Friday 16 August 2013

Cycling across America: lessons in sustainability and happiness.. By Rob Greenfield

cycling-across-america-lessons-in.htmlCycling across America: lessons in sustainability and happiness

Rob Greenfield's 4,700-mile ride on a bamboo bicycle towing solar panels taught him the power of living a simple life

Rob Greenfield rode for 104 days, crossing 4,700 miles. He rode 375 miles across Iowa with no seat as part of the "stand up for sustainability" campaign. Photograph: Rob Greenfield

Over a period of 104 days this summer I cycled across America on a bamboo bicycle towing a trailer covered in solar panels.

My intention for the 4,700-mile "Off the Grid Across America" tour was to raise awareness about sustainability and inspire individuals to wake up and take action.

I set rigorous ground rules; only using electricity I created via my own alternative energy devices, using water harvested form natural sources such as lakes, rain and wells, and eating local organic unpackaged produce or food that was going to waste. Lastly, I wanted to shop only at businesses that practice corporate social responsibility and have a desire to use business to effect positive change in the world.

Over the entire journey, I plugged into only five outlets (my laptop) and never turned on a light switch, created two pounds of trash, nine pounds of recycling, and composted all of my food scraps.

The only other transportation I needed was a one mile ferry ride into Manhattan, of which my share was around quarter of a gallon. I had made a commitment not to swear; I cursed 9 times.

I also carried out multiple personal campaigns, including riding from New York City to Boston during a heat wave living solely on leaky faucets and waste water in a campaign called "Drip by Drip."

So what did I learn? While the trip was downright gruelling, I realised that when you have less, you have more. I appreciated a small sip of water, a morsel of food, the last 3% of battery life on my Macbook Air, clean clothes, fresh air, smooth roads, and clean water to swim in. Now that I can find joy in the simple parts of life, I can find sources of happiness for free everywhere around me.

I learned the power of a bicycle. It is a relatively simple machine but it can take us great distances both figuratively and literally. Life is good when you are on a bike. Good for yourself, good for the earth, and good for the people around you.

I recognised that people do genuinely want to help and to be a part of something greater than themselves but they just need that extra little push and they need to see someone else do it first. I learned that positivity tends to create more positivity, as does goodness.

Lastly, if you live simply, you can live free. The less complicated you make your life, the more time you have to spend doing what you love and what's good for you.

Change begins with the actions of individuals. A big action that anyone can take is to become a conscious consumer and support businesses that are doing their part to protect the environment.

Businesses will sell what we will buy so we decide through our actions what is on the market. If as an individual you want to change the way business is done, then start buying from businesses that are using it as a means of positive change in the world.

One simple action is joining 1% for the Planet, which is a growing global movement of more than 1,200 companies that donate 1% of their sales to a network of more than 3,000 approved environmental organisations worldwide.

When speaking of businesses taking responsibility for the earth's well being Yvon Chouinard, the founder of 1% for the planet and owner of Patagonia, once said "The best way to do it is to just dig into you pockets and give the money away to people who are willing to do the work."

I am 26 years old and started my first business in September of 2011. The Greenfield Group uses 5% of revenues for environmental projects, such as the creation of a community bike programme and offering a free CFL bulb exchange for residents of my community. All this goodness didn't only benefit others. My business saw great gains from it and built a solid image.

For me business is a tool to create a happier, healthier planet as well as support myself and my employees. I just hope other companies can also come to recognise this.

McNuggetum

Now - i love fast food. And i mean LOVE it. Me surviving on 2 litres of coke a day while gorging on a hamburger and pizza based diet is stuff of legend in immediate social and page 3 circles. However recent developments in the Indian fast food industry have let me with a daal-sabzi taste in my mouth.
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Now before i continue - i admit to the hypocrisy of knowing how terribly wrong everything associated with fast food is. Ive read everything from The death of food to Fast Food Nation and seen everything from Super Size Me to Who Mashed My Cow's Intestines. But still - the food tasted good. Not anymore - not in India anyway. Talking specifically about MuccDonnal (as pronounced in happy punjabi households where McAloo Tikki and fries constitutes fine dining) their burger size/quality has reduced dramatically. The veggies have become stale and watery and the french fries have become as flacid as an 80 year old's attempts after downing a complete viagra pill dispenser. But yesterday...Ray Kroc's property owning/franchise owner killing/animal rights exploiting/heart attack inducing company dropped the motherlode on Indian consumers.

