Jefferson, USA - a mythical West Coast state of mind

Dig this tidbit 

of PacCoast history:

a separatist US "state"

straddling the Beaver State /

Golden State border, capital in Yreka,

California - (where Maria is terminating 

Arnold's access to her bedchamber),

a marital property state of mind . . .

Now cast yours back to 1941 -

The bad Japs attacked &

Jefferson folded fast

for national unity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(Pacific_state)

I kept tuning into Jefferson Public Radio while driving through southern Oregon & northern California last week.  Then, this morning in the Hood, I hear a novelist on Oregon Public Broadcasting talk about the state of Jefferson - as it was in '41 & stills exists in anarchist/crank imagination.

"If a Tree Falls" a provocative environmentalist documentary

I rambled over to the Bijou arthouse cinema, located in a former church in downtown Eugene (Oregon), this afternoon to catch a fine documentary called "If a Tree Falls:  A Story of the Earth Liberation Front [ELF]."  It's a nuanced tale of some radical environmentalists who were prosecuted as terrorists in 2005 for several acts of arson.  


The film, directed by Marshall Curry, focuses on co-conspirator Daniel McGowan, a gentle New Yorker and former ad-agency drone who became a leader of ELF in the Pacific Northwest of the 1990s.  He's currently serving a 7-year federal sentence in a super-security prison built primarily for Al-Qaeda killers in Marion, Illinois.  

In this sober work about the limits of loyalty and the high price some activists pay for going beyond protest in the name of wilderness and old-growth forests, Curry takes on one of the signal developments of the US environmental movement.  FBI agents allegedly attended its premier this winter at Sundance (where it won the award for documentary editing), according to Eugene activist/filmmaker Tim Lewis, who's featured prominently in the film.  

The conspirators were caught when a US Attorney persuaded one of the suspected arsonists, a heroin addict whose own father had spent years in prison, to turn informant in exchange for his freedom.  Although one of the ELF arson actions was directed at vehicles on a tree farm that the "eco-terrorists" mistakenly believed was involved in growing genetically altered trees, their crimes injured no one.  

Deftly mixing interviews of players from all sides with dramatic footage of related anarchist/environmentalist protests in the Northwest, including several in Eugene - protests that only got dangerous when police turned violent.  In a particularly surreal scene, Eugene bike cops use their bicycles as weapons against demonstrators.  The US Forest Service comes off as an egregious accomplice to the "earth-raping" timber companies who clear-cut swaths of federal forests for private profit.  

McGowan reflects with some regret on his path to extremism, but - unlike most of the co-conspirators - he declined to testify against fellow ELF members.  It's hard not to sympathize with this obviously loving and well-loved man who wonders aloud whether there's any hope left for sustainable human life on planet Earth.

I recommend this film without reservation.  It may not have the absurdist laughs that Michael Moore weaves throughout his challenging documentaries, but it does provide an even better service:  it lets the insiders tell their own stories without superfluous comment.  

The impotence of such mainstream wilderness advocates as the Sierra Club - and even semi-saboteurs such as Earth First! - in the face of corporate greed and government complicity should give us all pause.  After all, the old riddle about a tree falling in the woods will become moot if our species is no longer around to hear it.  

Steve Earle, Allison Moorer & band - live in Missoula (June 18th)

En route to my brother's place in Hood River (which has arguably the most sublime landscape in Oregon), I stopped Saturday for dinner in Missoula, Montana.  Serendipitous, as it turned out:  I discovered that Steve Earle & the Dukes/Duchesses were playing at the 2,000-seat Wilma Theater alongside the floodstage Clark Fork River that evening.  Since Steve was at the top of my must-see-ASAP-in-concert list, it wasn't hard to justify spending $36 for the ticket.  No regrets - aside from the fact that, as a non-resident, I couldn't sign the lobby petition to end the death penalty in the Big Sky state.   

I've rarely been part of a more enthusiastic singalong audience, and Steve's band played 2 inspired sets over 3 hours, including a pair of encores.  Mixing in several numbers from his new album, I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive, with songs that dated back to his 1986 breakthrough Guitar Town, Steve dedicated the concert to the recently deceased sax-player Clarence Clemons.  

Keyboardist, guitarist and accordion player Allison Moorer, whom Steve introduced as his "far better half," sang a pair of her own songs as well as a couple of duets and an impassioned cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."   She dedicated a song about the couple's 14-month-old toddler son (who's on the bus for this tour) to Steve for Fathers Day.

It wouldn't be a Steve Earle show without some lefty political pitches.  He made a few anti-war & pro-environmental comments while introducing such songs as the old coal-mining protest "The Mountain" and the new shrimp-boater ballad "Gulf of Mexico."  Steve played an acoustic guitar marked THIS MACHINE FLOATS (a nod to Woody Guthrie's wartime guitar graffito "This Machine Kills Fascists") while performing "This City (Won't Wash Away)," a song Steve wrote for the HBO series Treme, in which he played a New Orleans street musician circa 2005.  

Looking more & more like a grizzled moonshiner with his long grey beard & balding pate, Steve took us on a thrilling ride along the Hillbilly Highway, aided by a fine 5-piece backup band featuring the rootsy sounds of fiddle, pedal-steel guitar, mandolin, banjo & harmonica along with a rockin' mature rhythm section from Nashville & a young couple from Houston (who perform as The Mastersons).  

It's easy to admire such a charismatic, intelligent, multi-talented artist as Steve Earle, who writes fiction & produces records as well as acting (see HBO's The Wire & the 2009 movieLeaves of Grass) & even directing his own play.  Catch him in concert if you can.  But be forewarned:  when one guy loudly complained that the bass level was too high, the irascible Earle replied, "If the bass is too loud, then you're too old!"   Remaining as grateful & approachable as his gifted musician son Justin Townes Earle, Steve stayed after the show to sign CDs & copies of his new novel for a long line of fans.

During this westward trip I gained a newfound respect for Montana, where Steve said he loves to fish the many mountain streams.  In at least one respect, Montana is more progressive than Wisconsin:  its voters passed a medical marijuana referendum a few years ago.  At the Mile High compassionate cannabis clinic in Butte, however, I learned that some legislators are trying to repeal that bit of democratic libertarian cowboy-country common-sense public policy.  Anyway, it's great to be in the cool climate of the Northwest now.