colindotpdx

[colindotpdx]

The history of Greece falls into two clear phases.

Phase One = Thank the Gods.

Phase Two = Blame the Turks.

The first phase is what you see when travelling in Greece today. A time when incestuous Greek Gods coexisted with mortal heroes who were helped and challenged to make a better world; the world of Homer and Troy and Golden Fleeces and noble pursuits and moral tales that delivered peace, wealth, and democracy. Where the Centaur Chiron (half man half horse) trained Heracles and taught mankind the science of medicine and surgery. A time that built the Parthenon and where Alexander the Great conquered an empire that stretched from Egypt to the Indus. Even when that empire fragmented and was taken by Rome (300 BC) the Greek myths had huge prestige and lived on. The Romans loved these Gods so much they just kept the temples and changed the names so Zeus became Jupiter, Eros became Cupid. Athens continued to be a centre of learning where Roman elites were educated; Rome’s Harvard. The island of Delos was the centre of Greek trade in the Aegean and the biggest slave trading hub in the world and the Romans just declared it a free-trade centre; Rome’s Singapore.

Greece was absorbed but still flourished. Until the Roman Empire crumbled and we enter the second phase where everything bad that befell Greeks was caused by Turks.

About 400AD Greece became just a backwater in Byzantium until that empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453. After another anonymous 400 years Greece clawed its way to become independent but poor and irrelevant in 1821. When the Ottomans fell after World War One, Greece attempted to exploit the vacuum to take back a lot of “ancient Greece” and were wiped out by a newly formed Turkey under Ataturk.

In Athens a couple of weeks ago there was an exhibition on the anniversary of the defeat that killed a million Greeks around Smyrna that is called the Greek Holocaust or the Greek Genocide. On that date, there were foreign navies anchored off Smyrna that were told not to intervene; on one US destroyer the band were ordered to strike up to hide the screams from shore. Greece reminds itself of this every May 19th.

So the history you see as a visitor to the Cyclades is a blizzard of white and blue houses with lovely tavernas and the occasional ancient ruin or Byzantine Orthodox church. A couple of thousand years and a lot of bad actors redacted in the interests of tourism. One lady in Sifnos told me that a grand old house in the centre of town was used by the occupying Italians in WW2 as a Gestapo headquarters is now being converted to a boutique hotel.

Snapshots from the Cyclades:

[colindotpdx]

Lord Elgin the good guy in the marbles story.

Hear me out.

In 1798 the Earl of Elgin was asked to serve as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire which then included the remains of “ancient Greece”; thirty odd years before Greece became again independent.

Elgin was an enthusiastic student of history, and he suggested the British government could take the opportunity for him to create casts and drawings of the remains in Athens and across Asia Minor. The British did not give a shit about the marbles and the government said no thanks, but Elgin started to do all the work with local artisans at his own expense anyway.

At that time the Parthenon marbles and statuary, created over centuries, were crumbling and falling from neglect; in fact much of the marble was being burned to make lime. So it was clear that the Ottomans also didn’t give a shit about the artefacts.

So Elgin spent his own cash (about five million quid in today’s money) to buy the remnants from the Ottomans in order that they should be preserved. He then carted them off in a dozen shiploads to London, built a private museum to display them, and offered again to sell them to the British government. They still didn’t give a shit and said no thanks.

When artists and poets like Bryon and Shelley started to rhapsodise about the myths and beauty and history and characters in Homer and later Roman literature, attitudes in Britain changed and Greece became fashionable. So around 1811, the government finally gave Elgin more or less what he’d spent to acquire the antiquities that are now on display at the British Museum.

So, if Elgin had not rescued those stones, they would likely never have survived.

Today the Acropolis Museum is a stunning marvel under the Parthenon looming above. Built on a series of huge concrete columns, it sits on top of archaeological excavations on the south slope of the Acropolis. On the top floor, a series of stainless steel columns replicate the dimensions of the Parthenon in view outside the windows as a full size shelf to carry the decorations from the frieze of the temple; all displayed without any glass or impediments; a closer viewing than when Pericles built the temple to Athena and these scene from mythology were 50 feet up from the devotees.

The lowest floor contains all the everyday items recovered from around the Acropolis and as you climb the floors, it’s like having a close up as you spiral around the remains and, afterwards, you walk under the museum to see the later excavated houses of everyday Athenians.

Truly brilliant.

