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.