Many modern city dwellers survive perfectly well without a 'regular job.' We live like millionaires but would be hard put to tell you what our true career was. We survive on air. And no, we are not the crazy homeless you see rooting in trashcans. We live in picturesque, old homes with huge, jungley gardens.
Not all are rented homes; many are owned, bought with land contracts (monthly payments to old owner) or we use those new poverty sector Fannie Mae loans with a low cash down payment that don't require proof of earnings or good credit, only proof of high, past rent paid by showing cancelled checks. And those rents we paid with several friends but WITH OUR OWN CHECKS!
How do we afford homes when we don't have 'regular' jobs? Well, I didn't say we don't WORK. We are well-paid for freelance work as artists, healers, mystics, organic gardeners or party caterers. We just never work 40 hour a week jobs hoing other people's row, not unless we love the work; then we happily put in 80 hours.
Job-free people are easy to spot. We drive to mountain and beach on week-days, --in old cars it's true,--but with a proud smile because we're glad to be in the .0005% of the populace of the planet who own cars. We brake for trashcans in alleys and garage sales, because that's how we furnish our homes. We know that your second-hand, leftover stuff is as good as our firsthand. Sp we earned our nickname. We are bottom feeders.
Bottom feeders don't make a good living but we have a great life! We have the dollars for rent and utility money and the leftover change is for brown rice and tofu. We're into quality abundance in things other than cash. Gardens, sun, creativity, art. All we need is just enough income to get by. Often, we 'get by' with the help of our friends. Friends sleep on our couches and kick in rent and food. And in hard times, friends lend us their couches and we do the kicking in.
BFers don't have savings accounts; we have 'mattress money.' We don't have regular 40 hour a week jobs; we have cottage industries, home businesses. True, we don't make as much as you do in your highly paid drone work, but look on the bright side, our money's all our own. We don't have FICA deductions, pension fund, Social Security deductions and we don't pay taxes. We don't have costly HMO's but not to worry. We don't have high blood pressure either.
We may be forgoing Social Security and Med-I-Care coverage at the end of our lives because we expect --as Clinton predicts, that there will be no Social Security or Med-I-Care by then. Not for you, not for anyone. BFers don't count on Uncle Sam or on pensions. We have learned secret techniques of Surviving on a Nickle that give creativity, earnings and bliss, and bliss is such a super vitamin that we expect to live forever.
Bottom feeders enjoy sunny days at home doing textured wall-painting or digging carrot rows in the yard, or sweating in their ateliers as much as you yuppies enjoy your caffe lattes, Beamers, IRA's and airless, gleaming, monochrome condo-sealed tombs scented with all the formaldehyde in those spanking new plywood boards.
What are the secrets of this mysterious tribe who listens for their own drumbeat and happily live at the bottom of the food chain? What are their methods of achieving a viable lifestyle in Post-Reagan times using advanced Trickle-Down theory?
And who are these people, anyway? Are they just an urban legend? I mean, do you actually know any of them? Let's study their habits, their habitat and decide if BFers might be someone you know.
As I mentioned, daytime, BFers are always outdoors. They are a fresh-air lot. They have suntans, smile a lot and have no visible means of support. You'll find them unloading a picnic basket in the parking lot at a public park on a week-day. They carry thrift store tennis rackets, drive old Volvos, VW's or 4 cylinder Japanese cars from the early 80's. Look in the picnic hamper. It's full of SALAD. Bottom feeders are frequently vegetarian, recognizing that cows must know how much good protein is in greens, hence they have ruddy complexions and never NEED medical coverage. Their cuts and gashes actually heal without stitches as they have amazing immune systems.
WHAT, NO HMO? How do we do it? Hey, the answer to this is a no brainer. Don't get sick. Bottom feeders stay on the absolute healthfood diet of the planet! No bologna, beef, eggs, gland meats for us. In our picnic basket there's a choice of bogus egg salad sandwich, (really tofu,) Caesar salad or raw fruit depending on who's giving away what at the grocery or the menu at the temple where we feast.
