“Music and Language Can Tell All . . . Courageously, Without Weapons.” — Dr
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FREE! Fall Equinox Edition 2014 “Music and language can tell all . courageously, without weapons.” — Dr. Karkeys www.upperleftedge.com > > > > > > > > > where we start writing > > > > > > > > cannon beach, oregon start we writing > cannon beach, > where www.upperleftedge.com UPPER LEFT EDGE Dinah Urell first met Billy Hults in the fall of 2001. Or was it 2002? I don’t re- vationists, including one Tre Arrow of the Cascadia Forest Alliance. Tre was a call precisely and it hardly matters when it comes to writing a mini notorious and radical environmental activist in those days and he desperately memoir of my unique relationship with Billy (although everyone wanted to save Acey Line from the chainsaw. He constructed a platform near had a unique relationship with him). Billy wouldn’t care either way the top of one of the God’s Valley giants and raised the stakes of the protest. about the veracity because he was an extraordinary fabulist in the Bob Dylan It was the first tree sit in an Oregon state forest and ODF and the Tillamook mold and often left the facts blowin’ in the wind. County Sheriff’s Office officials were clueless how to handle the controversy. Okay, it was 2001, after 9-11, when the government started treating radical Billy took up the cause in the Upper Left Edge and on the ground and I began environmentalists like a splinter group of Al Qaeda and handing down 25- writing about it for the Astoria-based alternative monthly Hipfish and running year sentences for torching a couple of used cars or burning down a ski resort under construction. supplies to the tree sitters. The subject of our meeting was the Acey Line unit, a pristine parcel of old At some point in the standoff, which lasted a couple months, a lackey acting trees in the God’s Valley area of the Tillamook State Forest near Mohler off under orders from the Tillamook County Sheriff either cut a branch out from Highway 53. This idyllic section of forestland had escaped the ravages of the under Arrow in the dead of night or he fell trying to leap to another branch. Tillamook Burn and represented one of the few naturally-seeded areas of the Or a little of both. Each side told a different version but the one sympathetic plantation that is the Tillamook State Forest. Naturally, the Oregon Depart- locals heard on police scanners and CB radio directly contradicted the official ment of (clearcut) Forestry (ODF) wanted it logged for a couple of dozen tem- exculpatory tale from the Tillamook Sheriff’s Office. porary jobs (not even local ones) and some meager tax receipts. In other words, they might have lied. At the time I believed they had lied and The proposed thinning drew the substantial ire of local and Portland conser- said so in print. 2 - Upper Left Edge / Fall Equinox Edition 2014 After the thinning, ODF arranged like doing this sort of thing for a living? a press tour of the site. About a dozen Explaining why it’s okay to murder members of the print, television, and something beautiful.” radio media showed up. They all repre- Later that year, I was called for jury Artists and Trees sented well-known media outlets and duty in Tillamook County where I lived held out impressive laminated press at the time. After the voir dire process Here we are again, at the woody Edge, credentials for admission to the site. (which I passed), a judge asked pro- always a new experience for writers and It was at this media gathering in front spective jurors if there was any reason readers. Let’s give thanks for the gifts that of a metal gate blocking a logging road they couldn’t serve without bias. contribute to this first paper edition in twelve years. where I met Billy for the first time. I raised my hand and said, “Your Thank you artists, thank you trees. Thank you Creator, When the press flack asked Billy what honor, I can’t possibly serve on a jury yessiree. media outlet he represented, he told where any deputy of the sheriff’s de- them and brandished a few copies for partment testifies. I wouldn’t believe a Our beloved Reverend Billy Lloyd Hults began this good measure. word he says.” scruffy publication in 1992. It was an extension of his The flack said in so many words that Everything instantly came to a halt in love for the written word that made a home at the Upper Left Edge wasn’t legitimate the courtroom. Jupiter’s Books in Cannon Beach. The Upper Left Edge enough (meaning not corporate) a pub- “Why?” the judge said. conveyed his grassroots calling