The Red River Red

Red River Red Readings of 2005

2006-01-23T20:54:00.001-08:00

As America's Greatest Living Public Intellectual, it is incumbent upon me to try to stay apprised of recent literary offerings, aided in no small part by the good folks at Shreve Memorial Library. Every time I visit one of our local libraries (my favorite, by far, being the main branch downtown, for selection, architecture, staff, you name it), I visit the new releases, taking a kind of machine gun approach: for every three books I check out, I probably read one. Then, I'm probably reading one of my own (or would it be owned?) books for every one from the library (for those of you even sicker than me, of the 36 books I completed in 2005, 19 were from my personal collection, 17 from the library.)
Alright, there's no turning back now. I planned to use this space to write about a couple of books I've read in this first month of 2006, but instead, I'm now going to obsessively list and briefly review every book I read in 2005. I should be forcibly committed soon after, so this may be my last communication as a free man. The books are listed chronologically, in order of my completion of them:

1), Vermeer in Bosnia, by Lawrence Wechsler - This wonderful book of previously published essays combines cultural criticism and political analysis as only the best public intellectuals can: think Sontag, Edward Said, Cornel West, the Red River Red, Groucho Marx. The title essay refers to the trial of Yugoslavian war criminals, while other highlights include profiles of Roman Polanski and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman.

2), Bad Bet on the Bayou, by Tyler Bridges - The sordid tale of casino gambling coming to Louisiana and the long-sought conviction of Edwin Edwards is detailed in this meticulously researched book an accomplished journalist. Byzantine.

3), War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges - A veteran foreign correspondent gives us a profound meditation of the social and psychological uses of war. My wife and I gave a copy of this to our nephew just before he shipped out with the Air Force. He's in Iraq now. Who knows what became of the book.

4), Homegrown Democrat, by Garrison Keillor - My initial aversion to Keillor's homespun homilies were gradually worn down by the quality of musical guests on his show. Then he published a passionate, angry, grief-inspired denunciation of Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who capitalized on the death of Paul Wellstone, replacing the most important antiwar voice in this country with another stupid hack politician. I cried when I heard about the death of Paul Wellstone on the radio, and Keillor's eloquent rage won me over to his corner. This book is conversational and anecdotal, a good explication of the decent Midwestern liberalism that has given us politicians like Adlai Stevenson, the late Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, Wellstone and Russ Feingold.

5), Outwitting History, by Aaron Lansky - Maybe my favorite book of last year. Lansky works for an archive collecting as many of the important Yiddish texts as possible before the language, once the primary one for many Eastern European Jews, dies. Yiddish was also very much the language of Jewish radicalism in both Europe and among immigrants to North America, and Lansky provides vivid portraits of intellectually and politically engaged liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists and anarchists debating and squabbling well into their 90's. The portrait of 20th-century Jewish immigrant culture, with its language and literature and food and causes, is intoxicating, exhilarating, touching. I need to read this one again.

6), Dixie Lullaby, by Mark Kemp - This is a music journalist's memoir, basically through the prism of his passionate but ambiguous feelings about his southern upbringing and the music that accompanied it, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers are the giants towering over this book, but the Charlie Daniels Band, REM and others also are discussed with great feeling. The guy's personal memoir is a bit melodramatic at times, but the landmarks are very familiar.

7), The Politics of War, by Walter Karp - Karp's analysis of American involvement in the Spanish-American War and World War I is meticulously researched, well-written and utterly relevant to today's headlines. Presidential deception and illusions of infallibility, manipulation of a compliant media, slandering of principled political opponents, the unconstitutional surveillance and detainment of American citizens--all of these were at work in the efforts of Presidents McKinley and Wilson to drag a reluctant American citizenry into war. Bush is often compared to Woodrow Wilson, and this book 's portrait of the latter makes clear that such a comparison is both apt and chilling.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?!? To be continued...

Recent

2006-01-23T20:54:00.000-08:00

2006-01-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

Hello, friends, so sorry about my absence recently. As many of you may know, the Red River Red, America's Greatest Living Public Intellectual, is coming out of his early retirement. Sure, my own little Elba over here in Highland was fine for a while, my life of leisure interrupted by grueling expeditions to find books to sell to the West Coast masses, but just as Napoleon eventually returned to Paris, Macarthur to the Phillipines, Michael Jordan to the NBA, the moth to the flame, so must I return to the workaday world, on my own terms, of course.
I humbly accepted an appointment as the executive director of the West Edge Artists' Co-op, a brilliant concept soon to be a brilliant reality in the heart of downtown Shreveport. A number of artists, many well-known to the local cognoscenti, others from the hinterlands of Minden and Cotton Valley, will share gallery space, labor and expenses in a utopian enterprise sure to stir the hearts of all who approach it. The workers will control the means of exhibition, aesthetic wealth will be redistributed, and the dancing, drinking and conversation will go until dawn every night (provided our hours can accomodate it).
Yours truly will also bring to fruition a long-held dream of opening a small used, rare and collectible book shop, modest in quantity but Whitmanesque in its qualitative ambitions, containing multitudes of wisdom, inspiration, knowledge, entertainment and intellectual stimulation. Poems will be written, romances will be kindled, facts will be checked, revolution will be hatched, fortunes will be won and lost, baseball minutiae will be argued until the wee hours (Willie Mays or Ted Williams?). Bohemians, scholars, troubadours, griots, wordsmiths, bibliophiles, mystics will flock to Shreveport, decide to stay, will make Shreveport the Alexandria of the 21st century (no, the one in Egypt).
Are you ready, Shreveport? Prepare for liftoff, because I didn't come out of early retirement for nuthin'.

It's Beginning To Look More Like Impeachment, Everywhere You Go

2005-12-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

I know many of you out there will think my title naively optimistic, that it's biologically and politically unheard of for lemmings to change their direction, particularly if you believe the cliff is already in their rearview mirrors. But the chinks in the armor are becoming fissures, and there is still almost a whole year until mid-term elections. Pro-war Senator Hillary Clinton is already facing a primary challenge from the left, and I wouldn't be surprised if other incumbents find themselves challenged for their stands. 2008 progressive hope Senator Russ Feingold is finding national traction with his leadership of a sustained filibuster against some provisions of the Patriot Act, and some Republicans have joined on both that issue and the rising chorus against domestic spying by the National Security Agency, the Pentagon, the FBI and Homeland Security.
Michigan Congressman John Conyers has introduced resolutions to censure both Bush and Cheney, as well to convene a fact-finding commission to investigate impeachable offenses:

Resolution to Investigate
Resolution to Censure Bush
Resolution to Censure Cheney

Go to truthout.org or buy the upcoming issue of the Nation to read John Nichols' article explaining these resolutions. afterdowningstreet.org also provides a lot of invaluable context, and is also sponsoring a series of actions on Jan. 7 in support of these efforts. I believe it is imperative that there be something organized here in town to support this. If you feel the same way, email me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com, and we'll make it happen. I'll be gone through the weekend, but will see what can be organized next week. Have a peaceful holiday, y'all.

Interesting Bedfellows for Local Land Use Study

2005-12-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, November 29, the Shreveport Times editorial enthusiastically endorsed a $125,000 study of the Shreveport/Bossier metropolitan area by an organization known for its efforts on behalf of urban sprawl-reducing “smart” growth. According to the Times, “A team from the Urban Land Institute especially will look at how real estate planning and development can lead to more economic development.” A number of innovative local organizations and developments are then praised for a number of worthy projects.
This all sounds very encouraging, until one takes a closer look at the Urban Land Institute. Among the efforts of the ULI is the annual awarding of the J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. According to the ULI’s website, “The $100,000 prize honors the legacy of legendary, Kansas City, Missouri, develop Jesse Clyde Nichols (1880-1950), a founding ULI member who is widely regarded as one of America’s most influential entrepreneurs in land use during the first half of the 20th century.” Indeed, an internet search of the words “Kansas City” and “J.C. Nichols” turns up multiple references, including some landmarks named for the developer. But his legacy is a tainted one, at best.
According to Judy Thomas, writing in February of this year in the Kansas City Star, Nichols was also a pioneer in the development of racial covenants, documents which prohibited homeowners from selling houses to select groups of people, most often African-Americans: “Nichols was among the first developers in the United States to promote the restrictions. From 1908 through the 1940’s, the J.C. Nichols Co. built dozens of subdivisions in the Kansas City area that prohibited housing sales to blacks.” According to Thomas, the covenants were ruled unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court as early as 1948, although many are still officially included in real estate contracts.
The Urban Land Institute is also active in the Gulf Coast region in post-Katrina rebuilding. New Orleans writer and activist Jay Arena has written about their activities in that city, and it was his writings on the New Orleans indymedia site (neworleans.indymedia.org) that alerted me to some of the moral and ethical ambiguities. I don’t believe the Urban Land Institute embodies the outright, blatant racism of J.C. Nichols, but their continued embrace of his name does raise some questions.

A Modest Proposal For Our Fair State

2005-12-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

It has recently come to my attention, through the writings of Shreveport Times contributor Emily Metzgar, personal contact with local attorney Henry Walker, and other sources that the indigent defense system in Louisiana is unconscionably underfunded. Any semblance of stability is undercut by the program's reliance on the payment of traffic fines as the source of funding. As there does not seem to be the political will in our state legislature to deal with this affront to the basic constitutional rights of the mostly poor and minority defendants who suffer from the destitution of public legal defense, I would like to offer this modest proposal (with deference to Johnathan Swift).
I would like to propose that all Louisianans of sound financial means (certainly households with income over $100,000, though I suspect the threshold could be set lower) consider a personal policy of consistent and blatant flouting of traffic laws while driving.
I realize that this will be a difficult decision for many to arrive at, as traffic laws are ostensibly devised for the common good, a sort of formalized courtesy, if you will. Additionally, there are some, particularly among those who identify themselves as "Republicans," who are perfectly content with the idea of young black men being locked up, outside of any questions of guilt, innocence or constitutionally mandated standards of legal representation. I can only say to those with the financial means to absorb the cost of traffic tickets to consider it your patriotic duty to violate the law, until such point that our elected officials see fit to fulfill their constitutional duty.
For those of you stirred into a patriotic fervor by now, here are a few suggestions:

1., Remove the license plates from your car. A screwdriver should be the only tool needed to accomplish this task, and it is one of the most obvious violations, as one could potentially be cited even when the car is not moving.

2., Remove the bulb from one of your headlights and/or tail lights. This approach works particularly well in conjunction with tinted windows, loud rap music, or other evidence that the driver and/or occupants of the car are some of those people who ruined Southpark Mall and drove everyone to the safety of the Boardwalk. The bulbs can typically be easily accessed through the trunk of the car without specialized tools.

3., You can never go wrong with speed. If one's vehicle has cruise control, I would suggest a setting at least 20 miles over the posted limit. This approach works particularly well in "school zones", particularly if said school is classified as a "magnet school" or is otherwise populated mostly by "white children," as these are more likely to be patrolled by police on a regular basis. I must stress that this must be done with utmost attention to safety. Remember, we don't want anyone to get hurt. We just want to fund the indigent defense system in our state.

4., Intoxication is also a sound strategy. Tis the season, as they say, and holiday parties will provide multiple opportunities for overindulgence. Try to eat a big lunch, so your alcohol absorption will not be affected by food. If you must eat, remember that those bar peanuts are provided because they will make you thirsty for more alcohol. And don't skimp on the shots. But always know your limits. Your goal is to be impaired, but basic motor function must be retained. If this approach makes you uneasy, save it for New Year's Eve, when the police are out in force. Sometimes, there will even be convenient roadblocks set up. Drive safely to the roadblock, but accelerate as your vehicle comes into view. Call the arresting officer Roscoe P. Coltrane for the piece de' resistance, and start writing your acceptance speech for the Congressional Medal of Freedom, my patriotic friend.

5., Keep your cell phone on your person at all times, just in case you observe any of the above behaviors or circumstances in other drivers or vehicles. This can also be convenient inside a bar or restaurant, if you observe a patron leaving in an intoxicated state. Make the phone call, order another Long Island Iced Tea, and drink to freedom.