HOW BOTTOM FEEDERS EAT: There is the totally vegetarian feed bag, filled with loss-leader items from super markets and free, giveaway produce that the healthfood store gives us at closing time. There is the bounty from our own organic gardens or from the communal garden. There are free meals at Sikh and Hari Krisha temples. There is the bounty of all God's trees overhanging alleys and last, every small non-chain market will box up and give you their wilted vegies if they're certain you'll come at the end of the day. Those that won't will see the hardier of us leaning over their dumpsters, picking.
LEAN AND MEAN. BF'ers have learned that one can be a total vegie with ease if one is careful to combine a small amount of vegetarian proteins with full amino acid foods either in the meal or in the next meal. Broccoli oddly enough can be a protein if you add a little complementary protein like hummous or dairy so we sprinkle or drizzle bean dip or butter on top.
Raw juices, green and gold salads are full of macro-nutrients but it takes sunflower seeds to turn vegies into a rib-sticking protein meal.
With rent so high, some days there is no money for FOOD. When that happens, Bottom feeders don't fret. They eat what's on the shelf. Canned beans are great with a shot of hickory barbecue sauce. A solid poor-day tip given me by one of my nickle-pinching Caesars is to always keep whole grain flour in the freezer. Add water from boiled vegies, yeast, good oil or butter and let taht dough rise into crusty bread. Or rub the wheat with water to make Seitan (wheat steak) or take soybeans and make tofu.
OTHER FOODS FOR PENNY-FREE DAYS: Keep track of all the fruit trees in the neighborhood. The true scoop on fruit tree alley scavenging is that it is 100% legal if it overhangs a fence. When I first became a Bottom Feeder, having four, fatherless children, I learned to pick lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit from my own California garden and juice it. I learned to not throw away the peels; they were the best part. I parboiled them, scraped interior pith off with a sharp spoon, getting rid of all the white rind then boiled the outerskins with its own juice and a ton of sugar to make marmalade, which I kept in the fridge in jars and give away at Xmas.
ALLEYS ARE USER FRIENDLY-Apricots, nectarines, peaches, grow all over the city. The most prized treasure on trees is avocados, beefsteaks on a tree, like having McDonalds give away Big Macs free on every corner. Avocados are friendly fruit. The ripe ones fall on the ground, making themselves available. There is one drawback to poaching in alleys: cops. Police will harass you if they see you, but not to worry; if they don't see you, they can't harass you. So be as invisble as you can. Ask your neighbors if they want their pets walked. (Charge 4$ an hour to do it.) Drive pooch to a suburban neighborhood. Park car on the street and walk your neighbor's dog into an alley with overhanging trees. Carry a long prong tipped stick (nail in stick is fine) and some plastic bags. The aggregate visual effect is of a neat citizen walking a dog. You actually seem to live on that street. No cop asks a dogwalker for ID. No dog? Do it alone. If police wonder what's up, say sweetly, I was jogging and I saw this lovely fruit. Give them your 'aunt's' address nearby. Booking a misdemeanor takes too much paperwork, too many forms, also, other cops would laugh these cops out of the jail for booking someone who was just picking fruit as it is, technically, legal.
Afraid of the hassle? Then go to the healthfood store at closing time, tell the owner that you distribute food to the poor. (You must actually do it, too, or your word's no good. Never fritz with your word. It's the most important thing BFers have --next to pluck and chutzpah.) If you promise to show up daily at the same time, invariably, you will get the store's 'garbage concession.'
If you're a stickler for realism, there's real garbage. Many BFers "Dumpster Dive" just as the homeless have always done. Super markets throw enormous amounts of food, cosmetics, medicine, plants into those dumpsters. I met Marty an 80 year old dumpster diver a kind of hands-on guy, who gets inside the bins, tosses the treasures out into boxes. He fills his van with food from the supers and potted plants, cosmetics and notions from drugstores and gives regular garage sales making thousands of tax-free untraceable dollars on a week-end. He also has a regular route of delivery customers, Bottom Feeders all.
