Empire Records

NSP Meditations , , ,

I was browsing used CDs at a Christian thrift store in Trump country. Finding CDs in this random manner is the only way I “buy”and listen to “new” music.

A title caught my eye: Empire Records. It was the soundtrack to the 1995 movie that starred the otherworldly Liv Tyler and and a cast of young beautiful people who worked at an edgy independent record company. Or so that’s all I remember from reading about it or seeing an ad when it came out.

I scanned the track list on the back but the graphic design was so terribly jumbled that I could barely read anything.

Did I feel like a blast from the 90s? That was a formative decade for me, the one where I escaped Portland and became a writer.

I never saw the movie, then or later, but one of the staffers of the school paper I was advising in 1995 reviewed Empire Records and panned it with particular venom. I remember that writer well. She could have been one of the greatest writers in Oregon history, but did not. That, however, is another story. Maybe I will tell it one day, since she left behind her collection of short stories and non fiction and I’ve hung on to them for all these years.

So here was the soundtrack for sale for a buck. Why not? Maybe there was a nugget of a track on the CD that would change my life. Purchases in thrift stores tend to do that to me. Maybe thinking about the long lost writer would motivate me to do something with her writing.

Maybe listening to mid 90s so-called “alternative” (remember when they called it that as a badge of honor?) music might jog something in my creative mind. One never can tell when, where and how inspiration will occur.

I bought the CD and left the store. I popped the disc into the player and hit the road.

Song one came on. I recognized it as a minor hit by the Gin Blossoms, the Kenny G/Casper Milquetoast of alternative rock from the era. I wonder whatever happened to them? Probably playing the Midwestern state fair circuit and private parties for middling tech millionaires.

Song two came on. I recognized it as a substantially bigger hit for the Cranberries. Remember them? I think their female lead singer died a few years ago from chronic alcoholism or some related rock and roll ailment. I never liked the band, but I recall a male student from the mid 90s who was obsessed with the lead singer and knew all the lyrics to the Cranberries’ hits. It always seemed strange to me, but as I think about it today, it is far more interesting than obsessing over lead singers from Soundgarden or Pearl Jam.

I wandered rural back roads and the tracks kept playing. It was all fairly light stuff and there wasn’t another hit. I did hear a b-side from one of my favorite bands, Cracker. The rest of the tracks were totally foreign to me, and I got the feeling they were throwaways by a record company (A&M) of new ‘alternative” bans to the movie’s producers to perhaps break one of them out. None did.

Still, that soundtrack strolled me down mid 90s memory land and my teaching career back then. It was all gloriously pre internet and cell phone, and in fact I remember the first email I ever sent, in 94 or 95, to a teacher who was sitting next to me in my very first internet training. I am happy I got to live through both eras so I can make comparisons. I wonder if people said that sort of thing when television or the automobile came along and then took over.

The Empire Records soundtrack ended. Over the next few days I listened to it again and every time it jogged a new memory from that era: people, girlfriends, students, music, Portland.

A week later, I woke up at two in the morning with an entire short story practically written in a dream, and it was about that mid 90s era, “alternative music” and a sophomore kid named James. That’s what the story is going to be called, “James.” I’ve already started writing it up and I think it has the potential be the best story I’ve ever written. Aren’t the 90s raging in nostalgia circles these days?

All that creative inspiration from a CD purchased for a buck in a thrift store. I have a lot of thrift stories like that. I sense there may be a book in them.

I may have to track down the movie. I’m sure it’s out there on VHS somewhere in a thrift store in Oregon.

The Storytelling Genius of Gunsmoke

NSP Meditations, Writing

A new ritual with Dad has emerged in recent months: watching an episode of Gunsmoke in the early afternoon, and perhaps sipping a vodka tonic or whiskey, neat.

I watched the program as a kid, but only remember the hour-long, color episodes toward the end of the show’s long run. (It ran from 1955-75.)

The shows Dad and I have watched are the half hour black-and-white episodes featuring Dennis Weaver as Chester, the gimp deputy. These episodes are masterpieces of taut storytelling and the antithesis of today’s bloated network and streaming shows that get bogged down with flashbacks, back stories, excessive character development and digital wizardry.

