that the deal was $125/day and lodging, as that was my understanding of it, with the lower day rate compensating for the value of the lodging, but apparently his understanding was that one day was still on me for that value. After a respectful conversation and negotiation that decoupled my inputs (lodging) and outputs (carpentry work), we arrived at an agreement of $150/day with three days mutually guaranteed, and $100/week ‘rent’ to stay in the bungalows, semi-heated as they are, with access to the main house for the bathroom but no hot shower. I am trying to arrange something where I only stay there the nights before I work and can cut those costs in order to save for a legitimate place come March 1st. Either way, I am finding that the most productive schedule for me is to work Tuesday through Thursday, instead of Monday-Wednesday, because this allows me to write here on Mondays. Saturdays I always take off to re-set my soul (started this practice on a religious Kibbutz in 1995—the 'only’ thing that keeps me Jewish), Sundays are usually taken up by friends and/or events, and I write better with a rested mind, so Mondays it is.

Anyway, the other upshot of our conversation is that I probably won’t continue to participate in the renovation of the main house, although it presents an intriguing opportunity to establish a prototype, I prefer to take on a project where the collaborator is in more need if we are going to be looking to support networks for material support. The situation lies somewhat vaguely in the middle between where the owner can afford to pay for the work and plainly can’t. It seems to me that this difference should be rather stark as we decide which course to take—for-'profit’ or not-for-'profit’ –otherwise things could get messy quickly. In my personal experience with this owner regarding the bungalows, I found it wiser to go the former route, although I am still taking a reduced day rate, being still sensitive to his situation.

These are exactly the kind of direct experiences I had hoped to have in coming down here the way I have, and I can only hope that I am making good decisions as the data rolls in. Again, time will tell.

Now, for an update on the 'prize’ I am keeping my eyes on:
Also in the experience I just outlined, I was reminded of something else—that if we really want to develop a legitimately radical prototype for resilient building and land-use, we must be 'in [full] control’ of the project, at least when it comes to its objectives, if not the property itself, at least by multi-year lease. If we are not able to outright purchase, then we must at least be clear that we will fully determine design program and methods of construction, full stop. This is not to say that we will not be accountable, but only to pay the rent and provide a clear business plan that proves our ability to do so. I have had too many experiences, including the above, where compromise with the 'owner’ and his/her bias has led to the ruin of beautiful visions. Speaking of which, here is little expansion on what we will see on this project:

For the overall Project:

-Public, Inclusive, Pedagogical, and Reproducible
-…and Fun!
-Economically viable- lodging, event, communication, and instructional 'income’.

For the Building:

-Flood 'accommodative’
-Rainwater/Graywater system for flushing and watering (eventually filtration to potability?)
-Potable water for drinking (and showers?) only
-Energy neutral/positive- electrical (bike generators, rainwater hydro, solar, wind) and heat (serious air sealing, ultra-insulation, wood-burning stove, heat recovery ventilators)
-Non-toxic/Bio-restorative

For the Lot:

-Compost network consolidation point
-Permacultural/bio-intensive/aguaponic cultivation
-Chickens for compost processing and egg production. (also a goat? ; )
-Converts to enclosure for extended season, compost heated.
-Possibly floating planting beds with mooring?
-A boat?

More to come….