An Open Letter to Readers
Dev.
Hults
Since the editor, Billy Hults, shows no sign of ending his
“investigative” series on our “working” vacation to Arizona, the
nearest place offering both Cubs baseball games and sunlight
(Downloading Arizona. ULE, April). I have no choice but to
respond, calmly and rationally, to yet another example of the sort
of wanton editorial mischief I have no quarrel with unless it's
directed at me. I refuse to rise to the bait or stoop to his level (else
we would tell the story about the seal, the beer truck and the all-
girl meringue band) and write, not to defend myself, but only to
balance Mr. Hulls' version of events with something resembling
the truth.
Editorial
Now & Then
Your Professor would like to consider a couple of
events this month, one pending, another completed
Friday evening Lloyd Jones slipped quiedy into town
and unleashed his blues magic at Bill's Tavern. Taj
Mahal once made this observation about the blues (1*1,
try to paraphrase his notions): "When a man gets down,
feeling bad, lost his wife or girlfriend, is down on his
luck, he doesn't want to hear music that makes him feel
worse! He wants to feel better. That's the kind of blues
I try to play. The feel good blues " Lloyd plays that
way too. As he slides his steel through a honey flow of
sinuous sounds, say a tune from Sleepy John Estes, your
heart begins to smile. There's something deep down
there, and it goes back a long ways, talking about the
human spirit, adversity, the raw history of race and
poverty, the common plight of mankind. Lloyd's canon
runs the gamut, deep driving blues whirling along like a
freight train in motion, soulful blues of reflection, light
hearted, high jinks blues, the knees bouncing and feet
slappin'. Some of the best string men test the envelop.
When Lloyd gets rolling on a blues-riff frenzy, he tears
open the envelop and lets the contents spill out. I get a
deep down happy shudder when that happens. When he
winds through a driving line of enunciated blues,
whipping his special fillip on the frets, something in me
whoops and laughs.
Lloyd ran through material from the greats Friday
night, the recently passed Joe Williams, Blind Willie
McTell, Robert Johnson, Elizabeth Cotten, Fats
Domino, and Mississippi John Hurt. He gave us "The
Keys to the Highway" and left the crowd "Satisfied and
Tickled Too!" Who could ask for anything more! In a
late-show romp with our own Reverend Billy Lloyd
Hults on washboard, the crowd went wild. If he comes
again, and I hope that will be the case, you should
certainly tune in.
Toward a future event. I have received word that J.
Barre Toelken will speak in our area in mid May, the
15th, I believe. The venues suggested to me are
Clatsop Community College and the Cannon Beach
Arts Association Building. Dr. Toelken is a folklorist of
international renown, whose lectures should not be
missed. During his tenure at the Universtiy o f Oregon,
Dr. Toelken established a program that
made the university a strong beach-head for regional
study o f oral tradition. His influence on those who
gather, collate, and archive folk materials has been
monumental. Under his tutelage, a vast number of
students have continued the work he began. The
Randall Mills Archives in Eugene house substantial
collections gleaned from informants.
Barre Toelken was never a dry, fusty academic. His
lectures included folk songs he performed on guitar,
wry anecdotes and jocular tales, sage insights into the
nature of the folk process. Finding a seat at a Toelken
lecture was often problematic. I strongly counsel your
attendance.
I have a particularly soft spot in my sensibilities for
Barre Toelken. He was my mentor and one o f the finest
teachers I encountered as a student. In 1969, a time of
turmoil on campuses throughout America, I was in the
Republic o f Vietnam near the Cambodian border. Dr.
Toelken personally orchestrated my acceptance into
graduate school at the University of Oregon and an
early release from the U S. Army. Considering the
events o f those days in that time, I may well owe him
my life.
Our headline this month can be found on the
opening pages of Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench
Gang. We chose it for several reasons: first, it never
hurts to quote Walt Whitman; second, we had just
^***
finished a Biography on Abbey, called Epitaph for a
- • - by James
-
—
- Jr.
• At.--------
• ’.heneum. -
Desert Anarchist,
Bishop
1994, which talks about Abbey’s paradoxical life and
philosophy. The man who inspired Earth First! and
protested being called a ‘Nature Writer’ (he once said
the only birds he could identify were a turkey
buzzard, a fried chicken, and a barebutted skinny-
dipper) believed that the best reason to save the world
was because our lives depended on it. Above all else
he loved human beings, yes, especially young
attractive female human beings, followed by a stiff
drink, a good cigar, and a desert to wander around in.
