CALLING THE QUEER EYE FAB 5!



Queer Eye belongs in the trash!  Trust me on this!

TLDR: Queer Eye takes up the Climate Change Mantle presented in this wholly unpredictable pitch, helps save the world, and becomes even more famous and beloved than they already are. 

The following pitch will be amazing for the already amazing Queer Eye, because it guarantees a brand new humongous demographic of viewers tuning in to watch this episode for its unique slant on fashion!  And, given the right cocktail of elements, those new viewers will continue to watch the show forever and always.  

MY PROMISE:  If you do not get the biggest crowd you’ve ever gotten watching this show, I promise to streak the Phobie Awards buck naked, and give $10,000 dollars to the LGBT youth cause of your choice.

THE PITCH, & BACKSTORY:  The city is Los Angeles; the year--1994.  (And no, this is not going to be a Dostoevskian epistle--it’s a five minute read at most.)  It was January 17th, exactly 4:30 a.m.  And the Earth moved.  Many, in the moment, would attribute it to great sex, but in point of fact, the cause was the infamous Northridge Earthquake, a whopping 6.6’er.   As fate would have it, I was awake, in an apartment just a few miles from the epicenter.  In a bizarre moment of anal retentive non-panic (even as the floor beneath my feet was still moving), I put my dogs on their leashes, grabbed my Allstate Renter’s Policy from my dropleaf desk, and started filling up the bathtub with water, knowing the city would probably be without water for days.  Then I hurried outside.

The next day, curious, I started rifling through the dumpster behind the apartment building, even as neighbors panicked and packed and moved the hell out of Dodge.  I found, among many other things too lengthy to list here, a faux Ming Vase, bottles of booze, and, (?) some birth control pills.  I hauled the vase up to my apartment (laying it sideways on my mattress, along with other breakables, against aftershocks), started drinking the booze, and as for the birth control pills--well, Hollywood was still Hollywood, plate tectonics notwithstanding.

That was the beginning of a quarter century run.  Dumpster diving.  What I stopped spending on food, I began spending on dollhouses and miniatures: my approach was both maniacal and methodical.  Saving money on groceries has also allowed me to buy a 13,000 (plus basement) square foot building in which to house the collection.  Specifically, 48 South Main Street in Gloversville, New York.  (Think picture #26 as a starting space.)
  
Never say dumpster diving doesn’t pay.

Now here’s the part where Queer Eye comes in.

Over the last decade or so (and increasingly in the last year), it is impossible to talk about trash, and the entire issue of what we throw away, without also talking about Climate Change. That is why I have recently turned my attention to the appalling amount of clothing that we throw away--particularly the major thrift store chains--and folks, it is unbelievable.  

I have not only studied this clothing waste, which ends up first in the world’s dumpsters, then on to the planet’s burgeoning landfills and filthy oceans--but I have collected it.  Hundreds of pounds of clothing.  So dedicated am I to documenting this waste that I have maintained a separate storage unit in which to store the clothing, inching always closer to my museum endgame, specifically part of 48 South Main Street.

Amazingly, much of this clothing is in near-new condition, ready to be worn by the needy, the desperate, the desolate, the homeless, and even normalish middle class folks like me.  These clothes are not stained, stinky, or otherwise repulsive.  They are clean and smell freshly laundered, because that is how they had to present if they were to be on thrift store racks--they had just been on those racks for too long.  That is the ONLY thing wrong with them. My collection is varied and vast: I have everything from sweats to scrubs to suits, for both men and women.  I have clothes for babies and children.  I have blouses and shirts and sweaters and jackets and skirts and shorts and slacks and trousers, with belts and scarves and purses for the accessorizing.  I have lace and wool and silk.  I have winter coats and gloves and hats and mufflers.  (Anyone ever heard of the homeless crisis in America?)  I have designer names,  I even have a tux and ladies’ evening gowns.  I have vintage,  I have New With Tags.

And. . .wait for it. . .

. . . Nobody is more perfectly poised to turn this pile of clothing from a rainbow colored heap of potential pollutants into a gorgeous, opulent display than QESG!  Think of it: an event that looks like a gay wedding of Macy’s and Harrod’s, officiated by the Queer Eye Guys.  And while you are at it, let’s festoon the wall shelves with other rescued items:  hardback books in flawless shape, assorted shoes in great condition, dozens of pairs of brand new fuzzy fleece flip flops, brand new toiletries, soaps and cleaners, office supplies, wrapping paper, Christmas trees, decorations for assorted holidays, children’s toys, unused greeting cards, candy candy and more candy, curtains, tablecloths and runners, a dozen gorgeous and warm comforters--and nobody could think of a better home for these things than a dumpster?

Suck on this:

---The fashion industry accounts for about 10% of all global carbon emissions--more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

---The fashion industry accounts for about 20% of the planet’s wastewater.

--The UN estimates that a single pair of jeans requires a kilogram of cotton. And because cotton tends to be grown in dry environments, producing this kilo requires about 7,500–10,000 liters of water. That’s about 10 years’ worth of drinking water for one person.

---Jeans manufacturer Levi Strauss estimates that a pair of its iconic 501 jeans will produce the equivalent of 33.4kg of carbon dioxide equivalent across its entire lifespan – about the same as driving 69 miles in the average US car. Just over a third of those emissions come from the fibre and fabric production, while another 8% is from cutting, sewing and finishing the jeans. Packaging, transport and retail accounts for 16% of the emissions while the remaining 40% is from consumer use – mainly from washing the jeans – and disposal in landfill.

--Polyester, the most frequently used fiber in the fashion industry, takes 200 years to decompose.

