FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE STATE OF JEFFERSON
Cyrus Emerson
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Published by:
Just Imagine It Ink
Copyright (c)
2011 by Cyrus Emerson
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Author Biography:
CYRUS EMERSON has a BA in journalism from Southern Oregon University. He has written for the Ashland Daily Tidings, Jefferson Public Radio, and the Inlandia Institute. Currently, he is an audio engineer at Blackstone Audio, Inc., and he reads poetry once a month with the Coffee House Poets in Talent, Oregon.
Introduction:
I started working at Blackstone Audio, Inc. before the 2004 Christmas. And before the 2005 Christmas, I would be working at Blackstone Audio, Inc. after the publication of my novella Lost Angel, and getting ready to start as the new snow phone announcer at Mt. Ashland, all while maintaining my volunteer gig at JPR since 2003.
It is at this point in my Journalism career that I begin the MySpace Blogs from December 27, 2005 to May 15, 2008 . . .
Note: These dates coincide with MySpace’s peak as the globe’s premier social networking site. MySpace lost the number one position to Facebook on April 19, 2008
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27 Dec 2005
Shhhh . . .
In the trees on Mt. Ashland we built a shelter. The wind cut through sharply, and I’m sure that without are jackets we would have been very cold.
Down the hill we could see younger energetic snowboarders taking jumps of a little kicker on a trail.
We smoked and talked of the weather, and the sense of survival that had over taken us. No longer are the trips to the mountain just about fun, they are a test, and a challenge for survival.
Could I live up here with a book of matches, a rifle, and some snowshoes? I’m not sure if I could, but the way things are going, it would be a good skill to pick up.
28 Dec 2005
A whisper turns into a rumor. Everyone seems to be picking up on the vibration. There is a beat moving through the woods. Wherever it takes us it must be better than this . . .
This being the one bedroom apartment with three people and a dog living inside it, this being too poor to think about having kids without going on welfare, this being working 12 hours a day to pay credit card bills . . .
Anything would be better than this. Somewhere inside, there is hope, and a great man once said “Hope is all we have.”
So keep going, keep breathing, keep moving, keep working, keep trying for something, and never settle for anything less than happiness.
From the AP Wire:
“A federal judge this week ordered the federal government to continue spilling extra water over some of the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers in spring and summer to help young salmon migrate to the ocean.
The order from the US District Judge James Redden comes as a result of his ruling earlier this year that the Bush Administration’s latest plan for operating the dams JEOPARDIZED THE SURVIVAL OF THE ENDANGERED FISH.
The National Marine Fisheries Service argued that putting the young fish in barges and tank trucks to get them around the dams was better for the fish, and allowed the dams to avoid the LOSS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN ELECTRICITY REVENUES.
But the judge rejected that idea.
Alan Moore of Trout Unlimited, one of the plaintiffs in the case, says he is happy to hear that the judge agrees with conservation groups and fisherman that the RIVER IS THE BEST PLACE FOR FISH.”
To me this represents everything wrong with our society. We will kill off an entire species, or at least weaken their survival, in the pursuit of money.
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Molly Ivins is a Genius
Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated columnist and if you haven’t read her editorials you should. You’ll most likely be able to get them in your own hometown newspaper.
This is interesting and caught my attention.
Excerpt from Molly Ivins editorial in the Medford Mail Tribune 12-30-05:
“The Democrats have a new strategy that may finally get the Republicans off the pot. They’re working to get a minimum wage increase on state ballots, including Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas and Montana. The theory is that putting a minimum-wage increase on the ballot does for Democrats what putting on an anti-gay marriage proposition does for Republicans—it gets out the base.”
“…In theory, this should scare the happy pappy out of the Republicans, who will then vote to increase the minimum wage the first chance they get in Congress, thus assuring an increase either way. Clever, eh?”
Now back to another story we ran on the Jefferson Daily yesterday 12-30-05:
From the AP wire:
“Governor Schwarzenegger [A Republican] is expected to propose a one dollar increase in the state’s minimum wage—after vetoing similar legislature this year.”
Clever, eh?
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January 2006
Public Service Announcement:
If you are a Democrat, or disagree with the current administrations policies in any way, you could be monitored by the NSA.
Cell phone users are the easiest to tap because the phone signals go through satellites, and no physical wire taps are needed. The signals can be intercepted in space.
All phone calls by environmentalist, animal rights supporters, hemp activists, peace activists, or anti-Bush policy sympathizers, are treated as terrorist threats.
The information gathered by the NSA can be used to create criminal files. These criminal files can be passed on to employers to keep you from being hired, or to block advancement. Criminal files can also be given to banks to block loans, and even your credit history can be jeopardized by the things you say to other people.
To protect yourself only use your cell phone for emergencies, and remember, “Watch What You Say”.
14 Jan 2006
These blogs are inspired by Hunter S. Thompson, I’ve been reading a lot of his work lately, and things today, are mirroring the things he wrote about in the 70s.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE SATE OF JEFFERSON . . .REDNECKS. . .NATIVE AMERICANS. . .JEFFERSONIAN HEMP LAWS. . .SHARKS. . .LITTLE GREEN PEOPLE
REDNECKS:
Locked in the Jefferson Public Radio Newsroom on a Saturday night, I’m trying to sort out the meaning of a Seattle Seahawk playoff win over the Washington D.C. Redskins.
