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Labor paeans
By Jody Kolodzey
Jan. 30 — Musician John McCutcheon will sometimes challenge
rally organizers to name two speeches from the civil rights movement.
“Everyone can name one, but it’s amazing how almost no one
can name two. And then I say, ‘OK, let’s start naming all
the songs from the civil rights movement that we remember.’ ”
And their names are legion.
“I think that, in general, progressive movements have lost their
sense of culture as an organizing tool,” he says. “All you
have to do is witness, even an antiwar rally these days, where everything
is built around speakers. Musicians and other kinds of cultural workers
are almost viewed as punctuation between the real work that’s being
done—by speakers.
“I don’t think this is done maliciously; I don’t even
think it’s done knowingly. But anybody who’s ever done any
work like that, be they a poet or a theater group, a musician, whatever,
has certainly recognized that it’s absolutely the case.”
McCutcheon presides over the 400-member Local 1000 of the American Federation
of Musicians (AFM) AFL-CIO. Most AFM members play for big orchestras
and enjoy regular paychecks, but Local 1000 is the traveling musicians’
union, whose members work primarily in folk and other acoustic genres,
PLAYING in coffeehouses and other small venues where passing the hat
is all too common. Local 1000 set a wage scale for clubs, house concerts,
festivals, and so forth; it also has a pension plan, a rarity for this
kind of a union.
Minimum scale for a solo performer is $60 for an opening act. Add another
10 percent or so for the pension fund contribution. Most promoters are
already paying scale, and some 500 single-engagement contracts are signed
for individual artists each year, although only two organizations have
negotiated long-term agreements with the union.
Local 1000 began in a lunch conversation “about 17 or 18 years
ago” between McCutcheon and fellow activist-musicians Charlie King,
John O’Connor, and Len Wallace. “We were sharing war stories
about playing on picket lines and so on, and someone happened to make
the comment, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to feel about our own union
the way that many of the meatpackers or the flight attendants or the
coal miners that we’ve played for feel about theirs,’ and
a sort of collective light bulb went off.” It took until 1994 to
get the Local charter approved by the AFM.
Today, Local 1000’s membership roster reads like a who’s who
of the political folk world, from stalwarts such as Joe Glazer, U. Utah
Phillips and Pete Seeger to relative newcomers such as Ani DiFranco,
Pat Humphries, Joe Jencks and Laura Love.
In some ways, McCutcheon says, Local 1000 is “the most telling
thing that’s happening in labor music today. I mean, everybody
that’s involved in labor music, number one, is a member, and at
least as important is the difference it has made in people who never
knew or thought about labor unions at all, and all of a sudden are passionate
about the AFM.
“I think that it’s fleshed them out. And they listen to music
in a very different way, and they realize that there’s a lot of
music out there that is in fact labor music without being ‘Solidarity
Forever.’ When they hear a Bruce Springsteen song and he just happens
to mention in passing, ‘I met her down at the union hall,’
their ears perk up and they say, ‘Oh, I know what that’s like.’”
McCutcheon may be best known for his song “Christmas in the Trenches”
about an unofficial one-night truce between German and English soldiers
during World War I. His 24 recordings include 1997’s Grammy-nominated
Bigger Than Yourself (Rounder Records), for which the George Meany Center
for Labor Education produced a study guide to teach children about unions.
Still, it isn’t easy to pigeonhole him or his music.
“I don’t really think of myself as an antiwar singer or a
labor singer, I just happen right now to be the president of this Local,
and it’s something I feel passionate about. There’s only a
brief period of time that you have enough influence that people will
listen to you, and right now’s that time for me. Right now I’m
talking a lot of union nuts and bolts, but there’s a long way to
go and I doubt I’ll be shutting up about that anytime soon.”
Source: In These Times
Monster: more than a vehicle
for actor’s transformation
By David Connor Jones
(AGR) — Much to do has already been made about Charlize
Theron’s physical transformation for the role Aileen Carol Wournos,
the Florida drifter who was executed for the killing of seven men in
Florida in the 1980s. And while Theron’s shapeshift is impressive,
every bit as Robert Deniro’s commitment for Raging Bull (if not
more so), what is even more impressive is her performance. Monster provides
the perfect vehicle for the model Theron to shed her physical beauty
and demonstrate a mastery of her craft.
Her use of gesture, facial expression, voice, emotion -– all aspects
of the actor’s persona –- are every bit as mesmerizing as
her thirty newfound pounds, the false teeth, the freckled-skin and the
hair style. It would be terribly ironic if filmgoers once again focus
on the physical and miss Theron’s protean effort to deliver this
tragic character.
But more than a vehicle for Theron’s oft eclipsed talent, Monster
is a dark tale well told. It is the heartbreaking story of a woman lost
in the dark wood of a society that doesn’t care for those it pushes
to its margin, those that have the misfortune to fall through its cracks.
It is a desperate story that needs to be told, as painful as it may
be for some to watch. And in being a sensitive and well-made film about
certain social realities many would rather not look at, it is a vindication.
