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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 2014)
7 Street roots Feb. 28, 2014 For the ilDWUl A compilation of facts, large and small, about our community • Percentage o f low income Oregon families who pay more than half their income on housing: 80 • Percentage of Oregon children living in poverty in 201C: 25 • Schoolchildren in Oregon who were homeless in 2013:20,000 • Hours per week a worker earning minimum wage has to work to afford a two- bedroom apartment in Oregon: 70 • Percentage of inmates in jails and prisons who are classified as severely mentally ill: 16 • Youth experiencing homelessness in Multnomah County who were under age 18 on one given night in 2013:749 • Percentage of those homeless youth that were under the age of 5 :2 6 • Minimum number of migrant laborers working in Sochi preparing for the 2014 Olympic Games who were not paid: 700 • Percentage'ofpeopleinPortlandliving' below the poverty level 2008-2012? 47.2 • Percentage of people in the United States living below the poverty level in 2012:15.9 Of thee I sing: One country, two great anthems BY JOE MARTIN John Shaw. An accomplished songwriter and performer himself, Shaw resonates with his i a snow storm blanketed two legendary subjects as well as with a Pennsylvania, the 27-year-old lively salmagundi of other composers, ; balladeer Woody Guthrie stood musicians, minstrels and personalities who unsheltered op a roadside alone, caught in populate his, marvelous narrative. The result winter’s fury. He was hungry, broke and is a colorful cento of Americana chock-a- , thought he might well freeze to death block with vibrànt vignettes ând fascinating before he would ever make it to New York pieces of little-known history. City. A kindly forest There is the story Of Francis Scott Key, ranger picked up the who in 1814 wrote the “The Star Spangled desperate hitchhiker, Banner.” He was actually aboard an enemy gave him hospitality for British ship from which he watched the ? the night and helped to bombardment of Fort McHenry. As a lawyer, ensure that Guthrie Key was attempting to obtain the release of 5 R V IW G B E R L I N , would make it to the a friend who was a captive of the Brits. Big Apple. Woody had When dawn broke, and it was obvious the been invited to that 'TWO Americans had withstood the attack, Key metropolis by his good wrote his poem. Another choice factoid friend, the actor Will involves the fiddler Dan Emmett who wrote Geer who was then “Dixie,” the unofficial anthem of the “This Land that I starring in a theatrical Confederacy. Emmett was a fervent version of Erskine Love: Irving opponent of the South’s rebellion and is Caldwell’s “Tobacco Berling, Woody supposed to have said, “If I had known to Road.” He was sure Guthrie and the what usé they were going to put my song, I that Guthrie and his Story of Two will be damned if I’d have written i t ” music would impress American Of Guthrie’s determination to compose many in “the leftist Anthems” by his counter-anthem Shaw writes: “Some artists* scene?’ Geer people say that it was when he was freezing John Shaw was rig h t on the side of the road that he started In the course of thinking about writing a rebuttal, a song Guthrie’s journey eastward from Texas, he that would give vent to his leftist politics.” heard oyer and over Irving Berlin’s rousing Despite Guthrie’s countervailing “God, Bless America.” Originally written in perspective, he and Berlin actually had 1918, Berlin rewrote it in 1938, when it was much more in common than would appear sung by Kate Smith. It was a ubiquitous . . at first blush. Although he had already been staple playing on juke boxes and radios. a huge success by the time Guthrie was Guthrie was infuriated by the piece. Its born, Berlin was no stranger to hard times lyrics were a stirring paean to a sanitized and destitution. In Russia, his Jewish family America, which overlooked the bleak had been victimized by hideous pogroms. horrors and devastation that had been He had known poverty and homelessness as visited upon millions of citizens during the; a young immigrant in the United States. For harrowing years of the Great Depression. Berlin,. Axneric^ H e decided that hew ouldcom pose his own C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R H century entitled “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Anacreon was an ancient Greek poet who waxed rhapsodic about love, wine and good times. It was the song of an English gentlemen’s club, the Anacreontic Society of London, and booze and debauchery were the themes. The voice of Anacreon sings: “And besides I’ll instruct you, like me, to entwine/The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.” Other American anthems have emerged throughout our history and have been sung at ceremonies and celebrations: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “America the