Trash Falcons  – A Superhero Origin Story

It was 2020. Trash blew in tumbleweeds through Oakland during the dark days of the Pandemic when city sanitation workers were furloughed and everyone was scared. My wife and I watched it accumulate in drifts in the street from our apartment window. A block away we could see it clog up once beautiful Lake Merritt. ‘But what can you do’ looped through my mind about the garbage in the streets, a brutal California Wild Fire Summer, a divided nation, and the people dying by the 1000s from COVID (which would soon claim the life of my mother).

During one of these end-of-the-world, smoke-blanketed afternoons, my pal Dana messaged me. I’ve lived in the same art-deco fortress (now referred to as Castle Trash Falcon) for years and Dana and I had become friends, bandmates, and eventually would work on many a film together.

“Man, have you seen the block lately?” he asked.

“It’s pretty bleak. I wish someone would do something about it,” I said.

“Meet me outside in 30.”

He showed up, masked (as everyone was), with a couple pairs of gardening gloves, trash bags, some hand sano, and two hardware store, trigger-pull grabbers.

“You’re right. Someone needs to show up for our block,” we decided. “We are that someone.”

That was July 2020. Every week Dana and I would fill up a couple trash bags. We expanded our turf to include our neighborhood (Adams Point), Lake Merritt, Lakeside Park, and the Grand Avenue business corridor. Our neighbors in the building started joining us. Then a pal we met on a film set. Then a neighbor down the block. Then a jogger stopped and asked us – who are you guys? “We are Trash Falcons.” We had a name by then but saying it out loud to a stranger? Now, it was real. The jogger (Tim) became a regular part of the group. To some, I became Trash Falcon Richard or Magpie. As our group expanded, so did our innovations in trash tools.  So of course, we found the nearest grapple hook emporium.

Since then, the Trash Falcons weekly team has grown from about five to six of us to as many as 30 per mission. We meet every Sunday rain or shine, major and minor holidays included. The amount of garbage that we have removed from our neighborhood, our parks, Lake Merritt, and streets has normalized to about seven to eight tons per year. About 33 tons/ 66,000 lbs career. Not bad. And some of it is extremely weird. Thus the Trash Falcons Trash Museum of Trash (TFTMoT) book you are holding in your very hands.

Members of the group are as young as seven (Hi, Augie) and some are close to 80. We have more than 250 active supporters and more than 100 active members. Trash Falcons have a positive attitude towards what we do, find the whimsy and adventure in it (yes, again with the grappling hooks), and treat everyone as our neighbor whether they live in a condo or in a bus-stop. Falcons have put the idea of stewardship and community into practice.

We still get asked why. At the Sunday 9am huddle, I talk a bit about why Trash Falcons are still doing what we do every week. It’s different for everyone. The connection to a measurable urban conservation project for some. The measurable act of direct civic engagement. The friendship and comradery. The joy of meeting your neighbors and showing up for your block. And that little kid feeling of awe we still get when exploring the park, splashing through puddles,  discovering something weird or icky or creepy or beautiful… and getting to show it off to your fellow Falcons and neighbors as though it’s buried treasure or a precious artifact. 

The Trash Falcons Trash Musuem of Trash (TFTMoT) celebrates our most beloved (and bizarre!!!) treasures, along with the imaginative stories behind them. May you smell Lake Merritt at low tide on a Sunday morning and feel the same thrill of adventure as Trash Falcons do every week. 

Ka-kaw!
Richard Shirk (Magpie)
Trash Falcons, Co-Founder