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“To live outside the law
you must be honest.”
Bob Dylan
D ev.
Longer than J esu s
Hults
k
by Alison Clement
Editorial
Now & Then
Folks have indicated that w e have had little
to say in these pages about the current occupant of
the W hite House in a while, so w e thought w e
would remedy that. Oh, so many things and so little
space. First let us say that M olly Ivins’ former
Governor was not merely confirmed by the Board
o f Directors currently occupying the bench at the
H ighest Court in the Land, he was anointed by the
Corporate M edia inspite o f the obvious flaw s in his
record and character.
N ow things have begun to settle down a bit
and w e are starting to get som e actual information.
For instance, this ‘son o f a former resident o f the
People’s H ouse’ managed a 52% approval rating in
his first month in office. (The poll has a 3% error
factor and thus could reflect the actual election
results - he lost.) This is the low est rating o f any
new “leader o f the free world” in his first month.
N ixon w as over 60% in 1968, and used to hold the
record.
This former warrior o f the Texas National
Guard, w ho successfully kept Ho Chi Min out o f
Austin w hile working on political campaigns in his
‘spare’ time in another state? This poster boy for
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, this oil soaked free
market environmentalist who seem s to be in a
pissing match with his brother over how many folks
they can legally lynch? (Capital Punishment is the
Right W ing term for ‘Really Late Term Abortions.’)
This is the best w e could find to lead us?
N o, he didn’t get most o f our votes, but this
isn’t a dem ocracy, it is a republic and he’s a
Republican, and the Democrats just can’t seem to
raise as much m oney to buy enough votes. Or
maybe they already sold their votes. A s w e all
know, buying votes is perfectly legal and is nothing
like bribery, it is more like the free market. Didn’t
you get paid for voting? D on’t you understand how
the system works? In a republic w e have a
representative government - w e vote for folks who
vote for us in Congress, the White House, the City
Council, the School Board, the State Legislature;
and they pay us by doing the stuff we need done.
Som e o f us vote using a ballot box, som e use a
check book.
The current problem with the system is the
meaning o f the word ‘us.’ Is ‘us’ the voters, ‘us’
the consum ers, ‘us’ the people? Or is ‘us’ the
corporations, the Political Action Com m ittees, is
‘us’ the m oney? Or to paraphrase the former
President, “It depends on what ‘is us’ means, at the
m om ent.” W e are an obviously divided nation; the
‘U .S .’ is a bi-coastal, mondo-sexual, M icrosoft,
hacker, Luddite, sm oking/non-sm oking, eco-
terrorist survivalist, racist, enlightened, stupid, beer
drinking, intellectual. Bom Again, Pagan, wine
drinking, pro life, pro choice, filthy rich, dirt poor,
vegan, big mac, iM ac Dot Com kinda place these
days and we don’t seem to be playing nice with the
other children. It should be pointed out to the
language impaired Commander In C hief that it is
not spelled “Buy Partisan.” M oney doesn't make
people; people make money - it is a tough lesson
but it must be learned.
Somebody bought the mountain above Yachats
and cut down all the trees. People in the Laundromat
said it was a producer from Los Angeles did it and
then one night I met him in a bar in Newport. H e
had a shaved head and a pretty girlfriend. There was a
band playing, from Portland, and everybody danced,
but they didn't. The girlfriend looked like she
couldn't wait to get back to LA. She looked around
and all she saw was a room full o f people in rubber
boots with bad haircuts, but she didn't know what she
was looking at.
She didn't know that all around her on every side
were people with big lives, heroic people, talented, witty
people. The people of the coast: odd, extravagant people.
These people weren't here because they never thought to
leave. They weren't here because they didn't have
enough imagination or were too lazy to try something
else. They came from places like LA, some of them.
They came from all over, came here because here it's
different.
There's the weather and hardship of the coast
weeding out the weak ones, for one thing. Maybe
California tells you that you're beautiful and deserving
but out here, Oregon tells you you are small. It's
important for people to remember they're small, I think,
and I wished there was some way to tell that to the
girlfriend from LA with the Hack clothes, rolling her
eyes, not moving to the music like it wasn't good enough
to make her move.
Outside the window you could see the Yaquina
Bay and it's said like this: ya kwin' a, in case you have
to say it out loud, and not ya' kwin a, like the tourists
say. You could see the old bay front where Indians
used to dig for clams. You could see the dock,
covered with sea lions, and further out, the ocean
itself, black in the night.
W hen the white people came here they killed
the Indians or sent them to Siletz and took all the
clams out o f the bay so there aren't any anymore.
People hear the stories about the Indians and think
how could that happen?! Like we're not making our
own terrible mistalces.
The bar was full o f fishermen and hippies, and
dancers and actors who could be dancing and acting
in N ew York if they wanted, and there were writers
and odd balls and outlaws and anybody hiding from
anybody, they all wind up on the coast o f Oregon.
