The Garbage People Have Arrived

Newport, RI, once home to the summering elite from the mid-nineteenth century to about the 1930s, has again been found by the Garbage People. Don't get me wrong - I don't have any room in my heart for mansion dwellers or real estate magnates, but at least when the move around in their weekend-khakis and tucked seersuckers, they do so with some semblance of grace and dignity. But not the Garbage People.

The Garbage People move from bar to bar in a jerky fashion like the dice in a Pop-O-Matic bubble. If seen from above they would come off as frenzied ants under a cruel child's magnifying glass, scrambling away from something unseen, probably their past, but who knows. These are Jimmy Buffett's people whether they like it or not, lost in the world and invasive, like some choking vine. But here they are ignorant of the aloha shirts and kitschy pseudo island music that allows the general population - good, wholesome folks such as myself - to identify them at a distance. No, for the Garbage People, the music is a more personal decision. Perhaps it's the Eagles, Hall and Oats, or maybe the Rolling Stones.

These are not people of conventional trappings. They might own a boat. They may, at times, drive around in a forest green Jeep Wrangler with deployed airbags draping lifelessly into their laps as they avoid pedestrians. Perhaps they buzz around on a rattly old scooter (for legal or other reasons). But when the sun goes down and they head out on the town, they will get stinking drunk on a mix of cleverly named cocktails, and proceed to crash about in restaurant bathrooms and dance haphazardly in the delightful breeze of the electric hand-dryer, squealing in delight. The are, after all, Garbage People. They have to ruin everything.

A dramatization of a Garbage Person in real life, as portrayed
here by this particularly haggard looking lost doll.

Don't Trust the Lies of the Gluten-Industrial Complex

It's been brought to my attention that in my efforts to avoid wheat, I may have been inadvertently ruining spaghetti time for all. I get it. It's no fun to not eat pasta and bread and, seemingly, everything else. It's a very sad existence foraging, nachos all the time, grudges, and heavy judgment. No one understands this more than me. And I do understand.

But it is important to point out that while the initial gold rush of the gluten-free fad has hopefully peaked - a peak covered with dustcakes and slime pasta and foambread - and has left many a forsaken avoider hung out to be dry-mouthed by the false promises of all the faked breads and noodles. In light of all the fad driven shenanigans, it's important to remember that there are a bunch of people still avoiding and it's only getting worse. There are nearly as many articles that might as well be titled If You Have Ever Had Gluten Even Once You're Already Dead as there are 10 Reasons You're Going to Die Tomorrow if You Don't Eat More Gluten Right Now God Damnit! It's all lies - be it from the granola-eaters or the Gluten-Industrial Complex.

But still, even as a skeptic, I felt I had a build-up of some unidentifiable compound in my body, so I experimented. I had no idea what brain fog was until I started avoiding at first gluten, then, more specifically wheat. Now I know - it's that pervasive lack of critical thinking capability that I thought was just the result of being a tired parent in my thirties, but now I believe there were other sinister forces at work. As I continue to avoid wheat and my body flushes something out, I live with much less brain fog, I don't eat antacid every night, my afternoons aren't a struggle to stay awake, and I'm starting to become more smarter-er again, albeit slowly. So there is a thing here, but what?

After spending what must have been tens of minutes looking into it (thanks internet), here's what I've learned. Here, National Geographic talks about the herbicide Round Up, made by Monsanto (GMO people), and how it may have carcinogenic effects (and how the active ingredient, glyphosate, is not included in the US government's testing for toxic residues in food). Here, on the Round Up website, are instructions for pre-harvest application of Round Up (skip to page 36 for the Harvest Management benefits). And here, Reuters talks about how the EU almost banned (but eventually didn't) the stuff, while Malta, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands and Argentina have. The state of California even says it can cause cancer (just like everything else). Ok, so what?

Here's the deal: there has been a gradual increased use of Round Up not only to help squash weeds that could take over crop lands just after harvest of wheat, barley, soy, corn, etc..., but also to help control the harvest. Once the good stuff, the kernels, are just about ready to go, a farmer could just dowse the crop with Round Up, which, in turn speeds that crop to a more uniform maturity (ripening as it chokes), enabling it to be straight cut instead of swathed (easier, more productive harvest). Sure, it makes it easier for the farmer... but what about the brain fog?