Yes sir...im talking about the Chicken McNugget. Brought to you 25 years after first launching in the United States. Made of freshly left over chickens who are unable to lay eggs pumped with chemicals to increase the size of their breasts (no not silicon) while still containing only 56% volume chicken in end product. And if launching this cutting edge product on the hapless Indian wannabe consumer wasn't enough - they have supplemented it with the most fucked up advertising campaign ive ever seen. I tried to find the advertisement video on youtube but no one has uploaded it yet. I hope you will be able to see it on tv.

Its called: "Chik-kan khaane ka naya stylum". What? What the fuck is stylum? A clever take on style and yum? Oh wow! How original! First i thought it was for the South Indian market where everything ends with a yum. But then when i heard the "catchy song" playing in the back of the ad it pissed me off even more. It drops heavier gems than Kayne West. Things like:

"Agar ek reh gaya kar lo stealum". What the fuck is stealum? You want to turn young indians into British chavs whose lives revolve around stealing a McNugget?

As if that wasn't enough - the advertising agency Leo Burnett (who i have a lot of respect for) give the following explanation: The TVC shows the main protagonist bumping into a girl and dreams of eating the McNugget with her while singing a filmy style ‘duet-um.’ Suddenly, he is brought back to reality. Finding himself standing alone with the McNuggets, he shrugs his shoulders and decides to eat them ‘alone-um. He now finds himself at a party with various girls and on finding six McNuggets in his pack, decides to give them a ‘treat-um.’ Finally, he is cheated out of his last nugget by an old woman. He is taken aback at this ‘cheat-um’.

At the risk of sounding repititive. WHAT THE FUCK IS DUETUM!!! ALONEUM?!! CHEATUM?!!! ARE U BLOODY KIDDING ME-UM?!! AM I SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPYUM?!! IS THIS SOME SICKUM JOCKUM?! MOTHERUM FUCKERSUM!!

Tomorrow you'll tell me your menu has Payasum!

Please for everything right and holy in this world i urge everyone to boycott this shit-um!

Rant end-um.

MTV India Making Youngistaan Lose Collective Shit

Look…i get it. I get the fact that no one turns on the TV just to watch music videos. (Except Canadian sardars and Dubai based “my rights as a maid are getting abused” Keralites who still fiddle with their dish antennas to follow busty women dancing with village folk on ETC Punjabi and Eenadu and stay connected with their desh) I get it.

I also get that colon cannonballs flow from the top. Having led some organizations and movements in my life – I realize that a lot of shit needs to be done and people need to follow that shit for the entire enterprise to survive. So I get that MTV India too had to change programming focus to reality TV shows and less on music videos to stay financially viable and re-attract eyeballs on direction from Viacom in the U.S. of crappy programming A. I get that Shehnaz Treasurywala had to try her luck in Bollywood and disappoint millions of boys like me as younger uglier VJs like Bani J took over. But for f*^&s sake - can we have atleast SOME quality control?!!

Youngistaanis – crying desperately for someone to talk to them in leet lingo have taken to their reality shows like a makkhi to a purple coloured tubelight zapper sitting in the corner of a dirty local fast food joint. I also admit that Bakra was funny – but the new wave which started (atleast in my mind) with MTV Roadies became so popular that they quickly sold out and cashed in - churning out the same mindless bone-headed drivel like a Chinese toy factory. (Some of those shows have underage kids – and ofcourse our brains are already as thick as lead)

To clarify my point – after much espionage and trouble I have managed to attain the “MTV India reality show creation template” which clearly highlights how all their shows are just re-hashed versions of the same shit.

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MTV Reality Show Construction Graph Part 1

MTV Reality Show Construction Graph Part 2

MTV Roadies: This apparently is the biggest money spinner off the lot and has turned a bald dude named Raghu (who seems perfectly nice) cash in on his “I made Che Guevera pee his pants” persona by hosting and judging other TV shows/start talking about social issues/tell the world to create their own identity by buying a crapass Archies watch. It also made winner? From a previous season called Rannvijay start writing for HT City. Is this the state of affairs in our country that these are our role models? His wife apparently is the punk looking girl in the movie “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa” – who funnily enough also looked like Roadie. No surprise there.