My connection with the game goes beyond being from the Northwest in our current troubles as a country in World affairs. It goes back to those three years when I lived in Virginia and learned about the power that runs our country. At that time, I spent many weekends sitting in a living room with the Captain of the Sheriff’s Department watching Washington Redskins games.
For all I know he could have been in the Klu Klux Klan, his entire family had fought for the South in the Civil War, had a line been crossed in our conversations he might have lynched me and buried me in his yard, no one would have investigated, after all he was Captain of the Sheriff’s Department, and I sat on his couch watching football games week after week.
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Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - Part 2: Native Americans
NATIVE AMERICANS
What a trip . . .
A Seahawk has killed a Redskin in the consciousness of the American mind, on national television, to an audience of millions who all stood in horrific amazement.
How had this happened? Not since the early 70s had anyone seen such a miracle of sorts. But there was no way to ignore it, it was like gravity, or a mathematical equation, the proof was beyond doubt . . .
To understand this miracle we must first examine its roots. These roots run deep into the psyche of the American mind. A soil of untold stories and a National Myth like George Washington cutting down the cherry tree.
Hemp is evil. This seems to be a quote from George Orwell’s 1984. Coincidentally this is also the last year in which the Seattle Seahawks won a playoff game. Since that year a long drought of futile seasons has followed. Depressing losses in such spectacle that Seattle has become synonymous with suicide. But this is getting away from my point about the history, I must continue that thread.
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Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - Part 3: Jeffersonian Hemp Laws
JEFFERSONIAN HEMP LAWS
“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.” -Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States
It is widely known that Jefferson was a supporter of hemp and that he drafted the constitution on hemp paper, and yet we find ourselves in a society that is clearly anti-hemp.
To dive into this cultural divide, we must admit to ourselves that money and capitalism are very important to all of us. These are American values that we can all agree upon.
Considering the importance of money we can dispassionately see the sense of anti-hemp legislation and propaganda. William Randolph Hearst owned the largest media conglomeration in America in the early 1900s. He had large timber interests, and through a partnership with DuPont, he organized a campaign to make hemp illegal. (DuPont was ready to monopolize the textile industry with fossil fuel driven production lines, and hemp was a direct competitor, watch the Hemp Revolution)
Hearst used his media empire to rebrand hemp as “marijuana” in the cult classic film Reefer Madness. This gave it a Mexican feel, something that the large white powerbase didn’t like. When legislation went though Congress to make marijuana illegal most voted to do so even against their own interests because they didn’t know marijuana was hemp.
So now that we have got that out in the open, and we’re on the same page here, let’s move on . . .
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Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - Part 4: Sharks
SHARKS
In the 1960s, in an age of turmoil, the oil industrial complex was coming to an end. The television made information more accessible and Richard Nixon lost a presidential election in 1960 because of his appearance on television.
The power base was eroding, holding on to grass so that they would not fall of the edge of the earth like some drunken Irishman. Blessed by the “Shock and Awe” of a Kennedy assassination on film, the sharks sunk to the depths of the ocean, and waited for a chance.
4 years of Lyndon Johnson’s failures as a president and the sharks were back at it again. Hell, LBJ didn’t even run for office.
So they were back, that skeleton in the closet profiting from anti-hemp legislation. Those evil thugs that created Reefer Madness were once again strengthening their grip on the heart of the country. The evil thugs that had been in power since the middle of World War Two when the best and brightest were fighting a war abroad and the weak and incompetent were sitting at home running the country.
Maybe that is why they keep sending us to war? With the gorilla out of the house the chimpanzee has the run of the whole situation. He uses the gorilla to defend himself and yet secretly plots to have the gorilla killed off so that chimpanzee’s can rule the world.
Yes the sharks were back. Promoting their “New World Order,” one that would make George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and any other great mind roll over in his or her grave.
I think the success of Hitler must have been a great influence. A common man using every means of the media to create a society that mindlessly follows orders. What a great thing to do in the minds of these sharks running the country. Wouldn’t you want absolute power if you had power . . .?
I can’t answer that because I’ve been oppressed since the day I was born. I live in an occupied country. Occupied since the day John Kennedy died, or maybe occupied since the day hemp became illegal, or maybe the day Columbus landed in the new world. Then again, maybe the day money became more important than God, Family, Country, Friends.
The seed to all of this can be traced back to Julius Caesar riding a chariot through Rome after being proclaimed emperor, yet even that does not fit the bill, it must have been because of Alexander the Greats’ conquests through Asia. The bastard couldn’t even name a successor. He gave it to the most-hungry and evil of characters to fight over.
Some would probably say it’s a Biblical tale, like Cain and Able, or Adam and Eve, but wasn’t Alexander around before the publication of the Bible. Isn’t his story a real story, of a real man, that lived, and can be documented? Aren’t the pyramids more real than Noah’s Arch?
Back to Nixon and this mean streak that assumes power. There seems to be a migration here, from the Greeks, to the Romans, to the Europeans, to the Americans, a migration of power and greed; a soldier’s spirit to conquer the weak.
What have we learned here? Nothing. We are once again stuck with Mad King George. He keeps coming back, and wearing us down, until we submit.
That’s the crutch. Every generation must stand up and fight the battle of freedom if freedom is to continue.
