"Certain Kinds of Trash"

Chain and the Gang know their stuff. This is a song that knows what time it is. A song that never gets old, unfortunately. 

Here’s an observation after listening to the song: When I was a kid at the beach, those pull tab pop tops from beer cans were everywhere in the sand. That’s something you don’t see much anymore. So there’s one piece of good news embedded in the ungood news about trash.

In the song, Chain and the Gang namecheck cigarette holders, TV Guides, floppy discs and clarinet reeds. Clarinet reeds? Can I get a witness? Can’t remember the last time I saw a clarinet reed. TV dinner pans and black electrical tape, too. Black electrical tape was pretty useful. You could tighten up the grip on that Louisville Slugger by wrapping electrical tape tight around it.

So, how did we get here, with all this trash, to quote that guy in the much-too-big-suit coat? 

It all starts innocently enough. A lone trucker tosses a trucker bomb out his window. It lays there on the side of the road. Maybe it gets swept into a sewage drain and from there into a stream or a river. The plastic bottle in question may make its way to the ocean. Where it will stay anywhere from 400 to 450 years. We can only guess how many years it takes to decompose. Because it’s never happened. 400 years. That’s a long time. Plastic candy wrappers, lids, straws… all meet a similar fate. Enough already. This stuff has got to go. You don’t need a celebrity on a late night TV show to tell you the future is bleak. The clues are there if you know where to look. Graphic clues. 

Then again, as bleak as things are, like the song says, there are Certain Kinds of Trash you hardly see anymore. What you do see are lots of orange caps from syringes. And Starbucks coffee lids. Stroll down the city sidewalk or through the park and you’ll find Starbucks lids, cigarettes, hypodermic needles and aluminum foil lying on the sidewalk and spilling out of trash cans. Unsightly stuff.

But there’s hope. All those four dollar cups of Starbucks. People are living their best lives! And like the song says, you don’t see too many razor blades on the ground anymore. Or pipe cleaners! Remember pipe cleaners? Big with the arts and crafts crowd. They used to just offer themselves up for you. Now they seem to have vanished. They’re on an urban endangered species list. 

Here’s one more. Remember those McDonald’s coffee stirrers? Someone once told me those things were the gold standard for measuring dope in New Orleans. Haven’t seen any of those in ages. What are they using now? Did all those drug dealers go out and invest in digital scales?

And what about the ever-present cigarette butts eroded down to just the cotton filter with smudges of lipstick and paper peeling off. Blowing around the parking lot, floating in the water, streaming down the gutter. Bobbing up and down with the water on the shore, washing up on the sand.

There used to be a lot of them. Not so much anymore. I think we’re moving forward as a society on that front. 

(Meanwhile... on another note: There isn’t much sadder than a child’s single mitten on the ground. I’ve seen that happen. Disturbing.)

Before I go, I will tell you some things that you do see that offend me deeply: plastic spoons.

Boo! 

Oh, but the worst are those plastic things with the floss thread. How do they get there? I can only guess there are people who floss their teeth walking down the street only to toss them on the ground.  These deplorables should receive a proper caning.

Not cool, people!

Who are these people, anyway? Maybe the same person who bought that lottery ticket (pictured) and didn’t like the results, so they tore it in half and threw it down.

Whatever, dude.

And what good is a plastic spoon? You use it once and toss it. Then what? I can’t imagine an innocent spoon dreaming of growing up one day and killing a creature of the sea. But, that’s what they do. 

Torn in half lottery ticket somewhere on Market Street, San Francisco

Then again, there’s certain kinds of trash you don’t see anymore. 

Right now scientists are studying tree rings for clues – clues to climate change. While they figure it all out, I’m continuing to study the garbage on the street. With a big magnifying glass, like Sherlock Holmes.

Great song. Big ups to Chain, big ups to the Gang.

Whole Foods receipt on the corner of Market and Castro, San Francisco. You can eat all the organic avocados you can get your hands on and sure, maybe you’ll live forever, but it ain’t going to be much of a planet.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Onward,

    -CP