The Boy Scouts Suck

October 23, 2006

...fascist veneer. 3. Hipper uniforms. We suggest something like this. 4. An urban cycling merit badge. 5. All activities are outdoors. Lots of nature experiences. No computer merit badges and certainly no copyright merit badges. 6. Lastly, the SurviveLA Scout mission statement, borrowed from Edward Abbey: One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast… a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save th...

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Far Side of the Stairs

Mr. Homegrown

October 16, 2006

Fitness

2 Comments

...ing Australian and fiery high-horse Hungarian. But seriously, part of this urban homesteading thing is about whipping our communities into shape and LA needs a serious thrashing, and I don’t mean the sort delivered by the ladies in the back of the LA Weekly. We need to make LA a walkable, bike-able and livable place just like the folks in the other great cities of the world have done. Why is it that LA suffers from low self-esteem and low expectat...

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Shamelessly Tooting Our Own Horn

Mr. Homegrown

October 8, 2006

Fitness

1 Comment

Unfortunately for the sedentary out there this new urban homesteading lifestyle involves a fair amount of physical fitness. We’ve found that the best way to keep up with SurviveLA’s strenuous fitness requirements is to have a goal such as a race, or a particularly difficult hike. This is why we’ve been obsessed over the years with the Ketchum Downtown YMCA’s oddball Stair Climb to the Top which involves a heart-pounding and vomit-inducing journey...

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Essential System #3 – Sew Your Own Damn Clothes

Mr. Homegrown

October 6, 2006

Domesticus

1 Comment

...tart spinning and weaving your own fabric). Some recommendations for brave urban homesteaders who want to take up sewing. Don’t start with stretchy fabric. Don’t even think of using velvet (we learned this the hard way). Choose patterns carefully so you don’t end up looking like, well, folks who sew their own clothes. Consider purchasing a used serger, which cuts the fabric and finishes the seam all at once, which folks in the know tell us makes l...

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Wake Up and Fight

Mr. Homegrown

January 4, 2022

Thoughtstylings

34 Comments

...I were chasing clicks, I would have given up long ago. Almost all of the “urban homesteading” blogs like this one disappeared years ago. That’s the result of many factors. One is the rise of social media, as capital found a way to monetize posting and shift the fruits of that monetization away from creators and towards large companies like Meta (gag) and all the others: Twitter, TikTok, YouTube etc. I’m sorry to say that I bought into the optimis...

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