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Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - Part 5: Little Green People
LITTLE GREEN PEOPLE
Then there are the Seahawks beating the Washington Redskins 20-10. They even covered the 9.5 point spread from the Oregon State Lottery.
Here are your protesters. They might not be Kent State, or Timothy Leary, but the Seattle Seahawks did more today than any other single protest from 1968 to 1974. They beat the bastards at their own game. They played ball for millions of hemp activists living in the Northwest. They beat the odds, and that water line in the Las Vegas desert just got passed over. The bar is being moved higher.
No longer are protest signs near the Washington Monument sparking the revolution. There are cities and regions within the country that have a different culture from the cowboy-oil-tycoon-that-fought-for-slavery.
There are different kinds of Americans and different ways to create economic development. There is no need for a revolution because we are all Americans. There is only a need to recapture that spirit that wrote the constitution on a piece of hemp paper.
By beating back the shark, the coward that sends others to fight his war, by claiming are rights, our country can find the right track again, just like we did in the early 70s.
Why can’t we keep riding that wave into the future for as long as it will take us?
Fear. Is fear ruling our lives? They say California has already given up its civil liberties in the name of security.
It looks like we’ve got two versions of the world ahead of us:
1) A police state run from a space station above the earth’s surface from where war planes are launched to bomb us into submission so that the earth’s natural resources can be mined for the elite to leave us behind forever.
2) Or a return to nature, the legalization of hemp, and a world united. The development of new technology with mother earth consciousness. Our home planet preserved while the brave souls amongst us travel space in search of a new home before our sun explodes in 5 million years.
Yes, we’ve got a choice to make.
--
February 2006
Maybe it was the voice of Thomas Jefferson.
When I first began to realize that the environmental movement needed to start making money to survive, I happened to be in Charlottesville, Virginia.
I had a driving route for the United Parcel Service, delivering, and picking up next day air mail. A lot of the drop boxes on my route were located on the University of Virginia campus, which Thomas Jefferson designed and built. So there I was driving my UPS truck passed the Rotunda, and the idea started to form in my mind over the days, weeks, and months of driving my route.
You see I always felt disconnected with the people in Virginia. If you know anything about the South, and you know that I showed up to Virginia with bleached blonde hair, surfer trunks, and a California driver’s license, then you could understand my separation.
However, in that UPS truck I found a little space to breath. I had my uniform, a slight southern accent, and a job to do. So no one bothered me. I simply blended in.
My mind would start to wander back to my formative years growing up in Ashland, Oregon, a place where everyone has embraced environmentalism and can’t understand why others have not. I was also going to Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC is a college you go to when your working your way into UVA. Many of the professors teach at both schools and are very demanding) and reading tons of Southern Literature and reading about Western Civilization. So I had a lot on my mind as it was.
I started keeping notebooks about Environmental Economy and a plan for a Super City that would be self contained and pollution free. Just rambling entries about all sorts of things really. The book Lost Angel expressed some of this continuing conversation with myself on the East Coast. I could never find anyone to really talk about these ideas with, because they always just thought of it as hippie-radical-kid-from-the-West-Coast-bullshit.
So I came back home. And after my senior year in college I started my internship at Jefferson Public Radio where I was delighted to find like minded people. My News Director Liam Moriarty was tuned in, and Jeff Golden’s book “As If We Were Grownups” had the same kind of themes going on. I had found a home in my hometown.
Three years have gone by since I started working at JPR. I must say that progress has been made. Even President Bush is glorifying the benefits of Alternative Energy. The point now is to keep it going, make it bigger, and make it happen.
As Jim Morrison would have said “We need to break on through to the other side.”
22 Feb 2006
This may come as a shock to some of you:
“I’m beginning to like the guy we call President”
The latest port deal that has outraged Republicans and Democrats alike has given me the insight I needed to come around to this.
There are forces that are stronger and more powerful than our federal government. Secret societies are real, and it is in this realm that our president has been ruling in all along. It is as if his entire presidency has been scripted and all of America has been on a reality television show. The bantering between social groups in this country has only been for ratings on network news. In the end we are all coming to some common ground.
We’ve still got three years with the Prez. I’m sure that they will be very exciting especially now that he has thrown caution to the side. He’s a loose cannon trying to become the next American Idol. He doesn’t really care about issues on the right or the left. Those petty little things like abortion, taxes, and health care. Those are things for the peasants to bicker about, and he sure got us all going.
The Prez is above all of that. He was born into a family of wealth and prestige. He doesn’t know about the plight of the little guy, that’s why he was elected president, because he knows about the plight of the smallest minority, the richest 1% that must deal with the fact that other people live on the planet.
The Prez must be getting an A+ from that crowd, although it is hard to tell unless you are a part of that 1%, but I have my suspicions that things are going well for him up there. I just hope, in the end, that the decisions those people make will work for our benefit as well. And I have a feeling that some big changes are on the way. When you look around at people, remember what you thought of them, because in 10 years most of them will be signing a different tune.
From a bomb shelter deep in the earth’s crust . . .
--
March 2006
Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown spoke at the First Amendment Forum last night on the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon.
It was a great honor.
With that said, let’s talk about his appearance.
Brown showed up wearing a suit that cost more than most houses in Ashland (one of the most expensive housing markets in Oregon). He had a fake tan, and white teeth that must have cost over $20,000 that he used to flash the people in attendance with. It made me think of the “Traveling Doctor” in an old western with magical medicine to sell.