For sure, the Elgin Marbles would fill in a few gaps but they have enough to be going on with.

[colindotpdx]

Demonstration of Stability in Competition

When you do a search of Google maps in Paris for “guitar store” this principle is demonstrated very starkly as ALL the guitar stores in the city are on ONE street. This just happens to be a couple of hundred yards up the hill towards Montmartre from where we stay in Paris.

Rue Victor Massé is named after a 19th century composer of a couple of dozen operas that I have never heard and who is buried just a little further up the hill in Cimitiere de Montmartre. He can hear the instruments being played from all these stores - a collection of guitarists playing Stairway to Heaven or Smoke on the Water - turning in his grave.

I spent a happy couple of hours going into a few stores and checking out everything available without imitating Jimmy Page. A huge selection of superb new and vintage gear and all the accoutrements that players demand.

My favourite was Guitare Garage : Born in Pigalle who create custom “vintage” Frankenguitars from salvaged Fender components. Every one a gem

Very hard to leave this street empty handed apart from a few stolen picks.

[colindotpdx]

A Fire Alarm at the Border.

While I was in Bisbee, Arizona, I went looking for the emergency at the border. I could not find it - but Trump sure wants to create one. The piece of land where I am standing in these photos will be militarised and off-limits very soon.

Some background.

The first 60 feet of America - the strip where I am parked - from San Diego to El Paso was commandeered by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 - called the Roosevelt Reservation - as a way to create a patrol able space to fight smuggling. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. It’s a 2,000 mile long border and smugglers are resourceful

At that time the border fence was occasional barbed wire to keep animals apart with the border being marked by small obelisks put there by a joint Mexican-US team of surveyors in the mid-1800s.

The kind of fence now along this border was built starting with George W Bush around 2005 when the Real ID Act and the Secure Fence Act were stuffed into must-pass funding bills for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Trump 1.0 made a lot of noise and added to the wall and made sections taller like you see here. These fences were meant to prevent illegal pedestrian movement northwards. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. A 30 foot fence is powerless against a 32 foot ladder and there are also thousands of holes that have been cut and disguised.

The whole border here, anyway, is surveilled every few hundred yards by towers with infra-red, video, and motion sensors and the Border Patrol presence is constant and intense - nobody can walk through here without being spotted and tracked immediately + Most of the contraband arrives in the US by truck and all of the refugees arrive at legal border crossings.

Fast Forward to Now

This week Trump 2.0 announced that the Roosevelt Reservation will now be transferred to the US military as a “National Defence Area” and be patrolled by active duty military and not Customs and Border Protection. Up to now, this strip has been accessible and used by locals and farmers and, of course, adventure motor bike riders to get around. No more.

The only section that has been designated - so far - is east of Fort Huachuca through Bisbee to Douglas and up to the New Mexico line - exactly where I am standing in this photo. Anyone entering would be trespassing. Driving back to Tucson from Bisbee I saw a lot of Army Stryker vehicles arriving as this swung into action.

So Here We Go

They say that the patrols are meant to assist CBP officers, but active-duty military members are prohibited from direct law enforcement activities under the Posse Comitatus Act. Given the general blatant disregard for the law and the Constitution the current regime, this is just another fire alarm going off in the desert. Getting ready to point guns at US civilians.

Even without the threat of the army taking over the country, ProPublica also drew attention this week to opinions locally that Trump spending billions on border nonsense does not sit well with neglected communities on the border. Here in Cochise County that went 60-40 for Trump, hundreds of thousands of people here are hours from the nearest hospital and more than half the people in the county are on Medicaid. I bet their priority would not be to flood the fence line with the Border-Industrial Complex.

[colindotpdx]

Bikes, Small Business, and Tariff Insanity

Tariffs aren’t abstract.

This week I’ve been in beautiful historic Bisbee, Arizona, riding motorcycles around the borderlands and the Sky Islands mountains with 140 other like-minded friends - most of them men but a growing number of ladies - all addicted to the challenge and freedom of backroad riding.

I have been hanging out with this group for over 15 years and it is clear that they generally skew right politically. But, for some reason, this week almost everybody has been studiously avoiding politics as a dinner conversation topic.

One thing worth pondering … not ONE person showed up at this rally with a motorcycle made in America and almost none of our clothing or gear were made in America. I am surrounded by mainly European machines - BMW, Ducati, KTM, Husqvarna and a few Yamahas.