6., Encourage friends and family members to do their part. Illness can be feigned, and underage teenage children can be sent out to pick up medicine at the local apothecary (in a car missing a license plate, say). Be creative. If everyone does his or her part, Louisiana can have the best damn indigent defense system in this great country, preserving constitutinal rights for all, regardless of race, class and income level. And I'm afraid that if we aren't all doing our part, violating traffic laws on a regular basis, then the terrorists have won.

Dialogues in Dallas

2005-11-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

Let me start this with an apology to the Shreveport Times, which did publish the opinion piece I posted a few days ago. Typically, I receive a phone call of confirmation before publication. As that did not happen this time, I incorrectly assumed that this one would not be published either. There.

The family and I visited the Dallas/Fort Worth area this past weekend, including a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art for the exhibit Dialogues: Duchamp, Cornell, Johns, Rauschenberg. This painfully small exhibit explores the intersections between these iconic modern artists. Duchamp's readymades, Johns' targets, Cornell's boxes are all there. I wouldn't say there is any one seminal work of Rauschenberg's, but there is also a concurrent exhibit of his prints, Artist-Citizen: Posters for a Better World, which highlights some of his classic collage images of the last 40 years or so. Here are some random thoughts:

It was very exciting to see one of Duchamp's original readymades, the bottle drying rack. A note on the piece said that the one displayed replaced the original in 1960. The original dates from 1914. So the original 1914 bottle drying rack, which I assume was a common functional item from the time, was replaced 46 years later by an identical one. Ostensibly, there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, of these items still in circulation, though only these two have been selected to be representative examples of modern art. To many, this would be a perfect example of the frivolousness and irrelevance of modern art. Hell, Duchamp's contrary whimsy would probably come to the same conclusion. It is brilliant, and brings a subversive smile to my face, and doesn't leave me cold and detached the way I feel when I see an Andy Warhol piece, for example.

The spirit of exuberant collaboration is very much celebrated in this exhibit, and it is a spirit I see at work in the Shreveport arts scene right now. It was shared at the time by such figures as composer John Cage and dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham, and was very much in contrast to the macho, competitive posturing of Pollock, De Kooning and other peers.

Rauschenberg is the Bono of modern art. The prints exhibited show an artist engaged in the global issues of his day, putting his artistic gifts to work on behalf of the large benevolent institutions dealing with human rights, population, housing, etc. He seems to realize, like Bono, that he is an international celebrity of a sort, and to perpetuate an angry young man/pox on all their houses streetwise purity persona would be empty posturing. It would be impossible to imagine the soundtrack of my adolescence without Sunday Bloody Sunday or Pride (In the Name of Love), but it would get old if Bono were still climbing into the rafters with a white flag every concert. In the same way, the prints don't convey the same kind of cathartic thrill of Combine and Bed, to name two seminal Rauschenberg works from the mid-1950's, but they are very effective, beautiful and inspiring comments on the issues addressed.

Well, it's late, I don't know if I'm making any sense at all, and we're leaving for Baton Rouge in less than seven hours. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Peace.

Just Getting Ridiculous Now

2005-11-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

It just seems to be an overt conspiracy on the part of the Shreveport Times to deny their readers any access to thoughtful political discourse. I've met Craig Durrett, Alan English and other members of the Times editorial board, and they seem thoughtful and serious about what they're doing. So why do they continually deny this city's most astute political analysis and urbane witticisms, those of America's greatest living public intellectual and an invaluable natural resource, the Red River Red? Alas, we may never know, but here is yet another well-written, informative and relevant guest column not to be (in the interests of full disclosure, the Red River Red has been elected to the executive board of the Northwest Louisiana chapter of the ACLU since this piece was submitted to the Times):

In the second sentence of his diatribe against the American Civil Liberties Union, Stanley F. Kolniak challenges us to “look at the facts.” He then proceeds to distort the facts to support his portrait of a far-left straw man for the right wing cabal whose representation on the Shreveport Times editorial page seems to be the exact inverse of their grasp of political reality.
Kolniak refers to the ACLU’s founding “in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, a communist sympathizer and pronounced socialist.” I would not argue with that representation of Baldwin… in 1920. Like many people of conscience in that area, still traumatized by the irrational slaughter of World War I and the lies and manipulative propaganda used by President Woodrow Wilson to justify U.S. participation and the unconstitutional persecution of dissidents, Baldwin was infatuated with the humanistic potential of the Russian Revolution and the early years of the Soviet Union. However, Stalin’s purges in the 1930’s and the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939 woke Baldwin up to the true nature of the totalitarian society, as it did for so many others. Although the ACLU and its founder continued to advocate for the constitutional rights of Communists, after 1940 members of totalitarian organizations could no longer serve on the board. Additionally, Baldwin was appointed by General Douglas MacArthur a civil liberties consultant in postwar Japan. Although John Birch Society members accused Generals Eisenhower and George Marshall of Communist sympathies, I believe MacArthur’s patriotic credentials were always considered impeccable.
Despite Kolniak’s protests to the contrary, the record most certainly does not indicate that the ACLU is “hell bent to do away with Christianity.” What the ACLU does believe is that “the right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all, is among the fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The ACLU works to ensure religious liberty is protected by keeping the government out of the realm of all religions” (aclu.org).
The ACLU is also called to task by Mr. Kolniak for its disregard for “orderly society” and “overbearing concern for homosexuals, sex offenders, drug pushers, rioters, anarchists, draft dodgers, murderers and others who have broken our laws.” One of the reasons I am a member of the ACLU is precisely because of its insistence that the Constitution, and our society, are strengthened when we fight for the rights of those considered marginal, whether the laws they broke were just or unjust. The recently departed Rosa Parks is one dramatic example of an individual whose disruption of orderly society in Montgomery would almost certainly be cited by Mr. Kolniak and most Americans as justified.
Finally, what is never mentioned by Kolniak is the ACLU’s ongoing leadership on issues ranging from the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act to the illegal detention and torture of terrorism suspects to the fight for retention of voting rights won during the Civil Rights Era. These are some of the front lines in our battles to preserve and strengthen the Constitution and our country. I invite all of you, including Mr. Kolniak, to go to aclu.org and join the ACLU in those battles.

Michael Parker lives in Shreveport and is a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Return to New Orleans

2005-11-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

Many of you know that the Red River Red wears many hats, among them that of used, rare and collectible bookseller. In that capacity I returned to New Orleans for the first time this past weekend for the annual New Orleans Bookfair, a celebration of iconoclastically independent book publishers and distributors, most devoted to experimental literature and/or politics of the decidedly leftist/anarchist persuasion. All in all, solid citizens and a credit to their families, communities and country.
The Bookfair is held annually at Barrister's Gallery in Central City, which bills itself as the first New Orleans gallery open after Katrina. The area either larely or completely escaped flooding, so the Bookfair went on two months to the day after Katrina hit. It was a more subdued affair than last year in terms of participants and profits, but spirits were high, and it was a more social occasion for me this time, at least.
One of the first folks I connected with was John Clark, philosophy and environmental studies prof at Loyola and green anarchist social ecologist taoist buddhist rabble-rouser. His home and workplace escaped major damage, although other family members weren't so lucky. He has been working closely with those leading the charge against the Bush Admnistration's attack on post-Katrina New Orleans, such as community activists Malik Rahim and Mama D, and actually testified, along with Rahim of the Common Ground Collective, in the peoples' tribunal judging George Bush for his crimes against humanity. That tribunal convened in New York less than two weeks ago, and John told me transcripts should be available from the website of the Democracy Now radio and television show.
John was also distributing copies of "A Letter from New Orleans," an essay which combines his first-hand observations and experiences with an analysis based on the work of revolutionary French geographer Elise'e Reclus, an longtime intellectual and political inspiration for John's work. I'll be reading some excerpts on my "Invisible Republic" radio show on Sunday, sometime from 2-4 p.m.
I had the great pleasure of meeting and conversing with New Orleans writers Sarah Inman and her husband Joe Longo. Sarah recently had her novel Finishing Skills published by Livingston Press. It's about a female professional boxer in New Orleans, which Sarah says she was for all of one fight. She and Joe are also both writing teachers currently plying that trade online while Delgado and UNO deal with various infrastructural difficulties. Joe is also a part-time poker player, so they may make their way to Shreveport while the casinos get themselves back into shape.
Two fellows from the Fiction Collective 2, based at Florida State University in Tallahassee, were stationed right next to me as well, so I had a good time talking with them, particularly as we began to notice the synchronicities binding us all together. Matt and Brook are also each married with one child, theirs being two boys, one older and one younger than my daughter Zora. Both have intimate Portland, Oregon connection, Portland being where my wife and I spent seven years, during which time Zora was born. Matt, who's in a Ph.D. progam at FSU, got his M.F.A. at McNeese, where he knew my old friend Kevin Meaux, a brilliant poet from the Cajun hinterland of Kaplan. Good guys, hope to see them again sometime.
Finally, I got a chance to meet Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans writer and activist who I'd been corresponding with for a while. Jordan is an organizer for Service Employees International Union Local 100 in New Orleans, and a member of the editorial collective for Left Turn magazine, one of the liveliest and most informative mags out right now. I don't think it's available on any newsstands in our area yet, but you can access it at leftturn.org, where you can find several of Jordan's outstanding post-Katrina writings. It was those writings, also published on counterpunch.org and commondreams.org, which led me to seek him out, and he contributed to an article I wrote for the Steelworkers Local 711T newsletter, also published here not long ago.
Oh, yeah, I managed to engage in some guerrilla capitalism too and sell some books, too. Henry Miller, Howard Zinn, Johnny Rotten, Wilbert Rideau, Emma Goldman, Orwell, Chomsky, Kerouac, Burroughs and the Huey Long bio, among others.
All in all, a fantastic return for New Orleans for one non-native son, easily able to return to his home in an undevastated city. Oh how we miss you, New Orleans, our respite from the South, from George Bush's America, our Mediterraneo, our African port, the source of our music. We will continue to fight for you. Peace, y'all.

More Local Fishwrap Rejections

2005-10-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

I attended the board meeting for the Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery this evening, a board I proudly serve as the recording secretary. I was once absolutely blown away at the high level of artistic talent and activity in this city, and the commitment to collaboration by artists, typically some of the most self-centered of creatures, across genres. It also pointed up my ongoing frustrations at trying to find something of the same spirit in progressive political activity. If there is something I'm missing, please contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com and let me know what it is, and I'l get involved. If you're feeling the same frustrations, let me know, because I'm never going to stop plugging away at trying to get our society to live up to the ideals it so loudly professes. Anyway, here are a couple of more letters to the editor of the Times that haven't been published. I was actually told the first one would be published, but that was several days ago, so I'm moving on. Y'all enjoy:

Did it actually take almost a full month for Edward Bradford to compose the opinion piece the Times chose to publish on Saturday, October 10 (“Recent writer seems to lack an understanding of history”)? I realize that it is the responsibility of a newspaper to present the full spectrum of political opinion, but surely there are people in this community capable of expressing conservative ideas with some semblance of the coherence and stylistic elegance Mr. Bradford so obviously lacks.
First, there are what are almost certainly distortions of a previous writer’s views regarding religion, However, since that opinion piece was published almost a month ago, I can’t consult it to either confirm or deny that speculation. He then seems to agree with that writer that George Bush is a coward, but tells us to “Let it go.” We are then treated to a laundry list of buzzwords and sentence fragments expressing his contradictory political philosophy. Evidently, and completely foreign to my own experience, labor unions choose to eliminate their own jobs, some of which are outsourced because “people here won’t fill the jobs,…”. Also, protecting the environment is bad, because of high gas prices. He seems to like Wal-Mart (here’s where the sentence fragments come in), while acknowledging that they are a mega-monopoly, something that conservatives in this country used to oppose.
Bradford also criticizes the previous writer for describing the war in Iraq as “a senseless war based on lies.” I find it fascinating that Bradford does not take issue with the lies, just the charge of senselessness. In his words, “When’s the last time we were attacked by terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001?” I guess my interpretation of “we” is a little more inclusive than Mr. Bradford’s, because I would count the numerous attacks against American troops in Iraq that Al-Qaeda has taken credit for as terrorist attacks against us. Of course, neither American troops nor Al-Qaeda were in Iraq before the sensible invasion based on lies that Mr. Bradford supports.

Oh, that's right, I didn't end up saving the other one. Well here's a book review instead. I shopped it around to several publications, but never heard back from any of them. Fuck rude unprofessionalism and the horse it rode in on! Y'all come back now, hear?

