Cloudy Thoughts

NSP Meditations

It’s cloudy outside this morning. I have nothing to do but distribute The Old Crow Book Club to street libraries. Luckily, I have help in this endeavor. The book is getting out through this mysterious, novel distribution method.

Dad continues to prosper in assisted living.

I contrast that happiness to a recent article in the Washington Post that chronicled the plight of the increasing number of elderly homeless across the nation, Blue and Red States alike. I count at least a dozen homeless men and women in my neighborhood who are well into their 70s. Almost all of them push shopping carts and baby strollers full of cans and possessions. The juxtaposition of a homeless senior citizen utilizing a baby stroller for survival is disillusioning to me. It is inconceivable to me how these people survive and how they came to be homeless in the richest country in the history of the world. Some of these people have almost no facial expression. They will not greet you if you greet them. They seem totally gone, beyond all measure of reversing their fortune. And their families?

How this disaster isn’t a top political issue is baffling to me. The Democrats in particular have totally failed on this point. The severe indigent status of millions of seniors in America, living on the streets and in the willows, should be a winning issue for the Democrats because the Republicans surely don’t care. They want to cut Medicaid spending for seniors in their latest debt ceiling terrorist negotiations. A third of all Medicaid spending goes for indigent seniors who need in-home or nursing home care.

I am writing this from a dive bar that has absolutely zero storytelling value. In fact, all you need to know is that a game show is playing with the sound on. I really don’t know why I come here.

I started a new literary project—a novel about the 90s set in a suburban Portland high school. Working title: James. It’s been forming in my mind for years and I feel ready to begin in earnest. Writing this novel will be the antithesis of writing about the homeless and I am certainly ready for that change, although I know I won’t stop writing about the homeless.

What Would Tom McCall Do?

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History , ,

I picked up a newspaper the other day and read the same news story I’ve read again and again for the past several years: the Governor of Oregon, the Chair of the Multnomah County Commission and the Mayor of Portland were in disagreement on how to address the greatest humanitarian crisis in modern Oregon history in the state’s most populated county. Ground zero of this unique American-made disaster.

How at this point in the crisis there isn’t a statewide emergency plan to take on homelessness is unbelievable to me. How at this point cities, counties and state agencies are often acting in conflict with with each other is also unbelievable. How the state decided to largely leave the issue up to the cities and counties is a gross dereliction of executive authority. We need leadership!

This is a state-wide crisis. Every locale in Oregon is affected, from Old Town in Portland, to national forestland outside of Sisters to the dunes of the South Coast to downtown Sweet Home to the willows of Klamath Lake. Every single place.

I wrote years ago Oregon needs to appoint a Czar to address the crisis and empower the office with sweeping power to make immediate decisions that go right over the heads of indifferent or incompetent county commissioners (see Clackamas County) and city officials. The Czar would also have the power to start kicking ass on the hundreds of nonprofit organizations that have been allocated hundreds and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars with practically no public oversight or evaluation.

The Czar could be a prominent government official or private citizen. It must be someone with a demonstrated record of administrative success.

As I read the same story of government conflict and impasse, I often wonder what former Oregon Governor Tom McCall might have done to address this crisis.

Yes, he was patriarchal in nature, a tall, white, older man but he was certainly no authoritarian, He was a leader and willing to risk his stature and buck conventional wisdom to solve difficult problems. In his era that meant, private encroachment into public beaches, point source pollution on the Willamette River, shoddy development of the state’s prime agricultural land, a public road system totally inhospitable to pedestrians and bicyclists, and so much more.

I’ll take an old white man who gets governing done as an administrator over anyone who doesn’t governs. So would a vast majority of Oregon voters.

I recently read McCall’s 1977 autobiography Maverick where he described the process of his many policy victories. It struck me how he got out in front, went to ground, met the public, talked to the public, even those who were vehemently opposed with ideas such as a mandatory deposit for bottles, staging a free rock festival to forestall violence, and quit allowing factories from discharge their untreated waste right into the Willamette River.

This going to the ground on the homeless crisis, in every county in Oregon, talking with homeless people, elected officials, advocates, heads of the non profits, asking questions, calling indolence and irresponsibility out. (No, you can’t park a derelict RV in front of a business or church or home for two months and run a generator all day and night. Be a good neighbor! No, a camping spot in a sanctioned camp site in Portland will not cost $40,000 a year to build and maintain.)

I can hear McCall and that magisterial voice challenging Oregonians to do better, Get to work! It’s an emergency! I can see McCall walking out of his office in Salem and over to the tents and shanties and RVs near the Capitol. I can see him doing it without the media. I can see him going down there every morning and talking to homeless people and with the people being paid to help them.

