My LTR with ‘West Side Story’: It’s Complicated!

I was allergic to musicals growing up. Didn’t see ‘Grease’ until the mid 80s. Didn’t watch ‘Sound of Music’ until the late 80s. Around ’90 became obsessed with ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, later ‘An American in Paris’. The musical form struck me as ridiculous when the world was full of David Lynch and cult classics and massive blockbusters.

In ’85 I was subjected to the movie of ‘West Side Story’. Well, it played in the background while something extraordinary was going on. Let’s say the first major engagement of Eros and with someone I adored. I recall the whiteness of Tony’s overbite. Cries of “Maria!” and co-marveling at the can-you-believe-this-dorky-musical-keeps-playing? moments.

What was really happening was an imprinting process.

I had a self-imposed ban on ever seeing the movie again, out of respect for that one time I barely watched it (we heathens have our rituals, too) and a few times was a bit of a pain in the ass about it. “Oh, no! We have to rent something ELSE! I shall NEVER…” blah blah.

As couples smash plates and glasses after a wedding under the premise those objects would never serve a higher function, I mentally smashed VHS copies of ‘West Side Story’ out of pop culture psychoemotional sanctimony.

And then, ENOUGH!

I rented. No, hold up, I BOUGHT ‘West Side Story’ on VHS and watched it.

Me: “I’ve decided NO FEAR and I am going to watch ‘West Side Story’!”

My apartment mate (reasonably): “…”

In 1993 or ’94 I watched it, all the way through. Of course, I laughed as most everyone does at the dorky gangs.

Sharks and Jets basketball court confrontation
Sharks (L) nattier dressers, Anita’s on their side. Jets (R) a bunch of smart-alecks. Go Sharks!

Think of what gang members have worn in the decades of your life. Aren’t those fashions ridiculous? No way for gangs in the 60s to look cool now. Hoodlums are trite. Go ahead and tell them I said it. I don’t care.

Of course the movie’s music, some of the bite, and the supporting performances got to me. I watched it over and over. Not perceiving the imprinting it had done under primal circumstances a decade before, I defensively mocked the movie to vainly assert an ironic distance. The precision and number of ways I was soon able to cite the movie would make the bond plain to all but the one snarking.

KING LEAR
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her.

I was hot for the movie, but was not aware enough to admit it. Like any tedious moral zealot having to stand before microphones to confess lust toward those he publicly rebuked/abhorred.

Chita Rivera, the original Anita on Broadway. Ooof!

I don’t know the movie best in a room of people. I was baffled by a colleague a few years ago who made reference to “Puerto Rico, island of tropical breezes.” WTF? I looked at him. “It’s from the song ‘America’.” “No, it isn’t” I said haughtily while mentally running through the lyrics. He was right. It’s in the musical, but is not a line in the MOVIE. He was being friendly, and inadvertently my erudition totally GOT SERVED!

Now, however, I get there are significant differences between the lyrics, order of the songs, and arrangement between the Broadway production(s) and the movie. Some lyrics are improved in the movie. And the song order makes more sense to me in the movie with “Cool” sung by Ice (!) after Riff is dead, and “America” is better as an interplay between Bernardo and Anita, the two best performers in the movie. So glad they both got Oscars.

Rita Moreno is an idol from ‘The Electric Company’ t.v. show (“Hey you guys!” was her catch-yell). That she also played Zelda in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ makes her all-time. One of the few EGOTs ever.

Once reminded of one song, they come not single-spies but in batallions. I end up reminiscing, humming, bellowing, jumping octaves while traipsing over the whole soundtrack.

John Barrowman, mensch, gives a really solid perfomance of “Maria” below. He miffs the last note (who wouldn’t?) but he sings like he means it. So many use it to show off without trying to convey any emotion. “Check out the runs I can make!” kinda crap that induces saccharine shock on television singing contests like ‘American Idol’.

But when I sing, it’s not held to one character. Or the dude characters. Once I’m in, I’m in full throttle singing mostly all of the parts. Sometimes I invoke a heavenly/hellish daydream where I perform the entire soundtrack (at least the songs with lyrics) as a one-person revue. Keep the paddy wagon parked right outside the theater.

I know in the clip above Natalie Wood’s singing is overdubbed. I know that, crazily, the Grammy-winning (and Tony-winning, and Emmy-winning, and Oscar-winning) Rita Moreno is overdubbed. On a commentary track, Moreno politely, but rightly, nitpicks about the overdub, including its use of a faked Mexican accent instead of a Puerto Rico accent.