Probably the Unabomber was there too. People
hiding from the police, people in the witness
protection program or hiding from the Mafia or
Colombian drug lords or their ex-husband or
anything. Anybody hiding from anybody seemed to
wind up here, in this place, and they were mostly at
the bar that night, dancing or smoking cigarettes,
drinking whiskey, yelling stories at each other over
the music, making out in the comer, making drug
deals, arguing politics, reciting poetry, falling in love,
threatening each other's lives, it was all happening in
this small place while the girlfriend from LA yawned
and complained and tossed her head around.
So he bought the mountain above Yachats and
cut down every tree. The mountain is what gave the
town its name. Ya-chats, an Indian word, meaning ‘at
the foot o f the mountain.’ N ot ‘at the foot o f the
clearcut.’
The producer had a fellow who lived up there on
the mountain, a normal looking man, tall and
muscular, with a reasonable face like someone from
the midwest, no fooling around, and he had a Greek
wife and he drove a truck. He'd come in the
Laundromat but he never looked at you and he never
talked. H e was a quiet guy. H e washed his clothes and
left.
N ext thing you knew, there was a big white
cross standing on top o f the mountain. You could see
it from town. He was living up there, with his wife,
and you could see their house. There was a dirt road
that went up, with a chain across it. People said he
thought the world was coming to an end.
W ell everybody knows that, someone said.
He thought Yachats, lying like it did on a basalt
slab, would survive and everyone could grant him that,
but then they said he expected Yachats to actually
levitate and almost all o f us agreed that was going too
far.
Continued on page 5
WASHINGTON AMD OREGON COASTS
2001
DATE
DAY
DOTS*
GUM
AM
PM
AM
TX
FT
TX
FT
'X
FT
DAYLIGHT TIME STARTS 2 A M
1 SUN < 1 5 53
2 Moni 1 713
3 T w s 1 1 8 39
4 Wed I 1 9 56
5 Thur1 1 1101
6 Fn 1 1 1159
7 Sat 1 1 039
81
78
78
81
84
86
8.8
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
SUN •
Mor •
Tues •
Wed »
Thur
Fn
Sat
117
153
228
302
91
93
92
90
336
412
4 55
86
82
76
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
SUN
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thur
Fri
Sal
550
7 03
71
67
2 8 Sat
2 9 SUN •
3 0 Mon •
A M TIDES
UTE TYPE
6.2
6.6
7.2
78
8.4
12:52
86
1:43
2:32
3:21
4:10
5:02
6:00
7:04
122
249
404
507
602
653
3.5
33
26
18
09
02
1121
7.3 11:54
12:07
80
7.5
024
052
120
150
222
2 59
342
8 3 12:51
85 1:35
8 8 2:19
8 9 3:04
9 0 3:52
9 0 4 45
8 8 5:46
7.6 651
7.6 7 29
7.5 806
7.4 843
7.1 923
6 9 1007
6.7 1058
4 35
542
83
78
6.6 1159 - 0 2
34
6.8 003
6:53
8:00
‘ B'GGER THE DOT
PM
TX
FT
128
2:47
3:56
4:53
5:43
0.4
0.3
0.0
-0.3
-0.4
6:28 -0.3
7:09 -0.1
740 -0 3
8.5
7:49 0.3
8.2 826 -0 7
8 28 0 9
7.8 910 -0.7 9 0 6 1.5
7.3 954 -0 6
9:45 2.1
6.9 1038 -0.2 10:27 2.6
6.5 1126
02 11:15 3.2
6.3
12:21 0.6
6.3
65
69
7.3
7.6
►
»
»
I 1
25 Wed
26 Thurl
2 7 Fn 1
8:20
9:30
10:27
11:16
11:59
8:10
9:11
6 6 1002
6 8 10:45
70 11:21
822
931
1030
22 SUN •
2 3 Mon •
2 4 lues •
MES
L 3 W Ì PRIL
H IGH 4 PRIL
015
1.27
242
348
4 43
530
612
35
37
1:25
2 32
3:32
4:22
5:05
0.9
1.1
0.5 6:51
0 0 7:24
-0 4
7:57
-0 7
8 33
-0 8
9:12
-0 7
9:57
- 0 5 10:53
1.2
1.5
1.8
34
29
23
17
10
BETTER THE FISHING*
1.0
0.9
09
5:42 0.9
6:17 1.0
2.1
25
28
3.2
1:09 0.1
PM TIDES
STANDARD TIME THRU MARCH 31 BOLD TYPE
BASEBALL
A new season, another “next year’’ that
we have been waiting for all winter
Perhaps even the “next year” that we
have been waiting for, for over ninety
years The “next year” when the Cubs
win the Senes. Go, Cubbies.
The Phoreheads
The W hite Eagle in Portland A p ril 13th
( onlinued on page 2
le ft e o & e m q a l 2004
I
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