There is one American adventure bike as Harley Davidson did introduce their excellent PanAmerica in 2021. Nobody brought one but HD does have a few of them here for demo. The company claims that their bikes have 70% US made components but they have also announced a move of much of their manufacturing to Thailand to keep down costs. All the of the European brands also source a lot of their components from Asia.

Will any of these other companies move factories to the US? Not likely as there is not enough US demand to justify the capital required and their bikes are designed for global markets.

So all these machines will cost a lot more soon.

A lot of the customers here this week will buy them anyway, but not everyone here is a well-off retired guy. Tariffs will surely reduce sales and harm the dealers and independent small companies who depend on the sales and service revenue. Many of these will inevitably go out of business and people will lose jobs and this community will lose friends and access

Multiply this by every specialist trade or market or hobby - sewing machines, video games, model trains, musical instruments .. the list is enormous. The damage will be irreparable.

[colindotpdx]

Snapshots from Bisbee, Arizona and the Desert Adventure Rally.

Arranged by the amazing Eva Rupert and Sterling Noren in the backyard of their Jonquil Motel.

The dual sport riding around here is amaziing and Sterling has put together a couple of dozen GPX tracks to guide us around the borderlands and the Sky Islands mountains - from easy well groomed roads to terrifying technical challenges - you decide. Great food, full bar, music, a BDR movie at the local cinema big screen, GREAT people, a few good old friends.

I rented a KTM 500 EXC and realised quickly that this bike exceeded my skill level by a considerable degree. Eva called the bike “spicy”; I thought it was trying to kill me. KTM’s motto is Ready to Race - the bike was ready but I was not. I felt like I was using 50% of the bikes capability at best. But perseverance paid off, I got better, and I did not drop the bike or depart the road. “On the other side of fear is breakthrough”.

Also got to checkout a few other bikes - a great demo ride on the Yamaha Tenere T700 (great all round bike for all roads), a quick highway loop on the Harley Davidson PanAmerica (too bulky for me but it was a blast on the road), a dirt road dash on Eva’s KTM 690R (also wanted to kill me but with a lot more noise), and finally the BMW electric CE 02 loaned by Owen Balduf and Long Beach BMW (what a HOOT around town)

Bisbee itself is a delightful time capsule fron the time the copper mine closed and Phelps Dodge just walked away - the hippies moved in and committed to preserve and improve the historic district - which now has wonderful bars, hotels, restaurants, and the workd’s best bakery.

Thanks again Eva and Sterling and Colorado Moto Advectutes for the faultless bike rental.

See you next year.

[colindotpdx]

Spent last weekend on an enduro moto ride in Death Valley with Wilderness Collective. Four days riding and three nights camping in the wildest corners of the National Park. Yes there are a few US Park Rangers still working there and one of them gave us a ticket for camping in an unauthorised spot in Echo Canyon under the Eye of the Needle.

Most of us were on the rented Husqvarna 350s that were provided but a few gentlemen brought their own bikes; two of them drove all the way from Nashville for the ride.

A small group of guys with a shared idea to ride some of the most challenging roads in California - with the outstanding crew from Wilderness Collective - a guide, a cook, and camera and video support. This is only the third time I’ve done a ride on a dirt bike; this route was a real challenge for me but I kept up and broke neither bones nor bike despite one unplanned excursion off the track and over the rocky berm.

All cell phones are locked away for the four days - you need all your attention on these roads and a digital detox is getting more and more valuable as time goes on.

Thanks to Wilderness Collective for the ride and @johnnyrussey for the photos.

[colindotpdx]

Merry Christmas from Los Angeles 

“Las Posadas” is a Latin American tradition depicting the journey of Joseph and Mary seeking shelter in Bethlehem. In LA this has been celebrated for the last hundred years with a procession that starts at the Avila Adobe, the oldest building in the city built in 1818, and proceeds through Olvera Street with hymns and holiday songs with stops where the group asks for shelter at one of the merchants. Moving but joyful even for thus avowed atheist. The little angel at the head of the procession is the seventh generation in the same family to participate. 

(Posadas means inns or shelters in Spanish)

[colindotpdx]

Charles Kuralt “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything”.

My goal was to get from LA to Portland without using Interstate 5 at all; tracking US 101 with a few diversions on a three day 1200 mile drive.