I know the movie is melodrama. I know neither one of their arguments makes sense. Anita: “Stick to your own kind!” Maria: “Right or wrong, what else can I do?” Both have ROTTEN advice and LOUSY proclamations!

Yet, even though the role of Maria can be a trilling soprano extravaganza at the expense of articulation (the version above is modest on this count) and expression, Could be the crying sound of ecstatic, despondent female voices, the urgency of the music. But I am moved most every time I hear the song, especially the end lamentation/surrender/boast. Decades away from such high drama in my own life, the coda makes me solemn and brings the adolescent urgency and surging of hormones and hope for metaphysically impossible things and deflation and euphoria like nothing else.

I’m not entirely rational, is what I’m saying.

[Originally posted in October 2011. Haven’t seen the new Spielberg movie yet, but the soundtrack is fantastic. Listening to it now as I type. Rita Moreno sings a solo “Somewhere” in her own voice!]

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame…

When feeling down & dull, it’s inspiring to return to the sublimity of Walter Pater:

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike. While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odors, or work of the artist’s hands, or the face of one’s friend […]

Well! we are all condamnés, as Victor Hugo says; we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve — les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort avec des sursis indéfines: we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among “the children of this world,” in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion — that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.

– Walter Pater, from Conclusion to The Renaissance

Canada is cool. Like Fonzie.

You know what the funniest thing about Canada is? It’s the little differences. Wonderful place it is, the message could not be clearer: if you want unsweetened ice tea at any store or restaurant, fast food or fancy, you can drink lemonade-sweetened Nestea or fuck right off you wimp.

Given that it’s a British Commonwealth, or something, I’d thought Canada would have more sensitivity to the variations of tea people like to drink.

Breezed through with only part of a day in Toronto and two days in Montréal. In French-speaking Québec I fought the instinct to gush out my halting high school French freshman year skills. Kept the clumsily composed phrases to myself, sometimes whispering them when the moment passed. Did break out a few “Merci” without shame. Increased resolve to some day get to France and of course apologize to all around for George W. Bush-era and now Trump-era buffoonery done by Republicans des états-unis.

Basilique Notre-Dame De Montréal on Canada Day en route to the fireworks show at Old Port.

I unknowingly scheduled us to arrive in Montréal on Canada Day (July 1). I got to the Old Port where a 10 p.m. fireworks display was the crescendo to a day-long event. The city was active, weather great, and a lot of human activity.

I missed the first minute of fireworks as I was still walking down a street to get within sight. The music was not the national anthem of “Oh, Canada”. It was the main music theme to the “Lord of the Rings”. Then after about 10-12 minutes of medium trajectory fireworks, the show was over. Disney-trained me expected spectacle, grandeur, patriotism, boasting, expense! Fireworks in shapes! Hearts! Mickey Mouse heads! Fireworks bursting inside other fireworks then becoming another kind of fireworks!

Instead it was a modest “Here are your fireworks. Got ‘em? Good. Now let’s all go home. The police are working late and most of you probably have got work tomorrow. It’s Monday night.”

Others leisurely and pleasantly walking back didn’t seem to be as bewildered and underwhelmed as I was. Then I started laughing and I’m still chuckling on & off about it now.

Within the first few minutes of watching Canada television, my daughter remarked during a commercial break for a local show & tell programm(e) that most every element seemed to not yell or want to rattle the t.v. in the way that we were used to. Typically that’s attributed to a Canadian trait/stereotype of modesty (“Sorry”). But Canada has national healthcare. The U.S. does not. Canada seems better in attending to general well-being. Increasingly I don’t think the tone is attributed to modesty so much as we in the U.S. are accustomed to feeling so on edge, working to exhaustion, aware that a major health event could bankrupt us and put us on the street, that we need to get screamed at to get our attention. Stress and worry has made us collectively dumber and more selfish and unable to identify our true sources of stress. Our media often whips us up then directs us to the wrong causes for why life/society isn’t working for us like it could. In the wealthiest nation in human history.

As we wrapped up watching the “Good Omens” series finale (fun – ups & downs – but fun!), Room Service (ehm, I mean “Service Aux Chambre”) knocked on our door tonight and accidentally gave us extra sheets and blankets. So our teens made a pillow & blanket shelter.

