Strung Out Episode 188: FREEGANISM, PART ONE.

Film maker, social activist and artist David Rocco Facchini returns to Strung Out to discuss with Martin his years practicing Freeganism.  According to Wikipedia, Freeganism is an ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with "dumpster diving" for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting in abandoned buildings, and "guerrilla gardening" in unoccupied city parks.

Facchini relates how he was able to live for a year mainly on food that was thrown out in area dumpsters of Chicago during his social experiment with Freeganism. 

Transcript

Freeganism: An Interview with David Rocco Facchini. PART ONE

[00:00:00] Welcome to Strung Out, the podcast that looks at life through the lens of an artist. Your host is the artist, writer, and musician, Martin Lawrence McCormack. Now here's Marty. 

[00:00:13] Martin McCormack: Hey, great to have you with us. And this week I am bringing back the gentleman who for the year 2023 had the fifth most listened to podcast on strung out David Rocco Ficini, David, welcome back, congratulations.

[00:00:42] Nothing but the best,

[00:00:46] And I was looking at the facts and figures on this stuff. It was fun. There's a bunch of listeners in Germany for, so yeah, it's interesting how the weird people end up listening. But for the recording that you did as late in the year as we did it I was pretty impressed that people just.

[00:01:10] Picked up on it. So hopefully that's going to translate well into the project that you're doing USA to Z. And let's just talk briefly about that before we dive into our main topic. 

[00:01:27] David Rocco Facchini: Essentially for the years of mid 2020 to mid 2023, I took two years to travel the United States in a van.

[00:01:39] And during my travels, I'm, I was basically seeking community in a time of seems like everyone's being disenchanted with each other. So I would go, I went all across the country and found folks along the way, which I interviewed in a word association style in that I would say a word or phrase and.

[00:02:03] They could have a response or not have a response, and there was no judgment to their response. As an example, if I said Mount Rushmore, I heard everything from a testament to our greatest presidents. I heard a monument to genocide. I heard George, Paul, John, and Ringo. And the idea is everyone has a way of processing their reality to make it best suitable for themselves, to a degree.

[00:02:30] And it's interesting the stories we tell ourselves in order to curate that reality. So as I've traveled, it was really refreshing to see a perspective, not only of how we're all the same in different bubbles, but at the same time, this is a very human nature process that I believe the more we understand it, the more we understand each other, and we can actually properly build better community.

[00:02:55] Martin McCormack: And at this point, where is the film? I know you were talking about getting it to Sundance, right? 

[00:03:03] David Rocco Facchini: Festivals in general Sundance definitely, if that would be a possibility, I would love that. But Essentially, I am hoping to have I was I'm working on my teaser trailer. So the interesting thing about this is that it's such a personal story, and I do have one producer right now and I'm reaching out to a bigger documentary community right now I've grounded myself in the Bay Area to really work and chip away at this, but it's a personal story that I know the footage, I know the people, and I understand what was being said in these interviews.

[00:03:35] To hand this over to an assistant editor or anyone else who basically had to sit through hours and hours and hours and hours of footage, it's a tricky dynamic. So essentially, I'm trying to digest it, and I've been digesting it, put forth a narrative. It's a slow process in that I am right now the sole creator of the story to make it digestible and entertaining for folks so long story short, hoping to have a trailer up at the beginning of the new year hoping to have it in festivals by the spring or the summer at the latest, and have it has run and hope and from there we're talking about wider distribution in terms of an audience that can be this I really would like this.

[00:04:21] The one thing I will say is I was a little concerned about it being timely, but. I'm finding what I'm doing is more timeless because even when I started my journey, COVID was so prevalent. And now it's who's thinking of COVID with what's going on in the world. And even people coming in and out of lives and becoming topic.

[00:04:42] Our news cycle is so rapid, but what is consistent is how we process the information. So this being a guideline to saying, no matter what news comes your way, no matter what challenges to your reality, come your way, this kind of is like a marker to say, How do you handle those challenges rather than it being about the election or war or famine or whatever it is?

[00:05:07] It's like, how do you process it? How are you a part of this? Very cool. Yeah.

[00:05:17] Martin McCormack: All right. Great. Obviously We are going to be checking back in with you as it progresses and I it's going to be very exciting When it gets done, and I salute your entrepreneurship in the do it yourself kind of mentality that's tied to it to some degree as they say, nobody can do a better job than you can.

[00:05:44] And that's the reality about it. But today's topic was something that you and I talked about. When you were here in Chicago and for the listeners, you're out in the Bay Area and I found it fascinating because after you left, and as the months went by, there were a couple of these what do you call them?