---A single polyester garment can shed over one million microplastics each time it is washed.                                
                                                                                                         
---Every year a half a million tons of plastic microfibers are dumped into the ocean, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles. The danger? Microfibers cannot be extracted from the water and they can spread throughout the food chain. 

​--According to a report conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2013, a whopping 15.13 million tons of textiles ended up in the waste stream (landfills or incinerators).  Of that, a mere 15.2 percent was recovered for reuse or recycling.  In total, 12.83 tons of textiles--for perspective, the equivalent of more than two million male elephants--ended up in the waste stream in 2013.   (And we can assume that the situation hasn't improved in the last decade.)

---Ponder this: there are only about 3500 tigers left in the wild.  A century ago, there were 80,000.  The finest minds and most august foundations in the world agree that pollution like that caused by the current fashion industry will be directly responsible for the disappearance of tigers from the planet.  Experts in the field all sadly agree:  tigers will be extinct within 10-20 years.  And that is just one species.  There are virtually an infinite number in jeopardy.  There is a direct correlation between clothing pollution, climate change, and the coming extinction of the tiger--just one of many, many beautiful species we are slated to wipe out.


MORE HORRIFYING STATISTICS: https://woollygreen.com/fashion-industry-waste-statistics/
​AND PICTURES HERE:  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment

BUT!!  Good news for Queer Eye, and the world Writ Large.   There are recycling models that allow fibers to be broken down and given a new life in clothing that is as gorgeous as any ever made.  This movement does not need to hurt the fashion industry: not its reputation, nor its production, nor its profits.  The fashion industry, led by the Queer Eye Fab Five, can be the juggernaut leading us out of the Climate Change nightmare that is slowly engulfing us.   And all by helping us to literally see trashed clothing in a different way. (With maybe a trip to Italy for the Fab Five thrown in?)

And more good news: a host of designers are jumping on the recycling bandwagon. Synergy Organic, Naadam, Zero Waste Denial, The Upcycled Closet, Urban Outfitters, Re/Done, Green Market Vintage, Broken Ghost Clothing, Arielle, KINdom. Outerknown, Bethany Williams, Ecoalf, Doodlage, Re;code, Zurita, Suave, Bundgaard Nielson, and more.  Currently, about 13-15% of all clothing is recycled--it’s a start, but not nearly good enough.  That’s where Queer Eye comes in, to entertain and inform.

And the business of using recycled materials doesn’t even begin to touch on the very marvelous, personal, creative world of “upcycling”, where fabric artists piece together bits from assorted pieces of clothing to create marvelous, pixyish, Bohemian fashions.  But I am sure you gentlemen know all this.

Taking on my hundreds of pounds of trashed fashion, and turning it into a permanent museum in Gloversville, so that those who visit it could be awakened to the waste crisis and its horrific impact on our planet--what a novel and noble new goal for Queer Eye.

ASIDE:  Why, you might ask, does such a museum not yet exist--this quirky but crucial collection, dedicated to studying what we throw away, and what we, as a society, have determined holds no value?  Here’s why:  Because you need someone crazy enough to dig through dumpsters for a quarter of a century, yet someone “together” enough to have just bought a 13,000 + basement square foot building in upstate New York.  That cray-cray is me.  (It is worth noting that there is a marvelous trash museum in Queens, owned and operated by a former city garbage collector who saw the amazing, one-of-a-kind things that people would throw out.  He could not believe they would consign this to the trash.  He would “rescue it.”  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that…..hence, his Trash Museum.)  But my museum is not about the one-of-a-kind, as much as it is about planet crushing volumes of useful things consigned to landfills.

Think of it; let your imagination go wild: the Fab Five transforming the space into a bona fide museum, arranging the clothes, creating slideshows of pictures of thousands of pounds of thrown-away food, and even giving makeovers to the homeless, and those people hiding in shelters, fleeing abuse and seeking a new life.  Queer Eye could even take on the business of re-dressing those who have lost everything to natural disasters.  If thrift stores and others would donate instead of dumping, and local churches or whomever would sort and stockpile, then, when disaster hits, Queer Eye could put on their trucker’s regalia (Very Village People, don’cha think?), drive a truck to the newest flood or fire, and do the kind of makeover that transforms not just appearances, but hearts and souls.  Hmm . . . This is starting to sound like more than a one hour episode.  In fact to my very queer brain, it sounds like a spin-off.  Did I bury the lede?

Think who Queer Eye could help:

Not just a man, but humanity.  
  
Not just a person, but a planet.

Not a father in need of a makeover.   But Mother Earth in need of rescue. 

And I would go so far as to say that Queer Eye has been building to this moment for its entire existence.

Queer Superheroes Saving the World?

Truly, an idea whose time has come.

Let’s jump on this.  I believe that if Queer Eye doesn’t, someone else will.  And nobody would be able to execute this as well as Queer Eye; that’s just my opinion.

Here’s hoping,
Meg Langford

Moviesforyourmind.com
Moviesforyourmind.net

POST SCRIPT:   If you like what you just read, and want to help save the planet, please help this "Trash Queer Eye" idea to go viral.  PLEASE sign the petition.(By the time you read this, so some of the folks at Queer Eye will have also.   But this is far outside their template, their comfort zone.)  I need your help.  Help me to convince them.  You see, I am a Luddite, and I need the energy of the young, the idealistic, those with social media savvy that I do not have.  Help the planet.  VIRAL ME.  PLEASE. VIRAL ME.

POST POST SCRIPT: Dumpster diving is legal in the United States except where prohibited by local regulation.  According to a 1988 Supreme Court Ruling (California vs. Greenwood), when a person throws something out, that item is now the public domain.  These clothes were all legally obtained, and the purpose of this episode will not be to encourage dumpster diving, but rather to encourage a business model that never lets the clothes hit the dumpster in the first place.

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