Le Forte du Portland Famillie en Montréal, Québec.

Yes, we had poutine in Montréal. Two different kinds. La Banquise seves 30 different kinds and is open 24 hours a day. Charming place, tasty. Back to the States tomorrow!

W.H. Auden’s Dirty “The Platonic Blow” Job

W.H. Auden wrote this poem about fellatio, foreplay, rimming in 1948, but denied authorship when it first came into public light in 1965, then admitted authorship to a magazine in 1968. It is dirty and often funny, describing a sex exchange between two men.

Let us imagine Auden composing this – journal book scribbled on as it rests and wobbles on a young man’s head. Or maybe the journal book is set open on the bed, as Auden performs this, that, or the other thing and pauses from time to time to jot a note.

Does anyone else detect boasting in the poem? Would any rapper care to take on this braggadocio and turn this into a 10 or 11 minute rap epic?

The Platonic Blow
W. H. Auden

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
“Will you come to my room?” Then a husky voice, “O.K.”

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

“Shall I rim you?” I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. “That’s lovely!” he hoarsely said.
“Go on! Go on!” Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered “Oh!”
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. “O Jesus!” he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

Most everyone does “Jabberwocky” wrong

Like many annoying people, I memorized “Jabberwocky” at a young age and am precious about it. Such as, well, now. Imagine me typing this with a shrewish self-righteous face that looks eminently punchable. Few things send me into a rage so quickly as when someone pronounces “borogoves” as “boro-groves”, inserting a second “r”. Not news about genocides, insults to those I love, nor essays on how the Star Wars prequels are okay movies.

Rationally, I know the story takes place in a forest and so it’s liable to trick minds into thinking of a “grove”. However, if a person recites a poem, and gets a word wrong, then stands there like he/she actually got the whole thing right, it’s an aesthetic crime. You don’t have it memorized. Get the fuck off the stage. Though I have never a read anything he wrote, I have read & listened to many Neil Gaiman interviews and find him charming. But even Gaiman fucks it up:

He messes up on another word, too, but I’ll forgive him that. The full poem:

Jabberwocky
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

Kate Burton starred in Alice in Wonderland in a fun production on PBS’ Great Performances in the early 1980s that I watched many times as a kid. It features famous (and soon-to-be-famous) actors in sets and costumes drawn from John Tenniel’s illustrations. She even has a scene with her father, Richard Burton, who plays the White Knight.

Kate Burton, to her eternal credit, gets “Jabberwocky” right. If you ever catch someone fucking it up, bring this up on your smartphone and play it to the person with your most pointed pointy finger:

Joan Didion mourning a middle-aged child

My kids are old enough, I mentioned in a conversation with a friend, that increasingly I see my job as just getting out of their way. Each generation rides roughshod over the bones of the dead. Let’s hope this won’t happen for several more decades, but eventually I’ll be among the peat caught in a younger generation’s tank treads.

And with the deaths of acquaintances, family, friends, and celebrities — reaching the midpoint of life will mean that more people I know of will have died than are still living. Cheery? No. But practical, and helps keep the ego in check that maybe a late order in a restaurant isn’t the hugest matter in the world.

 Joan Didion, from an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. Click on the photo to listen.
Joan Didion, from an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. Click on the photo to listen.

Flipping that, what’s it like to outlive your child? Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking writes about the death of her spouse. Just a few weeks before the publication of that book, Didion’s daughter died at the age of 39. She wrote about the experience in Blue Nights. A poem excerpt from the book:

Vanish.

Pass into nothingness: the Keats line that frightened her.

Fade as the blue nights fade, go as the brightness goes.

Go back into the blue.

I myself placed her ashes in the wall.

I myself saw the cathedral doors locked at six.

I know what it is I am now experiencing.

I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.

The fear is not for what is lost.

What is lost is already in the wall.

What is lost is already behind the locked doors.

The fear is for what is still to be lost.

You may see nothing still to be lost.

Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.

To my daughter, a new teenager

Today you turn 13, though you have been a teenager in spirit for a while now. Tall, smart, increasingly savvy, curious, reflective, sensing your awareness of the world and of yourself is changing and growing. Unsure what form your mind will eventually take, which can be frustrating, as many changes in your mind and feelings are not in ways you can choose.

Sometimes your parents and brother are on the ball, other times none of us seem to get you.