Gunsmoke comes out blazing with rot gut whiskey, horses, gun play, fisticuffs in the Long Branch Saloon. The violence is brutal but not gruesome and fetishized like you see ad nauseam today. Gunsmoke gets into within 15 seconds of the title sequence and doesn’t let up. Every episode moves like a blast from a Colt 45. I would recommend any aspiring or experienced writer view some of the episodes and consider the brevity and pacing of these narratives as something worth emulating in storytelling. I know I’ve learned a technique and strategy or two to enliven future writing projects by watching Marshall Matt Dillon maintain law and order in Dodge City. I think sometimes it is good writing practice to move everything on as fast as you can. That’s not widely taught by the writing pros.

I also enjoy dissecting the episodes with Dad. We always wager a few bucks every now and then on whether or not Matt will shoot and kill someone. It all makes for an entertaining and instructive 30 minutes in the early afternoon. And the good guys always win. It’s a Western!

Oregon Tavern Age: Brownsville Newspaper

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age , , , , , ,

It was just past noon. My tour of the excellent local history museum was complete and my body needed sustenance. I walked into the Brownsville Saloon in Brownsville on a Friday with a copy of the town (population 1871) newspaper, The Times, stuffed in my back pocket.

I had never visited Brownsville before. The only thing I knew about it was that a legendary rock and roll band fronted by by a woman from the late 60s and early 70s called Wings of Freedom had allegedly originated from this smart-looking Willamette Valley town. The band had played at Vortex I, the 1970 state sponsored rock festival held outside of Estacada that was and still is, the only event of its kind in American history. I had written a book about the festival that came out in 2004. I’d never heard any of the band’s music, but they were said to have cut some 45’s that made it up the regional PNW rock chart back in the day. Imagine that, a PNW rock chart of entirely independent music that was played on independent PNW radio stations with a stoned DJ spinning the records. Incredible.

The Times became known to me during my visit to the museum. I was told it could be procured at the nearby pharmacy/Hallmark gift shop down the street. Stepping into that non-chain pharmacy was like traveling back 75 years in time. To complete the time travel I purchased two post cards of Brownsville at 20 cents apiece. A couple people I knew were going to mighty surprised soon when they received a post card because I think I might the last person in Oregon still sending them.

The joint was packed and convivial. It was a Friday after all. Two OTAs were hitting it hard at the bar. Some construction workers played pool and drank beers. Most of the video slot terminals were occupied and rolling in operating revenue for the state.

I found a seat at a back counter and placed the newspaper on a slab of wood. I ordered a fish sandwich and craft malt liquor.

Molding classic rock played softly through the speakers. The joint’s interior intrigued me: an old log cabin that made up part of a wall; a classic and towering back bar undoubtedly shipped around Cape Horn before the Panama Canal was dug; a piano dying for someone to play boogie woogie; red and gold flowered wallpaper that looked straight out of a B Western brothel!

I started reading a weekly, eight-page newspaper that cost a buck per edition. Vol 8 of its 135th years in existence—135 years! Subscription was 29 dollars a year. It was owned and operated by a husband and wife team with the last name of Parrish.

The lead front page story was about a 118-year old time capsule recently opened at the hardware store. Another story feted the coaches of the year from the local high school. There were obituaries and press releases and and a letter to the editor raging against Pandemic protective measures that was cribbed straight from Fox News talking pointsand didn’t demonstrate a single original thought. There was a crossword puzzle about the US Presidents that surprisingly didn’t list a clue about the one President who fornicated with a porn star while his wife was pregnant nor the one who was so fat he got stuck in a bath tub.

There was also a list of Honor Roll students and dozens of local businesses advertising their business cards to support a local newspaper.

It warmed my heart to read The Times in a dive bar. I could see room from improvement but it was doing well enough, and indeed, that it even existed at all was a miracle considering how many thousands of rural newspapers across America have folded in the last decade, or been gutted by small and large media corporations executing the novel journalistic approach of publishing rural newspapers without any reporters or editors or ad reps or page designers actually living in the communities where the newspapers exist. It’s happening all over Oregon, but not in Brownsville.