Beautiful,” “Hail Columbia” and the African- American anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Shaw notes that they “reflect the shifts in our vision and values over time as our history has confronted us with ever- changing circumstances. All are fascinating songs with their own unlikely histories, their own surprising stories to tell.” Irving Berlin’s career was remarkable. He was 101 years of age when he died in 1989. Qf his voluminous niusical oeuvre many are classic American standards. “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” was his first big hit in 1911. Songs like “Putting on the Ritz,” “There's No Business Like Show Business,” “Cheek to Cheek” and “White Christmas” are known to just about every American. Guthrie would precede Berlin in death by almost 22 years. By the mid 1950s he was incapacitated by Huntington’s disease. His son Arlo reflected on the irony of his father’s big success coming when he could not react in any way due to his physical impairment: “He’s sitting there in a mental hospital, and he knows what’s going on, and he can’t say anything or tell anyone how he feels. It’s Shakespearean,” Woody Guthrie antberD.inTesPT>us^.,tO-Berliii’s.“ T h isL a n d gave him th e opportunity to achieve artistic died in 1967 at 55. L S d 'T b at" ! Love” is " a fin e w o r k * Is Your Land,” written in 1940, would - portray America in a different light. Guthrie and Berlin are the two iconic musicians whose lives and respective works pervade “This Land That I Love,” penned with erudition and affection by Seattle’s own greatness. His stirring anthem is his heartfelt thank you. In 1931 the United States adopted “The Star Spangled Banner” as the nation’s official anthem. The tune was taken from a song popular in the latter part of the 18th written in an easygoing and appealing styles Shaw takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of the rich and multifaceted legacy of American song. It is sure to appeal to all who love good music and lively well crafted history. • Percentage of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes: 97 • Portland Public Schools graduation rate: 62 percent • Percentage of households in the U.S. that own at least one dog: 47: • Cost to build the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, the setting of the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies: between $519.9 million and $703.4 million • Average annual cost of tuition and fees at a public college for a state resident: $8,893 • Number of pages in “I Am Not a Poet” poetry anthology: 198 • Number of vendor poets represented in the anthology: 106 • Number of poems chosen for the . anthology: 160 out of 982 Sources: Oregon Housing Alliance; National Alliance for the Mentally; Portland Housing Bureau; Multnomah County; Memorial’s Migration and Law Network; U.S. Census Bureau; Centre far Research on Globalization; PPS auditor, American Pet Products Association; The Anti-Corruption Foundation; College Board; Street Roots’ T Am Not a Poet” It’s a Long Way to Go by George B. Figuring Out a Way by Kenneth Nickell I pack my bag, it’s got a long way to go. Toothbrush uncheck, mouthwash uncheck, 6 pairs of underwear, uh-oh too many things What a ridiculous decision to make. But I know where this leads, and I can really leave these. It’s a long way to go. Sorry father’s day card you’ll not survive. The hair clippers were temporary any way. Tough is the plastic, spare no expense it is a long way to go. Sharpie check, mp3 player check, I.D. OK, (or not). It doesn’t quite say “Samsonite” but I am not the only one to see the beauty of this durable luggage. Please don’t snag it for I had to leave my duct tape behind. It’s a long way to go. One ride back, it’s all good. Two rides, fuck this one snagged and is going to take a while. Oh well, Is e e a bar and I will self-medicate. It’s all good. It’s a long way to go. Pills and cramps and the endless miles bark, bark and I see a high peak. Thank GOD. But let’s go. I am in a hurry for nowhere, I mean somewhere: I t is now a short way to go. Finally time to greet the dog pound where I’ll be getting off. Oh good, most of the luggage is intact, hardly any rips. I’m there, me and my overpacked luggage thing. ' Oh look, a bar. Jack is hungry and crying. # The highway screams at us with speed and noise. His food weighs heavy on my back, but we can’t I dart left without becoming statistics, and can’t leap right without being4 seen as a double suicide. It occurs to me I’ve left his bowl behind in Santa Rosa. Traveling on the wall of the highway breaks any sort of rational solution I’ve been working on. Then, in its own way, the road itself adds its answer. A hubcap flies off an old Chevy and the cover comes rolling to a stop ahead of us. Small and light enough to carry, sturdy and large enough to feed my boy. Nearby we find a wooded area of highway easement. I d ean his bowl there.