I like seeing the glimpses of the different personas you try on like hats to see what suits you, or makes you laugh, or might make your friends laugh. I know as you grow more independent, and the natural shift happens where your friends’ thoughts matter more than your parents’ thoughts, that you will be less and less my toddling daughter of many years ago. You don’t need me to refill a sippy cup or fetch a snack. You are less dependent on me the more time goes on.

But that’s why, my increasingly grown-up daughter, when you choose to hangout with me, with so many other choices before you, it matters all the more. And you’re good company. I delight in seeing and hearing you joke, experimenting. Some jokes are misses, but when they hit the target they THUNK like an arrow hitting a bullseye. High-fives all around, fully amused as all of us in the room laugh.

You are clever. I delight in seeing you find new outlets of expression, and build on the ones you have had for years. I delight in thinking of the baby you were, the child you were not too long ago, and marveling at the impressive human being you are now. Happy birthday, my darling daughter.

Love always, Papa.

 Daughter taking a photo of
Daughter taking a photo of “Untitled (To Donna) II” by Dan Flavin.

Christmas Krampus, friend/menace to children/parents

ATTENTION PARENTS: On Christmas Eve, the Krampus, evil companion of Santa, continues his rounds to stuff naughty children into his bag and take them down to Hell. Many of you saying goodnight to your kids may want to say goodbye instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus

I know MY kids aren’t going to Hell. I presume yours are not, either. Please don’t ask me how to contact the Krampus to make requests. I don’t want to know about it.

Occupy Portland remains a success

Three years ago, Portland police forced the over five-week Occupy Portland camp spread across two parks to finally disperse. Some people chortled, but the effects of Occupy Portland and the Occupy Movement continue to be felt today. Our nation is better for it.

 Occupy Portland rally, October 6, 2011, Pioneer Square
Occupy Portland rally, October 6, 2011, Pioneer Square

On October 6, 2011 the first Occupy Portland rally marched from Waterfront Park down NW Portland, down Broadway, and ended up with several thousand rallying in Pioneer Square. It was a massive demonstration. It then shifted to a group of people occupying one city park, then spreading to the park on the next block, both near City Hall and the Justice Center.

Mayor Sam Adams ignored calls to remove the protestors, and he let them remain in the parks for five weeks. Over time, transients and others needing the food, medicine, and other services at the site began to overtake the Occupy Portland site, it retained the energy of protest and was a symbol of collective action.

The Occupy Movement did not have a single agenda. This confused the media and curmudgeons who wanted to do the typical cutting-of-a-deal to make the pain go away. In this case, the breadth of the Occupy Movement and its lack of hierarchy were virtues. “Main Street, not Wall Street!” “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” People frustrated with a time of record national wealth and profits leading to horribly high poverty rates. Worker productivity doubling over the last 30 years as their earnings stagnated. Corporations attaining the same rights as human beings, yet not being accountable for crimes done to others. There was no single agenda. Masses of people were pissed off, and they wanted to come together, not feel alone in their anger, and to scare the shit out of those in power.

And they did scare the shit out of the people in power. In early 2011, it would have been impossible to imagine the media covering the effort to raise the minimum wage with anything but contempt. Yet, here we now are with cities raising the minimum wage to $15/hour and a national conversation about doing just that. (There’s a case that to keep up with 1968 dollars the minimum wage should be $22/hour, but progress is welcome.)

 Occupy Portland camp, November 2011
Occupy Portland camp, November 2011

The Occupy Movement dispersed, but did not lose energy. That fast food workers are now talking about earning a livable wage, and are not completely laughed at by corporate media, is directly attributable to the Occupy Movement. People are now challenging bad education policies, dictated by the wealthy, with increasing ease and power. A lot of the people challenging the status quo gained experience in collective action, living the power of the people, from watching or participating in the Occupy Movement.

And, in Portland, people learned that there are people in power who sympathize with their important causes. Mayor Adams could have ejected Occupy Portland immediately, but he did not. A small community formed and ran for more than a month. Other city leaders were not as tolerant. As distressing as the police purge of Occupy Portland was, that it existed so long was a testimony that lives in the memory of many. And in those memories was a lesson in the importance of being brave.

In October 2011, Bank of America on SW Morrison started stationing a full-time security guard to stand in front of the doors, rain or shine, after an Occupy Portland stunt rattled the banker’s cages. Bank of America still has a security guard there, three years later. They remain scared about what people will do next. And that’s good. And it made Wall Street create an actual job!

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