We suggest that everybody read some Edward Abbey,
especially environmentalists. And yet another reason
to bring up Abbey’s work, is that Bear Deluxe
Magazine (formerly Orlo) is having its third annual
Edward Abbey Short Story contest. The deadline for
entries is Sept 7, 1999; maximum length 4000 words;
$5 reading fee; send your stories to: Abbey Award c/o
Bear Deluxe, Box 10342, PDX 97296.
And the last reason for the headline is we are mad as
hell!! Did anyone else notice that PGE is being bailed
out of its Trojan mess once again, to the tune of 300
million dollars, which rate payers will have to cough
up so that stockholders will be able to afford several
new Personal Assault Vehicles again this year? Yep,
it’s on Dr. John’s desk. And who carried the bill
through the legislature?? (We warned you.) That
poster boy of ‘family values’, closely related to Dim,
Half, and Nit; Bill (I wanna be a congressman!) Witt.
He and his self righteous right Republicans are so
busy giving away money to the Utilities Industries and
the Logging Industries that they haven’t had enough
time to actually do what they were elected to do, i.e.
“promote the general welfare.” Corporate welfare is
more to their liking, and doesn’t hurt those campaign
coffers.
cow boy hats.
3. As for my refusing to stop at any hotel lacking room service
and a pool, Billy knows better than this. After the unnerving
episode in Tonopa, I only insisted there be beds instead of pallets
and that the restroom be indoors.
You wouldn’t believe the
muttering.
4. Concerning the incident at Long Wong's: Contrary to what
Billy may honestly believe, I was not trying to “rain on his
parade" 1 merely tried, with eventual success, to pull him down
from the bar before his comments on Arizona’s lack of a bottle
bill became more incendiary.
5. At no time during our stay in Tempe, did I safety pin B illy's
room key to his baseball cap. Why would I do such a thing? Not
only is Billy a grown man often perfectly able to take care of
him self but we were still, at this point, friends. Would anyone
who wasn’t a friend have insisted he wear the little knee and elbow
pads his poker support group packed him for the trip? I think not.
6. B illy’s impression o f my motives regarding the young waitress
at Hooters are (in the opinion of, not just myself, but my day nurse
as well) a projection of his own tawdry, midlife desires. I was
merely trying to befriend the woman. At no point did I use the
word please three times in a row. Or bite her ankle.
7. Whatever Billy says about the nearly tragic day trip to Apache
Lake must, since he was off watching a baseball game at the time,
be taken with a large dose o f salts. As Ron Logan and Bob
Ragsdale, who were actually in the Rental Car of Death (Bob tried
to get out several times but Ron kept dragging him back and
calling him a big weinie), will tell you, it could easily have been
my refusal to scream hysterically that got any of us out alive. Had
Billy been with us when the rear wheels were spinning and
thumping across the gravel toward the unobstructed edge of the
sheer, thousand foot precipice, and the Winnebago nearly being
steered by a cadaverous retiree with an oxygen mask came hurtling
round the curve, I daresay he'd have clawed through the upholstery
Planning to harvest some timber? Has the usual
combo of warm fuzzies and free range brush hippies
got you down? Tired of rising decibels, raised blood
pressure, and upright hackles caused by splendorous
panoramas of stumps bleaching in the viewshed?
Take your clues from the BOHICA* Riding
Academy’s forestry planning handbook, on the
management of perceptions. Once you have decided
on a course of action, regulatory bureaucrats will
immediately assume their customary submissive
position, as handmaidens for the harvest.
A clearcut by any other name; fire suppression
clearcut, forest fire salvage clearcut (in coastal zones
where it’s too wet to burn, substitute blowdown for
any reference to fire), insect infestation clearcut,
natural selection plantation deconstruction clearcut,
regenerative nuisance vegetation stewardship
clearcut, alternative prescription rehabilitation
clearcut, structure based management clearcut,
riparian mitigation clearcut, commercial thinning
clearcut, non-commercial competitive hardwood
conversion clearcut, blunderschlamundbange
German clearcut, Kamana Wan nal ay a Hawaiian
clearcut, habitat conservation clearcut, preemptive
Wise Use anti-takings clearcut, shelterwood removal
two step innuendo clearcut and variable retention
incidental takes clearcut. All are pretty useless as
intensive forest management techniques, unless they
meet the high profit standards set down by the
shareholders of the corporate-sate industrial forestry
complex.
