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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 2009)
You wanted a crossword Puzzle; we fin a lly delivered. Check o u t ou r inaugural attem pt on the back page. -w j 1 ^1 l ■ ■ ■b dm I Education * Dialogue * Independence success Michael Finally, with a megahit on the airwaves and online ‘virtual’ stardom, will our favorite hip hop activist keep it real? BY JOANNE ZUHL STAFF W R ITER he song is infectious. A bouncing celebratioh of drum-n-strum bliss - and love, the cuddly kind, love between a boy and a girl, shakin’ it on the dance floor. Michael Franti and Spearhead’s hit song “Say Hey,” isn’t angry; it’s hot seething with the venom of a disenfranchised generation. It isn’t about seizing the day and thwarting regret - well, actually, it is - but the other stuff, Franti’s bread and butter, has never made it this far, this fasti Franti has carved a career out of politically charged lyrics and emotionally powerful works that both scold and embrace, if not entrance, the listener, ■ because his activism - on issues of homelessness, war, and climate change - js inseparable from his music, giving him a cult following among throngs in both the hip hop and social justice movements that has never been jeopardized by commercial or corporate interests. Until now. “Say Hey” is big, getting bigger. Mainstream big, unlike anything he’s done before. But then, jtfst as the song cracked Billboard’s - top 40, perhaps out of rebellion or in an effort to p u t the man’s feet back on the ground, Frahti’s appendix exploded. • • “I’m laying on a bed in the hospital with a distended belly and infection. And the doctor is telling me how serious it was. I never heard (the song) on the radio and¡.I’m thinking I’m going to : die before I do,” said Franti, speaking by phone in Illinois while on tour. Franti and Spearhead will be in Portland Sept 10 performing it and others a t the Roseland Theater. “After really spending time with family-and people closer to me, it put a really healthy bit of perspective on it. So now, the last couple of weeks, I’ve really been enjoying i t I think if it had been my firstsong on first album, I wouldn’t appreciate it as much.” That first album was more than two decades ago, when a young Franti was sowing his oats in Michael Franti, above, and Spearhead will perform at the Roseland Theater, Sept. 10. P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F PFA M E D IA it-lie ordinance We get m at sit-ne is gone, rm z saiu. n u a i this next thing is, it’s not that.” Alluding tp ideas already drafted by City Council wo months after Judge Stephen Bushong members and staff, both commissioners said that ruled that Portland’s sit-lie ordinance was whatever would be put in place would be more unconstitutional and two weeks after than the sit-lie ordinance, in terms of Bushong denied a motion filed by city attorneys holistic to a regulatory policy applying to human clarify his ruling, City Council is quickly working creating to craft a new ordinance that will regulate sidewalk movement, A-board signs, newspaper boxes, restaurant tables, and other objects using the use. sidewalk, and referred to the policy as a “sidewalk In a Septi 1 meeting with stakeholders and management plan,” advocates in the homeless community to seek The hour-long discussion touched on issues that “ideas” and “advice” for the new law, Mayor Sam Adams and City Commissioner Amanda Fritz spoke have been discussed in relation to the sit-lie ordinance for the last two years-the presence of in terms that anything similar to, the sit-lie drug addiction and dealers in downtown, ordinance — a prohibition of certain behaviors on harassment of homeless people, how to deal with the sidewalk — will not happen. BY AMANDA WALDROUPE C O N T R IB U T IN G W R ITE R ■ political canvassers, and aggressive panhandling. Adams and Fritz did allude to an ordinance that would regulate thorough-fares, or create regulations for keeping a portion of the sidewalk permanently clear for pedestrian traffic. Such an ordinanc e would be similar to the one that existed prior to the current sit-lie ordinance« Adams said that a similar meeting with 3 stakeholders of the business community would, take place next week. He also set a deadline for gettin g input to City Council - Friday, September 11. The actions to be taken after that date were not discussed, but sources tell Street Roots that a draft ordinanc e would be presented to City Council for discussion soon afterward.