to create space for the lication to warrant access to the site. “I was involved in the God’s Valley muse to flow and mingle directly with people. Billy spread the gospel of Art and Mother Hipfish wouldn’t cut it either. protests.” Billy didn’t bat an eye and proceeded Nature. He supported fellow artists, “You’re excused.” especially writers and musicians. He advocated for the to give the flack a highly polished and I got up from the jury box and brief lecture on the First Amendment Earth and encouraged readers to tend to her needs. walked out of the courtroom. and freedom of the press. The flack In the following years, Billy and I be- This work continues at our website -- www.upperleft- had no authority to determine what came good friends and he published a edge.com. We’re moved to offer this print qualified as a legitimate publication. If couple of my polemics in the Upper Left edition in concert with the 25th anniversary of he didn’t let Billy pass, he’d be violating Edge. Later, when I got the book writ- Jupiter’s Books, and the 50th anniversary of Sometimes Billy’s Constitutional rights (and mine) ing going, I published two of Billy’s es- a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Also, Billy is being and adding another unwanted twist to says, one about his unlikely connection honored by the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. Whoop whoop! this controversy. Billy told the flack, to the Portland Trail Blazers’ vegetarian “You’re supposed to be solving prob- Billy wasn’t really a fame kind of fellow, so far as I lems, not creating them. That’s what bad ass forward Maurice Lucas, and could tell during decades of friendship. He did have a public relations men do.” the other about the legendary Mayor’s handle on the big-money forces that shape it, The flack waited for a second and Ball, an unprecedented event staged however, and for that reason he devoted his life to then Billy produced a crinkled 3 X 5 at Memorial Coliseum to retire newly finding affordable ways to share creative gifts. note card with the words “PRESS PASS” elected Bud Clark’s campaign debt. The The Reverend was already kind of famous when he died handwritten in black marker. He must Mayor’s Ball was a seminal rock and roll quasi political circus that I consider five years ago. More than that though, he was beloved. have created it on the drive up, know- So is everyone who’s ing something exactly like this would as one of the crucial events in modern Portland history and the precise date reading these words, and the vast minions of happen. He handed it to the flack and humanity who have no idea these words exist. wordlessly walked me and another the Rose City became officially unof- writer from some environmental publi- ficially weird. In the end there are no real brokers of truth and love cation right past the gate. I had a hard Naturally, Billy masterminded the and beauty. Art happens some how to each of us, when we time not laughing. The flack didn’t say Mayor’s Ball, as he did so many other open a way. anything. schemes for sundry good causes. On site, Billy took notes, climbed I dearly miss those schemes. They Let us begin again, brothers and sisters. over the downed trees, and took pho- made Oregon a lot more interesting - Watt Childress, Publisher tographs. He asked the flack one tough place to live. You know how I suggest question after another that really didn’t we honor Billy Hults on the occasion of have much to do with logging. They the 25th anniversary of Jupiter Books? were more existential in nature. The Conjure a scheme for good; implement only one I firmly recall was, “Do you it on a lark. Editor and Publisher Billy Hults Dinah Urell Watt Childress Peter Lindsey Don Frank Matt Love Design and Layout Contributing Writers Nancy Slavin Dinah Urell Stevie Stephens Burden Victoria Stoppiello Michael Burgess Web Design Watt Childress Contributing Artists Bob Goldberg Douglas Deur Sally Lackaff P.O. Box 1096 Cannon Beach, OR 97110 www.upperleftedge.com 503-436-0549 Upper Left Edge / Fall Equinox Edition 2014 - 3 Often I’d grab a book from my bedside then called. That was when Kesey was a stacks, treasures gleaned from the book- graduate student at Stanford, and worked store. I’d read while swaddled in that nights in the psych ward of a nearby vet- ambient edge, perhaps some poems by eran’s hospital. The Agency hoped their Psyche Combs the Sherman Alexie, Gary Snyder, or Wil- study would enable them to engineer hu- liam Stafford. Maybe an essay by Wendell man behavior. The testers were clueless, Berry or Terry Tempest Williams.