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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2014)
Street roots 11 July 18) 2014 Flag Day by D uane W a g n e r special way for a film. He’s got such an amazing face, but his hair was hanging right down over his face. Right down over his face! I think Johnny was interested in Hunter’s craziness. He probably liked the fact Hunter was authentically crazy but never a show-off. And they’re both from Louisville, Kentucky. And they’re crazy . people there - they all think they’re sons of pioneers. It’s the Kentucky brotherhood. A.F.: Nixon seemed like an im portant figure for you. What was it about the Watergate era that brought out all that... fear and loathing? R.S.: I felt very strongly there was a terrible dishonesty in politics that needed to be addressed - needed to be very clearly pointed out. So my sense of anger... in a way it probably came from my mother, who was such a gentle person and could not fathom any rhyme of reason to ever be unpleasant. Neither of my parents were political. But when'Nixon came along I sensed something was „happening that was completely at odds with that gentleness. He was such a monster. He was the personification of evil, to me. I was scared of it. And the only way I could get rid of all that was to pour it out in the drawings. So it’s a sort of ,exorcism. A.F.: You became disillusioned with the world of Spitting Image and satire in the 1980s. Politicians enjoyed being satirised. They beganto ask for your drawings... What do flags symbolize? Red, white, and blue and the stars of the flag represent the states. Red is the blood shed by many veterans who shed their blood ■ for our country. White symbolizes valor and blue symbolizes courage. Many businesses fly the flag to represent patriotism to our country. The flag symbolizes the bonding of people to unite for a common goal of peace, love, and happiness. I love the way that a flag is folded. First the flag is open all the way up and held by two people, One on each side. Then the flag is folded in half, Then folded lengthwise and folded in a triangular fashion. Folded into triangles until the last fold. Then it is really up to the attention of detail. All the ends of the flag are tightened, any loose corners fixed, and made to look like a triangle. The last fold is the corner of the flag tucked into the whole flag. I have seen this personally as I attended funerals of veterans who died in the Iraq War. 3 I have never seen so much respect, humility, kindness, and attention to detail that is present at a military,funeral.„,. The hard part is when the bugler plays “Taps” for the fallen. Life is a journey. Now as I adjust to civilian life, I proudly hold the Street Roots flag as I walk in parades,- especially the Veterans Day celebration. Street Roots too is a symbol of strength, unity, and hope. Street Roots shows each day a ;. vision of hope for marching on. good and bad, and the two sides being caught up in everything. If you’re creative, you have to use all your darkness and all your light — don’t leave it as a murmuring thought simmering away inside. A.F.: So the righteous anger is still there? R.S.: Yes, it became a problem when they started asking for the original drawings. Unfortunately I did give a lot away at the time. You can become easily flattered, unfortunately. T h e thing is, I had begun to think of the politicians as them, and the people as us. Which was a division I made, something in me, that had become quite limiting. For instance, one of my favourite politicians was Dennis Healy — lovely man. A really sweet guy who defied all ideas I had about politicians. A.F.: You once wrote a libretto for an oratorio called “The Plague and the Moonflower. ” That seemed to be about the struggle of good and evil in all of us. R.S.: Yes, I’d been reading a book about the moonflower, a beautiful thing — a cactus plant that blooms in the moonlight just once a year. I thought, that’s a fantastic analogy for something. So there you had the beauty, and the plague was the other side, the dark side. It channelled all thoughts I’d had about R.S.: Oh yel,; that’s important. You’ve got to have that. That’s what I love about (U.K.’s street paper) The Big Issue, and about (dtfdctoTtJdhn Bird, too/ It’s about standing up and trying to change something; The guys selling the magazine are trying to do something positive when things around them might seem negative. When I started off I wanted to change the world. You have to try. A.F.: And the gentle side? R.S.: I suffer from Welshness, you see (laughs). I’m so glad I’m Welsh. My mother was Gwennie Rogers and she was from Rhosllanerchrugog (laughs). Is there anything more Welsh than that? I was also . born in Wallasey, so I’m also a little bit Scouse. I’m a bit split-personality. But we all are. \ >. Street News Service, International Network of Street Papers. 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