It was beautifully warm and dry heading due west out of LA with a jaunt over from Ventura to Santa Paula to Ojai (pronounced o-high) and then a wonderful drive on 33 over Pine Mountain up to 5,000 feet elevation and down to Taft.

Then along the still active oil fields from Maricopa to Coalinga. I have traveled this valley many times on I-5 but - as Charles Kuralt observed - had no idea that these wells were here; thousands and thousands and thousands of angry ugly steel nodding insects scattered for over 100 miles just a short distance from a freeway I’ve driven dozens of times.

Day two I thought I’d missed the bomb cyclone but it was just lying in wait for me. A frustrating torrential rain brought out insane unsafe drivers and flooded a couple of backroads I wanted to try. I did backtrack onto a legendary section of Highway 1 near Leggett in Redwood country but wet roads covered in wet leaves were too nerve wracking in a 50 year old rear engine sports car renowned for its ability to swap ends.

The Golden Gate was shrouded in clouds and pouring rain.

Last day home past a group of male Elk at the side of the road completely unfazed by me parking a few feet away. Then a run up the Oregon coast from Brookings to Coos Bay to Florence.

[colindotpdx]

Porsche 911T made in 1973.

The last year that the Porsche 911 was still totally identical to the idea that came off the drawing board of Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche was 1973.

A truly analog experience.

Fuel at the front and flat six engine at the back with air cooling so no radiator or plumbing. There are no power assisted steering or brakes, no air conditioning, no electronics of any kind, a mechanical fuel injection system, no warning buzzers anywhere, no central locking. There are no tweaks for aerodynamics, no wings or spoilers or holes cut to allow air to get to brakes or oil coolers. The heating and ventilation system is an arrangement of flaps that allow in fresh air or hot air. There is no filter on the ventilation so you can smell everything from cut logs to pot being smoked in the car in front. There are no regulated safety features, no airbags and no impact bumpers; the nose just slopes down to the road like a sparking black infinity pool from the driver’s perspective.

Simple, visceral, controllable, instant feedback. It all just works and delivers.

Let’s call it Porsche Unplugged.

On the drive back to Portland from Los Angeles, I got thumbs up and waves and comments from a huge number of people. At a gas station in San Francisco, I met Betty who came over and said “I voss born in same city as ziss car”. Stuttgart for the uninitiated. “I don’t like ze new ones. Too fat”. Who can argue?

This car is a 911T that was delivered with 911S ventilated brakes and sport suspension as options so, when it was restored, the engine was rebuilt to 911S specifications to give an increase in power from 140hp to 190hp. That makes a whopping difference. On a dark desert highway with the smell of colitas rising up through the air - CA33 in the Lost Hills - it got to 100mph way faster than expected and I let it get to 120mph before the very light steering started to bother me.

Have to resist the temptation to start messing with the car. Leave it like Butzi intended.

[colindotpdx]

Grand Canyon North Rim Adventure

Spent Halloween weekend on a dirt bike camping trip in Northern Arizona to the Grand Canyon North Rim and Whitmore Canyon with Wilderness Collective - the 383rd ride they have run since 2012.

A couple of UTVs and three of us on Husqvarna 350 enduro bikes that were perfect for this trip. A great confidence builder for me on these machines that would go anywhere at any speed.

This was a small group for this end of season outing and we had the first snow of the season on Mount Logan at 7500 feet elevation. You get an idea of the terrain and roads - we saw very few other people and almost no buildings. You can also get an idea of the amazing food. Plus the house rule for this group is that all cell phones are confiscated for the duration of the trip.

Ride, eat, drink in the moment.

Thanks to @thedonnysosa and Wilderness Collective for the photos.

[colindotpdx]

Music Overload In Music City

We hit Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway late Saturday for much drinking into the small hours and dancing to *Brandon Birkedahl and the Beer Joint Jumpers*. I sat next to two older ladies from Indiana who said they were here from 11am to 2am every day they were in Nashville. They were still hopping when we left and, lo and behold, they were in the same seats at noon the next day for Sunday morning Gospel music. May the Lord be praised!

The Ryman Auditorium was built as a Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892 and still stands with the same sturdy wooden pews. For 30 years it was the home of the Grand Ole Opry, then abandoned, and now restored as a first class music venue; massive solid pews included. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit played their last show of the year and went out with a bang. Just a brilliant talent and wonderful show in every way.

