Finally the Rain and Billy Hults

Looks like the weather is finally starting to turn here. There’s a coolness, even a bight. And it’s raining, the wonderful clear water that makes this place what it is. It’s about time!

I’ve basically dropped out of the Buskers’ Guild down at the Market. Haven’t been to a meeting in ages and didn’t play the festival. Jim Hinde was the guy who really held that thing together and made the festival work. With Jim Hinde passed away and Niceol Blue living in Ireland things have really taken on a different color. So I just went on to other things. Sometimes I think about it, sometimes I think it would be fun to go down there and play for a while on those old sidewalks. But mostly I don’t.

I’m excited about my UK tour for next February. It’ll be a double bill tour with Scott Law. (http://www.scottlawmusic.com/) Scott and I have known each other for years and have played together quite a lot. He’s one of the best all around musicians I know, and he’s no bullshit when it comes to ego and baggage. There is none. It’ll be great to travel with him. Last week we recorded a couple of songs on his home studio unit so the agent has something to promo with. Scott lives in Portland and I always love going there so it was no trouble to get me down. And I got to see some old friends – Tye North, who I met when he played bass with Leftover Salmon. And his father Roger North, who I have known since the old Holy Model Rounder days when he was their drummer. I remember that he made his own drum kit – they curved out at the bottom, turned toward the audience – the idea being that it help carry the sound to the crowd. Don’t know what happened with the idea, if it ever caught on. These days Roger plays with the wonderful Freak Mountain Ramblers (http://www.freakmountain.com/) – you can catch them in and around Portland if you look. They are well worth your time.

The sad news was that while I was reconnecting with Roger he told me that Billy Hults was sick, cancer. And that there was to be a benefit gig for him the following night at the White Eagle. Again, it was a no-brainer that I would stay an extra day to play a song or two and see Billy. If you don’t know, Billy is a great washboard player, an associate of the Holy Model Rounders, and an all around great guy. He was also instrumental in getting Bud Clark elected mayor of Portland way back in the 80s. Bud is the guy who you can still see “exposing himself to art” in that wonderful museum poster from those days. He was a bar owner and a real populist. The day after he won the election he held a press conference at Baloney Joe’s, a cheap eats café on the east end of the Burnside Bridge that catered to transients. It was a great move on Bud’s part – it brought the whole poverty issue out into the open and made it all right to be poor. How times have changed…

Anyway, as sad as it may turn out to be in the long run – it’s always too early to tell in these things – the benefit was a wonderful event! A great crowd and a great lineup of talent. Freak Mountain, Billy Kennedy, Artis, RB, Baby Gramps, Me, Shoehorn, Lewi Longmire, James Low, Spud Siegel, and others who I missed because I got lost on the way over. It reminded us all of what great, great music we have had all these years in the Northwest. I’m sure hat every region has its gems, but this place is extraordinary.

Here's Billy playing with the Rounders some time in the 70s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqcKfeVWIzs

S0………. Now it’s raining and I have a cold. Ain’t that great? And where is Nickelsville? The great tent city named after Seattle’s mayor – the guy who is definitely not Bud Clark. Where are they headed? We are standing on the edge of the 21st century cliff. Where they go, we go.

More later.

How the War Came Home To St Paul

this is how the war came home
to St Paul Minnesota
Republican National Convention
two thousand and eight
they built a fence to protect the government
from its own people
they put free speech in a cage
and made it a ward of the state

they put spies and infiltrators
on everybody’s trail
so before it even got started
there were people in jail

this is how the war came home
to America
with vice grips on your eyes and ears
no deviations allowed
they rounded up the journalists
took ‘em all away in plastic hand cuffs
disappeared them in behind
a tear gas cloud

they had everyone afraid of the riot police
and the power they flaunt
they had abuse insurance
they could do whatever they want

this is how the war came home
to the presidential elections
they ran an iron candidate
who would lay down the law
with a fundamentalist ridin shot gun
she believed that this was god’s war
and they ran that ticket
like a shock and awe

they arrested 800 people
and they put them in the jail down town
they said you want to exercise democracy
we’re gonna bring the hammer down

this is how the war came home
this is how the war came home


there was Carlos Arredondo
with his flag draped coffin
and the boots that his dead son used to wear
Cindy Sheehan who camped across from
Bush’s Texas ranch
she spent a month down there
there were thousands who marched against
any kind of war
democracy was dying
and that’s what this was for

inside the convention center
where the spectacle was king
it was immaculate choreography
the next best thing to god
and they cheered and swooned
in a patriot’s euphoria
till someone interrupted
and screamed “this is a fraud”

it was the women of Code Pink
and the veterans of Iraq
and were evicted
but everyone knew they would be back

this is how the war came home
to roost
a new geography
in our landscape divide
this is how the war came home
yes it did
we are all collateral damage now
there is no place to hide

and the Mississippi river flowed
and the flags and the guns were shining bright
the sun went down in my American sky
and we were headed into midnight
and I got myself to thinking
some day its gonna all come clear
it don’t matter so much what they do in there
as it matters what we do out here

Elections Comin Up

I really want to love my country and I keep thinking that I might be able to some day. If we can just get past this dark ages period that we seem to be stuck in. I mean, here we are, one the world’s most advanced industrialized nations and most of the people actually believe that the planet earth is only 6 thousand years old. People actually believe that some sort of enormous invisible male entity runs everything. I don’t take drugs but I’m beginning to think I should.

Me, I’m one of those annoying non believers. I question things and don’t trust answers that don’t make sense to my own thinking. I’m no fun at prayer meetings. My parents each had a parent of their own, or close relative who was a religious fanatic and they were so turned off by the idea of a meddling deity that they raised their kids – me and my brother – as agnostics. Which was a polite way of saying atheists. And I am forever grateful. I don’t have years of inbred guilt to unravel, or implanted fears about things that go bump I the night. But I am in the minority.

Take the elections for example. It should be a no brainer to vote for Obama, it’s the only thing that makes sense. A victory in that direction might allow me to love my country, and that would be a good thing. But on the other side of the room is an old guy with a big PTSD chip on his shoulder. And that’s bad enough – but his running mate, the would-be future VP Sarah Palin – now there’s a piece of work. Sarah Palin not only believes that the earth is only 6 thousand years old, and that all this trouble started from an encounter with two naked people and a talking snake, but she also believes that god wants America to occupy Iraq and invade anybody else who gets in the way of divine design. Forget about the body counts, this is God’s Will. Damn, Sarah, that’s some deep thinkin’, gosh darn it. If things were right she would never have passed the mental competency test to be allowed to speak before a television audience, let alone run for office. But if course things aren’t right, are they? And by the way, ever notice how so many of these thimble wits don’t seem to ever be able to pronounce the victim country’s name correctly? In my day it was “Veet-Naam” – now it’s “Eye-Rack” and “Eye-Ran.” Ever notice how those same people never say “Eyes-Real?” Funny, isn’t it?

Anyway, we seem to be at this real cartoon crossroads. Reality versus the Stuper Bowl. On the one hand we could have the first Black president in history, a person who inspires positive thinking – or on the other hand we could get some old iron man and just build a whole bunch of camps and seal off the borders and blow everything up. Seems simple to me. (And don’t even mention Ralph Nader. If I hear about him one more time pretending to be the only real truth teller I’m going for my air sick bag. This is way too serious to push your own ego. Whatever real grass roots struggles everybody’s been involved in will still be there and old Ralphie ain’t gonna get elected anyway and everybody knows it so stop bullshitting around and wasting votes) I think the choice is clear. But what do I know…