[00:06:07] Real life things on Netflix or whatever about various groups of people. And one group was making their protein getting all their food really for the most part by dumpster diving. And I want to talk to you about that because I think there's a lot of people that immediately think. That this is something that is repugnant or might be dangerous.

[00:06:48] And you, at one point in your life you practiced dumpster diving. And I just want you to. Just riff about it because I want to hear about it. How did you get into it? What did you find? What did you learn?

[00:07:17] David Rocco Facchini: Dumpster diving for food is like another aspect of how Repurposing if you're truly repurposing you're going to the source Yeah, essentially this all came about first when I did a road trip across America when I was in college and I had friends who were doing this and I didn't embrace it. I didn't even, it wasn't even on my radar when I was, we were driving, we were running out of money and at a certain point we were like let's go, we're going to a grocery store.

[00:07:51] Let's see what's at the grocery store in the dumpster and let's see what we can do with it. So we found like. Some ears of corn, we found a couple of other veg and it's okay, so what can we use? What can, what would we purchase to make this meal? So we would, instead of going in and buying stuff, like the whole meal, we found what we could use that was good enough to use, which I don't know if people would be surprised grocery stores are in the practice of throwing out good food.

[00:08:25] Recently in this past year, there's been a reversal on the expiration dates that is on a lot of packaging and they're saying used by dates and it's these are not necessarily standards per se for the life of the food. This is just a mechanical process. Obviously, there are foods that you can tell that have gone, but there are plenty of foods that are just like.

[00:08:53] Bagged packaged and thrown in the garbage for whatever reason, because they got a new shipment and they're getting rid of the old shipment. I started doing this on this trip and I was resourceful enough to do this and then when I came back, these same friends would do it and I will say in Chicago, in the winter.

[00:09:11] A lot of dumpsters back then were just outdoor refrigerators. So it would just like, like some of the things I found when I was dumpster diving in Chicago was a crate of softer, but not terribly soft, avocado. I was like, and there was a crate of it. One time I went to a Whole Foods. And there was a bag tied at the top and layered like a totem pole was just packaged sushi.

[00:09:49] Fish that was done that day. And it was tied nicely because there was this unspoken rapport that started developing grocers, new people were going to come and take this. If it doesn't sell on the shelf and a little, if you're ever feeling an avocado and you feel that soft spot, you're not going to buy it and it's just not going to be sold.

[00:10:10] But put a crate out there and it's like, all right, they would say here's a crate. Here's a bag. Here's this and we would get things. Sometimes we would get like fillet knives that had been worn down for the years, but still had plenty of life. And it all depends on what you're looking at. So there was a way.

[00:10:26] It's not like I was. eating something off of a discarded plate where there were bite marks out of it. These are oftentimes it's perfectly good food that is being thrown away in these situations. And just as a sidebar, I worked on a film called Trashed and the term now that is associated with doing the practicing this is called freeganism because we waste so much food in the United States that people are like It seems like it's always economically difficult for folks, but I know that if there is a hard time that comes upon me, I will be able to be resourceful enough to find.

[00:11:07] Good packaged food that is sanitary that I can still have and not worry about that because we throw away so much food. 

[00:11:16] Martin McCormack: We're going to take a little break here, and we'll continue on the other side with this interview on freeganism with David Rocco Ficini. You are listening to Strung.

[00:11:33] music: Let's walk 

[00:11:33] Martin McCormack: like we did when we 

[00:11:36] music: were young

[00:11:41] Martin McCormack: Feel the breeze in our hair, rain 

[00:11:44] music: on our tongues

[00:11:50] Remember when,

[00:11:54] remember then, we had it All in our hands,

[00:12:05] all in our hands,

[00:12:09] all in our hands 

[00:12:12] Martin McCormack: We let it 

[00:12:13] music: slip away On a hill of shadows across the field Explored everything nature would reveal

[00:12:35] Remember when, remember then we had it All in our hearts, all in our hearts, all in our hearts 

[00:12:57] Martin McCormack: We turn 

[00:12:59] music: it away. 

[00:13:03] Martin McCormack: Done and dusted and 

[00:13:06] music: done.

[00:13:11] Decided long ago, can't fool anyone.

[00:13:18] How people act when they lose their way. Lose their way. Who's that way, who's that way, in the everyday, everyday?

[00:13:56] Let's 

[00:13:57] Martin McCormack: touch again, like when we first met.

[00:14:05] Smoked a hookah, knew better 

[00:14:07] music: days were coming yet.

[00:14:14] Remember when, remember then, we had it all.

[00:14:25] All is not lost, all is not lost, all is not lost.

[00:15:18] David Rocco Facchini: Go to martin mccormack.com and. Sign up for our newsletter. You'll get the latest blog from Marty information about upcoming podcasts and what's happening in the gallery. That's 

[00:15:31] music: martinmccormack. com. 