Frizzy hair Bob works the alleys of Beverlywood and Pico Robertson and gives the produce to single mothers with kids. I know because I was on his route and often he'd take me to watch him do it but I could never lean up against a dumpster. I have cootie-phobia, so I'm a terrible trasher but if I see the bagels come out of the dumpster in bags, I'll toast, butter and eat them, after inspecting them carefully for mold.
FOOD RESURRECTION TRICKS:
BREAD-Put on your glasses. If there's any mold, anywhere, dump it. The spores are all the way through the loaf.
BERRIES-Float berries on water, save and use floaters only. Out of these, toss ones with any visible mold onto compost pile. Put sugar on your fresh washed berries to preserve them in fridge until needed. The sinkers have lost their oxygen, are no good for eating but don't let the sinkers go down the drain. Gather them together, plant them. You'll get dozens of vines and berries for years afterwards out of a handful of rotten berries.
CARROTS: Soak overnight in a sink of cold water, turnips, beets, ditto.
WILTED SALAD- Cut across bottom of leaves, soak for several hours. Dry before you bag it, by shaking, toweling, draining.
FRUITS- When you dumpster dive or get rejects from markets, you get fruit with tiny rotten spots. You must gauge how long it will last with that nick and if it's not long, "push" the fruit to the tenants and kids. If you're smart, you will do fruit salad the second it gets into the house. Wash, clean, peel, cut up, throw a half cup of sugar on it and sprig with mint so it looks appetizing and kids will add it to yogurt. If kids are not kitchen-friendly, the food-respectful parent will 'push' what just came in by serving it up in a festive fashion. Plop a dish on their lap in front of the t.v, or where they're doing homework. Parents will never, ever tell their kids this is dumpster or charity from markets. Their egos cannot handle it. They want to be the same as other kids and you should respect their feelings. Lie like a rug.
GREEN POTATOES- Plant them. They're no good for anything else. The green ones will give you arthritic joints. Potatos develop a poison (solanine) when they turn green. Sprouting potatoes are fine to use, just cut the sprouted tips off with a piece of potato behind it, and plant those. Only eat the remaining, gouged up spud.
DUMPSTER DIVING-While upper class DD's and BFer's don't go after it, only the homeless will, restaurants throw huge amounts of food into the trashcan. Just for an experiment, go behind a cafe at ll p.m. and check. You'll find complete meals, well wrapped. Great for petfood if you rinse salt off.
Except for riding shotgun with Frizzy Bob, I have no recent experience D-Ding. However, when I was a young single mother with four children to feed, I used to drop by the trash bin of elegant Fred's Bakery in Beverlywood and reheat "day's end" (not day-old) corn rye in my oven. Bread never tasted better. So for years afterwards, I went to Jewish bakeries at night, while the Mexicans were baking and asked them for day old loaves. Every visit produced one to ten loaves of the most costly fresh bread in the world, a day old of course and tons of pastries, too. I used to pull up beside people on bus benches and unload carbs on their laps. Once a guy in a Mercedes gave me the high sign for this so I went over to him and said 'let's give this homless woman a dollar, too, and he did!
DD's and BFers are feeling people. And that's why they tend to be elitists and care about their own feelings just as much as they desire a free meal. Dumpster diving is a little rough on self image. A BFer concerned about waste might visit the back alley kitchen door of a small cafe and ask the cook when the kitchen closes, and if he could come back with plastic jugs, and distribute the leftovers to the poor and homeless. He will not ask for the food for himself because he'd get bummed out. But he'll eat probably eat part of it himself, later. My friend Jeffrey goes nightly to the Hare Krishna restaurant, Govinda's, and is given gallon milk jugs or huge plastic bags full of curried dal, rice and yogurt raita which he distributes to his friends or freezes.
A BFer will go to the bakery, determine when the baker throws away the day old unsold bread and promise to pick it up nightly, to distribute to the homeless. Merchants are food-artisans, and always glad to NOT have to throw precious delights in the trash and welcome the appearance of a 'distributor.'I know because I was the unofficial 'distributor' for my 3HO (Sikh) healthfood store. I was given forty to fifty pounds of food a day. They knew that the four kids and I couldn't consume that quantity and that I was distributing to the poor so my cheeks were never red. And I did distribute to poor families, doing so until that store closed.