Splitsvilla: Supposed models (Read airheads) with good bodies “looking for love” and a chance to win a 5 minute long TV show. Their claim to fame is that the guys and girls fight a lot – and quickly start spewing Punjabi once English profanities don’t seem to have the desired affect. Its true – the F word will never be as powerful as an MC. In one episode a chic said – stamina is very important in a guy. If he doesn’t have stamina how will he perform in bed. (Okay then – why don’t you date a Delhi Metro worker? ) She had inadvertently explained the cause of India’s population crisis. We have so many hard working labourers in our country who are full of stamina – so they keep screwing all the time – hence the hundreds of babies per family. Also allowed us to see Nikhil Chinappa keep repeating “Splitsvilla – where LOVE is WAR”. Automatic reaction – “MTV – Where my brain goes to take a piss”

Connected: Another “new show” of re-hashed twins who had auditioned for their previous shows. Put together to cash in on the popularity of Raghu and Rajiv (Also twins! Yay!) Involves them performing tasks like kicking a ball into a goal. I swear I saw this for 15 minutes and one of my eye-ball’s fell out. It said it wasn’t “Connected” enough to me.

MTV Teen Diva: One: It is inherently wrong to allow 15 year old girls to pose in a teeny sexy manner with a scooter (Think Britney Spears – Harley Davidson – I Love Rock n Roll video) Why is it wrong? (Insert standard joke about R Kelly urinating on his underage victim after raping her). Also – as much as its corporate marketing bliss – winning an immunity task should not land girls in a “Stayfree Safe Zone”. Wonder what they’ll call it if they do a show called MTV Teen Stud.Fast n the Gorgeous: Their promo tagline was “Where have all the hot girls gone.” Well MTV for once I would ask the same question and agree – cuz they sure as hell don’t seem to be on your show either. Here they perform tasks on the basis of countries where races happen (wow! Im sure the person who came up with this idea got a promotion!) So for the Italian task – one set of girls tied the other set up and threw Pizzas on their faces which looked like dartboards without make-up anyway. All I can say is – thank you for the cultural sensitivity and I would LOVE for you to try that if you actually go there. I hear Italian policemen like stuffing people’s assess with Fusilli too.I would love to keep blaimg MTV but people keep watching this junk which is actually fit for an academic study on sociological changes in India. As much as its making kids stupider – its also reflective of the kind of stuff young people want to watch. We all loved to watch saas-bahus conspire each other. Now were watching Colaba and Greater Kailash women and men doing the same with an Ahmedabad small town dude trying to fit in. But cmon MTV – atleast make something NEW!

Its ok to cash in – but don’t keep ripping off the same template over and over and over again. Give us something intelligent once in a while. We know its not your job – you are only meant to entertain – but then lets have the Shell corporation say – hey we just extract the oil – that’s our job – the environmental imbalance....Meh…not our job.

Im afraid to say that the angst ridden – low on opportunity – high on confidence cuz everyone keeps telling them they are living in a 21st century superpower – “kewl dudes and dudettes” – wanting to be white – twitter loving social activist fashionistas are already a pretty dumb generation – and MTV – you are just adding gobar gas to the fire.

You have turned into a monstrosity. Stop the reality TV hyper celebrity get famous or die tryin bakwaas and get back to playing the music. If you want send these shows over to your sister network VH1 which not too many cable waalas show – thus saving kids from watching Yo Momma! Pimp My Ride and Cribs (the horror)

And oh – FIRE CYRUS BROACHA! Really - he isnt funny anymor

The Promoters

English stand-up is at an interesting cultural crossroads where it is still niche enough to be considered edgy and cool but without the mainstream acceptance, financial backing and familiarity of say music, or dance. After the year 2003, which saw the perfect storm of Indian television broadcasting, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, with urban Indians finding an outlet of expression after watching Russell Peters explode on YouTube and bars opening up to accommodating newer art forms, English stand-up got on its first legs of cultural relevance. Ten years in, with comics having struggled to build and educate their own audiences, English stand-up has become a regular part of life in an Indian metropolis (Except Kolkata where the Usha Uthup lobby has prevented anything except Naxals from entering).

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From a time when a handful of comedians had to beg bar owners and auditoriums for a stage, cities are now full of comedians, open mic-ers who have performed once and call themselves comedians, and people who are funny on Twitter and hence think they’re comedians. Everyone has identified stand-up as an opportunity to make money while few care about the passion that has gone behind building this industry. Through this post, I want to share with you the different kind of organisers and promoters an English stand-up comic meets in his day-to-day life.