I thought about the Parrish couple and their publishing this newspaper 52 times of year in the age of the Internet and smart phones and social media and making a living from it. They had my dream job. I’ve always wanted to own and operate a small town Oregon newspaper with a wife or partner or dog. Where is that woman?????? She’s got to be out there somewhere, marooned in some big city, waiting for a monumental change in her life that might entail her writing a news story about the library needing a new roof and a prize-winning goat.

I sipped my beer while waiting for the sandwich. I scribbled notes on the newspaper. The pool game picked up in spirit. I thought I might later submit a column to the The Times because they were asking for contributions and it might be a good way to see if anyone in Brownsville knows anything about Wings of Freedom. Apparently, the lead singer’s name was Janine. Someone in Eugene told me that at an event promoting the book almost 20 years ago.

Maybe if someone contacts me, I can write a feature about the band for The Times. I would be honored to have a piece published in this newspaper.

And just for the record during the Pandemic: everyone in the Brownsville Saloon, including all the employees, violated state law on masking. Everyone, that is, except me.

Wings of Freedom indeed.

An Orb of Beaverwood

NSP Meditations

My mind meandered as I walked in the park. Below me, a tiny creek gurgled its way to the ocean. How many Americans could correctly answer this question: where is this creek ultimately flowing? I’d guess less than 30 percent. But they all know who played Captain Kirk or who won the Super Bowl.

It was early morning and cold. I looked down to the creek as I always do, checking out the crazy Daffy ducks and praying for the stray choice cut of beaverwood.

Something golden in color and round in shape, roughly the size of a bowling ball, bobbled in the current. It was blocked by a downed tree. I stopped and stared hard at it.

It couldn’t be! Yet I knew it was because I am the world’s leading authority on the subject. It was a choice cut of Oregon beaverwood gnawed into a preposterous shape by one of my bucktoothed friends.

It could vanish any moment down the creek if the current shifted. The horror! The horror!

I had to possess it! I had to add it my new collection that is gradually taking over my writing studio and bedroom. Am I the only person in America, or the world for that matter, whose principle interior decorating scheme is displaying choice cuts of beaverwood? Yes! Yes! Yes!

I clambered down the bank. Brambles whipsawed my chest and thighs. I stood on the log corralling my sacred treasure. I took several steps on the log’s slick surface. I used another piece of beaverwood the length and girth of a golf club, to guide the treasure to shore. I reached down to pick it up. Oh the glory! It was no mere choice cut. The word orb instantly came to mind. A beaverwood orb with divine powers of revelation! I would display it in my studio under a soft light and ask all manner of advice of it. It would reveal everything I needed to know about improving my frustrated life in the big city.

Nail Shop Meditations (2)

NSP Meditations

My dad is receiving his regular pedicure via the expert hands of Vicky.

I am sitting a few feet away cranking this out on my AlphaSmart.

Soft synthesizer music is playing.

The salon smells of nail polish and incense, a heady combination.

I just wrote two pages in my journal that said absolutely nothing.

It’s President’s Day and Trump is launching his new social media platform, Truth Social. The Great Huckster is going to beat BIG TECH at their own insidious game.

It was an excellent Perry Mason this morning: greed, arson, murder, intrigue, affairs, excellent vocabulary. It’s always bracing to hear the phrase “illegitimate birth” in old popular entertainment but it was widely used back in the day. I’m sure it still is in some places, although I have no idea where.

I worked on a short story earlier this morning, polishing here and there, deepening. It is sort of experimental, and I might be the only one who gets it. It’s about basketball and the homeless and somehow they merge to form a story. There are two characters: a writer and a coach. I’ll be posting it here soon. One day I hope to publish all my Oregon-themed short stories in book form. Perhaps in 2023 or 24.

The primary election in Oregon loom. Should be interesting this year.