But Brown is not that kind of guy. He is very respectable, and if he seemed condescending, I’m sure the crowd gathered to listen to him deserved it.
Living in Ashland gives one a false sense of security in intellectual know-how. Brown slashed through this with the ease of an Olympic skier.
He was coaxing people, challenging people, putting people on, and hoping that they could deliver a debate worthy of his prowess. Sadly, the crowd of people failed. There was no shaking him, he remained in complete control throughout, and made Ashland feel like a bunch of cow-poking-country-bums, instead of the thriving liberal arts town it believes itself to be.
The problem with the debate between Brown and Ashland is that we are not in the same world. People in Ashland have these ideals and wild ideas about freedom. Brown is a pragmatist who knows what real money and power are all about. He has dealt in that realm of skyscrapers, and has been successful. Journalism founded on the principle of a 4th estate sounds like a crackpot scheme.
Brown proved to us that MONEY - not what is right or wrong, moral, or ethical - is what matters. He stood on his podium, and with grace, destroyed every single one of us with his view point.
He even made fools of the news directors at all the local cable stations, not by saying anything to them, but because they sat at the same table. Brown tried hard to blend in, taking off his Armani sports jacket, and loosening his $5,000 tie, but the polyester, and patches on the elbows of the other news director’s coats still looked tacky. The only thing Brown could have done to fit in is strip naked and run through the crowd screaming “Save the Trees!” However, his patented voice would have ruined this attempt and still made us all feel like idiots.
The one good thing to come of all this is the answer to the question we all wanted to know:
Why is there always crap on network news?
Brown’s answer:
Because of you the viewer.
This might seem insulting at first, it may even seem defeating, after a while though it becomes the key to power and a simple solution for change.
If people want to change the way the media reports, they can, by selecting the things they watch. Turn off the tabloid news, and listen to something meaningful and with purpose.
That’s it, you don’t have to volunteer. All you have to do is change the channel whenever Bill O’Reilly (or some other stupid thing) is on the television.
That’s all it takes to change the world.
I believe Aaron Brown when he says that CNN has no political aspirations, there is no Wizard of Oz dictating what we watch, it is all based on ratings, and money. They are not protecting Oil Companies by not running stories on alternative fuel sources. It is simply that people don’t watch stories about alternative fuel sources.
This seems strange to people in Oregon, and on the West Coast, but we must remember that we are on the West Coast. CNN, and most of its viewers, are on the East Coast, and they have a different reality from us.
I believe Aaron Brown, not because of his fancy suit, expensive teeth, or the conviction in his voice that comes from being the number one anchor at CNN, I believe Aaron Brown for another reason . . .
Aaron Brown lowered himself by flying from New York, to Ashland, to speak with a bunch of country folk because of SOU Assistant Provost Paul Steinle. A man that gave Aaron Brown his first shot at being an anchor on television news.
Professor Steinle acted as my advisor while I attended SOU, he gave me a strong belief in myself, and I owe him the debt of gratitude as well.
20 Mar 2006
V for Vendetta = Vote in November
I watched V for Vendetta this weekend and I enjoyed it.
The movie is set in a landscape much like George Orwell’s 1984, a fascist regime in the United Kingdom, with an ever watchful eye on its citizens. However, unlike the movie 1984, the scenery in V for Vendetta is appealing.
The protagonist is a comic book superhero like Batman who stalks government officials in the shadows of the night. His vision vehemently vindicates the value of voting, was that an alliteration? This hero’s brilliant introduction begins with such a rant and the letter V sticks in your mind throughout the production.
Is it a coincidence that the letter V, and the date of November 5th, are reoccurring themes in this movie? Or did the producers, writer, and director want us to Vote in November?
As one of the characters in the movie states:
“I’ve been in this business too long to believe in coincidence.”
Another good line is:
“Writers use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use the truth to shape their lies.”
These might be paraphrases instead of pure quotes, but you get the idea. This movie is more than Hollywood spending money to make a blockbuster; it is social commentary about the state of our world today that translates well to a populace shaken with the nightmare of an endless War in Iraq.
I highly recommend watching V for Vendetta. And Natalie Portman is a dish.
--
April 2006
Zitkala-Sa. “Why I Am a Pagan.”
Atlantic
Monthly 90 (1902): 801-803.
WHEN the spirit swells my breast I love to roam leisurely among the green hills; or sometimes, sitting on the brink of the murmuring Missouri, I marvel at the great blue overhead. With half closed eyes I watch the huge cloud shadows in their noiseless play upon the high bluffs opposite me, while into my ear ripple the sweet, soft cadences of the river’s song. Folded hands lie in my
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lap, for the time forgot. My heart and I lie small upon the earth like a grain of throbbing sand. Drifting clouds and tinkling waters, together with the warmth of a genial summer day, bespeak with eloquence the loving Mystery round about us. During the idle while I sat upon the sunny river brink, I grew somewhat, though my response be not so clearly manifest as in the green grass fringing the edge of the high bluff back of me.
At length retracing the uncertain footpath scaling the precipitous embankment, I seek the level lands where grow the wild prairie flowers. And they, the lovely little folk, soothe my soul with their perfumed breath.
