Last month, I wrote about a couple redefining the all-American road trip by making the journey car-free. Apparently, this green trip idea’s a popular one this spring — enough that a reality TV show’s been made about it!
The Un-Road Trip follows the adventures of a young guy called Boaz Frankel as he makes his way across the U.S. in pretty much every form of transportation except the gas-powered car. Among the strange vehicles he employs are a pneumatic pogo stick, Kangoo jumps, and a crop duster!
Many are more basic, greener forms of transportation — like sailboat, horse, or bicycle — though Boaz ends up riding some funky looking bikes. He begins the journey in his hometown of Portland, heading down the west coast to L.A. before adventuring across the country — all the way to New York, up to Ontario, Canada, and finally, back through Seattle to Portland.
Watch The Un-Road Trip when it premiers on Earth Day, April 22, at 8 pm — either on the Halogen TV channel or online at Halogen TV’s The Un-Road Trip website. Then tune in again for the second episode on April 29 when Boaz gets to Los Angeles. A 15-mile walk gets him around before he tries the Kangoo Jump, RowBiking, and pneumatic pogo stick….
Love “Mad Men” — and love high-speed rail? Get a double-dose of things you love by watching car-free Angeleno Vincent Kartheiser and Rich Sommer of “Mad Men” talk teasingly about high speed rail:
That’s a teaser for a video about high-speed rail, due out from U.S. PIRG — a public-interest advocacy group that promotes high-speed rail as a transportation solution — on Wednesday. On its website, U.S. PIRG has rather prematurely dubbed the “Mad Men” piece a “viral video” before it’s even made its internet debut.
On Wed., you’ll find out if the video indeed goes viral. High-speed rail certainly is big news in itself these days — especially in California, where efforts to build a bullet train has widespread support — and some opposition from farmers and residents who live near the proposed rail line. California’s project got an extra funding boost when other Wisconsin and Ohio rejected federal funds for high-speed rail projects.
“It’s like Gore won — The Bush administration never happened!” That’s how the idealism of Portland’s described in the opening musical sketch of “Portlandia.” And the nitpickiness of that green idealism’s spoofed in a restaurant scene where a pair of diners pepper the waiter with a battery of questions about the chicken they may or may not eat — “How big is the area that the chickens are able to roam free?” — before leaving the restaurant to visit the farm firsthand.
The show’s creating quite the buzz on the green blogosphere — especially among green bloggers who live in Portland. Cases in point:
>> “Bikers, locavores, and just plain urbanites, quake in fear: Your lives are no longer safe from actually-funny satire,” writes Holly Richmond at Grist — before doing a series of comic sketch vs. real life comparisons of Portland’s culture.
>> Ecotrope‘s Cassandra Profita was driven to confess her inqisitive eco-foodie habits. “So, now I have to admit I’ve grilled a few servers to that degree before ordering seafood. I stopped short of a visit to the actual fishing boat that caught the restaurant’s fish, but if I could’ve gone I probably would’ve.”
>> GOOD‘s Taylor Clark giddily details the inside jokes non-Portlandians may not be privy to. “The [Portland] audience laughed riotously at “We Put Birds on Things,” the second episode of sketches featuring a motorist-abusing bike messenger and a television duo who specialize in stenciling birds on every kind of consumer product imaginable, yet for those who haven’t witnessed Portland’s belligerent cyclists and bird-obsessed indie crafters firsthand, I’m not sure how funny these bits will be.”
Do you think “Portlandia” is funny? Or are you outraged that the show pokes fun at sacred organic cows like local food and bike culture? Salon‘s Matt Zoller Seitz wonders if the lefties are indeed capable of laughing at themselves: “Armisen and Browstein’s masterstroke is showing how certain flavors of modern leftist sensitivity/engagement can seem (to outsiders) like passive-aggressive self-absorption laced with contempt for the unenlightened.”
The first episode of “Portlandia” is now available online — at least for the next 10 hours or so. Watch it above — and laugh at yourself — or not. The series premiers on IFC Friday night at 10:30 pm.
>> My favorite “Top Chef” contestant Carla Hall will dish out local, seasonal cooking tips and answers to your sustainable cooking questions in a Tom’s of Maine “Wicked Fresh! Wednesdays” live chat. Just come back to this page today, Wed., Dec. 15 at 5 pm to participate:
I’ll admit it — I have yet to watch ABC’s “Castle.” But I’ve watched Seamus Dever — a.k.a. Detective Kevin Ryan to “Castle” fans — on the videos he made for Sierra Club’s Alternative Transportation Project — and interviewed him for KPCC’s environmental blog, Pacific Swell.
Seamus big ups riding bikes, buses, and subway trains — but also admits he shares the same bike safety concerns and social stigma issues as his fellow car-lite and car-free Angelenos. An excerpt:
Do you think there’s still a social stigma attached to not driving? Have you experienced it in any way?