Would that approach work today? Who knows? Whatever our elected leaders are trying isn’t working with alacrity or working out at all. Remember those campaign ads from Drazen and Johnson where they drive by the Portland encampments and just shake their heads and promise they know how to clean up this humanitarian mess. They emanated zero inspiration but lots of scorn.

They didn’t know anything. McCall wouldn’t have claimed he had all the answers OR THE ANSWER. He would get the answers and the ideas and then risk his career with a risky, yet informed policy decision or several of them. And he would take responsibility for failure. No one at the upper levels of government does that in Oregon anymore. It’s always left up to someone else.

The Old Crow Book Launch Party!

NSP Meditations , , ,

I walked out of the bookstore on a warm Friday afternoon and received a hailing from across the street. It was Jaime and Jacob from the Old Crow Book Club hanging out at the usual sidewalk. I waved and dashed over to meet them. As I’ve written countless times before, no one greets me with such authentic enthusiasm as the homeless people in my neighborhood. It truly feels good.

Jacob was drinking a can of malt liquor and Jaime was eating something from a carton, which she set down.

A bespectacled man of indeterminate age with a wispy white beard stood near them. He was introduced to me as Doc and I learned that he was an Army veteran of Iraq, on disability, and the VA had just got him into housing across town. He had returned to the neighborhood because prior to housing he had lived in the wetlands in and around the Oaks Bottom Wildlife for a couple of years.

So here was someone who had helped utterly destroy the wetlands with a malicious residence, a subject I had written about multiple times with considerable vitriol. I wanted to talk to him about that subject but this didn’t seem to be the right occasion.

The recent partial sweep of the encampment had apparently prompted Doc to seek out housing. And now he was housed in a one-bedroom apartment that he had yet to furnish even though the VA provided him a thousand-dollar allowance to do so. I asked what he needed and he said, everything. Jaime offered to help him shop and decorate. He liked that idea.

Jaime told Doc I had written The Old Crow Book Club. I told everyone to wait. I dashed across the street and retrieved a book for Doc and two tins of fine pipe tobacco for Jaime and Jacob. Upon my return and presentation, hosannas went up.

It was time. I knew it was now or never for the book launch party even though I hadn’t seen Mark for a couple of weeks. I asked Jacob and Jaime if Sunday at one in the park by the creek would work. I’d bring everything. Could Jacob and Jaime round up everyone? Could we pull this off? This was it!

They agreed with profane enthusiasm. I invited Doc and then we discussed the types of pizza to order. Jaime promised to bring her flute. I made a mental note to bring paper towels and a table cloth. I wanted this gig done right and that meant decent local beer and not corporate malt liquor swill.

We were getting pretty giddy with all the party planning. Then Jaime said, “Matt, thanks for all this and your charisma.”

“My charisma?” I said, laughing. It was such a weird word for the moment.

Jaime explained: “I mean, if I was in a grocery store and we were standing next to each other in the meat department, I would listen to you forever.”

It was easily the strangest and greatest and unique compliment I had ever received! Meat department! And I don’t eat meat!

It was time to go.

In roughly 48 hours the launch party for The Old Crow Book Club would take place or not. It was either going to be a total bust or rank as something unprecedented in the annals of American literary history.

Forty-eight hours passed and….

I saw Donny wearing a Prince Purple Rain t-shirt and debriding a bloody wound on Jaime’s left leg. She took a belt from a pint of Old Crow and howled from the burn. Donnie sterilized the wound with a splash of Old Crow and Jamie screamed from the pain. It was right out of cornball Western, you know the kind where Jeff Chandler or Victor Mature plays an Apache. The only detail missing was Jamie biting down on a stick or piece of rawhide.

This was quite obviously the only incident of its kind at a literary event, the launch party for The Old Crow Book Club, in the annals of world literature. It was remarkable because Donny had discharged himself that morning after four days in a hospital drying out and taken a cab to the park. It was even more remarkable because 24 hours earlier I’d seen Jamie whacked out on something, splayed in the parking lot of a mausoleum.

The highlights:

We ate pizza. Or should I say it was devoured.

We ate a salad prepared by a homeless woman. She had walked a mile with the bowl and three bottles of salad dressing.

We laughed.

We drank good beer.

A few vaped dank weed.

Johnson Creek gurgled behind us.

We admired Sean’s stones he’d collected from the Clackamas River.

We talked about writing and finding housing. Everyone wanted housing but they didn’t want to be crammed into shelters with miscreants.