Some days there would be a dozen huge yogurts, five dozen half gallons of milk, massive bags of rice and lentils with rat bite holes. There'd be pounds of wilted greens that would get their stems cut, so that stuck in water, they'd puff right back up. Carrots get a deep bath overnight and they are crunchy as new.
Always ask the store manager for throwaway stuff for your poor people's route. If the manager says no, come back another day when he's not on duty. (How do you find out? ASK!) Go into the back room, carry an empty box, and say to the youngest employee, 'I'm sent by Father McGuire from the orphanage for the dented cottage cheese?' It's the single item most often destroyed and sitting useless and dented in the refrigerator room, scheduled for discarding. You'll be out of the market and over the hills with a lot of other things besides dented cheese, stuff the employee and the produce guy pressed on you and long gone before anyone realizes they don't give cheese to any Catholic orphanage.
Another trick of the collecting trade---that weekly Farmer's Market the yuppies attend has a lot of unsold produce at sundown. Where do you think it goes? Back to the truck farms? No way. If you help the farmer load his truck, he'll comp you. To him, it's nothing. He has eggplants coming out of his ears. If you tell him you know of some poor families or a halfway house or orphanage and roll up a truck, he'll give you enough to set up your own stand the next day but don't be tempted. Cops harass street vendors. Instead, visit poor pals' homes where you'll win brownie stripes contributing farm-grown vegies.
Need fresh food the other 6 days of the week? No problem, the Farmers market moves to a different burrough of the city each day. Or try Supers. All small, non-chain grocery stores have rats. If you ask the employees, you can get dog and cat kibble, flour, rice---true, sometimes there are tiny teeth marks on the bag, or actual rat droppings inside, but they're easy enough to pick out. Anyway, it won't hurt the dog if you couldn't.
Sometimes, you have a dollar, a quarter, a dime and a nickle. In this case, you have to know what foods are the SUPER CHEAP GOURMET HIGH ENERGY and NUTRITION TREATS: GREENS: Collards are .33c a bunch at barrio stores and at Iranian markets. They cost .89c in ritzy emporiums. The butcher always gives me a piece of pig fat for free. Fry this, discard oil and put those "chitlins" in your greens. When you've got cash, get smoked ham hocks. Cut them up, store in freezer, take a few chunks to boil with the greens. Add a little sugar and chile pepper and you'll sing Baptist hymns.
TOP RAMEN: Buy the .33c cup of shrimp ramen. In the produce section, get a little broccoli floret, a few spinach leaves and a carrot. Chop your vegies, boil, pour water over ramen, let sit a minute. Add chile sesame oil, seaweed, onion, slice of raw ginger, seaweed, an egg if you've got one. Really so delicious, often I can't wait for poverty to eat it, so I eat them with bucks in my pocket. The super tasty dried shrimp make this my favorite flavor. I used to give ramen to the homeless until I learned they ate it raw like chips! True, it's not healthfood, but it makes me EAT the greens that ARE so I use it. (I understand the additives give gout so not too often though).
HOLIDAY FOODS: If you get blue on holidays without that turkey or ham, indulge your inner child and have the ham! You can get it by doing shopping for five or six old people. Supermarkets give hams away if you buy enough groceries to qualify so it pays to make lots of geriatric pals in your neighborhood. Get their shopping list and their cash in front. Tell them they'll get an exact to the penny itemization. First, collect coupons on all the peripherals people want, vegies, cereal, soup, oil, sugar, etc. Give the discount to the geriatric, too. Now, get the food section from the newspapers on trash night. See which market is giving the ham or turkey away free for a fifty dollar purchase. Holidays they do this. One wants 100$ but there's always a market that will give premiums for 50$. Go there, shop in groupings, keeping items separate in basket. Then, arrange the foods on the checkout stand so that each geriatric's groceries are scanned together in a group, as you'll be showing this receipt to the geriatric later when you give him or her the change and just showing them their circled items. If you're an angel, you'll divide the ham and share it with the geriatrics!