Yes — I think it may have something to do with our car culture. I mean, we live in a city where if you don’t wash your car once a week, people sort of look down at you, like there’s something wrong with you for not taking care of your car. I think there’s such a value placed on the automobile that it’s one of those things that’s taken for granted — that you have to have an automobile to be able to get around Los Angeles. The point of our project was not to say, give up your car completely — it’s just like, find another way. Just do it a couple times a week. Start small, and see what you can do from there.
I think the stigma still does exist. People look at me funny when they see me riding my bicycle…. I don’t know what it evolves from. I think it’s just people putting such a high value of importance — over-importance — on the automobile in this town, and using it as a status tool and sort of an extension of your personality.
I would love it if people would take the same care in building the subway system around Los Angeles…. When I did ride the subway pretty regularly for this play that I was in downtown, I saw people from all walks of life. It’s funny, because I think those people who think that if you take public transportation, that means you’re poor — I think those people don’t take public transportation. They don’t see the different races, different social backgrounds that are all on this subway system together. And sometimes that makes for great theater on the particular bus or train that you’re on. But it does exist and I think it’s pretty amazing.
Read more about how Seamus gets to the set, what close calls he’s had while riding his bike, and why he loves the subway system at Pacific Swell.
Watch it to see many scenes of the Prince walking around in nature, in settings both beautiful and damaged — as well as lots of closeups of the Prince looking worried about the general future of humankind. Before the show aired, Jonathan Hiskes in Grist warned that “The film also looks mighty, mighty earnest, so consider yourself warned if you’re prone to nodding off at such things.” I recommend heeding that warning. Organic, fair trade coffee may help!
TV networks don’t just weave in green themes into their shows once a year for eco-creds — They do it to win EMAs! The 20th Annual Environmental Media Awards recognized films and TV programs for bringing attention to environmental concerns at a star-studded event on Saturday at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. Everyone from Rosario Dawson (below) to Natalie Portman to Eva Mendez to Ted Turner came out to walk the green carpet and honor green leaders in media.
Hosted by Olivia Munn (Attack of the Show) and Jason Ritter (The Event), this year’s EMAs showed just how much better eco-themed programming’s gotten — even compared to just two years ago, when I last attended the event. The Television Episodic Drama category alone addressed everything from global warming to factory farming to e-waste pollution! Bones took home the prize, Michaela Conlin accepting the award for “The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken,” an episode that brought attention to caged chickens.
I discovered there’s a surefire way of winning an EMA: Get Al Gore to do a cameo! Just like in 2008, 30 Rock took the Television Episodic Comedy award home for its Gore-inspired episode. Katrina Bowden (above) accepted the award, joking that she’d biked all the way from New York for the event. (more…)
Still haven’t read Bill McKibben’s Eaarth– or my review of the scary but important book? Maybe a funny synopsis a la David Letterman will be easier for you to get through. Bill was on Letterman last night, not only talking about the pressing climate change issues covered in his book, but also urging everyone to get involved with the 10/10/10 Global Work Party next month.
Watch the 11-minute clip to find out why he wants President Obama to put solar panels back on the white house, how individual personal actions relate to collective political actions — and what you can do to push politicians to make real progress on climate issues in October. By the end of the interview, you’ll probably thinking what Letterman says to Bill: “Thank you for just scaring the crap out of me.”
The new reality show follows Terracycle founder Tom Szaky and a team of employees at TerraCycle who dash around designing products out of trash, shooting each other with plastic guns, and petting kitties — while the show’s editors manufacture the obligatory reality show drama with short deadlines and small personality conflicts.
The pilot episode — in which the team works to “transform cereal boxes into notebooks, newspaper into pencils and cookie wrappers into kites” — re-airs at 4 pm on Sat., Aug. 21, followed by three additional episodes in which dog food bags get upcycled into pet products, old CDs into fishing lures, and Target bags into a suit jacket.
Watch, learn, and upcycle — though honestly, I think many of Terracycle’s products are not particularly, um, attractive. However, I’m also not sure the raw materials Terracycle has to use allow for anything better looking. What do you think, readers? Does Terracycle’s team turn trash into treasure? Or could the team learn a lesson or two from Regretsy?
Despite recommendations from friends, I have yet to read Eat, Pray Love — so I don’t know if Elizabeth Gilbert’s book addresses any eco-ethical concerns. However, I do know that in Eat, Pray, Love the movie — starring Julia Roberts and out in theaters this August — the star of Pretty Woman carries an eco-fashionable fair trade purse.
That purse is a Hobo Bag, made from repurposed Kantha quilts and lined with vintage saris by fair trade artisans in India. The roomy tote’s available at fair trade store Seven Hopes United for $140.
I don’t know of any other fair trade purses that have made it on the big screen, but another upcycled eco-ethical tote’s a favorite of a TV heroine — Ugly Betty. For a good part of a season, Betty Suarez hauled around Rebagz’ Large Tie Tote, made of reclaimed juice packs by fair trade workers in the Philippines. The Betty look can be yours for $90 at Rebagz, a local fair trade company I wrote about here.
I’ll admit it — I have yet to watch ABC’s “Castle.” But I’ve watched 