We talked about the difference between convivial and voluble.

We discussed Rachel Ward’s voice.

A black dog ran around raising hell.

We talked discussed our favorite stories from the Bible. Mark’s was a tossup between The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan. I’ve always favored Jonah and the Whale.

I doled out 40 tins of fine pipe tobacco. Someone knifed one open and Jacob began rolling cigarettes for the smokers.

One formerly homeless man told the story of how he had the best shot of heroin in his life down by the Willamette River, woke up two days later, walked out of the wetlands and never used heroin again.

I thanked Mark for not dying.

Everyone agreed the book cover would make a great tattoo. Jacob said he’s do it!

I asked how they managed to survive living outdoors. They all said “one day at a time.” It occurred to me that was the language of recovery but perhaps some of these people were in type of recovery from personal disaster.

Mark said he had an appointment to secure a place in line for a slot in a tiny home village under construction. Someone at the hospital where he almost died from two heart attacks had greased the wheels and made something happen in a way official channels could not. It struck me that I probably should have bribed someone last summer when I tried and failed finding Mark housing.

Tammy rode a half mile in wheelchair and then knitted a scarf.

I read a short chapter from the book and felt very rusty and a little emotional. The crowd wanted more but I didn’t.

We raised our paper cups of Old Crow and toasted to The Old Crow Book Club.

I observed we were all here because I met Mark because he was reading a book. If he’d been playing on his phone—nothing.

I thanked everyone for their trust and candor. Without it, no book, no gathering, no possible inspiration from our gathering.

I mentioned I didn’t think anyone would show up. Fifteen had, all but three were homeless. Every member of the book club made it. Someone said I shouldn’t be such a cynic!

I said if the book helps one person get off the streets then it will be the greatest thing I’ve ever written.

Someone observed a love of books built this unique community. I wondered if these people got into housing and began working would they ever find a richer community than this.

I met an elderly woman in a walker who was not homeless but lived in a nearby apartment. She was friends with many members of the book club and often let them take showers or crash on the couch in an emergency. She was writing a book about the recent death of her daughter. She was also writing poetry. Would I help her publish. Yes! This was the first time she’d ever tasted whiskey.

Jamie played her flute accompanying an early Green Day song before they went corporate and Broadway.

We debated the metaphysics of why Prince was dead and Dick Cheney was not.

We sang “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I gave away 25 books and said to distribute as they saw fit.

At some point, I knew it was time for me to leave. We said our goodbyes and I got hugs, handshakes and fist bumps.

I turned on the CD player. Prince’s “You Got the Look” came on and I cranked it up as I drove away toward home. Prince never sounded so good.

The Return of My Mix Tapes

NSP Meditations

Why it took almost 15 years to get around rigging up a system in my vehicles that didn’t have a cassette player to play my mix tapes, I don’t know.

But the other week I got one together and now I listen to my tapes as I drive around Oregon. It’s going to take considerable time to get through all the 500+ of them I made from the mid 80s to the early 2010s. Making them was very much a joyful habit for four decades. Then, the habit vanished, probably because that coincided with not driving vehicles with a cassette player.

Several times I was close to dumping the collection, but I just couldn’t do it. So many other people I know or knew had. These tapes were my history, my soundtrack, a kind of weird work of personal literature where I revealed my politics, reading, aspirations, frustrations, crushes, loves, cultural opinions in the music and the naming of the tapes. The naming was always the most important part of the habit for me—not the music.

Every one of the tapes was titled. Most were dated. Most didn’t have track listings. About a half dozen were made for me.

I virtually never listened to them while not driving.

A couple of years ago, I dug out a couple tapes and listened to them around the house and at a construction site where I was working.

It was not the same as driving around and I stopped listening to them.

My first choice for this current mobile listening resurrection of my collection was pulled at random. Title: Bob Packwood. Date: Mid 90s. And yes, Bob Packwood is still alive.

I was driving to the assisted living center to visit my father. I inserted the tape into the player and hit PLAY. Social Distortion’s “Story of My Life” came on.

Instantly, an idea for a new writing project emerged. Listen to the collection and write mini personal and political essays about certain tapes. Music, certain songs, can transport you back in time like nothing else. It’s much more powerful than, say reading an old post card from a long lost lover.

Then English Beat’s “Save it for Later” came on and I immediately returned to a great love in my life, Janet, who died of cancer decades ago, and loved the English Beat. Janet and I climbed Saddle Mountain together and will never forget that experience. I just know we listened to the English Beat on the drive from Portland to get there.