By Michael Parker

book reviewed:
Louisiana Hayride: Radio & Roots Music Along the Red River
By Tracey E. W. Laird
Oxford University Press, 2005

Tracey Laird’s Louisiana Hayride: Radio & Roots Music Along the Red River is a fascinating and concise analysis of the seminal Shreveport, Louisiana-based “barn dance,” broadcast by pioneering country music station KWKH and instrumental in the nurturing of prominent country musicians and rockabilly pioneers. Hank Williams and Elvis Presley are the most prominent examples, but others include Johnny Cash, Webb Pierce, Rose Maddox, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, Johnny Horton, Slim Whitman and George Jones. Economic trends, race relations, the evolution and proliferation of media technologies and the development of various genres of American popular music are all explored with the context of North Louisiana’s largest city and its history from antebellum times until about the time of the Civil Rights Movement.
Dr. Laird is a Shreveport native and currently Assistant Professor of Music at Agnes Scott College in Georgia. Her research included a six-month stint as a part-time disc jockey at Shreveport’s KWKH in 1995 (before its purchase by Clear Channel and subsequent corporate homogenization), and her enthusiasm for the music of the Hayride luminaries is obvious. Her research is meticulous, shedding a bright light on Shreveport’s history through the prism of popular culture, serving as a potential model for other mid-sized Southern cities. Finally, if you’ll excuse my flippancy, Dr. Laird manages to communicate profound sociological insights without resorting to jargon-laden prose battering the reader like a Foucaultian anvil.
Laird asserts that the Louisiana Hayride was the culmination of musical cross-fertilization between black and white musicians, despite the cultural mores and legal restrictions of the time. Pre-Hayride Shreveport-area musicians included folk blues legend Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter and two-time governor Jimmie Davis, composer of “You Are My Sunshine,” the official state song. Although Ledbetter was “discovered” as a recording artist by John and Alan Lomax and embraced by the 1930’s and 40’s New York folk scene, including Woody Guthrie and the Weavers, Laird points out that his “Rock Island Line,” for one, was embraced by white country musicians, and “…both Johnny Horton and Johnny Cash sang it at the Louisiana Hayride during the mid-1950’s,” (p. 39). And although he felt the need to embrace segregation in his victorious 1960 gubernatorial race – against Earl Long, among others – Jimmie Davis recorded with African-American musicians in the 1930’s, and denied charges that he had been photographed dancing with Lena Horne during his Hollywood days.
KWKH radio benefited from a convergence of opportune geographic and technological circumstances, combined with the flamboyant personality and vision of owner W.K. Henderson, described by Laird as a Huey Long-style populist unafraid to take on the Federal Radio Commission, chain radio stations and chain retail stores. Although financial woes forced him out during the Depression, he had personally hired Jimmie Davis and shown that hillbilly music could anchor radio programming.
The Louisiana Hayride kicked off its initial broadcast on April 3, 1948, from Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium (which is still in use, though disgracefully underutilized). By August, Hank Williams made his first appearance, highlighting his first major hit, “Lovesick Blues.” Laird sees the song’s distinctly non-hillbilly origins as an appropriate metaphor for the Hayride’s cross-cultural importance: “Penned by Tin Pan Alley lyricist Irving Mills and composer Cliff Friend, ‘Lovesick Blues’ was recorded several times over by blues singers like Bertha Chippie Hill (1927), as well as by vaudevillian Emmett Miller (1925 and 1928, the latter backed by jazz musicians) and hillbilly singer Rex Griffin (1939) both Williams’ direct yodeling predecessors,” (pp. 94-5).
Like many of the Hayride luminaries, Williams also spent time with the Grand Ole Opry. Laird does a credible job comparing the two, arguing that the Opry’s social and musical restrictions (ranging from intolerance for Williams’ drinking to a long-standing ban on drums) worked in the Hayride’s favor, particularly as rockabilly began to compete for the younger country music audience. The Hayride’s embrace of free-wheeling innovation, which Laird argues is a musical legacy going back to the mid-19th century in Shreveport, allowed it to incubate rockabilly and rock and roll, both through Presley, Cash, Horton and other singers, as well as homegrown sidemen like guitarists James Burton and Jerry Kennedy, drummer D.J. Fontana and bassist Joe Osborn.
Laird devotes substantial space to these unsung heroes, who devoured the country and rhythm and blues programs sharing time on KWKH, and cut their teeth in the rough-and-tumble nightclubs of the Strip in Bossier City, then Shreveport’s looser sister city across the Red River. In addition to house band work with the Hayride, backing the many musicians already mentioned, Burton and Fontana both had long stints with Elvis Presley, and their combined credits span the spectrum of rock and roll and country music: Rick Nelson, Buffalo Springfield, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, John Hartford, the Fifth Dimension, Simon and Garfunkel, Mickey Gilley, Roy Orbison.
Finally, Laird touches on the connections between the r/evolution of country music and rock and roll, and parallel developments in American literature, painting and acting. As a typically alienated teenager growing up just outside of Shreveport, the existential artistry of Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer, James Dean and Jackson Pollock, resonated deeply within me, in a way that nothing even peripherally connected with Shreveport could. I don’t know what residues of the Hayride’s halcyon years still existed in Shreveport at that time (the mid-1980’s), but I do know that I appreciate the concise existentialism of “Wreck on the Highway” or “She Thinks I Still Care” or “Sunday Morning Coming Down” more than anything I’ve read of Norman Mailer. And I am deeply grateful to Dr. Tracey Laird for her elucidation of my hometown’s contribution to that lexicon.

Michael Parker is a freelance writer and disc jockey in Shreveport, Louisiana. He hosts the “Invisible Republic” show on Centenary College’s KSCL, 91.3, in Shreveport, playing traditional and contemporary roots music interspersed with news and political commentary, concentrating on labor and working class issues.

Upcoming and of interest

2005-10-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

When the wife and I decided to move back to our soon-to-be-climatologically-bearable-for-a-few-months home state, one of the fall events I most looked forward to was the New Orleans Book Fair, held at the Barrister Gallery. It marked the debut of Book Freaks, my own modest used book selling operation, hopefully soon to be a little less modest here in our fair city. Well, despite the logistical nightmare inflicted by Katrina, this year's installment of the book fair will go on a week from Saturday, Oct. 29, from 10-6, at the Barrister Gallery (1724 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard). Although the website (nolabookfair.com) claims a lot less participation this year, the lineup still includes such independent publishing heavyweights (or at least welterweights) as AK Press, Verso, City Lights, Last Gasp and many others. There will be a number of events and readings surrounding the fair, although something with the website is not allowing access to everything. There is also a posting on the New Orleans indymedia.org site that has more updated info than the website itself. Also, feel free to contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com for any info I can share about the fair.

Also, a Roadtrip for Relief is being organized by the Common Ground Collective, based mostly in Algiers, New Orleans. You can go to commongroundrelief.org to get the details, but they are basically calling for caravans to bring in folks to work on cleanup and rebuilding projects the week of Thanksgiving. There is a discussion board which includes a message from a Dallas-based group, if people from here might want to hook up with them. I plan on being in Wisconsin that week, but would be glad to help with any logistics beforehand, if people want to undertake it. Again, email me.

Finally, World Can't Wait is sponsoring a mobilization on Wednesday, November 2 to hold this administration responsible for its crimes. They are calling for people to leave work and school to express their dissent at rallies and demonstrations in their own cities and towns. It's easy for us early retiree stay-at-home-dad rabble rousers to commit to something like this, but is there any other groundswell of support for it out there? The endorsers of this are quite impressive, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Code Pink, Michael Eric Dyson, Ron Kovic, Tom Morello, Boots Riley, Cindy Sheehan, Studs Terkel, Cornel West and Howard Zinn. Take a look at worldcantwait.org, and email me. No reason we can't have a picnic in the park or something, right?

Anyway, that's some of the upcoming (r)evolutionary events in the neighborhood. Peace, y'all.

Providing the Labor of Reconstruction

2005-10-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

My main preoccupation lately has been the rebuilding of New Orleans, and the moral imperative of insuring that that process is one which benefits the people living and returning there, not the economic parasites trying to remake New Orleans in their McWalmartland image. I'll try to be more punctual about this correspondence, as there are a lot of good ideas being floated around. Anyway, this is the article I just submitted for the newsletter of Steelworkers Local 711T, out at the Libby plant. Enjoy.

Providing the Labor of Reconstruction
By Michael Parker

The comparisons between September 11 and the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita run the gamut, from tragic to inspiring to chilling. Whereas both devastating events brought out the best in grassroots volunteer efforts on the part of individuals and communities, there were also catastrophic failures of government institutions, specifically the U.S. intelligence apparatus and FEMA. Another unfortunate similarity is the Bush Administration’s determination to exploit the situation for anti-worker power grabs.
In late 2001, federal intelligence, immigration and transportation safety were centralized in the name of “homeland security.” Workers were systematically stripped of collective bargaining rights and grievance procedures. Additionally, the relatively militant (as well as pragmatically successful) International Longshore and Warehouse Union was locked out in 2002 and threatened with replacement by Naval personnel on the West Coast docks.
As the rebuilding of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities begins in earnest, the pattern continues. The most outrageous situation is the suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act, a 1931 law mandating prevailing wages (estimated by the Department of Labor as $9.55/hour for New Orleans) be paid by employers with federal contracts. And no-bid contracts for reconstruction and temporary housing have already been granted to many of the usual suspects—Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton and Shaw—described by Naomi Klein in a recent issue of the Nation as “the same gang that spent the past three years getting paid billions while failing to bring Iraq’s essential services to prewar levels.”
The repeal of Davis-Bacon was denounced by state AFL-CIO leaders from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama at a press conference in Jackson, Mississippi, on September 29. But the “right-to-work” laws in those states, as well as Republican dominance of statewide offices, undercut their effectiveness through normal political channels. The exception could be Louisiana.
Louisiana stands alone among the four states with a Democratic governor and senator. Both were elected by narrow margins, and each has a vested interest in the return and continued employment of working-class African American New Orleanians. Senator Mary Landrieu is also the scion of a venerable New Orleans political family and should face a bruising re-election bid in 2006. Louisiana’s two Democratic Congressmen are also in southern Louisiana. Charlie Melancon’s district was hit hard by Rita, while New Orleans’ William Jefferson, already facing federal investigation, may be looking for friends after facing labor hostility at his pivotal vote for CAFTA.
Despite this potential leverage, it is likely that the most effective action will come from the grassroots. To that end, Community Labor United has already taken a leading role. CLU has been working for nine years in the New Orleans area, bringing together progressives from the labor, civil rights, and faith communities. Working with the San Francisco-based Vanguard Foundation, they have established the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Their goals can be read at vanguardsf.org. New Orleans-based SEIU organizer Jordan Flaherty, whose writings from inside New Orleans can be accessed at leftturn.org, says that CLU has “inspired me deeply. Many of the core members have been involved in community organizing in New Orleans since the Sixties or even the Fifties.”
CLU and the People’s Fund are definitely working in Baton Rouge, Jackson and Houston, organizing evacuees in those cities. Volunteer coordinator Becky Belcore told me that there is a volunteer working in Shreveport who she would put me in touch with, but nothing had materialized by the time this was to go to print. Interested parties should contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com, and I will pass on any information I receive.
Seismic political change has often followed natural disasters, as those most affected are starkly reminded of their invisibility to the powers that be, and are galvanized into long-term action. I’ll let Jordan Flaherty have the last word: “The fall of the Somoza dictatorship was precipitated by his corrupt stealing of post-earthquake disaster aid in 1972. The faulty federal response to the 1985 earthquake that hit Mexico City helped to birth a grassroots movement that survives to this day. And, of course, the 1927 flooding of the Mississippi helped to elect Huey P. Long governor of Louisiana. Reconstruction is a natural issue for the labor movement, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because a democratic grassroots reconstruction is likely to generate solid union jobs in a region where the average wages are low and union jobs are few and far between.”