The Grand Ole Opry moved to a newer and bigger venue in the 70s but still maintained the wooden pews - now with padding thankfully - for 4000 people attending the live radio broadcasts on WSM Radio. The show this week was headlined by Vince Gill and included six other artists that I had never heard of but now love completely. Rhonda Vincent and her bluegrass band, Thompson Square and Drew Holcomb are contemporary groups with beautiful heartbreaking voices. Whispering Bill Anderson first performed at the Opry in 1959 and at 86 years old was still crooning to a standing ovation this week.

I really loved Don Schlitz and I was certainly the only person in the audience that did know that he wrote the classic lines “You gotta know when to fold ‘em, Know when to hold ‘em, Know when to walk away, Know when to run”. Every country song is a life lesson to be learned and Vince Gill owned the Opry with “Which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn”. Marvelous evening.

Along with all this, Nashville is home to Gibson Guitars and the Gibson Garage is their showcase showroom that has every guitar they make circulating above the customers; just pick one up and play all day.

And no guitar visit would be complete without lunch at *Arnold’s Meat and Three* cafeteria style restaurant and Carter Vintage Guitar across the street. Literally a shed load of guitars ready to be picked up and picked without any hovering sales people. I went in with a somewhat specific interest in a Gibson Dove as my first ever guitar was a Japanese copy and I wanted a real one because … nostalgia. No other reason. I ended up playing over 20 guitars, wanting to buy half a dozen, and left empty handed, giddy, and confused.

[colindotpdx]

The Country Music Hall of Fame

A Nashville cathedral to the music and its iconic artists all shown at the height of their talent and success; in chronological order from hill billy fiddlers to the Taylor Swift Education Center where kids are encouraged to come up with song ideas.

Every one of these heroes represents a rags to fame and fortune story based on enormous talent and some luck. It’s the American Dream distilled.

The inner sanctum sanctorum is the Hall of Fame itself; a separate round room with a huge vaulted ceiling and a kind of inverted church spire at its heart. Every one of the members of this club is identically shown with bas relief bronze images and description of how they ended up here.

Democratisation of fame. Will The Circle Be Unbroken..

At the altar of this chapel is the small mural by Thomas Hart Benton completed in 1975 titled *The Sources of Country Music*. It depicts a few different scenes built around a barn dance with everyone having a good ole time. Well almost everyone; the only black face in the picture is playing a banjo separated from the group. There is also a small group of black figures in the far distance working the fields and waving to a passing riverboat.

It’s easy to see this as a statement of 1970s racism - not one of Benton’s other publicly commissioned murals contains a single black character - but reading the history of country music explained on the walls here, it is probably a correct representation of history. The historic museum panels tell us that English, Irish, Scottish undocumented immigrants spread across Appalachia and the fiddle became the community entertainment based on British folk songs and African rhythms. We are told that the banjo was introduced by enslaved Africans but not how or why.

Apparently only Africans played the banjo for 200 years until it fell out of favour with them when “the mean spirited ridicule” of blackface minstrel shows became popular. “Black Americans developed other means of musical expression” ie: created the blues, took their guitars, and left country behind forever. Outta here.

In the 1920s Decca even had two separate record labels - Decca Hill Billy Records and Decca Race Records; one promising “Fiddlin’ and Old Time Singing” and the other “Blues Singing, Hot Dance, and Preaching”. A schism in popular music that never got healed; just like the Civil War still being re-enacted on the campaign trail today.

The other message in the Hall of Fame is that all popular music today - not blues, jazz, soul, hip-hop not THAT popular music but everything else - is just an extension of country. There is even a section that traces the family tree of the Eagles, the Byrds, CSN&Y, Linda Ronstadt and many others to country roots. As if all of the output of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles was just country without rhinestones. The argument would make a lot more sense if a single one of those artists had ever been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Which they ain’t.

There are two black artists out of the 155 members of this club, by the way. Charlie Pride makes sense but not sure about Ray Charles.

[colindotpdx]

Memphis, Tennessee

Two different approaches to history.

Graceland is a place in which Elvis was always young, handsome, charming, and successful then suddenly, tragically, and inexplicably dead. The history of his final years is not just edited or described with euphemisms; it is simply not there. The mansion is frozen in a time of fun and frolics with horses, family, and friends then there is the Meditation Garden with a collection of graves; Elvis and his mother were moved here post-mortem by his father and the garden now contains the rest of the extended family.