The nearby homeless encampment was almost completely cleaned up the past few days. More on this in the newsletter later. It was shocking to behold. Three years in the making and then some action. Only three RVs and two vehicles left. I would have like to seen it in action, but the city never broadcasts the where and when of this sweeps, and I have a feeling this wasn’t an official sweep because not everything got swept away.

I need a road trip.

I need a dog.

I need my fortune told inside a driftwood fort again.

Tomorrow I have lunch with one my Oregon historical heroes, one of four young people who traveled to Salem in 1970 to pitch Governor Tom McCall the preposterous idea of the state sponsoring a rock festival to avoid potential violence in downtown Portland. Vortex I the festival was later called. And a what a far out story it turned out to be, and one I might add still has lessons to impart today to both political parties, but of course they aren’t paying attention.

I’m reading Denis Johnson’s first novel, Angels, published in 1977. Incredibly raw, brutal, a tale of the truly addled and miserable underclass in white American life from that era. It occurs to me as I read the novel, that these same characters are still with us today, but are now all homeless. Is anyone going to write the Great American Homeless Novel? I suppose a few are attempting it right now. I’m certainly not. I don’t know what kind of book I’m writing about the homeless. It might end up being an entirely knew genre because we are dealing with an entirely new kind of homelessness and Diaspora in American life. It’s a diaspora where people were/are on the move as a result of a variety of known and unknown factors…and then settled into something heretofore never before scene in American history. No, immigrant tenant living in the East Coast cities and the Hoovervilles were nothing like what’s unfolding in downtown Portland or in a wetlands near an amusement park. Hey, ride the Ferris Wheel and see the encampments! Truth is stranger than fiction in this story.

Pedicure almost complete. Time to head out.

A Philosophy of Walking

NSP Meditations, Of Walking in Rain, Writing

I read recently a curious little book about walking picked up at my local bookstore for a couple bucks. I wasn’t looking for a book about walking. It was mistakenly shelved in the poetry section and what a happy mistake that was for me. Computers eradicate any chance of happy random mistakes and we are much poorer (and sadder) as a culture for it even though we don’t know it.

The book is called A Philosophy of Walking, written by a French author, Frederic Gros. It was published in 2011 and translated into English in 2015.

I read the 227-page book in two sittings. I urge anyone who regularly walks for fitness or recreation or meditation or for no reason at all to read this wonderful book. It covers all the various philosophies of walking as demonstrated/propounded by some of the great walkers of all time, from Thoreau to Nietzsche to Wordsworth to Gandhi. Interestingly enough, I wrote a book about walking that demonstrated my philosophy of walking and my philosophy was not represented in Gros’ tome. That didn’t bother me in the least and I feel no need to expound my philosophy here. You can read the book if you want.

I’ve read a lot of essays and books about walking, and even taught a walking-themed writing workshop to teenagers and adults, but I was delighted to learn some fantastic new anecdotes about walking, such as Nietzsche saying that a question a writer should always ask of a book he or she is writing is: does it walk? I love that! And it’s very true.

Some other thoughts generated by reading this book were:

I never got my writing life going until after moving to the Oregon Coast in 1997 and I started walking with my dogs, on the wildlife refuge, on beaches, in clearcuts, thousands and thousands of miles, almost exclusively with dogs. When the dogs passed away, I kept walking and the writing kept coming. And when my life blew up to smithereens, I kept walking and walking, for survival, and the writing kept coming and coming.

Now I am walking and walking into the homeless crisis and writing and writing about it. Walking is how I discovered it, several years ago on a remote stretch of the Southern Oregon Coast, and walking is how I almost exclusively encounter it now in the big city. Whatever the literary outcome that results of these encounters, which are always random, I must consider how walking into, through, and around the homeless and their various domiciles and encampments has shaped the writing about them, if such a thing is possible. It is certainly a unique way to tell a story, by walking right into it, but I used exactly the same approach with my book about walking, which wasn’t about walking at all.

Finishing A Philosophy of Walking made me wonder: If I couldn’t walk anymore, would I stop writing?

Here’s an arresting line written by Gros: writing ought to be this: testimony to a wordless, living experience.

Is that what I am doing with this subject? I’m going for a walk to think about it.

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