COFFEE- All supermarket coffee mills have a little drawer full of grinds that will be thrown away. Ask the manager, he'll let you have it for free. Find plastic bag in produce section. Often you'll find bags where someone ground a little coffee, then stopped. This ground coffee will be thrown away, so repackage in plastic produce bag and tuck it in your pocket.
DENTED CANS- Some markets mark them down with a black marker. I seek out such a market, carry such a marker and seek out such bent cans.
GARDEN DIVING: in really hard times, there are weeds growing in front yards. Take a careful look at what you find that is SURPRISINGLY TASTY:
1.) PURSLANE grows everywhere. It's a fat, flat, low-sprawling leafy little octupus like weed with leaves like jade plant, fleshy stems, loaded w. Omega oils that heal the heart. Mexican maids used to bring it into my San Miguel de Allende kitchen in spring as if it were God's gift to man. The way they cooked it, it was. Steam for a minute, add fresh-made garlicky tomato sauce. Scramble in one egg at last minute, if your aorta is not a problem.
2.) DANDELIONS; eat the smallest, tenderest green leaves in your salad. Bigger leaves get juiced.
3. OUR VINES HAVE MORE THAN TENDER GRAPES: Parboil the delicate new leaves of grape vines 'til soft, fill with rice, roll and steam. Unusually tasty!
4.) CACTUS: The tender green baby leaves are de-fanged with a knife, then sliced in ribbons, parboiled, served with raw chopped onion, tomato and cilantro. A delicacy in Mexican cafes. Later in summer, the tuna fruit is grasped with newspapers, bagged, gas-flame toasted at home to remove needles, peeled, sliced. Plant the seeds!
5: ESCARGOT: California variety same as French small variety. These were actually brought here from Europe. No need to check garden for SNAROL. If the escargot found any, he'd be slime-tread to the sky, stone cold dead. HOW TO FIND: Spray garden well night before. Hour before dawn, collect les petits slimeballs. Feed snails cornmeal for a few days, locked in a box, jar or cage. Rinse them clean, drop in salted, simmering water for l0 min. Discard gritty strip, where it's attached to the shell. Heat butter, parsley, drop in snail fillets. Turn off fire, add crushed garlic, raw lemon. Garnish with minced parsley. Serve on toast. Ooo La La! Nature writer Chris Nygeres says they're better than those available in French cafes. Would you believe it? I'm drooling for stuff I wouldn't touch in their habitat without canvas gloves!
NO ESCARGOT DROOL RESPONSE? STARVING AND BROKE? The last resort is shoplifting or begging.
BEGGING: If you're totally honest and don't want to steal to live (which the 613 laws of the Talmud actually condone when life itself is an issue), you'd better know how to beg on street corners. Go to a super-market parking lot in a neighborhood very far from your home or you won't be able to handle it emotionally. Dress in really ragged, bleached tatters. Have a child with you. Rent the kid as emotional duress is too intense on the child if it actually is yours. Sign should read, Homeless, On the Street, Cold, (adjust to season) Require money for transit to Fresno, Oregon, or for Landlord or groceries. (pick only one.) If they give you a can of something you would never eat, beef tamales, do not say "I'm sorry, we're vegetarian, we can't eat that, we'd welcome money." Don't you dare say you're vegetarian as your glaring poverty will give vegies a bad name. Take the can and give it to someone who eats meat. You never look a donation in the teeth!
JUST CAN'T BRING YOURSELF TO BEG? A lot of proud BFers BOOST. They put money in a breast pocket, carry a totally empty, I.D free purse over shoulder, (or men with a loose open jacket with several big, interior pockets. They use a shopping cart. As they roam aisles, they place toilet paper and big articles in the deep part of basket. They place food that's going bye-bye in the baby seat near their hands. As they're rolling down an aisle that has no mirrors in front and no people looking their way, staring dead ahead, the back of body covering their arms, they slide/drop the parcel of food into purse which hangs over front of left hipbone over stomach. From behind, this movement is undetectable. They always remove all packaging as decals on it ring bells. Meat is unwrapped as it has metal in packaging that rings bells, as do cold cuts, cheese. Tofu does not. Almonds do not. Zucchini does not. Frozen foods do not. AS OF YET. The cosmic message I infer is that God doesn't want you to take bangers and mascara when you're hungry and broke. So BFers pay for the toilet paper and boost the food. This method requires some cash for the toilet paper.
