Don Schrader is something of a local celebrity in
Albuquerque,
New Mexico. He is known for his
public access television show, his
prolific letters to the editor of local publications, his
political activism, and most of all the way he dresses: you can rarely see him wearing much more than a
loincloth.
Schrader is a former episcopalian minister who left the church after becoming disgruntled with its hypocricy. Now he spends his days holding anti-war signs out in front of the University of New Mexico bookstore on the corner of Central and Cornell. On his public access show, Don advises that you rub garlic on your body to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases (presumably because nobody will come that close to you). He also speaks of the health benefits of rubbing aged urine on yourself, as well as drinking it.
His letters to the editor touch on a number of social action issues, ranging from anti-sweatshop to anti-nuclear. The strange thing about his letters, though, is that no matter what they start out saying, they always end up talking about the joys of homosexual sex with men (see www.alibi.com for an example). This is also a central theme of the poetry he reads at open-mic nights at the local coffeehouses. He runs a nudist group for men he calls naked and not ashamed.
Don advocates living a simple life and eating only organic foods. He claims to live on less than $6,000 a year, which isn't that bad.