More New Orleans Memories

2005-10-04T22:07:00.000-07:00

I said last time that I would share some more New Orleans memories. Speak, memory:

(Incidentally, pretty good with the Nabokov quote, huh? Ah, what working in a bookstore for years will do for you. To you? The jury's still out on that one, I guess, or am I the jury? I the Jury, Mickey Spillane, you get it? Okay, sorry, this is getting out of hand, back to New Orleans)

In the summer of 1986, my dad and an associate were planning on opening a bookstore in Shreveport. As part of the research, my dad planned on attending the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association, which was in New Orleans that summer. As my birthday present (my birthday being in July), I was invited to come along.
Incidentally, Dad had attended the previous year's convention in San Francisco, picking me up a signed copy of Best of the Realist, a paperback compilation of articles, interviews and cartoons from the seminal journal of politics, culture and satire from 1955 to 1975. Paul Krassner was the editor, and to his signature was later added those of Abbie Hoffman and Ed Sanders, two of the other vital cultural revolutionaries of the postwar era (Sanders was a founding member of the Fugs and has published numerous volumes of poetry, prose and nonfiction). That book, now tattered from years of study, is undoubtedly the most important book in my own intellectual development. The list of artists who I was either introduced to in the pages of the Realist or had my appreciation of deepened, would have to include Woody Allen, Joseph Heller, Ken Kesey, Dick Gregory, Norman Mailer, Alan Watts, Robert Anton Wilson, and, of course, Krassner himself, who I had the honor of interviewing for publication in Portland. It was very gratifying to be able to tell a hero something of the influence he had, even if he did inscribe my book to Michael Palmer.
But I digress, don't I? The most vivid memory I have of the convention itself was getting a copy of Interview of the Vampire signed by Anne Rice for a girl I had a huge crush on in high school. What I don't remember is if George Seldes was there, which is a crying shame. Seldes was a legendary muckraking journalist who lived to age of 104, writing for United Press and the Chicago tribune before tiring of the inevitable censorship and striking out on his own. In the 1940's he published In Fact, a weekly newsletter and the precursor to I.F. Stone's Weekly. Lenin and Mussolini were among those he interviewed, recognizing the danger of the latter when many Americans and Europeans (such as Ezra Pound), tired of the chaos of the Depression years, were infatuated with his strong man tactics.
Anyway, Seldes had a new book out in 1986 (he was 96 at the time!), and I came home with a copy of it, having no idea who he was. But I can't remember if he was there pushing it himself. I almost hope not, because my ignorance doesn't quite seem so appalling if he wasn't actually there for me to ignore.
But the real highlight of the trip was a nightime trip out to the Quarter, most likely my first. Dad and I were accompanied by a couple of other people whose connections are now unknown to me, but one of them was a very attractive young woman (though probably much older than my very young 18 years) who was captivating to talk to about books, a far cry from my peers. I have not the slightest idea what we talked about (Nabokov? Spillane?), but I'm sure it made a much bigger impression on me than on her.
We all went to Preservation Hall, my only time to this point, although I ache to go back in light of recent events. I remember being packed like the proverbial sardines (not an altogether unpleasant situation given the company) and hearing this music, so light and ethereal and yet so substantive and solid at the same time, completely unlike the music I ws infatuated with at the time (U2, the Police, Rush). It was so grounded in time and place, again despite its melodic lightness, and it carried with it a mature sense of possibility that carried over into my just-beginning young adulthood. George Seldes' motto was "Tell the truth and run." I'm outta here. Peace, y'all.

New Orleans Memories

2005-09-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m back from a little hiatus, brought on by a couple of projects coming to fruition. The first was a teach-in on the war in Iraq, conducted down at All-Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in South Shreveport. We had about 35 people two Saturdays ago discussing US foreign policy, the Patriot Act, the history of the Middle East, alternatives to war and various other big issues. It was intellectually thrilling, emotionally provocative and politically inspiring. Sandwiched as it was between Cindy Sheehan’s Crawford vigil and the demonstrations in DC last weekend, between Katrina and Rita, I believe it was a great experience for sleepy ol’ Shreveport, and something to build on. Special thanks must go to Greg Moses, our keynote speaker and a key participant in the teach-in, who did a great job connecting the dots between Iraq and Katrina Friday night, and spoke eloquently about the challenges and rewards of a commitment to institutional nonviolence on Saturday. For those interested, his Friday remarks have been fleshed out into a remarkable essay, “A Movement Gathers Power on the Sorrow Plateau,” which you can find on counterpunch.org, among other places on the web.
The other preoccupation this past week or so was a long piece I wrote for the Katrina benefit at artspace Friday night. Given Rita’s approach, the crowd was a bit sparse, but it felt great to be participating something that was so concretely helping the evacuees, and I thank Chris Fowler-Sandlin and the other organizers for that opportunity.

The Living Section of the Times published a series of New Orleans reminiscences by local people on Sunday. It represented a real cross-section of Shreveport, I thought, with some folks touching on kitschy tourist elements of the city and others conveying some very soulful, profound feelings about a city that occupies such a large space in our imaginations and experiences. Nobody asked me my thoughts, but that hasn’t stopped me to this point, now has it?:

My family and I lived in New Orleans from approximately 1974-76 (corrections will follow next time after parental consultation), years six through eight for me. My parents attended New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Gentilly, and we went to the French Quarter often. I remember most vividly a shop dedicated solely to military miniatures, seemingly painstakingly handcrafted, handpainted soldiers from every war and era known. I was fascinated by World War II specifically as a kid, and I was drawn to this shop that was part toy store (though unlike any toy store I had ever seen), part museum, for the detail that was obvious in every figure and piece of equipment.
I remember for the first time paying attention to the price of the ones I coveted and saving my allowance to buy something that seemed to have a patina of seriousness to it, unlike the comic books and baseball cards and matchbox cars I more casually collected at the time. I remember having a Rommel-looking German officer, complete with binoculars and map; a North African-based British soldier in khaki shorts and desert boots, revolver drawn; and a classic, Sgt. Rock-style U.S. infantryman, rifle in both hands, marching up the beach at Normandy. I also remember a motorcycle with sidecar, though I can’t remember if I owned that or was just fascinated by it at the store, so foreign it was to my experience.
Though I never articulated it, it was obvious to me at the time how unique this shop was, and how unique the place that supported a shop dedicated to such a unique, obsessive fetish.

After graduating from Haughton High School in 1986, I moved to Lafayette to attend the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Californians may be the only others in this country who undergo such a cultural shock going from north to south within their state. It was a refreshing change for me, and I took full advantage of the opportunities afforded me.
One of the things I got involved with was the student newspaper, the Vermilion. Early in the fall semester, Jason Berry came to campus to deliver the annual Flora Levy Lecture. He discussed that quintessential New Orleans novel (sorry, Moviegoer and Mosquitoes and Interview With a Vampire fans), Confederacy of Dunces. After the lecture, I was talking with some fellow newspaper staff, and someone suggested a drive to New Orleans for a few drinks and some beignets at Café Du Monde. Now, this was the middle of the week and I probably had French or Western Civilization or some such at 9:00 the next morning, and I was being invited on this subversive journey into the heart of Ignatius’ absurd darkness. There was no checking in with anyone, no bag to pack, no listening to any little voices preaching restraint, there was just spontaneity and the rush of living, for the first night in my life, that Kerouacesque lifestyle that I knew had been lurking around the corner all those nights, all those years, before. I barely remember the night itself, but what it represented was a rite of passage, a seminal experience that clearly delineated the life before and after, and for a college student in the South, much less in Louisiana, it’s a good bet that such an experience will involve New Orleans.
There you go, a couple of New Orleans vignettes, with more to come, most likely. I hope these stories touch some kind of universal chord, because I think we have a hell of a fight before us against those who will try to take our New Orleans and turn it into a Nashville-style corporate Disneyland. I realize that the Hard Rock Café and Margaritaville have been doing that gradually for a number of years, but there is still so much living history of cultural dissent that we all draw so heavily from here in the South, that gives us strength and solace in these dark days, that we have to fight. And fight. And fight. Peace.

2005-09-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings, everyone. I've been so consumed with the Iraq war teach-in I've organized for this weekend that I've been neglecting these musings. That said, another couple of rejected shreveport times opinion pieces have piled up, so let's release them out into the world:

The chaos of the past few days, which has directly affected members of both my and my wife’s family, has delayed this response to Mike Johnson’s ill-conceived diatribe of Saturday, September 3 (“Opposing ideologies highlighted by Katrina”). However, the calm afforded by accounting for everyone in our families means that I can now respond, on behalf of all rational people overwhelmed by the hurricane and its aftermath, the first unavoidable, the second completely avoidable.
Johnson asserts that “What we are seeing is the natural by-product of a culture that increasingly denies God’s existence…” Even if one were to accept such a blanket absurdity in and of itself, does Johnson seriously believe that even a substantial minority of those in New Orleans when Katrina hit are atheists, agnostics or secular humanists? I saw a consistent stream of thousands upon thousands of poor African-Americans, and I would bet that that demographic represents the most devout segment of the New Orleans population.
Johnson claims that those whose mentality allows them to engage in and justify looting regard government as “our savior,” are taught as children “they have no accountability to any higher power,” and create problems “anytime the civil authorities break down.” Finally, he uses as an example of this mentality a looter who “screamed into a reporter’s microphone, ‘After years of oppression it’s time to take what’s ours!’” Now, if the government is considered by this individual to be his savior, shouldn’t the government then be the allegedly non-existent higher power? Of course, the breakdown of civil authorities is then like a death of God to this individual, if he had not already been taught a lack of accountability to a higher power. And who does that leave as the oppressor? Is it the government, proposed by Johnson as savior to one who does not feel accountability? Is the death of his allegedly non-existent savior a liberatory gesture? I have to admit, what seemed like pure right-wing hokum at first glance now takes on profound, Milton-like implications in Johnson’s hands, much more interesting than Pat Robertson’s Ugly American ravings.
Alas, Johnson cannot sustain his intellectual subtlety. First, Governor Kathleen Blanco is dismissed as “unfortunately a nurturer rather than a firm, decisive leader--…” No reason is given, no evidence proffered. Though now that I think about it, Great Britain was never hit by a catastrophically destructive hurricane during Margaret Thatcher’s tenure.
Finally, Johnson appears to believe that the American Civil Liberties Union’s state leadership may renounce their support for a strong separation of church and state, based on the appearance of a catastrophically destructive hurricane. I’m not sure where logic and rational thought processes are supposed to fit in to this process, but I don’t believe the violent deaths of thousands of people (the vast majority Christians, I will again speculate) will do much to change the minds of those who doubt the existence of a benevolent God.

This one goes back even further, before Katrina. Enjoy:

Executive editor Alan English’s myopia concerning the war against and occupation of Iraq is becoming increasingly frustrating as the weeks go by. I’ve met Mr. English and found him to be personable and passionate about his work, not at all an ideologically blinded neocon true believer. Nevertheless, the bland platitudes which populate his recent columns are, in my opinion, doing as much harm to this country and to the soldiers fighting our current war of imperialism as the shrill appeals of Bush, Rumsfeld and their traitorous ilk.
English says that in recent speeches, Bush “…legitimizes the war effort as a necessary component in a war on terror. Some agree and some don’t.” First of all, I think it would be proper to assert that Bush is attempting to legitimize the war effort, as I don’t think the majority of the American people are buying it. Second, an honest analysis of the loaded term “terrorism” would take into account the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East region. Was the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Iran’s President Mossadegh in 1953 a case of pragmatic Cold War realpolitik, or was it state-sponsored terrorism? Is ongoing support for dictators, such as the Shah of Iran (given exile by the too-often sainted President Jimmy Carter), the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families, Egypt’s President Mubarek, and, of course, Saddam Hussein (even after he famously gassed his own people), the work of a nation with the moral authority to dictate the terms of democracy to another? Given the corruption inherent during the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 in Florida and Ohio, respectively, can we safely say that our democratic processes are even working?
English says that, “If the reasons Bush gave for our war in Iraq are faulty, then he does deserve blame for misleading a nation. We still can’t end this fight with the future of Iraq hanging in the balance.” I would argue that one could replace “Bush” in that statement with William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson or Lyndon Johnson, and replace “Iraq” with Cuba, Europe or Vietnam. Of course, the faulty reasons of weapons of mass destruction would then be replace with the USS Maine, the Lusitania and the Gulf of Tonkin. The common threads are lies and distortions designed to emotionally manipulate Congress, the media and the American people into fighting wars they were otherwise very rationally opposing. We do a disservice to all those who have fought and sacrificed for the legitimate defense of this country and its Constitution when we continue to let presidents get away with this kind of criminal behavior. Arguing for continued involvement in Iraq is intellectually and morally defensible, in my opinion, only if it is coupled with a call for the impeachment of the morally vacuous Commander in Chief.
Those yearning for a serious discussion of the war in Iraq and other domestic and international implications of U.S. foreign policy should know there is teach-in scheduled for Sept. 16 and 17 for just that purpose. A number of topics will be discussed and debated by local military veterans, academics, clergy, journalists and others with expertise and passion, across the ideological spectrum. It will be hosted by All Souls Unitarian Church, at 9449 Ellerbe Road in Shreveport. I am one of the organizers of the event, and we are still looking for participants for panel discussions. I would welcome Alan English to participate, and anyone looking for more detailed information can contact me at mpbookfreak@hotmail.com. I hope to see many of you there.

