greenbean

May 11, 2020

Corona Virus Thoughts #6

Why do some people reach out during a crisis while others do nothing?

Trump supporters will stay loyal to the very end as did many Germans stay loyal to Hitler to the very end as did many Southerners stay loyal to the Confederacy and institution of slavery. Nothing really ever changes for fanatics. They can’t simply wake up from the spell and say, “Wow. I was wrong.” They can’t stop falling when they’ve jumped off a cliff and then fly upward to stand on the cliff again.

I continue to walk into strange stories during the self quarantining.

I recently heard perhaps the most preposterous but utterly believable story about beavers and beaverwood. I will try to write it up later but my storytelling talent may prove inadequate to capture its sheer farcical magic.

I’ve written another country song. This one is based on something I heard on Christian radio on Easter Sunday. It’s called “Jesus Will Rise on the Internet” and it is a sure fire hit. One stanza goes: They couldn’t go to church on Easter Sunday /They couldn’t have a potluck with green bean casserole / They couldn’t wear their wrinkled suits or pretty homespun dresses / They couldn’t drink Christ’s blood in shiny silver cups / But roll away the stone for the returned savior, ’cause Jesus will rise on the internet.

Another line goes: They couldn’t fixate on the crucifixion / They couldn’t sing songs of the devil and superstition…

I am writing this outside enshrouded in fog. I can’t ever recall writing in fog before. I kind of dig it.

My neighbor is letting me walk his dog again. He threw in the towel on social distancing. Joy!

Who would have ever thought that “taking a drive into the country” would return as a major form of recreation. In the early 60s it was the number one rated “outdoor recreation” activity in America. I am not making that up. I came across that fact while researching a story about Highway 101 and the Oregon Coast.

Someone knocked on my door the other day and gave me a bag of fresh trout. It was caught by perhaps the most strangely delightful pair of fishermen in the world.

I wish some people would order some books from me. I would load them up with some extra goodies.

I’ve started wearing windbreakers again. I can’t believe I ever got out of the habit.

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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

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

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.