Who knows if a book will result from the exploration. That’s not the goal. I’ll just begin and see where it goes, kind of like a road trip with no fixed destination in mind. That’s often a great way to begin a writing project, and many other things in life.

The State of Our Nation 5-12-82

NSP Meditations

I was searching through my personal archives the other day when I encountered a piece of writing from my youth. I wrote it in 1982 for a creative writing independent study my senior year at Oregon City High School. It was never published anywhere…until now.

After reading this vignette for the first time in 41 years, I now consider it to be my second piece written on the subject of homelessness, even though the man in the piece you are about to read was not homeless as far as I could tell back then. He most certainly would be now.

I say this was my second piece because earlier that month in 1982, I wrote my senior research paper on the phenomenon/crisis of Vietnam vets ending up homeless all across the country. I recently read that paper for the first time since graduation and what struck me was that I included the fact that one of the first official acts of Ronald Reagan’s presidency was to defund and thus close all the Vietnam vet street outreach centers that had been operating around the country in the war’s aftermath. That decision, made by a draft dodger, killed veterans. And some of the homeless men who didn’t die then are still on the streets, now with their brothers and sisters from Afghanistan and Iraq.

I might also add that I had no concept of what homelessness as a senior in high school. Most Americans didn’t until Mitch Snyder came along and raised its terrible profile. In 1982, the inflation rate was 18% and the unemployment rate was 8-9%. It was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It began with Reagan and his tax cuts for the rich and defense buildup and cuts to public housing and follows a downward immoral trajectory to the elderly women down my block the other day, who was wearing a red, white and blue crocheted bathrobe, carrying her worldly possessions and some returnable cans, and screaming to herself and the STOP signs.

So, from 41 years ago, a scene from Oregon City that I titled “The State of Our Nation 5-12-82”

A man knocked on our door the other day and asked if he could haul away our papers. He said he had been driving by and noticed that we had a lot of papers in our garage. Personally, I was elated to see the papers go but was dubious of his intentions (our garage had many valuable items). Nevertheless, I agreed and backed the car out had he pulled his truck in. I noticed there was a young woman alongside him in the front seat. The man, around 25, worked quickly and quietly loading up the papers (seven month accumulation).

I asked him if it was for a charity organization and his reply startled me. It turns out that he is unemployed, married, and his unemployment insurance is almost out. He was traveling around the city collecting papers for money. (He gets $22.50 a ton.) I stared at him in complete disbelief wondering whether or not he had any pride remaining. He finished the pile off and reminded me not to give the papers to anybody else. I nodded yes. He drove off and left me standing in the doorway, mouth open, thinking about my future. Is anybody listening?

Saturday Morning Homeless Report From the Southern Oregon Coast

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History

Images from my recent trip:

Reedsport: bedraggled men and women shuffle along Highway 101 pushing grocery carts and carrying bags of cans and bottles.

Lakeside: a young disheveled man with his possessions sits in the gravel off the highway.

North Bend: an elderly man sits in a wheelchair outside the Humboldt Club. I’m there for breakfast. He’s there because he’s homeless. I know he’s homeless because he told me after I asked how he was doing. He’d lost his housing the previous week but had a lead on a room in a basement or garden shed or something I didn’t catch. He knew it was coming through, however, he just knew and kept the faith. He tried selling me a mini tablet that worked but needed a charger. I asked how much? Three bucks he said. I said I already owned two tablets that streamed nothing but shit. I gave him three bucks anyway and told him to get a coffee and maple bar. He thanked me and cracked a big smile. (The thought of a maple bar can do that!) He commented that it was going to be a great day.

“You sure are optimistic,” I said.

“It’s always sunny with me,” he said.

I wished him well and he thanked me for talking to him.

It’s a strange and good feeling to be thanked for talking to a homeless man you just met and will never meet again.

Coos Bay: at least a dozen homeless people are splayed in alleys and doorways of the dismal downtown area. All ages. All colors. Men and women. They don’t look passed out. They look dead.

Port Orford: various derelict RVs abound along Highway 101. A few people walk the shoulders looking for cans and bottles.

Gold Beach: A woman in pajamas with a backpack is sobbing and swearing at the breeze; a black man with a gray beard holds a bindle while crossing the highway; a crazed young man wearing tattered clothing counts his change on a sidewalk; an elderly woman living out of her SUV hunts for agates at the beach with her blind dog; a homeless woman wearing a gold parka is walking in circles and gesticulating; a homeless man shows pictures of his baby son to a barista.

All this on one Saturday morning on the Southern Oregon Coast. Roughly a hundred miles.

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