-------------------------------------- ------------------------------ -------------
Address— -----------------------------------— —
2. Regarding Bakersfield: I have never set foot in Bakersfield in
my life. Nor do I know Buck Owens. Or inhale. And I certainly
know better than to drink beer in the presence of women wearing
To the editor.
LEFT COAST fiKOKP book owa row
Ntamr
1. As for the side trip to Boonville: I would have been much less
pouty had Billy (who was. he forgets to mention, self appointed
navigator) been even remotely aware of its location relative to
towns actually shown on the map. Or had the dimmest notion of
the sort of mountain wilderness he was guiding us into in the
gathering darkness and freezing conditions which could, at any
moment, turn our rented car into a poorly designed bobsled. While
I fought the wheel, and the mounting horror of dying in
California, our stalwart editor complained o f car sickness. It was
also he, not I, who seriously considered turning back. I only said 1
wanted to live.
--------------------------------------
to o .
8. A s with Bakersfield, I have never been in Caesar’s Palace in
my life. The whole episode, which becomes more outlandish and
self congratulatory each time Billy whoops and snorts his way
through it, is what my attorney refers to as “a vicious and
damaging pack of lies”.
Those who know me know that,
regardless how many Bombay tonics were involved. I'm hardly the
sort o f man to leap into public fountains wearing only a Panama
hat Neither would I tell the drink lady I was on assignment for
Rolling Stone and could make her famous. As with the young
woman at Hooters, I was merely trying to befriend her. And
another thing: who was it, readers might like to know, who
panicked at the vision o f what the American dream can be, given
bad drugs, ruthless greed and an unlimited budget, and bolted like a
rabbit through a fire exit that put us a mile and a half on foot via
freeway onramps from the entrance used by normal people. In the
blazing sun. Carrying my stupid plastic bucket of nickels.
9. Mr. Hults makes repeated references to my insane driving. I
refuse to dignify this with a response, aside from reminding His
Nagginess o f the three hundred mile stretch of road through Nevada
billed as The Loneliest Hiway in America. And how long it took
me to convince him that, when one can see the road stretching
straight as an arrow for fifteen miles WITHOUT A SINGLE CAR IN
SIGHT IN EITHER DIRECTION, 45 mph is, in fact, a reasonable
speed.
Parbuck D. Buttcut
(w e w ant your phone num ber in case we can't read yo ur writing)
•U n c le M ik e ’s Guide to th e Real Oregon Coast*:
Autographed Limited edition $20 ea----------Copies
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10. And finally, although provoked beyond belief for two solid
weeks, when we reached Cannon Beach, I did not, as Mr. Hults
claims, merely slow the car down and boot him out onto his
driveway. This is ridiculous. Mr. Hults was wearing a seat belt at
the time and, in another o f his sullen moods, appeared not on ly
likely but eager to resist.
A model of restraint, I stopped
smoothly in front of his door, smiled, gave him a hug, and asked
*Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
■W ildlife on the Edge":
Autographed Limited edition $20------------- Copies
(Checks or money orders only)
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him to get the hell out o f my car.
It is my sincere, if woefully dim, hope that these corrections of the
record will settle matters, that Mr. Hults will recover some shred of
professional shame, and that our attorneys will be able to get on
Casually •Elegant D m in g ^ ^
with their lives.
Sincerely,
Uncle Mike
Located in the
Cannon ‘Beach Motel
1116 S- Memloch.
(503)436-0908
Casual Dining
Overlooking the nes tueca River
'Bfservations Suggested
Spirits • Mot Sandwiches
Tresh Seafood Dinners • Home Baked Desserts
Light Lunch 12:00-4:00
J lo me made soups, chowders, bread
and delightful desserts
‘Dinner S aved 4:00 - 9:00
Award winning chowders, unique salads
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Monday - ÇnehSpreials
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