I agree with your basic point that the pnb needs to figure out how to provided
more information about what it is doing than it currently is even though we are
somewhat constrained by confidentiality requirements.
It is also not just a matter of providing information, but of engaging with
listener members. There are certainly many ways to do that, but email is
probably the best way to engage with as many people as possible.
Email listserves have (heretofore) been an important vehicle for pacifica
discourse and have been laboratories for good (and bad) ideas that have
impacted pacifica for better or worse. In a sense pacifica activists were on
the cutting edge of using the internet as an effective organising and
discursive tool. Yet, at a time when everyone around pacifica pays lip service
to adopting new technologies, the blogosphere etc, many people in positions of
influence around pacifica eschew pacifica email listerves.
For some this is just a matter of habit, ie, many people have either never been
into email and blogs etc and never will be. There are those however, who seem
hostile to the very idea of email listserves, associating the listerve with
annoying takeback types and prefer that decisions be made and discussed
entirely behind the scene.
So I join your call for better communication by the pnb to the foundation
members and I will do what I can to do a better job of it myself.
Joe w.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin White <cuitlacoche1@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 09:53:18
To:NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, wendy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:PacificaRadiowaves@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,fulcrumsofchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
pacifica_now@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Fulcrumsofchange] [NewPacifica] Fwd: [David Rovics] Some
Thoughts on Utah Phillips
To all, (Please see Wendy's Email Below)
The following missive is not just about Wendy; it's about our virtually
invisible PNB.
I know from past experience that Wendy reads every single Pacifica list
everyday: she often complains about the effort of doing so. On these lists some
extremely constructive ideas often appear from the democratic contributors of
our democratically controlled media organization. Many of the ideas include a
reworking of the by laws, acts of fraud, mishandling of our organization by the
Pacifica legal council, race-baiting, the near insolvency of an entire radio
station, and a struggle to not shove under the rug the last 10 years of
Pacifica history.
The lists, in return for all this democratic "paying attention" receive silence
from our PNB. They've seemed to become members of an upper class that doesn't
need to answer to the voters. The same voters who put them there in the first
place. Melinda Iley Dohn has reported she is often told "never to talk to
people on the lists."
Instead, when we do get something, it's bullshit like this: idyll words from a
mediocre folk singer about a subject that has nothing whatsoever to do with
Pacifican governance. This can't even be termed a "crumb."
And Wendy is reported to be one of the good ones. We, or course, have to take
their word for it, because most everything of any interest to the foundation is
somehow or other deemed "executive session."
If you question anything, you get a tirade about what "good people they are and
how hard they are working." My answer is who the f**k cares how hard they are
working if the do all of it in secret!
During the PNB session of 2007: the darkest year in Pacifica history; how come
no one leaked that an excellent ED was being ridden out of town on a rail? That
bad management at WBAI was going to lead to the loss of that station? That
spurious race-baiting was destroying the network from within? That an unethical
legal councilor was made iED without public discussion without the least bit of
public discussion: that further was allowd to manipulate an expensive Pacifica
election: and then draw out the court struggle way past the day the new members
were seated on the board?
And for what? To waste more of the listener money?
Instead we get lame crap sent to a list about a mediocre folk singer.
Thank you, PNB for your hard work. Thank you for saving the network. Thank you
for working on its problems.
Thank you for keeping its secrets.
Why did we ever throw away the old professional board of directors again?
Kevin White
----- Original Message ----
From: Wendy Schroell <wendy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: wendy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 10:10:44 AM
Subject: [NewPacifica] Fwd: [David Rovics] Some Thoughts on Utah Phillips
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Rovics <drovics@gmail. com>
Date: Sun, May 25, 2008 at 6:08 AM
Subject: [David Rovics] Some Thoughts on Utah Phillips
To: wendy@radio4houston .org
I was watching my baby daughter sleep in her carseat outside of the Sacramento
airport about ten hours ago when I noticed a missed call from Brendan Phillips.
He's in a band called Fast Rattler with several friends of mine, two of whom
live in my new hometown of Portland, Oregon, one of whom needed a ride home
from the Greyhound station. I called back, and soon thereafter heard the news
from Brendan that his father had died the night before in his sleep, when his
heart stopped beating.
I wouldn't want to elevate anybody to inappropriately high heights, but for me,
Utah Phillips was a legend.
I first became familiar with the Utah Phillips phenomenon in the late 80's,
when I was in my early twenties, working part-time as a prep cook at
Morningtown in Seattle. I had recently read Howard Zinn's A People's History
of the United States, and had been particularly enthralled by the early 20th
Century section, the stories of the Industrial Workers of the World. So it was
with great interest that I first discovered a greasy cassette there in the
kitchen by the stereo, Utah Phillips Sings the Songs and Tells the Stories of
the Industrial Workers of the World.
As a young radical, I had heard lots about the 1960's. There were (and are)
plenty of veterans of the struggles of the 60's alive and well today. But the
wildly tumultuous era of the first two decades of the 20th century is now (and
pretty well was then) a thing entirely of history, with no one living anymore
to tell the stories. And while long after the 60's there will be millions of
hours of audio and video recorded for posterity, of the massive turn-of-the-
century movement of the industrial working class there will be virtually none
of that.
To hear Utah tell the stories of the strikes and the free speech fights,
recounting hilariously the day-to-day tribulations of life in the hobo jungles
and logging camps, singing about the humanity of historical figures such as Big
Bill Haywood, Joe Hill or Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was to bring alive an era
that at that point only seemed to exist on paper, not in the reality of the
senses. But Utah didn't feel like someone who was just telling stories from a
bygone era -- it was more like he was a bridge to that era.