Camp Casey, Part II

2005-09-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends. Here is the promised second part of my adventure in Crawford. I didn't realize that I would finish the writing of it with such a heavy heart, but our beloved New Orleans has been dealt a near-fatal blow. I'm still sorting things out in my own head, and will hopefully have some commentary to share soon, but I think I can speak for every intellectually, socially and emotionally conscious Louisianan when I say a real part of our soul has been bludgeoned. For those many of us living paycheck to paycheck in Bush's America, New Orleans is our Mediterranean, our Caribbean, our Africa, our multicultural Mecca in the most literal sense, a place of renewal, adventure, escape, engagement. We always knew its beauty was fragile, but I don't think we realized its near-demise would be aided by the hubris of our very own Shakespearean monarch. I don't know what the rebuilding process will be like, but rest assured that it will rise again, and it won't be anything like Phoenix.

Camp Casey II’s most prominent feature is a very large white tent, the kind a Southerner would most likely associate with an old-fashioned tent revival meeting, altogether not an inappropriate metaphor for its most recent utilization. The tent is large enough to accommodate a stage, several rows of fold-out chairs, and several more rows of tables with chairs around them. The back of the tent is dominated by a row of rectangular tables piled with food and drinks. Although the first weekend of the vigil featured hastily-prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it’s now to the point where a Dallas caterer and Austin’s Food Not Bombs contingent have joined forces to provide a spread fit for an army of peaceful, nonviolent rage. I personally dined on organic roast chicken, a salad of Romaine lettuce and fresh vegetables, ripe cantaloupe and iced orange juice. There were also cold cuts, various salads (tuna, chicken and potato), watermelon, coffee and tea, desserts….
A full-length “Mothers Say No to War” banner hangs behind the stage, while info tables line the sides of the tent. Most prominent are those related to the military: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace, the G.I. rights Hotline. Also prominently displayed and represented were Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice. That city, one of my favorites, seemed to brought the largest non-Texas contingent to Crawford.
We had arrived at Camp Casey around 4:00 pm, still a blazing part of the day. Although I wouldn’t describe the conditions as pleasant (get back to me in late October), the tent definitely made them bearable until the sun set. There were still a couple of hours to kill before the program of speakers and music started, so we killed the time with eating, meandering, reading (still some of the early pages of Camus’ The Rebel, the analytical classic by the man whose life of compassionate, non-dogmatic, radical humanism rivals that of Gandhi, and whose premature, romantic death rivals that of James Dean, or (dare I say it?) Dale Earnhardt). (Parker sees the pitch, he connects, it could be! It might be! It is!, the grand slam of postmodern critically relativist cultural analysis, Camus, Gandhi, James Dean and Dale Earnhardt in the same sentence! The bar has been lifted, the gauntlet thrown down, a new day is dawning!)
I assume there is a program of speakers, if not music, every evening. I know that Marcia Ball, piano and all, had played the evening before, and Joan Baez played the next evening, after we back in Shreveport. Before our evening’s musical entertainment (that sounds regretfully superficial, but it’s past 11:00), there were several inspiring, motivating, humbling speakers sharing their thoughts and experiences. I’ll just try to encapsulate a few:
Kim drove from Homer, Alaska (literally the end of the road, according to my road atlas). She owns a store there, in that pristine Kenai Peninsula town of 3946, and she let people know that she was going to Crawford, and that she would provide materials for people to make messages of support. There were profound statements of rage, of grief, of Bob Dylan quotes, all delivered by Kim, who drove what looks to me to be roughly the same distance southeast to Crawford as it would be to drive northwest from, say, Columbia or maybe Venezuela. Speaking of Venezuela, did you hear what…., no, stay focused here.
Jeff Key was a walking recruiting poster for the Marines. Six foot three at least, cap at the correct angle on his shaved head, red Marines t-shirt with military-issue pants and boots, perfect posture, handsome smile. All that, and openly homosexual. A veteran of Iraq, he was now stationed at Camp Pendleton with the Marine Reserves, 17 months after intentionally violating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Key has written a play about his experience, which he performed later that night, as we were heading back east. He said, “I will never kill an innocent person for oil, period.” He said the Iraqis he met reminded him of the Alabama dirt farmers in his family: simple, proud, devout, caught in the middle between forces they have no control over.
Tamra Rosenleaf is from Helena, Montana, and her husband is due to deploy to Iraq in November. George Vaughn and Rhea Parker are from Germantown, Maryland, and their son’s ship barely escaped a direct hit from a missile fired Jordan. Dante Zapala is from Philadelphia, and his adopted brother Sherwood served in a unit searching for weapons of mass destruction. He was killed by shrapnel from an exploding building.
Charlie Anderson lost five members of his battalion fighting in what he calls Operation Iraqi Plunder, bringing nothing but death, pain and bloodshed. His marriage has ended since his return. Juan Torres is from San Antonio. His brother Daniel was killed in February of this year. It was his second deployment, because of the stop-loss policies implemented by the Pentagon in response to sinking recruitment numbers. Michelle Deford is from Salem, Oregon, and she lost her 37-year-old son in Iraq. She is now an active member of Gold Star Mothers for Peace.
These were just a few of the speakers on one night’s program at Camp Casey II. Their grief and confusion were so palpable, so much more authentic than the flight suit and the freedom fries and the smart aleck looking for wmd’s at the press conference and the call for crusade and the incessant intoning of freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom is slavery freedom freedom freedom freedom ignorance is strength freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom war is peace freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom is why they hate us.
After the last speaker, as the sun was setting, everyone gathered at the more modest display of 250-300 white crosses as Jeffrey Key the gay Marine played “Taps” on his trumpet, followed by the singing of a couple of hymns. It was an utterly fitting, moving transition.
After a brief pause, the evening’s musical entertainment commenced, provided by two native Texas sons, James McMurtry and Steve Earle. McMurtry is the son of Texas literary lion Larry McMurtry, and has been toiling in the country-folk coal mines for many years. I remember seeing him at a free show in a little café in the University of Texas student union just over 16 years ago, tall and rangy, laconic, a man of few spoken words, many sung. I think I still have a cassette of his Too Long in the Wasteland from that time, but I just hadn’t kept up otherwise. The show was understated for the most part, his lyrics moving assuredly through the landscape of post-prosperity America, its trailer parks and convenience stores and high school parking lots, always three-dimensional, always outraged, yet resigned, as well. The highlight was a song that I believe was titled, “Tough Around Here,” encapsulating the whole Bush plan for transforming the entire working class into cannon fodder for the new feudalism.
Finally, we were treated to Steve Earle, in one of the strangest serendipities of the whole trip. When my wife and I were planning the summer, one of our big plans was to attend the Folks Festival in Lyons, Colorado, August 19-21. Though I was excited about Todd Snider and Kasey Chambers and Taj Mahal and Joan Armatrading, Steve Earle is always a good reason for me to travel across the country. Finances and logistics just didn’t work out, however to a Steve Earle-less summer. Yet one of the rumors flying around just before we left for Crawford was that Steve Earle and Joan Baez were going to be around the same weekend we were.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me Steve Earle is the ultimate political troubadour, less inscrutable than Bob Dylan, less earnest than Phil Ochs, more musically complex than Woody Guthrie, more rootsy than Rage Against the Machine, more country than Ani Difranco, more prolific than Billy Bragg. Did I mention that he just got married, as well?
The night before we left, a friendly but somewhat skeptical neighbor remarked that he and his family were going to Texas the same weekend, but it was to have fun. I answered in all seriousness that I had every intention of doing the same, that I’m one of those weirdos who finds things like this fun. I think Steve Earle must be similar to me in that respect, because he was spending his goddamn honeymoon in a field in Central Texas playing for 300 non-paying customers. He had literally married alt-country sweetheart Alison Moorer two days earlier, played the Folks Festival (interestingly enough, staged by the same folks who do the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where my wife and I spent our honeymoon) the night before, and drove through the night and day to get to Camp Casey II.
Earle’s The Revolution Starts…Now was recorded in the Spring of 2004 and conceived very much as a document of dissent, against the war and the Bush Administration. Such albums (or books or films or paintings) are often utterly necessary in trying times, but often run the risk of didacticism and irrelevance after their “moment” has passed. Guernica is perhaps the greatest example of an artwork that both freezes a moment in historical space and time and transcends it. While I won’t make the case for Earle’s album in terms of pure timeless quality, I believe it falls into the same category, and selections from it made up much of Earle’s set.
He began with a rambling introduction to a cover of Eric Von Schmidt’s “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” famously covered by Bob Dylan on one of his early albums, accompanied by a rambling introduction completely out of character for today’s silent sage on stage. He was accompanied by Moorer on “Comin’ Around,” which features Emmylou Harris on The Revolution. The older “The Devil’s Right Hand” was prefaced by Earle’s explanation of his changing position on gun ownership in his own household. He said that such a change of heart was often derided as flip-flopping in the last presidential election, but that in the rest of the English-speaking world, it’s referred to as changing your mind or coming to your senses.
Steve Earle and Billy Bragg provide the most profound, often self-deprecating, always funny and erudite political commentary between songs of anyone in the business these days, and Saturday night in Crawford was no exception. It ranged from Eric von Schmidt on Custer’s Last Stand to Stephen Ambrose on Lewis and Clark and Manifest Destiny to Joan Baez’ performance at Woodstock, and always framed the following song that deepened its resonance, as if the setting and the mission and the moon so orange you just wanted to stick a straw in it and suck it dry weren’t enough already to send a depth charge of pure, mainlined collective selfless righteousness all the way down your spine and into those lower charkas.
“Rich Man’s War” could have been the call-to-arms anthem of the night’s previous speakers, while “Warrior” captures the dark side of the recruiting-poster romanticism, the feral predator who hates those who send him to war while simultaneously thanking them for the endless opportunities. Finally, “The Revolution Starts…Now” had everyone on their feet, exorcising the despair of the last election, making us all realize that our journey to the post-Bush era, replete as it is with danger and ambush, was taking a bold leap forward, in a field in Central Texas, on a muggy August night, surrounded by strangers.
That’s what I took away from Crawford, a sloughing off of the timid political leaders whose focus-group moral outrage always stops at the Wall Street edge; a throwing off of the expectations of the corporate media, who insist on running any antiwar leader through a button-down gauntlet of American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Institution/Kennedy School of Government Skull and Bones fraternity brothers hazing rituals before determining their worthiness; a casting off of any temptation to fall into a Karl Rove/Swift Boat house of mirrors, letting my patriotism and support for the troops be impugned by those who just want warm bodies for their charnel-house petroleum imperialism. We are the majority, my friends, and Cindy Sheehan and the other mothers and fathers and wives and children of the murdered and the maimed and the emotionally shattered have not sacrificed in vain. We are evolving, my friends, and the Bushes and Roves and Rumsfelds and Cheneys, and all that they represent, will soon be consigned to the tar pits of history.