Their quaint round faces of varied hue convince the heart which leaps with glad surprise that they, too, are living symbols of omnipotent thought. With a child’s eager eye I drink in the myriad star shapes wrought in luxuriant color upon the green. Beautiful is the spiritual essence they embody.
I leave them nodding in the breeze but take along with me their impress upon my heart. I pause to rest me upon a rock embedded on the side of a foothill facing the low river bottom. Here the Stone-Boy, of whom the American aborigine tells, frolics about, shooting his baby arrows and shouting aloud with glee at the tiny shafts of lightning that flash from the flying arrow-beaks. What an ideal warrior he became, baffling the siege of the pests of all the land till he triumphed over their united attack. And here he lay, -- Invan, our great-great-grandfather, older than the hill he rested on, older than the race of men who love to tell of his wonderful career.
Interwoven with the thread of this Indian legend of the rock, I fain would trace a subtle knowledge of the native folk which enabled them to recognize a kinship to any and all parts of this vast universe. By the leading of an ancient trail, I move toward the Indian village.
With the strong, happy sense that both great and small are so surely enfolded in His magnitude that, without a miss, each has his allotted individual ground of opportunities, I am buoyant with good nature.
Yellow Breast, swaying upon the slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit than in his wing.
With these thoughts I reach the log cabin whither I am strongly drawn by the tie of a child to an aged mother. Out bounds my four-footed friend to meet me, frisking about my path with unmistakable delight. Chan is a black shaggy dog, “a thorough bred little mongrel,” of whom I am very fond. Chan seems to understand many words in Sioux, and will go to her mat even when I whisper the word, though generally I think she is guided by the tone of the voice. Often she tries to imitate the sliding inflection and long drawn out voice to the amusement of our guests, but her articulation is quite beyond my ear. In both my hands I hold her shaggy head and gaze into her large brown eyes. At once the dilated pupils contract into tiny black dots, as if the roguish spirit within would evade my questioning.
Finally resuming the chair at my desk I feel in keen sympathy with my fellow creatures, for I seem to see clearly again that all are akin.
The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings. And even here men of the same color are like the ivory keys of one instrument where each represents all the rest, yet varies from them in pitch and
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quality of voice. And those creatures who are for a time mere echoes of another’s note are not unlike the fable of the thin sick man whose distorted shadow, dressed like a real creature, came to the old master to make him follow as a shadow. Thus with a compassion for all echoes in human guise, I greet the solemn-faced “native preacher” whom I find awaiting me. I listen with respect for God’s creature, though he mouth most strangely the jangling phrases of a bigoted creed.
As our tribe is one large family, where every person is related to all the others, he addressed me:
“Cousin, I came from the morning church service to talk with you.”
“Yes,” I said interrogatively, as he paused for some word from me.
Shifting uneasily about in the straight-backed chair he sat upon, he began: “Every holy day (Sunday) I look about our little God’s house, and not seeing you there, I am disappointed. This is why I come to-day. Cousin, as I watch you from afar, I see no unbecoming behavior and hear only good reports of you, which all the more burns me with the wish that you were a church member. Cousin, I was taught long years ago by kind missionaries to read the holy book. These godly men taught me also the folly of our old beliefs.
“There is one God who gives reward or punishment to the race of dead men. In the upper region the Christian dead are gathered in unceasing song and prayer. In the deep pit below, the sinful ones dance in torturing flames.
“Think upon these things, my cousin, and choose now to avoid the after-doom of hell fire!” Then followed a long silence in which he clasped tighter and unclasped again his interlocked fingers.
Like instantaneous lightning flashes came pictures of my own mother’s making, for she, too, is now a follower of the new superstition.
“Knocking out the chinking of our log cabin, some evil hand thrust in a burning taper of braided dry grass, but failed of his intent, for the fire died out and the half burned brand fell inward to the floor. Directly above it, on a shelf, lay the holy book. This is what we found after our return from a several days’ visit. Surely some great power is hid in the sacred book!”
Brushing away from my eyes many like pictures, I offered midday meal to the converted Indian sitting wordless and with downcast face. No sooner had he risen from the table with “Cousin, I have relished it,” than the church bell rang.
Thither he hurried forth with his afternoon sermon. I watched him as he hastened along, his eyes bent fast upon the dusty road till he disappeared at the end of a quarter of a mile.
The little incident recalled to mind the copy of a missionary paper brought to my notice a few days ago, in which a “Christian” pugilist commented upon a recent article of mine, grossly perverting the spirit of my pen. Still I would not forget that the pale-faced missionary and the hoodooed aborigine are both God’s creatures, though small indeed their own conceptions of Infinite Love. A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.
--
Zitkala-Sa.
Wordstock - Part 1
April 19th
On Wednesday, I read a blog by Maria Dahvana Headley author of The Year of Yes. In her blog she wrote about the Wordstock festival in Portland, Oregon, and about her being present to read from her book.
Intrigued, I looked into the festival. I was amazed by the lineup of high powered authors and poets including, Joyce Carol Oates, David Duncan, Lawson Inada, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gore Vidal, and many more . . . including our fellow MySpacer.
The other amazing thing about this event was the cost. For $5 one could purchase a ticket for two days of access to these amazing people reading from an array of stages spread out in the Oregon Convention Center.