I get it. This is the Disney Elvis; a happy place for him and his fans with eleven gift shops and where all his collected stage costumes have a slim waist. It is spotlessly maintained and impeccably organised and well worth a visit.

Sun Studio had an easier time being historically correct as Elvis was discovered there but was only under contract for a couple of years before Sam Phillips sold his contract to RCA.

The Civil Rights Museum is an overwhelming and relentless explanation of black history built behind the facade of the Lorraine Hotel and room 306 where MLK was assassinated in 1968. No airbrushing, no pulling of punches; a detailed and moving history from 1619 to 2024. Pedantic, complete, graphic, and educational.

A few things struck me hardest. First, all this happened in my lifetime; slavery is ancient history but everything else happened within the last two or three generations; every American family has photos on their mantlepiece of family who lived this epoch or who were involved in the atrocities of the Civil Rights era. Second, it is heartbreaking to see the huge role played by black children; placed in the frontlines by school integration, killed by bombs in churches and buses, arrested by the hundreds in marches. Cannon fodder in the struggle.

Finally, in the room dedicated to the role of Freedom Singers, two older, grey-haired, black ladies sat at the back singing along loudly and proudly and in harmony..

And before I’ll be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

And be free

They were in no hurry to leave and neither was I

[colindotpdx]

Little Rock High School

Built in 1927, Little Rock High School was described as “America’s Most Beautiful School”. In 1957 it was shut down by local white mobs insisting on continued segregation in defiance of the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court “Brown versus Board of Education” decision when nine black students were legally allowed to enroll. The first pitched battle of the Civil Rights struggle.

The scenes broadcast at the dawn of TV news were no different from today’s MAGA politics - bigots on the frontlines and community on the sidelines, racist rhetoric inflaming popular opinion, world press hardening local positions, and routine harassment and shaming of teachers or students who spoke to the Little Rock Nine.

The 1957 story is perfectly and movingly told at the National Park Service monument. But a conversation with a young Park Service employee was more insightful when I asked her about the situation today.

She told me that white flight started here when the school was closed for “public safety” by Gov. Faubus in 1958 rather than submit to federal law. White parents moved rather than have their kids in a mixed school.

Then highway development drove a freeway through the heart of the black neighborhood and destroyed it.

The student body today is 50% black but students from around Little Rock can elect to come here. There are well funded AP classes and first class language programs and large numbers of more affluent white residents send their kids here to take advantage of them. “All those white kids showing up in Teslas and I can assure you no one around here owns a Tesla”

Driving around the school it feels like a lovely leafy suburb but it is really a black neighborhood food desert. “I live here and I’m one of only two white families on our street. There isn’t a market or a pharmacy for miles but there’s two Walmarts and a Whole Foods on the other side of the freeway”

When I asked why there were three police cars parked around the school “That’s nothing to do with the history. Every school has issues. They’d rather police the schools than fix the problems”.

America today.

[colindotpdx]

Snapshots from Tulsa, Oklahoma

Long story short: a couple of friends from France wanted to visit the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa and we concocted a road trip to take advantage of their visit. Tulsa to Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville. Call it the American Music, Cuisine, and Civil Rights Tour. Somewhere we cross a magic line between the Mid-West and the South; opinions vary on where Oklahoma sits.

Greenwood Rising is a museum that tells the story of Black Wall Street and The Tulsa Massacre. It is brilliant, triggering, inspiring, and all too depressing given the current state of American politics. Oklahoma is not a Swing State. The story of Greenwood is the story of a hundred years of the American history we know compressed into a dozen city blocks. The rounding up of defeated American Indians who were marched along the Trail of Tears to be dumped on useless land in the Oklahoma Territory. The black population, later called “freedmen” were individuals of African descent who were enslaved by these tribes; I had no idea that both Indians and white Americans both held slaves. The Government then broke up the communal tribal lands and this black community founds themselves owners of land with oil underneath.

Greenwood became a prosperous, educated, organised, and law abiding middle class community until an alleged affront to a white woman in a Tulsa elevator sparked an orgy of resentment fed violent that killed hundreds, destroyed property, and displaced thousands. Pictures of the aftermath look like Hiroshima after the bomb.

Attempts at reconstruction were thwarted for a hundred years and a major freeway was built to split the area in two. Today there is discussion of compensation and attempts at investigating old communal graves, but one gentleman told me “You can teach the Tulsa massacre in Oklahoma schools as long as you do not mention race”.

