August 18

August 18

Not as frequent as I'd like but its better than the way it used to be. I would do a journal entry and let it sit for six months. The Veterans For Peace (VFP) national convention was real good. I was only there for two days, and I kick myself for that. I missed the AWOL who turned himself in at a press conference. He had been interrogating people in Iraq with dogs and just couldn't take it anymore. So he disappeared and kept on the run for about a year, finally decided to go public. I guess he was surrounded by a cordon of VFP folks - Iraq Veterans Against the War, Vietnam vets, you name it. There's even a WWII vet there. That happened on Friday. I showed up on Saturday and spent the whole day. I know a lot of people from over the years and many of them showed up. S Brian Willson was there - that's not a spelling mistake and he was not in the Beach Boys. He's one of the most serious and dedicated people I know. Here's his web site: http://www.brianwillson.com/ Brian lost part of both of legs when a weapons train ran over him in Concord, California. He was sitting on the track to protest and perhaps to interrupt the shipments of white phosphorous to Central America. The train was speeding up when it hit him. Now he uses artificial legs and rides a bicycle that you power with your arms. He rode up to Seattle from Eugene!

Saturday night VFP gave a lifetime achievement award to Abe Osherov, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Abe is another amazing man - he's 90 something years old and shows no signs of slowing down or mellowing out. And he never loses sight. It was a wonderful thing to see him on the stage with 19 and 20 year old Iraq Veterans Against the War - a cross generational movement.

I played a few songs just as dinner was being served and I might as well not have been there at all. Its an old musician's rule: never play when dinner is being served. I wouldn't listen either. Actually, Jim Hinde played right after me and was fairly well received. His songs are slower. And I think people were eating by then... But the best part of my set was just as I was getting ready Shep Gurwits comes up and says, "hey, remember me?" Jesus! Shep Gurwitz - I hadn't seen him in at least 10 years. Shep is Lew Gurwitz's brother. Lew was a lawyer working on the Peltier case way back in those days. I knew Lew from a million different realities in a million different places from Boston to Standing Rock to Rapid River. He died of a heart attack some years ago. But Shep is still there and damn, it was great to see him. After a while we went outside and I sang him a bunch of songs from the old days and a few from the new. It was a warm night, I was singing with my eyes closed and I felt someone else sit down with us on the low wall in front of the building. When I opened my eyes I saw an intense young man 20 years old or so. Shep says he's an Iraq vet and he needs someone to talk to. Shep says he'll talk to him - "I was a paratrooper, you can't scare me" he says. The young man asks me if I have any songs for a returning soldier. So I sang Head Full Of Pictures. I think he liked it. He thanked me and left.



Next morning a bunch of us went up to the Canadian border at Blaine - the Peace Arch. There's a park there and you can walk on over to the Canada side or they can walk over to the US. We had a picnic. There were us Yankees from down south and there were some draft resistors from the Vietnam days who came by to say hello. And some Canadians who made it clear that they were ready to accept resistors again when the need arises. And it already has. The Pentagon - that paragon of morality and intelligence - has estimated that are currently 40,000 deserters. People who I talked to said well, if the Pentagon says that then you can pretty much double it and be closer to the truth. 80,000 deserters. That's a good sign. We need that. And they need us. So I ate a little food and sang a few songs. There were a bunch of speakers and a labor choir from Vancouver. After a while we all had to leave - to catch planes and head back home. Shep was there but I didn't see him afterwards. We're talking now through the emails.

Next day, Monday, the 14th, was Guild festival committee meeting - getting things ready for the busker fest in September. Jim had the T shirts together. There were questions about awnings and stage platforms, all the usual. There was an unfortunate blow up and Artis left the meeting, later vowing to resign from the Guild, resign from Real Change, leave Seattle, not perform at the festival. Just a whole bunch of stuff. It remains to be seen how serious he is about all that. Seattle - especially busking Seattle - would be much poorer without him.

I just heard from Mikael Wiehe in Sweden - one of my favorite singers. I had sent him my latest CD, Head Full Of Pictures. In his email he said that he liked it the best of any I had sent. And that it gave him ideas, which is "the best I can say a bout a CD." Well, his music gives me ideas too so maybe I know what he means.