1. The Hapless Bar Owner

The hapless bar owner is perhaps the more pathetic of the organisers. Usually made familiar of English stand-up comedy after seeing a competitor organise a show, the bar owner thinks that all it really takes to organise a show is a mic, some lights and a guy who owns an Ahuja sound console to get people to automatically start streaming into that venue as if Mata Amritanandamayi were giving away free hugs. The phone call usually goes like this.

Hapless bar owner: Hi, is this comedian X? Actually, I got your number from someone and we were interested in doing some stand-up comedy at our venue.

Comic: Nice. So where is this place? Is it a restaurant or a bar? What dates are you looking at? How many comics? What’s the budget like?

Hapless bar owner: Errr… actually you know budgets are really tight so we don’t really have much to offer comics… but we can give you exposure… like we have connections in media and you’ll get exposure… (What are you a frickin’ nuclear power plant?)

Comic: No see, without budgets it will be tough because no one does it for free… what kind of promotion can you do to get people so we can organise some sort of gate-split?

Hapless bar owner: Actually, we were thinking you are on Twitter and Facebook so you can tweet…

At this stage, that bar is permanently black-listed while the comedian cries realising that his/her value is lower than that of an emcee in a mall shouting to people to get them enter a lucky draw contest. If the hapless bar owner does manage to con some open mic-ers who are desperate for stage time into performing, s/he does fantastic things like let the bar and food service be open through the performance so that the comic can’t hear himself over the chicken shaslik sizzler. The hapless bar owner then decides that stand-up isn’t worth it and goes back to generic events like “Bollywood Nightzzz with DJ Bunty”.

2. The Facebook Acquaintance

Given English stand-up’s novelty, being a relatively good comedian gets you at least one article in the press. That and constantly updating ones Facebook with show details also means most of your friends and acquaintances know that you do that thing where you humiliate yourself on stage for the entertainment of strangers. Thus, most people like to take advantage of this fact and invite you to perform at their weddings and birthday parties. These acquaintances are usually easier to deal with than bar owners and the conversation goes like this.

Acquaintance you barely remember: Hey man what’s up! Aur show vagera kaise chal rahe hain?

Comic: Nothing much man same old, same old..

Acquaintance you barely remember: Nice nice. Achha… I was saying… you know, I have this party coming up and I thought I’d invite you – everyone will be there and we haven’t caught up in ages!

Comic: Haan! Sure man that’d be great…

Acquaintance you barely remember: Accha also, you know I was thinking… we can have this stage where you can tell some jokes you know on everyone in the room just do like a quick three hours of jokes we don’t have a budget but this party will give you exposure…

(click)

As Raju Srivastava once said, even if you’re on a dance floor, you’re always afraid that any moment, DJ Bunty (who never got paid by the hapless bar owner and is now doing weddings) would announce your name and the whole room would clear expecting you to do a one-hour set.

3. Corporate Slaves

And finally, the corporate slaves. These are company employees on the lookout for “something funny” to be done at their annual award function, Diwali bash, or lets -just-suck-our-boss’-dick-for-no-reason party. The corporate slave is usually a mid-level executive who has been put in charge of the event and thus, needs it to go well for the sake of his/her career.

While a few slaves hire specific comics based on their preferences, most are not familiar with who the comics are till the first time they meet them “to touch base”. After “touching base” they like to discuss the “show flow” and see how the comic can help punch up a supposedly-witty, god-awful sketch that involves every junior employee of the company, in front of senior management.

Finally, the corporate slave who thinks he/she knows comedy much better than the comic drops the inevitable censorship bomb, i.e. please don’t talk about politics, religion or sex – leaving nothing else to talk about except stickers on fruits, dog shampoos and Roadies. The slave goes home with a feeling of having accomplished something major for their company while the comic hopes to one day reach a stage where selling ones soul isn’t part of the contract.

The fat wad of money made at the said event then feeds the comics’ alcohol binge because that’s the only way to get over a room full of suits that can’t laugh because images of the partition are fresh in their memories.

The worst part of being a comedian isn’t so much the writing material, honing it over months, getting over stage fright and not getting shot by hecklers in Gurgaon. It’s having to deal with people at the periphery of the industry that seem to have it all figured out. Luckily, comics have a lot more options in the form of television and Bollywood nowadays, and I hear they provide great exposure.