“Woody” Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Oklahoma and grew up around the time of the Tulsa Massacre; named for a President who was racist even for his time and in an environment of discrimination and lynchings. The Woody Guthrie Center does an amazing job of presenting his life and times and work from a collection of his writing, songs, notes, art, and recordings collected and preserved by his wife Marjorie.

The absolute highlight of the visit was meeting Sam Flowers who gave a thrilling talk on Guthrie’s life concluding with the fact that in 1952 Woody took advantage of veterans benefits to get a house in Beach Haven, New Jersey and found himself in a white enclave with Fred Trump as his landlord. He used his talent to write songs about the father of the 45th President and used his influence to get the NYT to dig deeper into Trump senior’s racist discriminatory businesses.

Mister Trump made a tramp out of me,

Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me.

Paid him all my bonds and savin’s

To move into his Beach Haven

Yes, Trump has made a tramp out of me.

Well we know where this story went.

When Bob Dylan sold his entire archive of “stuff” from his career to the George Kaioser Family Foundation, they asked him where he wanted them to build the display. He had apparently visited the Woody Guthrie Center and loved what they had done, and simply said “Put me next to Woody” his old friend and muse.

The Bob Dylan Center is another marvel; thousands of pieces that tell the story of his life and work. A place you could spend hours delving into all the material. The tambourine that inspired the song, the guitar and his notes on the chord sequence for Like a Rolling Stone, a jukebox of Dylan sings and influencers curated by Elvis Costello. Endless.

The main takeaway is the archival footage of Dylan performing “Only a Pawn in Their Game” at the Newport Folk Festival. It tells the story of the murder of Medgar Evers in his driveway by a white fanatic whipped up to violence by the political fervour against the black student James Meredith entering university in Mississippi.

There is a straight line in American politics from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump leveraging racism to set poor whites against everyone else. Trump’s cultists forcing FEMA workers to flee their work in the post-hurricane Carolinas is no different from the hatred that killed Medgar Evers.

These three museums only a few steps from each other in the newly renovated Arts District are well worth a ew hours of your time and a few days in Tulsa.

[colindotpdx]

Luftgekühlt 10

Luftgekühlt is an occasional gathering of air-cooled Porsche cars and their owners and devotees. It’s not a trade show or a swap-meet or Cars and Coffee. It’s definitely a successful commercial enterprise to exploit the enthusiasm for these cars. The 356, 912, 914, but mainly the 911 from the 50s to the late 90s when those pesky environmental and noise regulations put an end to air-cooled cars.

This year the event returns to the back lot of Universal Studios in Los Angeles; dozens of acres of streets and buildings with no interiors where movie magic happens and they create any period a film calls for. Just dying to be decorated with cars.

Here I am installed in New York. The show has an art director to make sure the cars are arranged properly. There are some areas for particular car models but here he picked a few from the cars that arrived to make his own curated collection of 911s - different eras and different styles. Everyone had to be parked perfectly according to his commands.

It’s an Interesting crowd.

Some people with million dollar cars of their own or from small companies making cars to the fantasy demands of anyone wealthy enough to indulge their whims and tastes for speed, aesthetics, history, and want something truly unique.

But most are enthusiasts with more modest aims and means. An amazing number of people I met at the Owners Party still had the car that belonged to their Dad/Grandad/teacher/neighbour that they were looking after as a kind of remembrance.

I talked to a guy who’d driven from Texas as a bonding trip with his 8 year old and another who’d driven his 356 from Vancouver BC who’d only got his car ready the week before and whose daughter had snuck out of school to join him without Mum’s knowledge.

I met David who did the full Goodwood Revival process and came dressed from the 70s with a green shirt that matched his 914, plaid flares, and his father’s sunglasses and watch.

I got a chance to chat with Magnus Walker the lad from Sheffield who’s done alright for himself in the worlds of fashion and cars.

My friend Michael Ruppert was there; he is a far more serious collector who introduced me to the good and the great in Porsche-land.

Way too many zeroes on the end of their car prices for me but, even in this crowd, my little car stands out and attracts oohs and aahs from the cognoscenti. Some people build creative custom cars; others work hard to make sure their car looks exactly as the Porsche engineers intended. That’s me. My car is not modified just improved.

This is really a community in any sense of the word. Shared interests everywhere. No