Existential Cathexis:
Patriotism

By Geraldo Jay Scala, 2015
Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel

The following audio piece features Ed Shevlin, a robust, straight talking, tattooed Irish American man from Far Rockaway, Queens. Shevlin is a New York City sanitation worker and local celebrity, recognized for rescuing discarded or unwanted American flags in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He has become somewhat of a neighborhood hero for pulling flags out of the garbage and organizing community gatherings where individuals bring their unwanted flags to be delivered to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, where they are ceremonially burned.

Geraldo Jay Scala is currently a freelance musician, writer, and aspiring oral historian. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Columbia University. Geraldo recently finished a master’s degree at New York University’s Draper Program in Humanities and Social Thought in August of 2015, completing a thesis entitled, “Socially Inclusive Approaches to Addiction: The Stories of Sanitation Workers in Recovery.” Geraldo’s research interests include continental philosophy, political economy, phenomenology, existentialism, ethnography, urban anthropology, oral history, social exclusion, and substance abuse. His geographic focus is on the continental United States, particularly inner cities and suburbia.