Camp Casey, Part 1

2005-08-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Louisiana, mostly. Kindergarten in Gueydan, high school in Haughton, college in Lafayette and Baton Rouge. Lots of formative experiences, sex, drugs and rock and roll-wise (not to mention alcohol, Zydeco, plus a generous helping of Harlan Ellison, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson and other subversive literature). But my wife also ended up on the West Coast for seven years, and my political education moved into overdrive.
Portland, Oregon is a teeming hotbed of political subversion, where you can find matronly-looking housewives arguing Black Panther historical minutiae with young anarchists, where Ralph Nader is embraced with the messianic zeal reserved in the South for Dale Earnhardt. While there, in between generous helpings of Kropotkin and Philip K. Dick, I helped found a street newspaper (sold by homeless vendors) and a union local, served on the staff of a collectively-owned bookstore and volunteered in the quixotic 2004 presidential campaign of vegan peacenik Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that Portland was like a seven-year boot camp, learning skills and cultivating passions to then be put to use in the harsher, outside world, where openly gay city council members and worker-owned bike shops aren’t the norm. Places such as northwest Louisiana.
When it appeared a few weeks ago that the momentum of political dissent in this country was shifting to Crawford, a small town just south of Waco, Texas, just five hours away from Shreveport, there was no way I was going to miss being a part of it in some direct way. Crawford is, of course, the location of the vacation home of George W. Bush, where he has retired for five weeks(!) this summer. Unfortunately for him, his respite, and no doubt his sleep, have been haunted by the vigil of Cindy Sheehan and her supporters.
Sheehan, from Vacaville, California, is the mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in combat in Iraq in April of 2004. Although verbally supportive of Bush at the time, she has emerged as an outspoken opponent of his war and demands a second meeting with him to discuss that opposition. Her vigil has captured the attention of the nation, and thousands have flown, driven and otherwise made their way to the hastily-organized Camp Casey in Crawford to join her.
When I decided to go to Crawford myself, I recruited my good buddy Kevin Sandlin for the trip, knowing he wasn’t working during the weekend set aside, August 20-21. He quickly agreed, although there seemed to be some skepticism up until the morning of our departure. Wanting to make the most of the trip for those spending days and even weeks at Camp Casey, I tried to get the word out that I would be accepting donations of supplies needed at the camp – bottled water, coffee, fruit, batteries. Most of this was done through personal emails, although I also sent press releases to print, radio and television outlets. The Shreveport Times and the local ABC affiliate, KTBS Channel 3, both had some coverage, too late for donations, but important for getting the word out that someone from Shreveport was undertaking this. The t.v. news segment was aired several times the evening before and morning of our departure, and many people, family, friends, acquaintances and strangers, have commented about seeing it. Never have I truly realized the power of television before this experience.
My parents donated the use of their pickup truck and a Shell credit card, no small contribution in this summer of $2.50 plus gas prices. Kevin and I got on the road about 9:15 Saturday morning, with a backpack apiece plus three cases of bottled water, two packages of Community Coffee, bags of oranges and pears, and an assortment of batteries. “Born to Be Wild” was playing on the radio, and we discussed Captain America and Billy the Kid in Easy Rider, as we headed out on our decidedly less glamorous but hopefully more meaningful road trip. We hoped Jack Nicholson wouldn’t mind riding in the back of the truck.
The drive was decidedly no-frills, with gas, food and comfort stops consolidated as much as possible. I told my wife the culinary fare would be “Slim Jims and Ding Dongs” the whole way, and that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. We wanted to maximize our time in the 100-degree Central Texas heat, so there was no lingering over the chicken-fried steak and key lime pie at Cletus’ Truck Stop, although I did share with Kevin my fascination with truck stops, particularly the vast array of merchandise (does a truck driver really need an impulse-buy fake samurai sword, even if it’s endorsed by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.?)(and did you think you would be reading the name Dale Earnhardt twice in this account?).
After five hours, one chili dog, one custard-filled donut, and one vanilla crème soda, we arrived at the Crawford Peace House. My impression of Crawford is of a tiny crossroads of a town surrounded by sprawling, Texas-style ranches. The main intersection features a handful of restaurants and gas stations, featuring George and Laura souvenirs. A few houses are concentrated here, including the Peace House just across the railroad tracks. In every way, the house is an oasis.
Crawford, and its larger neighbor Waco, are about midway between Dallas and Austin. Too far west for the lush, piney woods landscape of East Texas, too far north for Texas Hill Country and too far east for the stark, lunar beauty of West Texas. We’re basically talking flat and treeless, with very little natural relief from the ever-present, baking August sun, except for a steady, subtle breeze. Unless one had the good fortune to be at the Peace House or at Camp Casey.
The Crawford Peace House was purchased by a visionary Dallas activist named Johnny Wolf a few years ago. Knowing that the Appointed One would be spending quite a bit of time in Crawford, Wolf figured there might be a time when the opposition would need to be taken there. May his name one day be remembered with the same reverence as that given to Paul Revere, Henry David Thoreau, Abbie Hoffman and other great patriots. Because damned if that sonofagun didn’t find the shadiest spot in all of central Texas to make his stand.
The house itself is architecturally nondescript, but was bustling with activity, with tents set up to accommodate media and distribution of t-shirts, bumper stickers and literature. A modest but unused labyrinth was set near the house, its suggested serenity almost mocking our ant-like activity, with shuttles leaving for the camps, supplies being unloaded into the two U-haul trucks rented for the occasion, and people marveling at the places others had traveled from to get to this place at this historical moment.
After some brief mingling and browsing, Kevin and I caught a shuttle to Camp Casey I. For those who haven’t been following this story with the same obsessiveness I have (and why not, I’d like to know?), the original vigil was set up in a ditch at a three-road intersection, about five miles from the Bush ranch. Several tents are still set up in what has to be (did you guess it?) the only extended patch of shade within visual range. The most moving and sobering aspect of Camp Casey I is the display of 1800+ white crosses honoring the U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq. This is the display that was run down by an irate local, an action which led directly to the temporary donation of a parcel of land even closer to the Bush ranch for use by the camp. This parcel is known as Camp Casey II, and its owner is either the cousin of the man who ran down the crosses or the cousin of another neighbor who fired his shotgun into the air to intimidate the campers.

To be continued...

Housecleaning

2005-08-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends. My big news right now is that I just returned from Crawford, Texas, where I my buddy Kevin Sandlin and I spent a day and night in Camp Casey, just outside of the Bush vacation ranch. I took voluminous notes, and will collect my thoughts in just a couple of days, but rest assured that the Crawford is Ground Zero for the movement to end this war. And this war will end, whether President Cheney, Co-president Rove and their administration and most of the politicians and the media want it to or not. The citizens are demanding it, the soldiers are demanding it, and those who think they are in control will find out very differently.
But for now, let me clear out some writings that haven't found a home yet. I'm beginning to think my first book will be called "Not Quite Ready for the Shreveport Times," given all the opinion pieces they pass on. This one refers to an article from two weeks ago, in those halcyon days when gas was $2.25 a gallon and we still cautiously told each other, "Kind of a mild summer, huh?"

The Sunday Times roundtable discussion “of Unity, Theology and Outreach,” featuring six local ministers, was simply baffling much of the time, both in structure and content. It is very difficult to believe that anything resembling the spiritual diversity of Shreveport-Bossier was even attempted, despite the claim that, “The Times invited pastors from across denominational, racial and geographic lines….”
First, there was no crossing of gender lines. All six ministers were men, although I can think of three area female ministers I’ve met, even though I am not a regular churchgoer.
Second, there was denominational diversity only within the confines of Christianity. There was no rabbi, no Muslim minister, no representative of any spiritual belief from India or the Far East.
Finally, in a community that is close to equally divided racially, the ratio of white to black ministers was 83% to 17%.
Now that the structural analysis is complete, let’s look at some of the content of the discussion. Most of the ministers state opinions about our society that simply border on the delusional. The presidency, Congress and the courts are increasingly dominated by fundamentalist Christians like Bush, Delay, Ashcroft, Frist, Santorum and Scalia. A non-believer would face a tremendous uphill battle running for city- or statewide office here. Yet many of these ministers would have us believe that the Red River separates Sodom and Gomorrah, not Shreveport and Bossier.
Some of the sweeping generalizations are simply mind-boggling. In the very first paragraph, Broadmoor Baptist Rev. Chuck Pourciau says, “…society is at its healthiest when religious influence is at its greatest.” Given that statement, which is not taken out of context, I would assume that that Rev. Pourciau’s ideal societies today would be Iran, Saudi Arabia, most of Afghanistan. Utopias of the past would include Spain under the Inquisition and Salem at the time of the Witch Trials, no doubt.
Let us not forget Iraq, either. As a new Iraqi constitution is being written, there is a good chance that women will face severe restrictions because of concessions to fundamentalist Islamic factions. Let’s consider that for a moment. Because of greater religious influence, Iraqi women could be facing a situation where they are legally less free than they were under the secular dictator Saddam Hussein. Incredible.
Under the topic heading “On combating secularism,” Our Savior Lutheran Rev. Craig Boehlke asserts, “We’re living in a post-Christian era. It’s post-modern. Nobody believes in truth anymore,” (italics mine). I would assure Rev. Boehlke that there is at least one Shreveport who believes in truth, which is why I spend so much of my time combating the political expression of fundamentalist religious hypocricy, whether it be the misogyny and indiscriminate murder of Osama Bin Laden or the lies, willful ignorance, election theft and imperialistic cryptofascism of George W. Bush.
Finally, Praise Temple Full Gospel Baptist Cathedral Bishop Larry Brandon says, “I was shocked two weeks ago when I was walking out of Books A Million and right in the front window they were displaying a book on witchcraft. Once upon a time in this area that would not have been so visible.” I have two issues with this statement. One, why is a criticism of witchcraft contained under “On combating secularism”? A serious practitioner of witchcraft is acting on spiritual, not secular, beliefs. There is nothing in the full statement that relates to secularism, only to what Bishop Brandon obviously would classify as a competing belief. Also, I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that Bishop Brandon is referring to the new Harry Potter book. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance. But my experience of Books A Million is of a bookstore catering to very conventional tastes, with a large selection of “inspirational” Christian titles. I don’t think the local covens, much less the serious secular intellectuals, are finding much of interest there, any more than they’ll find much of interest in the Times’ treatment of religious diversity.

Kids Do the Damndest Fucking Things

2005-08-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

It’s really fascinating how life with a five-year-old can be an intellectual and cultural, as well as emotional, roller coaster. On the one hand, there’s the responsibility I feel to do what I can to make the world she will inherit a better, more just place, a responsibility that informs my passionate political beliefs and actions. These actions are, of course, largely beyond her comprehension, but she’s been pretty game as she’s been dragged from Ralph Nader rally to Dennis Kucinich rally to Justice for Janitors rally to May Day parade, not to mention numerous crayon-dulling meetings.
On the other hand, there are the countless hours spent brushing the manes and tails of plastic ponies, and playing doctor to a constant parade of sick stuffed animals, all of whom have been running a fever of 109 degrees for the past several days. As I am once again registering shock at the severity of the fever, cautioning against dehydration and asking about other symptoms, my mind is inevitably wandering to concepts like impeachment, participatory democracy, dialectical materialism and Karl Rove the Demon Toad. But it seems to make a little girl very happy, and I’ll probably be doing it all over again tomorrow.
Fortunately, there are also times when our passions converge, and there have been a couple of cinematic experiences lately that I don’t think I would have experienced, or enjoyed so unabashedly, without Zora’s presence. Both are documentaries about water-based creatures, and both convey a sense of perspective I occasionally need to recharge my emotional batteries for the ongoing political battles.
The first is March of the Penguins, currently in wide release. The second is Dolphins, playing at Sci-Port’s Imax theater. Both feature animals who are fairly comfortable around humans, so a pretty intimate look at both individual and social lives is gleaned. The title of the former refers to the grueling trek undertaken by emperor penguins, who travel dozens of miles, at least, to breeding grounds partially sheltered from the excruciating Arctic winters. Mating, egg laying and care (much of it done by the male), birth and nurturing of the young, are all accomplished while the parents teeter on the brink of starvation.
The dolphins, at least, seem to have the good sense to make their homes along the coasts of places like the Bahamas, Argentina and New Zealand, all rather conducive to those sweeping, breathtaking shots running the length of the dome-shaped Imax screen. I tell you, if there is even one mating pair of dolphins left after we manage to consume and vote Republican ourselves into extinction, I think dolphins (and probably whales, too) will be able to build a pretty advanced civilization down there. I remember dolphin researcher and massive hallucinogenic drug taker John Lilly concluding from his research that dolphins are at least as smart as humans, and this makes a god, brief and visually overwhelming case for their use of complex language, their adaptation to new situations, and even an ability to (here's my Dave Barry moment) program a vcr. Thank you, thank you, I'd like to thank the academy and all the little people.
All told, it seems really vital to spend a few fleeting moments cinematically exploring the stark moonscape of the Arctic and the clear emerald seas of the Bahamas with some of our animal friends. It's also fun to imagine my little one swimming with the dolphins or bundled up at an Arctic research station, in addition to the usual fantasies of her going Woodward and Bernstein on corrupt politicians or arguing a case before the Supreme Court or scoring the winning goal at the Olympics and then giving the peace sign during the playing of the national anthem. Ah, so many memories.