NO MONEY AT ALL? Go into the market, get your cart. Roll around the store picking up empty produce cartons. On your way out, go to manager. Tell him you're moving and need a lot more boxes. Ask when clerks empty the liquor boxes. These are the strongest boxes made. He'll tell you. Thank him and leave with your boxes in cart and laden purse. Or, if you're a guy, you need to put pockets on inside of a blousy jacket.
I know boosting sounds scary and it is. It provkes a fear response that doesn't leave the body for hours afterwards, nonetheless, many BFers have summoned their strength, (or overcome their nerves if they and their babies hadn't eaten recently) and done it. One caveat. Never steal at Ma and Pa stores, only at big chain store conglomerates.
Another, safer, more hilarious way to get food is GYPSY SCROUNGING FOR FOOD IN STYLE: Dress up and hit the big hotels; every banquet room has food in it; join the crowd at parties. After parties, ask the waiter for leftover food for your room. Yes, say you have a room there. Drive around posh suburban areas on Saturday and Sunday at 1 PM for daytime parties or 7 PM to 8 for nightime . You'll see parking valets. Park your own car, walk into the party, eat your fill, socialize. Network. Great in Hollywood where writers can meet producers, agents, directors. Go to Gallery row, spot an opening? Crash it. Cheese, wine and crackers are the 3 main foodgroups!
HOW NOT TO BE HUNGRY: When the food supply's small, or dangerous to procure, the trick is-- don't do anything stupid that will make you get unduly hungry. Besides too much cold air or exercise, the prime cause of hunger is eating carbs and sugars; Avoid them entirely. They not only don't stick to the ribs, the insulin reaction to them creates bigtime hunger.
Dense carbs, fruit excepted, have no nutrition. Stick to macro-nutrient-dense vegies, high protein whole grains, not high starch, and of course, proteins. Only eat fruits if you know that you have a rib-sticking meal ready, an hour later.
The magic herb that kills hunger in the body and raises blood sugar is licorice or fennel. It grows wild all over the city. Chew any part, the reaction is instant. All hunger departs and for the oddest, longest time.
SKINNY FAT FOODS: Most skid row free meals serve white rice, a killer carb. It seems like a thin food but it's all starch and will make you eat like a horse an hour later. All Hari Krishna or Sikh temples have a daily 'lungar'...(odd it should rhyme with hunger) comprised of rice and chapati, unfortunately, all super-starchy carbs. You can eat hand-out food but avoid the rice and wheat foods; instead, load up on garbanzos, beans (black or kidney are preferable to starchy pinto). Take all the lentils you can get, and eat them cold rest of day and night. Welcome vegetable and dairy products. Carbs will fast-flame but then you go into low blood sugar and you start to feel blue and will forget what delirious pleasure it is to be a Bottom Feeder.
GETTING HEALED FOR FREE: Many bottom feeders are holistic healers, knowledgeable about New Age diets. We often cook vegetarian delights for parties, or give massage, making damn good money 'under the massage table' as clients are used to paying $120 an hour and we can lowball the competition and do it for $60 hence getting twice the clients. We counsel on Power Diets, diagnose weak organs from the iris of the eye then RX and retail herbs we buy wholesale from those Mormon herb farms in Utah. (Look up Nature's Sunshine in Spanish Fork Utah). We generally stay healthy because we take those herbs ourselves. But my secret, bottom feeder way of staying tip top and getting FREE massage treatments is that I teach an esoteric system, Primal Scream massage. I was instructed on Primal Scream Emotional Release work by Dyan Cannon, when I party-read palms at her Malibu home. She inspired me to read the works of Art Janov, then get primaled at a center run by his students. They didn't do massage, but I was into it. I accidentally stumbled on the fact that simultaneous massage and sad music could produce primals too. I came up with an unusual rolfing massage therapy involving digging in neural nexus and muscle bundles around the heart, shoulders and neck where repressed pain lodges, having really sad music on, like Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, thusly drawing emotions out of the supine client. So I wouldn't need a shrink's license, I called it TANTRUM YOGA. My clients were encouraged to remember painful memories and if not talk ---then scream about them. It's full of convolutions and naturally, all the yuppie-puppies wanted to study with me. The catch: my students have to practice on my sore old bod. P.S. I have nothing left to scream about these days but I mime that part to get a good rub on my aching bones.