[00:15:33] Martin McCormack: Let's talk about that, that relationship between the grocer and the person that's practicing freeganism.

[00:15:43] I love that. Freeganism like freeganism. All right. Okay. And. When you would see these packaged, you said it was like almost like a nonverbal obviously a way of communicating to you guys hey, this is good. Yeah, but we have to get rid of it. I'm just wondering why wouldn't they set it aside and in a way then, or did they practice it to some, where some people a little more sympathetic to what you guys were doing, or was it just like catches catch can. 

[00:16:24] David Rocco Facchini: This was early. This was like in the early 2000s, late 90s. I probably did this through like late 90s through maybe 07, like passively actively. I decided to do it. Just I wanted to see for a year of my life. Can I sustain with this process? And the answer was yes. You would go to places, but this is like the reason I'm saying the time frame is that I think that might be a bygone era.

[00:16:55] So it's been a while since I've been in Chicago and lived in Chicago, but liability and litigious nature of the United States has like created standards in which grocers now lock their dumpster. Because if they did throw out food. And you did eat it. They there's you could get litigious over it or maybe one could anyone could get litigious over anything, but this precaution started being put into practice at Whole Foods and at the time Dominic's, but just as you would maybe take a piece of furniture that is no longer functional for you and your home and you put it aside.

[00:17:37] In an alley in Chicago, there's no alleys in a lot of parts of the country, but you will know walking down an alley when you see something set aside there's a nonverbal this is available type of thing. And I think that was just the same type of dynamic that these grocers would do but there was a point at.

[00:17:56] Which we didn't know how to explain it in our short interaction, but it was winter and we had gone to now defunct Stanley's fruit market, which used to be off of I want to say Elston and north. And we went there and it was late in the evening and we were deciding let's go see what kind of produce is there and it's cold.

[00:18:20] So we're going out there and Stanley himself was working at the time. And he saw that we were going through the garbage for food. He's hold on. And he went inside. And he brought us fresh fruits and vegetables and we're like no, we're just here to do this. And he goes, no please just take this.

[00:18:37] I want you to take that. And it was such a lovely, compassionate gesture, but it also made me feel a little guilty. I was like no I don't want to prey upon this man's kind nature of trying to help somebody in a cold season who was looking for produce. But it just wasn't the communication wasn't happening in that moment, and it made me like, Oh, I don't know if we should go to Stanley's anymore because I don't want to put him in that position.

[00:19:02] But again, I think that's short that I think that dynamic might. Have changed since then because people lock their dumpsters and they put their dumpsters within cages and it becomes a different it's not the same social contract. 

[00:19:21] Martin McCormack: I know that there's stuff like the greater Chicago food depository.

[00:19:26] I don't know what it's like in the Bay area, but there are organizations that. Go around and probably one thing also that developed since your days with freeganism is that what is that one grocery change where the, they're selling disfigured, you can buy disfigured, But 

[00:19:48] David Rocco Facchini: imperfect produce and other things like that, where you're in this, like the aesthetically the misfit fruits and vegetables that nobody's going to buy because they're just not 

[00:19:59] Martin McCormack: And we'll be right back with more on.

[00:20:01] This two part series of Phrygianism with David Rocco Ficcini. You are listening to Strung Out.

[00:20:12] music: Everybody

[00:20:22] wants their car, everybody wants their car to go faster than the rest. Everybody has an elephant that wants to be relevant.

[00:20:40] Everybody wants their phone to have 

[00:20:42] the latest apps. 

[00:20:44] Everybody wants their phone to have the latest 

[00:20:48] apps. Everybody 

[00:20:49] has an elephant that wants to be relevant.

[00:20:56] I can return 

[00:20:58] Martin McCormack: to 

[00:20:59] music: the pack of dumb, gotta come turn to the pack of dumbuuu. Come 

[00:21:07] to turn 

[00:21:08] to the pack of dumb, gotta come turn to the pack of duuuuuum. Ooouu, Ooouuu, Ooou, Ooouu. Everybody thinks the story is all about them. Everybody thinks the story is all about them. Everybody has an elephant that wants to be relevant.

[00:21:59] Everybody thinks the world revolves around them. Everybody thinks the world revolves around them. Everybody has an elephant that wants to be relevant. Gotta come to town to the pack o dum. Gotta come to town to the pack o dum. Gotta come to terms with the Packadum. Gotta come to terms with the Packadum.

[00:22:36] Ooooo, ooooo. Relevant Elephants the biggest in the

[00:23:28] room Everybody thinks they're elephants the biggest in the room Everybody has an elephant That wants to be relevant

[00:23:42] Yeah. 

