tupac

June 3, 2020

If I Hear…

Someone else use the phrase “mainstream media” to prove a point from any ideological perspective, I’m going to consider that person a complete non-started as a thinker. The phrase is meaningless.

Another sportscaster say “we need sports” as a distraction from the pandemic, I’m going to point to the Roman Emperor Nero, bread and circuses, the Fall of the Empire and the Dark Ages.

Yet another pundit utter the word “optics” to strengthen his/her opinion, I’m going to smash him in the glasses.

Another person tell me, “I’ll send a link to a video that will prove my point and that you’re wrong,” I’m going to say, “Sure, send me that link and the other links to videos that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that:

The Holocaust didn’t happen.

The Earth is flat.

The Federal Reserve is illegal.

The federal income tax in unconstitutional and therefore voluntary.

Tupac is still alive pumping gas in Toledo, Oregon.

You’ll go blind if you masturbate (men only)

9-11 was an inside job.

Ronald Reagan is on Mt. Rushmore.

Jews run the world.

Rock and Roll isn’t dead.

Santa Claus exists.

Lewis and Clark were gay.

The sun revolves around the Earth.

Bloodletting actually works as a medical procedure.

Gravity isn’t real.

The moon shot was a hoax.

Mormon founder Joesph Smith once met Jesus in Cleveland.

Yeah, send those links along and be assured of your opinion even though you haven’t thought an original thought on the subject or know anything about it except the video. That’s what passes for your critical thinking. I’ve read over a hundred books on Constitutional history and law, got degrees in history and political science, taught the subject for years, seen my own Constitutional rights violated by the state of Oregon, been a card carrying member of the ACLU, followed the Supreme Court’s rulings since I was in high school…but you know more about the illegal federal income tax than I do! You don’t even know the number of the Amendment!

And if hear one more evangelist on radio, television or the internet who says the Bible is true because it’s in the Bible, I’m going to adopt The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as my sacred text and take it from there. And elves and dwarves are a lot cooler than Philistines and Pharisees.

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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.