July 19, 2017

Rallying

The word “rally” has always intrigued me. In junior high and high school I wanted a cheerleader for a girlfriend. (It sort of worked out a couple of times, for two or three days, and I’ll always remember the ritual egging and toilet papering of the house that meant I belonged…for two or three days.)

During that era, rally also meant coming from behind in sports. I recall trailing 0-6, 0-5, love 40 in a tennis match my freshmen year. You cannot trail your opponent in tennis by any greater margin. Let that last point be swift, merciful. Let the ass be totally kicked.

I came all the way back and it didn’t happen because I started going for winners. It was patience, one shot at a time, the slog, and waiting for that one game when everything turns and you know you are in the match. I’m in that kind of match right now but I’m not playing tennis. One shot at a time to get back into it. Use your entire arsenal of shots. Don’t be afraid to lob or hit a drop shot.

Rallying is everything to me at the moment. I’m doing it alone. I’m doing it with help from family, new friends, old friends, perfect strangers, former girlfriends, authors of classic texts, and assorted nuggets of classic rock found randomly on the radio. Dogs are chipping in, too.

A few recent examples where I felt like I was rallying:

Discussions about poetry with my father.

A great backyard dinner with a neighbor that I cooked from scratch.

Feeding bread to birds.

Telling funny jail stories to an old girlfriend and making her laugh.

Talking with my ex wife about our unique history together.

An offer from an RV park owner.

Listening to soul music.

Watching 20 hummingbirds feast in an apple tree.

Conceiving the best Oregon eclipse story and how to write it up (hint: OTA).

Teaching an ocean-themed writing workshop at the ocean.

Hearing some great writing from the ocean-themed writing workshop.

Using an old word like “gussy” in an interesting new way.

Sipping a Calvados while watching Youngs Bay.

Offering a downtrodden man some succor.

Walking Bonnie and Clyde along the Lewis and Clark River.

Going into the creative mind at the most unexpected moments.

(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

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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.

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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.