[00:23:43] Everybody has an elephant 

[00:23:46] that wants to be relevant.

[00:23:51] Yeah. Gotta come to,

[00:24:00] yeah. Gotta.

[00:24:20] Hello, everyone. 

[00:24:21] My name is Polly Chase. I am the gallery director of Marty's Online Art Gallery at martinmccormick. com. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to go check out his artwork. He works in several different formats, painting, illustration, drawings, and a very unique way of doing scratch art, which I think you'll find 

[00:24:45] very interesting.

[00:24:47] So go check 

[00:24:47] it out. MartinMcCormack. com, click on the gallery, look at the art, and when you're ready to start your own collection, send me an email at martyfineart at gmail. 

[00:25:00] com. Thanks for listening. 

[00:25:05] Martin McCormack: Maybe that's stepped in, but what intrigues me is you have this environment in which the food is there, it's good, it's packaged.

[00:25:18] And so your only real competition would be if there's some sort of animal or some other kind of person trying to get into the food. So let me ask you this before we take a break. Was it ever like a turf war where you guys came down the street and all of a sudden you saw a rival?

[00:25:47] David Rocco Facchini: That's funny. I will say there were times where we have gone to places and we saw people getting stuff and it's weren't somebody's hands on something? It's almost it's this is not like Black Friday where people are fighting over one thing like, or tearing a dollar part or a TV or flat screen it's not like that but you understand if somebody's got their hands on it and they're fine, then okay that's they're fine but all almost across the board.

[00:26:16] If this person has a ton of string beans and they don't have any potatoes, and I have a ton of potatoes and no string beans we would oh, you know what? I'll do this for this and this for that and just become this, way of handling it in short form because we're, what do you need a ton of one thing for unless you like very regimented in your diet that it's I only eat string beans.

[00:26:43] It was very, Collaborative, it was very communal and people would just be like, Oh, that would work well with this. And we would hand things off. So that was never an issue. 

[00:26:52] Martin McCormack: What abundance would you say does the average dumpster hold behind a grocery store, either out there on the West coast, or are you here in Chicago?

[00:27:05] I, my mind just reels. Would you avoid meat? Would you, was there anything would you be picky because there was so much? 

[00:27:17] David Rocco Facchini: I would definitely I was vegan and vegetarian for many years. And I, When I was doing this, I was a vegetarian to a degree and then I started incorporating fish and I had mentioned that I had found a whole package tied up thing of sushi if I had a Whole Foods dumpster.

[00:27:35] So like taking in consideration, I know Whole Foods, I know the quality of their meat. I know the quality and I see how they're packaging it. That doesn't alleviate anything. So what I ended up doing is I'll smell it. And if you ever go to a sushi place and you smell fish, that's not a good sushi place just across the board.

[00:27:54] Use the same standard. I'd open the package. If it smells fishy, I'm not going to open it or I'm not going to have it, but I would open it. It's it smells pretty good. And then you do a little taste test and that's you got to put yourself out there a little bit and it was fine. So maybe that night I had some sushi.

[00:28:09] But what I did for the rest of it is I took that fish off. I created a little bit of a fish stew. I was able to use the rice and everything and just make that fish stew, cook it through, and then that became the thing. But the abundance is shamefully mass. It's massive. It's just there's a lot of stuff and depending on where you are and the type of grocery store it is, it's it's interesting.

[00:28:39] I'd like to follow up on the next part of But there's like an interesting kind of contract that exists now through apps like Imperfect Produce and other things where you give a second chance to food that might be discarded that I find interesting. 

[00:28:55]

[00:28:57] Martin McCormack: And yes, the app idea let's extrapolate on that a little bit, because this is where I wonder the capitalist system you, so you have this expiration dates, but you also have then this food that technically for all reasons is arbitrarily deemed past. Freshness, but it's not. So you 

[00:29:26] David Rocco Facchini: really there are times, obviously there, there's in certain very partial items, obviously there is a standard, but this best if used by is different than expires by best if used by as an emotional quantity.

[00:29:44] Expired is a technical deadline and that it's like the truth and advertising set way back in the 50s. You can't have a super leader. The leader is a leader. It can't be a super leader. So once you start using emotional words around technical items, it. It's you're verging on fabrication.

[00:30:09] So the idea of those standards being set back in the day is what we set today. So like best if used by basically falls into the emotional non technical category. So it's not legal to use in marketing. Thank you for listening. For more information about this show or a transcript visit martinmccormack.

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[00:30:32] music: on strung out. It's oh so wrong, this pain we feel makes no sense at all. A swan song wasn't part of the deal, was no good call. Given no choice, given no step.

[00:30:51] ​