TEETH HURTING? Free dentistry is easy. UCLA and SC both have dental schools and need guinea pigs. Call them up and you'll soon be under a student's drill. Whoppee. Most dentists will let you paint their house, clean their gardens, babysit or paint paintings for a trade. So, when you're dumpster diving and pass a dentist's office, leave a letter. Dear Doc, wanna trade for fillings? Here are snaps of my paintings. (resume, etc.)
AVOIDING CAVITIES: Forget toothpaste. The Flouride is so toxic it takes your immune system 24 hours to recover. Mix salt and baking powder in a jar. Dip brush in, brush under the gumline where pyhorrea starts. Use a soft, thick brush, working it into the gums, trying to make your gums bleed. Change brushes daily, letting them dry between use. When gums no longer bleed when you do this, you've cured the bacteria problem ---for a moment.
Brush teeth immediately upon waking, brush tongue, and brush back of tongue provoking a gag which coughs up mucus. Rinse with cold waterr (prevents gum disease) after every meal. Floss once a day. While laying around watching TV, use a large sewing needle and tissue to clean plaque off gumline. Then use tissue to rub gumline clean. Actually, you may never need a dentist.
PAINFUL TOOTH ROOTS- You can back off deep infections. Quit immune-compromising meat, switch to vegie proteins. Avoid mucus producing milk, flour foods. Double down on Vitamin c-rich fruit, garlic. Infections depart by magic.
MEDICAL EMERGENCIES- You think they'll never happen but they do and when you need those sudden stitches, there's no time for comparison shopping, so do that now and be ready.
Recently, my son got his hand whizzed around the pulley system of a car. The tendons to one finger on top of hand were severed. He realized he would never work again as an electrician if tendon ligature wasn't done. I had to make a lot of phone calls to E.R's in a very panicky ten minute period. Daniel Freeman Hospital, where his pal had driven him, wanted $2,000 in front to even call the hand surgeon in. County General SC wanted l00$ in front but averred the kid would wait five hours in the waiting room before a scalpel was lifted due to the average day's haul of bullet holes. Harbor General already had a hand surgeon there 24 hours a day. No bullets down there so they're never very busy and when the kid sailed in, the doc immediately did the necessary tendon ligature on a local anesthetic without thinking of money and when it was all over, they asked for only 50$. If he doesn't pay within five days time, however, they say they'll dun him for a hefty $1500. They say they're very cheap if you're a fast pay as most people stiff 'em. So, in the LA area, HARBOR GENERAL HOSPITAL in Torrance takes the cake. It's really worth it to do the homework ahead of the disaster. Know exactly which freeway you have to zip over to get to such a heavenly place. (Harbor Freeway south to Carson, turn right.)
HEALERS- Holistic healers are bon marche and terrific. Giveaway mags at local healthfood stores have tons of ads. Healthfood stores collect business cards in scrap books, will show to customers. Call Sta Teresita Hospital in Duarte and see Marjorie Ward, the world's best. $45 first visit. She could make Mother Teresa so healthy she'd tapdance. Another great one in LA is Tim Morrow e-mail him to tmorrow@earthlink.net.
HEALTHY AS A BULL but NO ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD? Don't worry. This is the one case that proves the axiom, 'misery loves company.' There's security in numbers. How many BFers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Zero if one of the five of you has a propertied relative.
Five homeless bums on a streetcorner could rent a palace with hanging gardens if they hustle their little assets. First, they must all attempt to get a little federal aid. The guy with the lisp develops catatonia, The coffee-drinking insomniac finds he has Circadian rhthym disorder. Mental problems earn you SSI, $900 a month. Fail your physical? You're just too damn healthy? Take those physical problems that don't pass snuff at SSA to Welfare where a doctor's letter is enough to earn you $220 a month and food stamps, plus Med-I-Care benefits.