Hearing these songs and stories brought to life by him, I became infected by
the idea that if people just knew this history in all it's beauty and grandeur,
they would find the same hope for humanity and for the possibility for radical
social change that I had just found through Utah.
Thus, I became a Wobbly singer, too. I began to stand on a street corner on
University Way with a sign beside me that read, "Songs of the Seattle General
Strike of 1919." I mostly sang songs I learned from listening to Utah's
cassette, plus some other IWW songs I found in various obscure collections of
folk music that I came across.
It was a couple years later that I first really discovered Utah Phillips, the
songwriter. I had by this time immersed myself with great enthusiasm in the
work of many contemporary performers in what gets called the folk music scene,
and had developed a keen appreciation for the varied and brilliant songwriting
of Jim Page and others. Then, in 1991, I came across Utah's new cassette, I've
Got To Know, and soon thereafter heard a copy of a much earlier recording, Good
Though.
Whether he's recounting stories from his own experiences or those of others
doesn't matter. There is no need to know, for in the many hours Utah spent in
his troubled youth talking with old, long-dead veterans of the rails and the
IWW campaigns, a bridge from now to then was formed in this person, in his pen
and in his deep, resonant voice. In Good Though I heard the distant past
breathing and full of life in Utah's own compositions, just as they breathed in
his renditions of older songs.
In I've Got To Know I heard an eloquent and current voice of opposition to the
American Empire and the bombing of Iraq, rolled together seamlessly with the
voices of deserters, draft dodgers and tax resisters of the previous century.
In reference to the power of lying propaganda, a friend of mine used to say it
takes ten minutes of truth to counteract 24 hours of lies. But upon first
hearing Utah's song, "Yellow Ribbon," it seemed to me that perhaps that ratio
didn't give the power of truth enough credit. It seemed to me that if the
modern soldiers of the empire would have a chance to hear Utah's monologues
there about his anguish after his time in the Army in Korea, or the
breathtakingly simple depiction of life under the junta in El Salvador in his
song "Rice and Beans," they would just have to quit the military.
Utah made it clear in word and in deed that steeping yourself in the tradition
was required of any good practitioner of the craft, and I did my best to follow
in his footsteps and do just that. I learned lots of Utah's songs as well as
the old songs he was playing. Making a living busking in the Boston subways
for years, I ran into other folks who were doing just that, as well as writing
great songs, such as Nathan Phillips (no relation). Nathan was from West
Virginia, and did haunting versions of "The Green Rolling Hills of West
Virginia," "Larimer Street," "All Used Up," and other songs. In different T
stops at the same time, Nathan and I could often be found both singing the
songs of Utah Phillips for the passersby.
Traveling around the US in the 1990's and since then, it seemed that Utah's
music had, on a musical level, had the same kind of impact that Zinn's People's
History or somewhat earlier works such as Jeremy Brecher's book, Strike!, had
had in written form -- bringing alive vital history that had been all but
forgotten. With Ani DiFranco's collaboration with Utah, this became doubly
true, seemingly overnight, and this man who had had a loyal cult following
before suddenly had, if not what might be called popularity, at least a loyal
cult following that was now twice as big as it had been in the pre-Ani era.
I had had the pleasure of hearing Utah live in concert only once in the early
90's, doing a show with another great songwriter, Charlie King, in the Boston
area. I was looking forward to hearing him play again around there in 1995,
but what was to be a Utah Phillips concert turned into a benefit for Utah's
medical expenses, when he had to suddenly drastically cut down on his touring,
due to heart problems. I think there were about twenty different performers
doing renditions of Utah Phillips' songs at Club Passim that night. I did
"Yellow Ribbon."
Traveling in the same circles and putting out CDs on the same record label, it
was fairly inevitable that we'd meet eventually. The first time was several
years ago, if memory serves me, behind the stage at the annual protest against
the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia. I think I successfully
avoided seeming too painfully star-struck. Utah was complaining to me
earnestly about how he didn't know what to do at these protests, didn't feel
like he had good protest material. I think he did just fine, though I can't
recall what he did.
Utah lived in Nevada City, and the last time I was there he came to the
community radio station while I was appearing on a show. This was soon after
Katrina, and I remember singing my song, "New Orleans," and Utah saying
embarrassingly nice things. I was on a little tour with Norman Solomon
speaking and me singing, and we had done an event the night before in town,
which Utah was too tired to attend, if I recall.
Me, Utah, Norman, and my companion, Reiko, went over to a nice breakfast place
after the radio show, talked and ate breakfast. Utah did most of the talking,
and I was pleasantly surprised to find that his use of mysterious hobo
colloquialisms and frequent references to obscure historical characters in
twentieth-century American anarchist history was something he did off stage as
well as on.
I've passed near enough to that part of California many times since then.
Called once when I was nearby and he was out of town, doing a show in Boston.
Otherwise I just thought about calling and dropping by, but didn't take the
time. Life was happening, and taking a day or two off in Nevada City was
always something that I never quite seemed to find the time for. Always
figured next time I'll have more time, I'll call him then. It had been
thirteen years since he found out about his heart problems, and he hadn't
kicked the bucket yet... Of course, now I wish I had taken the time when I had
the chance, and I'm sure there are many other people who feel the same way.
In any case, for those of us who knew his music, whether from recordings or
concerts, for those of us who knew Utah from his stories on or off the stage,
whether we knew him as that human bridge to the radical labor movement of
yesterday, or as the voice of the modern-day hobos, or as that funky old guy
that Ani did a couple of CDs with, Utah Phillips will be remembered and
treasured by many.
He was undeniably a sort of musical-political- historical institution in his
own day. He said he was a rumor in his own time. No question, one man's rumor
is another man's legend, but who cares, it's just words anyway.
http://www.davidrov ics.com
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