nicklback

May 26, 2018

Oregon Tavern Age: Nickelback Thoughts

Nickelback plays on the local radio station. An ad for catheters comes on television. An OTA man in OTA country drinks a draft of Pabst. The bartender studies for a dog obedience class. She tells the man she wants a new career where she doesn’t have to deal with human beings.

I get that.

Taylor Swift croons on the radio and television switches to a golf tournament.

Someone scores big on Video Lottery and the game cranks up,“Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles. I wonder how much money the Bangles earn every time that song plays on a digital gambling portal in North America? I wonder if I would have licensed one of my hit songs in a similar manner, had I actually written a hit song? Perhaps. That one about euthanizing my old dog probably wouldn’t have gone over too well.

Autotune something now. I’d rather hear the catheter ad. You can at least dance to it.

I am writing a letter to a dear friend. Longhand. Longhand. Longhand. I want to live a life of longhand. Is that possible?

A possible new client for my author coaching business has emerged. He’s a senior citizen writing a collection of erotic tales for Baby Boomer women. Many of the stories are set in historic Oregon places. Steve Prefontaine even puts in an appearance as a character in the background, a bartender in Eugene! Steven Prefontaine! I hope the writer accepts my proposal. This new life I am living has proved very interesting at times.

At times.

Do I want the old life back? No, only Sonny, and some moments building forts with young Oregonians.

I need a benefactor who will help me publish the OTA book or magazine or whatever it’s going to be. Is that person out there? Maybe I should put 50 smackers in the Bangles machine and hope for the best.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

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Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.