Even at that miserly rate, when a group of you pools resources, you can afford to rent a castle. The most presentable one becomes the ostensible landlord. Another member has the relative with the best credit, or himself has good credit, meaning no credit cards in arrears. (TRW sends you your credit record for free). A third member of the group has the relative with the nicest car. A fourth finds the real estate, circling ads in the paper.
The presentable one visits the different houses. He claims to have a mate and a child who are in France for the summer, or a wife who's at Yale installing the kid. The kid is because if the landlord ever comes and sees the other bozo, hey, that's no bozo, it's my kid! Best is, the landlord lives in another city and never comes. Mail your rent to him ahead of time so he won't be tempted.
Always rent houses not apartments, for two reasons. 1.) because you can use their yards to grow food, and 2) you can fit a great many people into a house and end up paying no rent at all.
If you're generous, your chums will cut your rent to a fraction. Also, homes are private. No landlord or neigbors right on your neck. Anyway, don't you hate when the phone rings and you run and it's not your phone? So get a large, private space and put several rent-payers in the space. Just put a genuine heavy duty LOCK on your personal closet and hide your silver service in there and lock your bedroom also, when you're out of the house. And keep your phone in this locked room, too. We know your pals are cool but your pals' pals are as untested as they are invisible… at least when you're OUT.
Make certain the owner of this home, your landlord, doesn't live near you. ALSO, avoid a yong landlord as they are energetic, hence on you like white on rice. Best is aging landlords who won't hassle you about your cats, your orchard, tearing out the lawn for the vegetable garden and then fencing the entire front of the house and putting two illegal aliens in a tent on your lawn and another two in the garage. Ideal is a landlord who is wheelchair bound and lives in Bum Fuck, Idaho and can't come by to check how green the grass is or isn't.
Apartments are for kiddies who break away from the parents and are glad for a closet as long as it has a nuptial bed. For long term, serene living you need a huge garden to plant with trees and vegetables, roomates you can live with, paint walls with, lay linoleum with, enjoy as friends. It's a myth that living with strangers brings grief. Living with family does. No, I joke. Grief is spread evenly thru the universe. Friends and family will hand it out to you equally.
WHOMEVER you choose to live with, RENT CAREFULLY! HERE'S THE SECRET OF WHICH HOUSES TO AVOID: Avoid houses offered by REALTORS. They're overpriced and the perfectionists who own them have already remodelled everything to within an inch of its life--and in just the banal way you don't want. (Lengthy shudder here.) For years, their owners have done assiduous yard clean-up, hence there's not a drop of humus in the soil. It's barren, and well sprayed with costly chemicals that render birds, bees and your children infertile. Worse, because they're so proud of their neatness and taste, they won't cut you any slack for being a decorator, landscaper--and, in fact, will hold your creative intents against you! And last, they think their digs are worth top dollar. Forget such demented dweebs. They always ask a price tag that represents tomorrow's prices. Find the geriatric whose mind recalls the prices of several years before, as this uncounseled person hasn't a clue what yuppies are paying nowadays.
You want some ancient, gem-in-the-rough house with overgrown bushes and trees, owned by a peasant who couldn't afford gardeners, with a lusty garden that the geriatric has been putting his parkeet's POOP on for forty years, a yard that hasn't seen yard clean up in a hundred years. (A sign humus is left under all bushes, hence a sign of very good soil) where birds happily roost in pesticide-free trees and reproduce in happy solitude? And who knows, where fairies may even dwell.
If you want that, you're looking for a landlord who who couldn't pay to keep everything clipped back. You're looking for a landlord who's a little abashed about all this mess, who can't see the gem underneath for shame. A landlord who thinks, apologetically, that he's got a mess on his hands will underprice its rent for just that reason.
When I see such houses, I'm on the one hand tempted to screw him to the wall of his own shame saying, "I wouldn't pay your high asking price for this mess, I'll only offer X" but the candid side of my nature always wins and I find myself saying, "this is really beautiful and charming. I'll take it."