I knew that I could not miss this experience. I immediately asked Lysa Williams, another author and coworker of mine at Blackstone if she wanted to go. She said no, in that last-minute-too-lazy-to-get-motivated kind of way we all have. I understood and would have been more surprised had she said yes.
Undeterred, I went about plotting in my mind how to make this trip work.
My first instinct was to call my friend Tia in Seattle and I did when I got home.
Tia is a lot like Headley. She is from a small town and a graduate of New York University.
Tia and I caught up on the phone for a little bit and made some tentative plans for the weekend. She had to work, but said that I would be more than welcome to come and stay at her place.
I started to think about how I would get up there . . .
--
Wordstock - Part 2
April 20th
Thursday, I came to work with my mind set on taking the Greyhound to Seattle, staying there through Saturday, and then taking the Amtrak to Portland on Sunday morning. I would miss a whole day of readings, but I would have a room and the trip would be cheap.
As I slid my time card through the machine, I heard Lysa’s voice as she walked down the stairs behind me. She had changed her mind about the trip and wanted to go. I went upstairs, and the two of us began to plan together. With her superior craftiness, she molded our last minute weekend sprint to Portland into a business trip fully paid for by Blackstone Audio Inc. We were in . . .
--
Wordstock - Part 3
April 21st
Friday, was a short work day. Me and Lysa stayed until noon, and then ditched the office for a ride to the Greyhound station in Medford from our friend Charlotte.
We stood around the station, as is the custom in such circumstances, for nearly two hours. The bus was running late on its journey from Southern California along the clean air corridor that is Interstate 5.
When the bus did finally arrive - and the driver opened the door in order for us to give him our tickets and hop aboard - there was a strange exchange of glances between the driver and I that spelled trouble.
Trouble manifested itself in Salem, Oregon. Another passenger was telling me how screwed up our country is, and that the oil barons in Washington D.C. had turned us all into slaves. So, engrossed in the conversation, I failed to hear the bus driver tell us not to get off the bus, which I did to smoke a cigarette.
I smoked my cigarette with a younger woman who had followed my lead off the bus and to the smoking can near a chain linked fence. The man I had been talking to about politics had slithered away into the streets of Salem. The bus driver began to close the luggage doors below the bus and I went to get back on the bus.
“Come here.” The driver said to me before I got a foot in the door.
I walked over to him with my ticket pulled out to prove my belonging. The girl who had gotten off did the same.
“I told both of you not to get off the bus. Now that you’re off the bus, you’re not getting back on.” The driver said.
“What?” I couldn’t believe it. The girl immediately broke into tears and the situation was getting out of control.
“I’ll let you back on to get your stuff, but then you have to get off.”
No argument or amount of tears would change the driver’s mind. He meant business. I went aboard and grabbed my CD player and told Lysa what was happening. She nodded, but had no idea what I was talking about.
I got off and the young woman did the same. I watched the bus leave on its way to Portland without me. I went inside to the ticket counter and told a woman working there what had happened. She smiled and tried to relieve the tension of the situation. She informed me that another bus going to Portland was in the parking lot. I would only be ten minutes behind the bus I was just on. I started to laugh. The whole incident became one big joke.
When I arrived at the Greyhound station in Portland Lysa was standing there waiting for me.
“What happened?” She exclaimed. “I saw you getting off, but I really didn’t understand until we left the station and you were still in Salem.”
We joked a little bit about it to as I got my bag from the ticket counter.
Soon we were checked in at the Red Lion and had a dinner in the upstairs lounge looking out the window at the city of Portland. We had made it on one piece . . .
--
Wordstock - Part 4
April 22nd
[I forgot an important point. I had called Tia on Thursday and told her that my trip was now a business trip. She fully understood.]
Saturday, after a Venti Mocha from Starbucks and some “Moons over my Hammy” at Denny’s, Lysa and I took in the city as we walked over to the Oregon Convention Center.
Portland near the convention center is an artificial city filled with tourists. It is a clean environment and a monument to the 21st century. It is nothing like downtown Portland, which seems to be etched in my mind as dirty and rain trodden, but maybe that is my own impression.
The convention center is huge. I’ve never noticed it on previous trips to Portland, and from the outside it looks to be an average sized building. Inside, the convention center spreads out and swallows thousands of visitors.
The Wordstock festival was downstairs. There were tons of volunteers handing out fliers and giving directions. There were also a lot of orange flags with slogans written in white letters. Things like “change me, book. please do it.[sic]”
After getting our tickets, and going inside the auditorium where the book vendors were, I was awestruck. All the book sellers and publishers had booths set up in the large arena. There were also three large stages separated by black curtains where the readings were to take place. From the Borders’ stage on one end, to the Powell’s stage on the other end of the festival, was a distance of more than 150 yards.
After listening to a couple of authors and poets, speaking with vendors, and taking a tour of the Book TV bus it became apparent that Wordstock was a place for librarians, teachers, and people that read books. These normally quiet people in society had an opportunity to get jacked up about what they do, and feel passionate about. They were all becoming activists, thinkers, and radicals before my eyes. They exchanged ideas at a frantic pace, they would no longer be silent nerds, they were at the top of their game, and fully enjoying their weekend.
The first writer under contract with Blackstone that Lysa and I listened to was Claire Davis, the author of Season of the Snake. She was not there to promote her book, but instead sat in a panel with two other writers Kim Barnes, and Karen Karbo. The three of them were talking about their new anthology Kiss Tomorrow Hello. A book by middle aged women for middle aged women. It was a good concept. These women were not trying to recapture their youth, but were instead looking forward to the future.