Nights of fun, Days of Dissent

2005-08-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's past 10:00 on Friday night, and the Red's head is pretty much recovered from the punishment inflicted on it last night in the name of good, clean fun. The night started with a too-brief stop at the opening of the Northwest Louisana Art Gallery's annual exhibit at coolspace, downtown on 710 Texas St. While I will try to provide some impressions of the exhibit itself soon, the opening was a rollicking success. Sushi was provided as the main course, in addition to the usual art opening h'ors deuvres, and soy sauce and wine and beer were flowing freely. Kudos to Noma and Chris Fowler-Sandlin, as well as the rest of the artspace staff, for the work in putting in together. They really know how to put the art in party. Thank you, thank you, that was a clever turn of phrase, I know, it comes from my years of serious mind training, like Vulcan shit, you know what I'm saying?
Unfortunately, our party couldn't stay long, as we were off the Rabb's Steakhouse in Ruston to see Dwight Yoakam perform. It was my first time to see him, and my first time to enjoy the ambience of Rabb's, and both were utterly fantastic.
Yoakam has been recording for over twenty years now, having cut his teeth and paid his dues in the Southern California scene that produced Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, as well as roots/cowpunk luminaries like John Doe and Dave Alvin and their bands X and the Blasters. Yoakam, Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett jump-started country music almost simultaneously in the mid-1980's, bringing very different sensiblities but very similar levels of integrity and respect for the history of the genre, as well as an aversion to the slick Nashville sound that still dominates the undemanding corporate pallette.
Rabb's provides an outdoor venue, basically a field about evenly divided between grass and concrete, packed full of cowboys and cowgirls, Louisiana Tech students, and anyone else ready for the concert event of the season for our area. The evening was surprisingly pleasant, particularly as what breeze there was roamed unhindered about my legs. Despite the misgivings of some, yours truly, the Red River Red, fearless in fashion as well as the struggle for justice, wore his utilikilt to a country music concert in Ruston. Not only were there no unpleasant confrontations, verbal or otherwise, but compliments abounded, and many of the women couldn't take their eyes off of me, particularly by the eighth or ninth can of Budweiser and the grandiosity thereby supplied.
Yoakam came out in his trademark cowboy hat perched just above his eyes, denim shirt with lengthy white fringe, and jeans that hugged him skintight all the way from his tiny hiney through his skinny legs. He ran through original material from the full span of his career, with the crowd favorites appearing to be the older stuff, particularly "Honky Tonk Man" and "Guitars, Cadillacs." Anyone familiar with Yoakam also knows he has a particular talent for covers of both country and rock favorites, and this night's offerings included Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and Waylon Jennings' "Stop the World," as well as an encore that included "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."
Close to full-service bars were set up at numerous convenient spots on the grounds, meaning very short lines for the Budweisers I obliviously kept pounding into a body that is probably about 15 years past being able to assimilate them without ill effects. But it did make for some pretty uninhibited dancing on the Red's part, utilikilt flapping joyously.
Ah, summer in north Louisiana. Cutting-edge art and timeless country music in one night, 50 miles or so away from each other. I am home, my friends, I am home.

No excuses, many justifications

2005-07-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone, many apologies for my absense of late. Although I don't have excuses, we have had two family birthdays, sandwiched by two trips out of town, within the last 14 days.
The first trip out of town was to Okemah, Oklahoma, for the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. I will hopefully have a detailed post son, but my first attempt at trying to encapsulate it was just getting out of control, so I put it aside until the other events were out of the way. But what a fantastic festival. I'll leave it at that for now.
Well, the Red River Red turned 37 eleven days ago, and our daughter Zora (should I call her Little Pink) turned five six days ago. The motif for the party reflected her current obsession with My Little Ponies, otherwise known to her mother and myself as the Steeds of Satan, ushering in the corporate apocalypse with their braided manes and pastel coats. This too shall pass, right? Hell, I once owned an Air Supply tape, and I turned out a committed foe of Kenny G, George Bush, the New York Yankees and all of the other personifications of pure evil loosed upon the world in our time.
It's past midnight, the wife and daughter are back tomorrow, and my 48 hours of bachelorhood are almost over. Laundry is done and put away, dishes are washed, books and cds and records are put away, and I'm exhausted. Vacation's over, and I promise, with my hand on a stack of Baseball Encyclopedias, that a steady stream of wit, trenchant analysis, barely contained rage and assorted whimsy will follow very soon. Peace, y'all.

Big Weekend in River City

2005-07-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those weekends where you were on the go constantly, receiving intellectual & artistic stimulation at such a pace that you ended up energized rather than exhausted by the end of it? Well, that's exactly what yours truly, the Red River Red, experienced this past weekend.
Gee, Red, where were you?, you're probably asking. New Orleans, Dallas, the Left Bank of Paris, Scotland for the G8 protests, Provence, Tuscany, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Kathmandu, Minden, Stonewall? As a matter of fact, dear readers, I never left the cozy confines of Shreveport, and still didn't take advantage of all the cultural opportunities offered.
The Red and family began our day with the opening of the Multicultural Center of the South downtown. Although the lack of food was a major oversight, the exhibits portraying the cultural contributions of immigrants from Africa, China, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Greece, Scotland and many, many other places were informative, often interactive, and integrated the features of the former bank in very creative ways. The former room-sized safe is a bright and inviting children's area, although it's hard to tell which toys are just for display and which are for play. But there is a good amount of room for events, lectures, panel discussions and the like. I don't know what ongoing programming plans there are, but it has the potential to be an important place for cross-cultural communication in a community that seems to lack places for such dialogue.
After a brief lunch at the conveniently located Artspace cafe, I went to to Tower Books for the book signing by Tracy Laird, who has written Louisiana Hayride: Radio & Roots Music Along the Red River. I had a chance to speak to the author for a few minutes. Laird is a Shreveport native and Caddo Magnet graduate with a Ph. D. from the University of Michigan. Despite that, the book is very readable (or at least the first 50 pages), while Dr. Laird herself is very personable and down-to-earth. A full review of the book will be in this space before, and very likely an interview as well. She takes a big-picture view of the Louisiana Hayride, a jumping-off point for innovative roots musicians from Elvis Presley to Hank Williams to Johnny Cash to Johnny Horton to Faron Young, among many, many others. Racial, technological, economic, geographic and religious factors, among others, figure into her analysis, and as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to get back to the book.
Later in the afternoon, several of the Red River Red clan attended a Moveon.org house party, at which several of us discussed the upcoming Supreme Court nomination and proper responses. Of course, there's always the chance that Bush will nominate someone whose allegiance to the Constitution is as great as his or her allegiance to (take your pick: fundamentalist jihad-style Christianity, anti-worker corporate oligarchy, or just unadulterated jackboot crypto-fascism. It could happen, right? But just in case Karl Rove doesn't end up in a prison jumpsuit in time to scare some sense into Bush's stegosaurus-sized peanut brain, we should be prepared for Bush to not have the moral compass necessary to nominate the equivalent of Hugo Black or Thurgood Marshall.
Finally, the wife and I ended up at Artspace's Coolspace in the evening for a performance by the fantastically original Jr. III. I don't know where these guys have been hiding, but it's time to shine a light on them. Guitar, upright bass and drums, assisted ably by Dirty Redd on trumpet. Musically, they reminded me of the combinations heard on the soundtrack album of the Hot Spot, a neo-noir directed by Dennis Hopper in the 1980's and starring Don Johnson. John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal and Roy Rogers play in various permutations, with no lyrics except for some suggestive moaning and grunting by Hooker at various points. As he always did brilliantly, Davis provides an indispensable but subtle elegance to the guttural guitars, and a similar dynamic played out with Jr. III. I never caught the names of the personnel, but the lyrics of the guitarist and lead singer reminded me of Morphine, if they had come out of a Delta blues tradition. Add in some outstanding covers of Willie Dixon and Leadbelly, and the deltas of the Big Muddy ain't got nothing on the Great Raft.

4th of July sentiments

2005-07-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings, everyone. I hope your weekend has been as enjoyable as the Red's, spent with friends and family enjoying some of the finer things: good food, adult beverages, music, baseball, wonderful conversation and deep personal connections. This is the last opinion piece I submitted to our local fishwrap. No response. I'm hitting about .333 with my submissions to them, which is respectable, I suppose. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts:

There is much to like in Alan English’s column in Sunday’s Times (6/26). He has a good grasp of the constitutional complexities of the flag-burning issue, a grasp much more nuanced than that of most members of Congress. However, there is also much intellectual dishonesty in the column, and he must be called to task for that.
It truly is a blessing that so many are willing to fight to defend our constitutional freedoms. To in any way equate a fight for constitutional freedoms with support for the current commander-in-chief, however, is a disservice to every American, in or out of uniform, who is working to bring the Constitution to life, to make those words more than just hollow rhetoric for all Americans, Iraqis, Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and others who get caught in the crossfire between the Bush Administration and their fellow enemies of freedom. From the hijacked 2000 election onward, the actions of this president have made opposition to him, and eventual impeachment and imprisonment, the only honorable course of action for committed citizens, and the truest sign of support for the troops.
I would ask all those in uniform to heed the words of 26-year Special Forces veteran (Vietnam, Panama, Haiti) Stan Goff. In his commentary “On Loyalty: An Open Letter to US Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he refers to Vietnam:
“(One) thing many soldiers did was become part of the political resistance at home. They looked at this question of looking out for their buddies and for fellow soldiers in the short term, (weighed against) staying in a barbaric and immoral war in the long term. And they realized the best thing they could do for their buddies - not as soldiers, but as human beings – was to enlist in the opposition to the war and bring it to an end.
“In the process, many of them discovered that it took a lot more endurance and a lot more courage to oppose the war than it did to demonstrate that macho bullshit they were expected to display as they continued to do terrible things to those other human beings whose country they occupied.
“Here’s how you can exercise a deeper loyalty to the troops there now, and to all those who will continue to go as long as this obscenity continues:
“Do everything you can to stop the war.
“Question every order, and base those questions on the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare. Let them see you keeping a detailed journal of your experience. Send your stories home in letters. Open up discussions about the legitimacy of the war when you are in your billets, even if it does spark controversy. Spread around information you get about the war from sources other than those loud-mouthed news-mannequins on FOX“ (stangoff.com, 6/12/05).
I would encourage everyone to read the entire commentary, as well as others by Goff. I will be flying my American flag on July 4, as I do everyday. I will remember those who have sacrificed defending the Constitution, whether it was at Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Iwo Jima or the Battle of the Bulge. But I will also honor those who, like Thoreau, Eugene Debs, Ralph Chaplin, Father Dan Berrigan, Abbie Hoffman, Brian Wilson and Marla Ruzicka, who have sacrificed in their struggles against the commanders-in-chief who have gotten this country into war after of imperialism, colonialism and other concepts antithetical to our Constitution, including Polk, McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush. Happy Fourth of July to you all.

Workers of the world, unite!

2005-06-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is the second essay I've written for the Steelworkers union newsletter down at the Libbey plant here in Shreveport. I thought y'all might like it as well.

