In the Dreamland prol sector... or Down by the Banks of the Ohio

20150131 - Louisville, Kentucky

Radical activist Nathan Salsburg was at it again... this time in the Dreamland prol sector of of Louisville, KY. That sounds crazy, but activist? and WHY Louisville? So, as the hipsters would continue, I’ll explain… folk stories are long.. so.. bear with me family....

Right…

I attended 7 years of Catholic school before my mother took us kids out and moved us into public school. Not only did I get to experience the public, but the school was an experimental school. The J.Graham Brown School, in Louisville, Kentucky was founded in the radical tradition that emphasized arts and music over sports. The Teachers were called by their first names and the classes were small. My English teacher started us reading George Orwell’s “1984” in 1984.

We debated, discussed and some slept on the couches and floor, ( wink wink..) This new freedom for me was too much to handle. I didn’t last but 4 years in this new environment, partly because I had fell behind in the previous educational venture……I did get a Library Card out of the deal.

I found in that membership card access to a treasure. A massive record collection of not so very fancy looking recordings at the Main branch of the Louisville ( FREE PUBLIC ) Library.  Some of them were missing the liner notes and many of them did not have covers, but a collected wealth was masterfully captured and labeled on simple blue labels. I remember spending hours listening to these documents and riding the bus home with a back pack full of Smithsonian FOLKWAYS recordings.

VERY IMPORTANT RECORDING!

 I remember one record that I think I might have stolen, was simply called… something like, a night at the jazz house… it was a hot blues 1930’s style blues and jazz concert. I would cringe and contort listening to solo after solo from the trombone and clarinet pro creation. To the public, I apologize for the theft of public goods, but.. I had to have it… some may say this is where I may have been infected by a publically transmitted disease, some call it jungle fever.. some might call it knowledge....Utah Phillips calls it the most radical idea in this country… The Long Memory.

Click here for this free education.... from Professor Bruce U. Utah Phillips 100 free classes

So, at the film festival in the prol sector, right,

we were told by one of the folks in the movie that Jazz was all about sex. If this is the case… then this comment is why I am calling Nathan a radical activist. We were subjected to this vile sort of public lewdness in the Ville last night in the form of an Alan Lomax film festival. 

Right? 

Hipsterly speaking… what we were really seeing was what “they” don’t want you to see. YOU! 

Remember… Big Brother is watching… YOU.

Some of the films I had seen already and many of the stories I already knew. Some of the stories I am living. We saw footage of little girls singing ride sally, and then my mind wandered back to my work with PNEUMA in the 90’s and the little black girls playing their hand games.

We saw footage of Jazz folks in New Orleans and then my mind wandered back to the outside steps of the Rudyard Kipling Folk Club and a sax player named Willie Little who used to work the clubs in the 80’s and 90’s.

Note - Willie used to tell me about his travels as a horn player and told me that the only way to get people to let you sit in was to bug them to death... all they are thinking about is... are the girls watchin me.. so sometimes you just have to inject yourself into the conversation! 

Note: I list Twice Told Books as where I went to College, but these steps I mention, is where I went to graduate school and got my PHD in street poetry and bullshitting for African drummers.) 

We saw footage of African Americans dressed as wild captured Sioux style mardi gras Indians mixed with footage of West African dancers and my mind wandered to my friend Moha Dosso who is a stilt walker initiated in his Ivory Coast tradition   who I work with in Louisville every spring through summer. We were watching footage that was filmed and documented using public funds. We were watching the work of one of our own…

 Kentuckian.. Jean Ritchie…

 Note: I was dancing and internally ravished.. crying out… YES! YES! More.. OH Baby… this is what I want! YES!!! Because this is what I have been Fucking….. Talking about!

Now, we have to ask, like this wonderful evening was a college course.  What did we learn? 

Right?

Hipsterly speaking or maybe a Genx er suggests...

We have to ask, What does Mr. Lomax want us to do?

Why did this man dedicate his life to this remembrance and documentation of who we are as a people?

Note to the public… It is no conspiracy to suggest that cultural preservation is viewed by some as radical… Just Ask Pete Seeger and Carl Braden what the HUAC hearings were about. 

Pete Seeger in "Wasn't That A Time" from Appalshop CMI on Vimeo.

Remember, this is the year of two centennials… Alan Lomax’s birth and Joe Hill’s death. To get even more romantic, I might suggest that we celebrate these two events for a reason.

One is born while the other did not die!

I suggest that “Railroad Music, is the Thread in the quilt that is Americana.” Utah Phillip’s suggests that “The long memory is the most radical idea in the land.” But here is what I want to say. Thank you Nathan Salsburg for what you are doing.  What you are doing for your community is important. They tried to close the Highlander School. We are being subject to an assault on public owned and operated goods. What you are doing is a continuation and preservation of the work of a great man.

And I might suggest to Nathan this…… brother..

I got my eyes on you, I got my eyes on you… everybody workin’ in this union has got our eyes on you! Except we call it the Common Wealth!

Fellow Workers!

John Paul Wright
at the away from home terminal.
Nashville, TN

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