I was impressed with Claire Davis. She was very down to earth and easy going. She had a country demeanor to her and seems to spend a lot of time on a ranch in Idaho . . .
The next author we listened to was Joyce Carol Oates. As Headley had mentioned in her blog Oates was a ghost. It’s as if Oates spent her whole life locked in a basement forced to write at gunpoint, and then was released by the people whom had imprisoned her, in order to promote her work.
She was such a small gentle woman that I couldn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth as she read her short story Heat. Blood, panties, stripped naked, dead bodies, and rape! I sat glued to my chair to hear the final outcome of her story, as did the other thousand or more people gathered in silence . . . If not for the upstart beatnik jazz poets the next stage over.
Oates commented on the noise a couple of times, and I am convinced that if she had commanded the audience to charge them, and behead them, it would have happened.
When Oates finished her story, I walked over to the next stage to catch the end of the jazz act. Lynn Darroch recited a biographical poem about Charlie Parker with John Stowell on jazz guitar and Rob Davis playing saxophone. It was a good performance (I bought their CD), but like all beatniks they kept the show going, and going, passed their allotted time.
The trio was forced off of the stage, luckily Oates did not come over to collect their heads, and then David James Duncan and Tom Crawford got up to read some poems.
Duncan is another Blackstone author. His book The River Why is a popular book right now and I wanted to see what he was like.
My impression, he was very much a Northwest kind of guy. He reminded me of the people I worked with at Jefferson Public Radio. Duncan, and Crawford, longtime friends shared the stage as they exchanged poems. The first theme was birds, then fish, and finally dissident poems.
Crawford, an ex-military guy, and a veteran of the Korean War read a poem called Stars and Stripes. At the time he wrote it, and had it published in 2003, it was very controversial, but as time has gone by the poem didn’t pack the same punch. Everyone in attendance enjoyed his work, but I think he would have been happier if we had yelled at him, and thrown our coffee cups.
After Ducan, and Crawford, Wordstock closed for the day. I went back to my hotel room to watch the NBA playoffs and Lysa went to her friend’s house in the city . . .
--
Wordstock - Part 5
April 22nd and 23rd REFLECTIONS IN A RED LION HOTEL ROOM . . .
Side note: Claire Davis and the other women on her panel made a point about the mainstream press not being interested in their new anthology, Kiss Tomorrow Hello, and about the mainstream press not caring about books in general. As a journalism graduate I can tell you that they are right. If it bleeds it leads, and books don’t make easy 30 second stories or sound bites. Authors want to talk about the meaning of grey areas, not stereotypes, so they don’t have a special place on a journalist’s radar (with exception to public radio).
With that point in mind, I’ll tell you that I didn’t see a news crew at Wordstock all day Saturday until I returned from lunch. A camera man from a local station was on hand, as were an ambulance and a fire truck, they weren’t there for books, but for a poor lady that had fallen down the stairs . . . if it bleeds it leads.
On a strange note, I sent in my Rolling Stone application on Wednesday before going to Wordstock. In my application I made it clear that I thought the environment was the most important issue of our time and that alternative fuels need to be taken more seriously. They got my application on Friday morning if all went well. So, what did I see on Saturday night as I watched the evening news?
A lot of stories about the price of gasoline and the need for alternative energy, they were even talking about it on FOX News. And then the weirdest thing of all, the people on FOX News were talking about South Park, when Hunter S. Thompson’s name came up . . . Rolling Stone here I come!
--
Wordstock - Part 5
April 22nd and 23rd REFLECTIONS IN A RED LION HOTEL ROOM . . .
Side note: Claire Davis and the other women on her panel made a point about the mainstream press not being interested in their new anthology, Kiss Tomorrow Hello, and about the mainstream press not caring about books in general. As a journalism graduate I can tell you that they are right. If it bleeds it leads, and books don’t make easy 30 second stories or sound bites. Authors want to talk about the meaning of grey areas, not stereotypes, so they don’t have a special place on a journalist’s radar (with exception to public radio).
With that point in mind, I’ll tell you that I didn’t see a news crew at Wordstock all day Saturday until I returned from lunch. A camera man from a local station was on hand, as were an ambulance and a fire truck, they weren’t there for books, but for a poor lady that had fallen down the stairs . . . if it bleeds it leads.
On a strange note, I sent in my Rolling Stone application on Wednesday before going to Wordstock. In my application I made it clear that I thought the environment was the most important issue of our time and that alternative fuels need to be taken more seriously. They got my application on Friday morning if all went well. So, what did I see on Saturday night as I watched the evening news?
A lot of stories about the price of gasoline and the need for alternative energy, they were even talking about it on FOX News. And then the weirdest thing of all, the people on FOX News were talking about South Park, when Hunter S. Thompson’s name came up . . . Rolling Stone here I come!
--
Wordstock - Part 6 (Fin)
April 23rd
Sunday morning I woke up around 8 a.m. and got ready for another day of Wordstock. The nice thing about staying at the Red Lion was that the Oregon Convention Center was right across the street. All I had to do was walk over there . . .
I got a large mocha at the Starbucks inside the convention center. There were two inside, and one up the block, making three Starbucks total within a half mile of each other. With my mocha I went back inside Wordstock.
