FreeBass on Global Funk Radio October 31 2019 Halloween Edit

     This was a fun show with lot's of great tunes and an appearance by the Halloween DJ. He was nice enough to come from the graveyard to spin a little, but near the end of the show his zombie ways took over and he attacked me. I had to finish up the last part of the show with a stab wound and severed foot.

Check the tracklist on the channel page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvKb37cetN4&t=1147s

"The Big Both Ways" by John Straley - Blind Guy Book Review

     The Big Both Ways is a great book by John Straley set in the hard times of the Depression ravaged Northwest. Based on actual events, but not a true story, and in the vein of a "tall tale,  it is rich in Northwest labor history, vivid Northwest scenery  and follows big hearted ex-logger "Slippery" Wilson, rabble rouser "Red", organizer Ellie Hobbs, her young gritty niece Annabelle, and Annabelle's caged yellow precocious Cockatiel named Buddy on the adventure of two lifetimes. The author drives the class- struggle peppered narrative through a maze of complex characters and grand vistas in the midst of a murder investigation centered on Slip and Ellie. Throughout the novel, Straley uses flashbacks to examine crucial labor history events like the Everett  Massacre, the Centralia Tragedy and the 1935 A.J Mine strike. This makes for a great go-to book for anyone looking to expand their perspective on early 1900's labor struggles set in the beautiful Northwest.   

       The story starts with the gruesome death of a fellow logger on Slip's crew.  The death of his friend forces Slip to gather up the meager belongings he'd managed to salvage before the bank took his parents farm, collect the thousands of dollars he's saved from under the floor boards of his bunk house, and quit his job to find a ranch he can buy over on the "east side of the mountains”.  He just wants to live out his life in peace. As Slip leaves, gaunt unemployed ghostly looking depression era workers emerge for the first time from the "bushes and dry culverts" to replace Slip and his dead friend. It won't be the last time the author highlights the desperate plight of the depression era workers. Their poorly fed figures re-appear several times throughout The Big Both Ways like timid mice daring to pitter into the open to steal a scrap of food left behind by the distracted Capitalist cat. Throughout the book, Straley  gives the impression the "men" don't care where their scraps come from. They just want food, shelter, and a job and will put up with just about anything to secure a morsel of cheese.

       Just trying to get out of town, when Slip accepts a ride from Ellie Hobbs in her big Lincoln, his dream of settling down is not to be.  Distracted by Ellie's good looks, in spite of her two black eyes, Slip tries to overlook the funny smell and dripping blood coming from the Lincoln's trunk. When Ellie stops for some shady business at a farm house, and then drives the Lincoln into a local body of water, Slip knows he's in for it. Shit gets real when Ellie gives him a gun and asks him to meet her in Seattle. Questioning his judgment for ever getting mixed up with the "beach bottle blonde" with the intense blue eyes, , he suddenly finds she has stolen his money. Now he has to go to Seattle where he eventually finds the "anarchist," which only leads him to more trouble, but not before Ellie's niece, Annabelle, and her bird Buddy, make their entrance onto the narrative stage.  

        It doesn't take long for the fuzz, a cop named George Hanson with ties to communist organizing himself, to sniff out Slip and Ellie's trail of violence. George's dad, “The Big Finn," was at the Centralia tragedy, which happened one hundred years ago on November 11, 1919. Using flashbacks, Straley veers a little from the historic timeline in the telling of this seminal labor history event, but comes close enough to the gruesome story to add a sense of depth and purpose to the novel. In the book, after that night "Wobbly" Wesley Everest was lynched at the railroad bridge turned gallows, "The Big Finn," who according to the "tall tale" was there hiding out under the railroad trestle  as the mob pushed Everest off the bridge with a rope around his neck into the cold misty November air to his death, "never took another breath without fighting for the revolution." Sixteen years later, his son George is sent on the trail of another "Red" fighting for the revolution, Ellie Hobbs. Will he bring her in? You'll have to wait until the last pages of the book to find out.

       After another body in a ravaged worker camp is linked to Slip and Ellie, they must flee up the inside passage to Alaska on a well-used dinghy given to Slip by his Seattle barber friend. From here the book follows Slip, Ellie, Annabelle and Buddy, hounded by "Union thugs" out for revenge, a Pedi boat captain and George the cop, all the way to Juno, Alaska, where the story culminates at the violent conclusion of the A.J Mine strike of 1935. Along the way the travelers drift through idyllic settings filled with danger and mystery. When one of our beloved characters, sorry no spoilers, loses two fingers at a back-water segregated Alaska cannery, the forever struggle of the workers breaches the surface of the novel like the inside-passage whales that paid the little Dinghy crew a visit on their way North. As the story unfolds, the author leaves us wondering if everything is going to work out well for Slip and his new found companions. We don't know until the very end, but not to be a spoiler, one of the crew who pushed off from the Seattle inlet in the little dinghy doesn't make it to Alaska. 

          I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters are relatable in that campy exaggerated "Cannery Row" kind of way. Ellie sticks to her beliefs no matter what. Even when the gun is to her head and all her chips are down, she still stands strong, something we all hope we'll do when the "shit hits the fan."  Slip, on the other hand, he just wants to live his life in peace, but no matter how hard he tries the world keeps sticking its mangled bloody finger in his face. "Know the feeling?" Annabelle and Buddy the bird,  possible symbols of the working class and its missing "Consciousness," bring a light hearted and vulnerable feeling to the story. The setting is lush and green in that mossy foggy Northwest way we all love, while the plot is exciting and shockingly dark like a stormy Seattle December afternoon. 

     The theme of worker struggle really has its place in 2019. When I was reading the book, I couldn't help wonder would it get this bad again in the United States. But, when I see the ongoing labor strikes and the mass displacement of workers, resulting in rampant homelessness, I can't help but think, "Maybe it's already that bad in the United States." Throw all this together between the paperback covers, you will find that this is a fulfilling engaging twelve hour read for anyone interested in worker struggles in the Northwest and beyond. Happy reading!