The IWW: 100 Years of the Working Class Fight
By Michael Parker

June 27 will mark the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World, the most militant labor union this country has produced. Though the long-term effectiveness of the union is questionable (particularly after many leaders were jailed during the repressive Red Scare after U.S. entry into World War I), the Wobblies (as they are popularly known) have contributed a great deal to working-class culture, and their legacy is one that still appeals to many uninspired by their more bureaucratic AFL-CIO counterparts. Their story is a colorful one, and one that demands some review.
Delegates from several unions and socialist factions gathered in Chicago in late June of 1905, representing a little over 140,000 workers. Although a wide spectrum of ideology was represented, the common theme was a dissatisfaction with the then-AFL model of craft unionism, meaning the organization of skilled workers to the exclusion of others in the same industry: “…the victory of the United Mine Workers in the great coal strike of 1902 revealed what labor could do when organized along industrial lines These lessons were not lost on the IWW leaders, who proceeded to organize all workers, regardless of skill, sex, or race, into industrial unions,” (Boyer and Morais 164-5).
Many of the larger-than-life figures of the turn-of-the-century labor movement were there, including Eugene Debs, a founder of the American Railway Union and five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate, capturing almost one million votes in 1912; miners union agitator Mother Jones, called “the most dangerous woman in America” by President Theodore Roosevelt; Big Bill Haywood, a one-eyed bear of a man, the secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners; and Lucy Parsons, the ex-slave and widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons (see last month’s newsletter).
Volumes have been written by and about the Wobblies and their struggles on behalf of the working class, and this short essay will do little justice to them. However, I would like to touch on just a few issues relating to them: the murder of Frank Steunenberg, the free speech fights of the West, the Lawrence strike of 1912, Centralia, and the IWW in the South, particularly in Louisiana.
Frank Steunenberg, a former union man, was the Democratic governor of Idaho from 1897-1901. In 1898, he requested federal troops to break a silver and lead miners strike in the Couer d’Alene region, imprisoning 1,200 in barbed-wire encampments for months without charges. A man of many enemies, Steunenberg was killed by a bomb wired to his gate on December 30, 1905. With the flimsiest of evidence, a conspiracy was claimed, and, less than eight months after the founding of the IWW in Chicago, Big Bill Haywood and two WFM associates were illegally kidnapped in Denver and brought to Idaho to stand trial. That trial finally began in May of 1907, with legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow representing the accused and sitting Idaho Senator William Borah prosecuting. On July 29, following Darrow’s eleven-hour address to the jury, all three defendants were found not guilty. Nevertheless, priceless resources had been drained, and one of the IWW’s most effective and charismatic leaders was out of commission for over a year and a half.
Factional struggles within the IWW led to many defections, particularly among miners and socialists, around 1908. Migratory workers, many of them recent immigrants, now became the backbone of the union, spreading the gospel of industrial unionism in the great forests of the Pacific Northwest and the agricultural areas of the Great Plains, Rocky Mountain states and the Far West. Recruitment of new members was more likely to take place in lumber or hobo camp or on a street corner than in a union hall. A common tactic was to place a soapbox orator on a street corner in Spokane or Missoula or Fresno, testing the waters of the local police and political establishment. If the first one was arrested, there would be another waiting to take his place. Meanwhile, the word would get out that there was a free speech fight brewing, and Wobblies who were close enough would drop what they were doing and make their way to there. The numbers would discourage all-too-common vigilante actions on the part of company-hired goons, and law enforcement resources would be stretched to the breaking point by the overflowing jails and the resulting food, water and sanitation needs. The decentralized structure and freewheeling lifestyles of individual Wobblies contributed greatly to the success of this tactic, primarily from 1909-1912.
The 1912 textile workers strike was unique in the annals of IWW history, and one of the most interesting and inspiring in American working-class history. As a Massachusetts mill town, it was far from the Wobblies’ popular base in the West. And many women were members of IWW Local 20, unusual for the very masculine, even macho union. However, the ethnic mix was very indicative of IWW patterns, and of the demographic patterns of the United States was in the early 20th century:

…When they struck it was as if the great American melting pot had boiled over, for they represented at least twenty-five different nationalities. The largest groups were the 7000 Italians, 6000 Germans, 5000 French-Canadians and an equal number of English-speaking Canadians, 2500 Poles, 2000 Lithuanians, 1100 Franco-Belgians, and 1000 Russians, Greeks, Letts and Turks (Renshaw, p. 100).

The strike in Lawrence was called within 24 hours of a 32 cents/week pay cut. State militia were called in after machinery and windows at one mill were broken. The disruption of an IWW parade resulted in the shooting death of a female striker. Big Bill Haywood and other prominent Wobblies came to offer assistance. And the strike leadership began to evacuate children of strikers to sympathetic foster homes elsewhere, causing public officials to declare the practice illegal: “When the IWW continued the practice the police on February 24 attacked a group of women and children at the Lawrence railroad station, beating and clubbing them as they were arrested and hauled off in a National Guard truck,” (Fusfeld, p. 53). The publicity of this brutal act spurred investigations by state and federal government, and the companies soon settled on an offer of a pay raise, rather than a cut.
After the U.S. entered World War I, the Woodrow Wilson administration conflated opposition to the war with inciting revolt against the United States government, and hundreds of labor leaders, socialists, anarchists, pacifists and other “enemies of the state” were harassed, imprisoned (like Eugene Debs), and deported (like Bill Haywood). The IWW was rendered a shell of its former self, and some paid the ultimate price.
Wesley Everest was a lumberjack and World War I veteran in Centralia, Washington, a rare holdout of Wobbly strength. The local lumber trust planned to break the back of the IWW, and the American Legion was chosen as the instrument. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1919, the Legion parade passed the IWW union hall. Though no one knows who fired first, gunshots broke out. The building was stormed, and three Legion men were killed. Wesley Everest, in uniform, “…told a comrade, ‘I fought for democracy in France and I’m going to fight for it here. The first man that comes in this hall, why, he’s going to get it’” (Renshaw, p. 164).
After fleeing the hall, Everest was chased by a mob to a river, where he turned around and fired his pistol five times, killing another veteran. He was overpowered, and later that night castrated, hanged and riddled with bullets. Hundreds of Wobblies were arrested in Washington soon after, with six convicted of second-degree murder under highly suspicious circumstances. They were all paroled after a later inquiry, while Everest’s killers were never brought to trial.
The history of the IWW in the South and in Louisiana was never so dramatic or widespread, but there are mentions in Patrick Renshaw’s definitive history The Wobblies. The Saw Mill and Lumber Workers of Lake Charlesis described as “the basis of some remarkably stable unions in that state” (p. 76), while white and African-American loggers joined together as the Southern District of the Forest and Lumber Workers’ Union in 1912. Remarkably, they retained solidarity across racial lines during a lockout “which shut down forty-six mills and hit the whole Louisiana lumber industry,” (p.121). Incidentally, the class fervor of the next few months probably played a role in Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs receiving 5249 votes in Vernon and Winn parishes, more than the incumbent Republican William Taft.
This has been little more than a thumbnail sketch of the Industrial Workers of the World. There has been no detailed discussion of syndicalism, no mention of Joe Hill or Frank Little or Utah Phillips or Paterson or Everett. I haven’t talked about the current activities of the Wobblies, which can be explored at iww.org. I haven’t even talked about anything that’s happened in the last 86 years, when CIO unions like the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the National Maritime Union have tried to strike a balance between principled militance and practical day-to-day organizing, applying the lessons of the IWW. Nevertheless, those lessons are still vivid, still alive and still very much necessary. Solidarity forever.

Works Cited

Boyer, Richard O., and Morais, Herbert M. Labor’s Untold Story. United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Pittsburgh, PA: 1955. (in print)

Fusfeld, Daniel R. The Rise & Repression of Radical Labor. Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company. Chicago: 1980.

Renshaw, Patrick. The Wobblies: The Story of Syndicalism in the United States. Anchor Books. Garden City, NY: 1967. (in print)

Michael Parker is a local freelance writer and a founding former member of ILWU Local 5 in Portland, Oregon. He is also the host of “Invisible Republic” on KSCL, 91.5, which alternates music with news and political commentary about social and workplace struggles for democracy, justice and dignity.

Early Summer Reading Review

2005-06-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

Well, the Red River Red needs to return some books to the fine people at the Shreve Memorial Library tomorrow, so why don’t we review some recent reading.
Two just-finished tomes stand out, for the insights they offer into today’s America through very different vessels and messengers. David Shipler’s The Working Poor: Invisible in America and Marc Cooper’s The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas were both published in 2004 by veteran journalists. Shipler, a New York Times foreign and diplomatic correspondent of 22 years, won the Pulitzer Prize for Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, while Nation contributing editor Cooper’s Pinochet and Me was a riveting memoir of his time as a translator for Chilean President Salvador Allende.
As a democratically-elected Socialist head of state in 1970, Allende aroused the wrath of ITT and Pepsi, as well as the Nixon Administration. On September 11, 1973, a CIA-assisted coup was launched, resulting in Allende’s murder and the ascension of General Augusto Pinochet, illustrating the point that Osama Bin Laden has nothing on Nixon and Kissinger when it comes to terrorism associated with September 11.
Like other North Americans and Europeans enamored with the humanistic revolutionary politics of socialist Chile, Cooper had to flea the country and Pinochet’s murderous thugs, receiving no help from the treacherous U.S. embassy. This is a man who’s seriously earned his leftist street cred.
Shipler’s book is exhaustively researched, including interviews with dozens of individuals and families working and living in or on the edge of poverty, as well as their employers, social workers, the teachers of their children, and others intimately involved in their lives. The Working Poor raises numerous questions, the most fundamental and underlying being, why are there working people in the richest society in the history of the world living on the economic margins? The answers are complex and multi-faceted, and Shipler shies away from none of them: inadequate health coverage, rapacious corporations valuing shareholders over employees, deteriorating public education and transportation, multigenerational welfare dependence, sexual abuse of and pregnancies among teenage girls, the challenges of being an illegal immigrant in this country. While these obstacles can be overcome, and are regularly, Shipler makes the point that such challenges are not usually faced in an isolated manner, that they tend to feed into each either, making forward progress practically impossible.
The strength of this book, and I would assume a strength of Shipler’s previous work, is the depth of immersion in the lives of the people he writes about. People like New Hampshire residents Tom and Kara King are followed over the course of years as small victories and larger tragedies regularly collide with each other, as the lack of affordable health care and a living wage for well-done blue-collar work (not to mention a fighting union) take their toll.
Whatever issues I have with this book are mere quibbles, but I do believe Shipler generalizes a bit much about the inevitable nature of corporate globalization, and the short-sightedness of those protesting it. Perhaps he’s reading his New York Times colleague Thomas Friedman’s columns to uncritically, but I think the current situation in Bolivia, for instance, where a coalition of indigenous coca growers, tin miners and other trade unionists, students and others has forced two presidents from power in less than three years and is very consciously fighting the multinational corporations, the International Monetary Fund, and their other enemies among the globalized elite.
When the working poor can manage to escape their situation, Marc Cooper makes a strong case that they’re heading for Las Vegas. The Last Honest Place in America is a more freewheeling, personal work, written by someone with an obvious fondness for the gambling mecca, but still meticulously researched, particularly at the blackjack tables.
Cooper, a Southern California native and resident, has been visiting Las Vegas since he was a child, and his account of historic personalities and casinos is enlivened by personal recollection. He is nostalgic for the Rat Pack days, counterintuitively celebrating the days when gamblers wore suits and faced each other as well as the dealer in games of skill, and bemoaning the current proletarianization of Vegas, with its Wheel of Fortune slot machines and scale-model volcanoes.
Cooper interviews politicians, scholars, dealers, homeless advocates and others trying to penetrate the heart of the city that Americans should have rejected after 9-11, when we were told that irony and excess were dead. What he finds is a place where a version of the American Dream still exists, and even thrives. Nick Kallos’ Casino Gaming School claims to place 80 percent of graduates in jobs in a growth industry immediately after finishing a 100-hour course. How many colleges, universities or technical schools can make similar claims in this economy? And despite a conservative business and political climate, Las Vegas claims a high rate of union density, its fighting working class spirit embodied for Cooper by strip club dancer Andrea Hackett, a former machinist, draft card-burning hippie, and, oh, yeah, a former man named George. Also a self-identified socialist, Hackett founded the Las Vegas Dancers Alliance in 2002, with the eventual goal of forming a full-fledged union. I know dancers in the Bay Area have attempted the same thing in the recent past, but I’m afraid I don’t the current status of either effort, ande Cooper doesn’t shed any light.
The only obvious issue Cooper doesn’t touch on is the ecological cost of maintaining the artificial environment of Las Vegas, with its lush suburban lawns, multiple golf courses and extravagant casino fountains. With the end of cheap oil possibly on the near horizon, the day of reckoning for this desert oasis could come much sooner than for other American cities. But hey, Thirst and Loathing in Las Vegas will have to wait for a later day, and Marc Cooper's book is a fine addition to the literature of the city until that time.