People at the book booths start to recognize you on the second day. Maybe not as a friend, or a customer, but as someone who was as deep into this thing as they them.
I made my way to the Northwest Writer’s stage and got there just in time for Lawson Inada, the Poet Laureate of Oregon, and David Romtvedt, the poet Laureate of Wyoming.
For me, Inada had the best reading of any writer there. And I’m not saying that just because he teaches at Southern Oregon University, my alma mater, but because his reading moved me.
He was talking about the Japanese Internment Camps in Wyoming, where he lived during World War Two, and about these pebbles that an archeologist had found at the old site with Japanese characters written in ink upon them. No one knew how they had gotten there, but Inada had an idea that he wrote a poem about.
The story goes like this:
A Zen Buddha master had been sent to America by his teacher. Although he lived in poverty, and never set up a school of his own, he had a profound influence on all the people that he met. When the war started he was living in Los Angles and was sent to Wyoming like most Japanese Americans. To pass the time he wrote Japanese characters on pebbles, and put them back in their natural place. However, the other prisoners caught on to the trick, and soon it became a game to see who could find the Zen masters pebbles.
That story caught my attention because of my friend Sam from the Navy. He was from Cambodia and a Zen Buddha master in his own right. He took me under his wing for a while and taught me many things . . . That’s another story though.
Inada finished his reading with a joke. He said that another Zen dude had come up to him after a reading once and said to him:
“Lawson, I didn’t understand anything you said up there, but I know you worked hard at it. And so you deserve this box of strawberries.”
I left in the middle of Romtvedt’s reading. I wanted to get a good seat for our own MySpacer Maria Headley. I had actually talked to her on Saturday and introduced her to Lysa. She is a little ball of energy, one of those people you can’t talk to for too long before they just take off on you and start talking in tongues or something, but very charming, not annoying, so that if she did start talking a mile a minute, you would listen in quiet admiration.
One thing she said on Saturday, about reading the next day, was that her ex-boyfriends have shown up to a lot of her readings. And sometimes they can get crazy!
So I had my seat, and waited for her to begin. There was a large contingent of smart young women that looked like they wanted to write chick-lit. And then there was this one guy that stood out, he was HUGE. He had a sleeveless shirt with 26 inch biceps covered in tattoos. He also had a pony tail of straight black hair, and looked like Steven Seagal on steroids.
Headley took the stage, and I wondered when the fireworks were going to break out. But nothing happened . . . I guess he just liked her book The Year of Yes. I can picture him now, sitting at home reading about Headley’s adventures in New York, when for one year she said yes to every date that came her way.
Headley was very funny, and I enjoyed her reading. Her stories revolve around misunderstandings much like Shakespeare. And because of her literary knowledge I’m sure that her book will be a good read. (I bought it had had her sign it).
After Headley’s reading I met back up with Lysa and we went to see Ursula LeGuin. I liked what she had to say about her stories. She said she doesn’t make them up, they are news reports from another planet that she is obligated to write down.
After LeGuin, I started to become numb to everything going on. I needed a break. So I called my step-sister who was good enough to pick me up, and went into Northeast Portland. I hung out at her house for a while, and then met up with Lysa at around 5 p.m. She had stayed behind to hear Gore Vidal. We made our way back to the Greyhound station . . .
Well, that was Wordstock. A two day trek into the literary heart of Oregon, it doesn’t get any better in this neck of the woods. I’m sure that if Wordstock keeps growing it will become expensive and corporate. Try and get to the next one before it goes to the conglomerates. Wordstock 2 was still INDEPENDENT!
--
May 2006
26 May 2006
Meeting Ray Manzarek of the Doors
I did an interview with Ray Manzarek, the co-founder of The Doors, under the guise of promoting his concert in Grants Pass on St. Patrick’s Day 2006; the real reason being that I wanted to discuss the fusion of music and poetry.
On March, 17th, 2006, I went to Grants Pass alone and found an empty theatre. The show had been canceled because the band’s plane had been delayed in Portland.
Sometimes, I think this is because of what I said on the Snow Phone while working at Mt. Ashland. It was around 7 am, and I was making my calls to the local radio stations, and talking to the disk jockey’s, and one of the more popular voices in Southern Oregon at the time asked me live on the air if I would be going to her St. Patrick’s Day party that she was promoting that week, and I told her “no, I’ll be in Grants Pass to see The Doors.”
So, I overhyped it, I said too much about it on the air. The JPR interview had played earlier that week, and the extra mention of it live on commercial radio representing Mt. Ashland as the Snow Phone announcer had jinxed the entire show.
Well. The show must go on, and on May, 25th, 2006, Mr. Manzarek came back to the rainy state to perform. I drove up with a friend of mine to attend the show and to meet Mr. Manzarek in person.
On my previous trip, I had met the owner of the theatre, so I knew I could get backstage, only we were running a little late. We arrived ten minutes before the show started. The Rogue Theatre overflowing with an excited crowd of middle aged adults wearing black leather jackets. Inside, the masses bought beer and talked loud. My friend knew some people because he had lived in Grants Pass when he was younger. He stood around talking to them as I hunted down the owner to inquire about going backstage.
I found the owner speaking with some people in the lobby. To my surprise, he broke away from them upon seeing me and walked up to me.
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