keep what they won’t be taking.
Make the rounds of a fancy neighborhood with a truck and some friends. Ring doorbells and tell the person who answers that you are collecting wearable clothing for the “poor homeless victims of the recent tidal wave in Quianto a small village in Saudi Arabia.” You get the pitch. Make it food and clothing, and say you’re with a group called Heartline for Decency. A phony letter from a church might help here.
The Salvation Army does this, and you can pick up clothes from them at very cheap prices. You can get a pair of snappy casual shoes for 25 cents in many bowling alleys by walking out with them on your feet. If you have to leave your shoes as a deposit, leave the most beat-up pair you can find.
Notice if your friends have lost or gained weight. A big change means a lot of clothes doing nothing but taking up closet space. Show up at dormitories when college is over for the summer or winter season. Go to the train or bus stations and tell them you left your raincoat, gloves or umbrella when you came into town.
They’ll take you to a room with thousands of unclaimed items. Pick out what you like. While there, notice a neat suitcase or trunk and memorize the markings.
Later a friend can claim the item. There will be loads of surprises in any suitcase.
We have a close friend who inherited ten kilos of grass this way.
Large laundry and dry cleaning chains usually have thousands of items that have gone unclaimed. Manufacturers also have shirts, dresses and suits for rockbottom prices because of a crooked seam or other fuck- up. Stores have reduced rates on display models: Mannequins are mostly all size 40 for men and 10 for women. Size 7 1/2 is the standard display size for men’s shoes. If you are these sizes, you can get top styles for less than half price.
SANDALS
The Vietnamese and people throughout the Third World make a fantastically durable and comfortable pair of sandals out of rubber tires. They cut out a section of the outer tire (trace around the outside of the foot with a piece of chalk) which when trimmed forms the sole. Next 6 slits re made in the sole so the rubber straps can be criss-crossed and slid through the slits. The straps are made out of inner tubing. No nails are needed. If you have wide feet, use the new wide tread low profiles. For hard going, try radials. For best satisfaction and quality, steal the tires off a pig car or a government limousine.
Let’s face it, if you really are into beating the clothing problem, move to a warm climate and run around naked. Skin is absolutely free, and will always be in style.
Speaking of style, the midi and the maxi have obvious advantages when it comes to shoplifting and transporting weapons or bombs.
FREE FURNITURE
Apartment lobbies are good for all kinds of neat furniture. If you want to get fancy about it, rent a truck (not one that says U-HAUL-IT or other rental markings) and make the pick-up with moving-man-type uniforms. When schools are on strike and students hold seminars and debate into the night, Yippies can be found going through the dorm lobbies and storage closets hauling off couches, desks, printing supplies, typewriters, mimeos, etc. to store in secret underground nests.
A nervy group of Yippies in the Midwest tried to swipe a giant IBM 360 computer while a school was in turmoil. All power to those that bring a wheelbarrow to sitins.
Check into a high-class hotel or motel remembering to dress like the wallpaper.
Carry a large dummy suitcase with you and register under a phony name. Make sure you and not the bellboy carry this bag. Use others as a decoy. When you get inside the room, grab everything you can stuff in the suitcase: radio, T.V. sets (even if it has a special plug you can cut it with a knife and replace the cord), blankets, toilet paper, glasses, towels, sheets, lamps, (forget the imitation Winslow Homer on the wall) a Bible, soap and toss rugs. Before you leave (odd hours are best) hang the DO NOT DISTURB sign on your doorknob. This will give you an extra few hours to beat it across the border or check into a new hotel.
Landlords renovating buildings throw out stoves, tables, lamps, refrigerators and carpeting. In most cities, each area has a day designated for discarding bulk objects. Call the Sanitation Department and say you live in that part of town which would be putting out the most expensive shit and find out the pick-up day.
Fantastic buys can be found cruising the streets late at night. Check out the backs of large department stores for floor models, window displays and slightly damaged furniture being discarded.
Construction sites are a good source for building materials to construct furniture. (Not to mention explosives.) The large wooden cable spools make great tables.
Cinderblocks, bricks and boards can quickly be turned into a sharp looking bookcase. Doors make tables. Nail kegs convert into stools or chairs. You can also always find a number of other supplies hanging around like wiring, pipes, lighting fixtures and hard hats. And don’t forget those blinking signs and the red lanterns for your own light show. Those black oil-fed burners are O.K. for cooking, although smoky, and highway flares are swell for making fake dynamite bombs.
3. FREE TRANSPORTATION
HITCH-HIKING
Certainly one of the neatest ways of getting where you want to go for nothing is to hitch. In the city it’s a real snap. Just position yourself at a busy intersection and ask the drivers for a lift when they stop for the red light. If you’re hitching on a road where the traffic zooms by pretty fast, be sure to stand where the car will have room to safely pull off the road. Traveling long distances, even cross-country, can be easy if you have some sense of what you are doing.
A lone hitch-hiker will do much better than two or more. A man and woman will do very well together. Single women are certain to get propositioned and possibly worse. Amerikan males have endless sexual fantasies about picking up a poor lonesome damsel in distress. Unless your karate and head are in top form, women should avoid hitching alone. Telling men you have V.D. might help in difficult situations.
New England and the entire West Coast are the best sections for easy hitches.
The South and Midwest can sometimes be a real hassle. Easy Rider and all that.
The best season to hitch is in the summer. Daytime is much better than night. If you have to hitch at night, get under some type of illumination where you’ll be seen.
Hitch-hiking is legal in most states, but remember you always can get a “say-so” bust. A “say-so” arrest is to police what Catch-22 is to the Army. When you ask why you’re under arrest, the pig answers, “cause I say-so.” If you stand on the shoulder of the road, the pigs won’t give you too bad a time. If you’ve got long hair, cops will often stop to play games. You can wear a hat with your hair tucked under to avoid hassles. However this might hurt your ability to get rides, since many straights will pick up hippies out of curiosity who would not pick up a straight scruffy looking kid. Freak drivers usually only pick up other freaks.
Once in a while you hear stories of fines levied or even a few arrests for hitching (Flagstaff, Arizona is