Not a justification for the murders –- although I would argue that
the initial murder could be justified on the grounds of self-defense
–- but rather it is the vindication of a woman that was probably
utterly misrepresented in a tabloid news media on her way to death row.
For the darkness at the heart of Monster is not so much the macabre
killing spree of a “girl-gone-wrong,” but rather the darkness
at the heart of this tale is the rape of a child, a father’s shame
turned to blame, and a society’s attitude towards a profession
-- and a class -- that must harbor countless such stories. Ricci’s
middle class circumstances, with her family’s intolerance of her
sexuality, offer another example of the damage that is done by societal
ignorance and marginalization.
Monster could be read as a violent tragedy, graphically depicted, showcasing
an astonishing performance by Charlize Theron. But to leave it at that
would be a mistake. The film offers a subtle but rich social critique
of aspects of contemporary American society. As it does so, it seeks
to humanize those we would, in our ignorance, push to the margin, those
who have fallen through the cracks, those who wait on death row, those
who we so quickly forget once they have been executed by a society that
refuses to address some of its deepest ills.
Unlike tabloid news depictions on any given network, Monster won’t
let us gawk and say, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
Instead, Monster asks us to look at ourselves in relation to this person
trapped by dreadful circumstance, maligned by society, and to ask how
much of the misfortune of others is really just circumstance, and how
much of it is something with which we may be complicit in our own ignorance?
There may be no easy answer, but it is a question we must ask.
UNCA hosts Vagina Monologues
By Kent Miller
(AGR) -- Cunt, pussy, and breasts have become common nouns of
the American mainstream for who knows how long. As their taboos have
worn down, so have their meanings. All too often, these words, so vibrant
with personality and power are confined to dominating put downs or disempowering
two- minute jokes by stand-up comedians.
These words that are so personal to women seem to be thrown back in
forth carelessly daily in the work place or home like nigger once was.
The Vagina Monologues reclaims not only the words but the emotions these
words provoke and, in doing so, the audience will never be able to use
their vocabulary in the same again. It will cover you in empowerment
and fill you with laughter, self worth, and sadness.
The production is being hosted by Women Acting in Liberation, a student
group at UNC Asheville with a cast of UNCA students and faculty. This
production falls on V-Day which was started by Eve Ensler the mastermind
of the Vagina Monologues. In the mission statement of V-Day, it is summed
up in a few concise sentences: “It demands that the violence must
end. It proclaims Valentine’s Day as V-day until the violence stops.
When all women live in safety, no longer fearing violence or the threat
of violence, then V-Day will be known as Victory Over Violence Day.”
This show is being done royalty-free, all proceeds going to Our voice
a local organization working for the compassionate and fair treatment
of sexually assaulted persons.
This is a part of one of the campaigns of the V-Day Organization, which
directly donates the schools profits from the Monologues to local organizations
in their communities that are working to stop violence against women.
“The Vagina Monologues” at 7:30pm Friday, Feb. 13 and 2:30pm
and 7:30pm Saturday, Feb 14 in UNCA’s Humanities Lecture Hall $5
for students $8 for general admission
For more information, call student organizer Katie McClure at (828)
255-2732 for more information on V-day check out www.vday.org
Our Voice takes it to the streets
By Allie Morris
(AGR) -- “We can’t prevent it,” Sandi Rice admonishes.
Rice, the executive director of Our Voice, explained to AGR that the
28-year-old organization provides a host of victim services for sexual
assault survivors as well as extensive educational opportunities to
promote awareness and prevention of sexual violence. “We believe
that knowledge-- the best information, choices, and access to resources
we can provide -- is critical. We are empowerment oriented.”
“But,” she is quick to caution, “we can’t go out
and stop rapists in their tracks.”
Indeed, the numbers are far from encouraging. Sexual assault is an epidemic
in the United States, affecting all ages and all genders. An estimated
683,000 women are raped each year, breaking down to about 1.3 each minute.
The statistical likelihood of children under the age of 18 experiencing
sexual violence is horrifying: according to the National Victim Center,
1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys are assaulted.
Of course, gathering data in this area is difficult due to the fact
that the vast majority of incidents go unreported. 90% of rapes, for
example, are not reported to the authorities, making it tough to determine
just how many people need the type of help organizations like Our Voice
offer.
Fortunately, such organizations do exist, and Our Voice has been at
it since 1978, when it sprouted from the grassroots run entirely by
volunteers. It has grown to include eight paid staff and 30 volunteers
who provide sexual abuse survivors with a laundry list of services that
are completely free and confidential. The Our Voice staff works 24 hours
a day to field calls on the crisis line, to accompany folks to medical
services, law enforcement interviews, and court proceedings. They also
connect victims with 16 sessions of counseling with a licensed therapist
and arrange support groups. But the work does not stop there.
Our Voice takes it to the streets, citing the goal “to never turn
down an opportunity to provide a community education program.”
These programs promoting awareness and teaching skills for self-protection
and risk identification of sexual violence are aimed at a broad variety
of people and are tailored to address different groups. They serve seniors
and young children, male victims of sexual violence, and professionals,
to name a few. Our Voice also brings the conversation to middle and
high schools, an essential move since most women are raped between the
ages of 15 and 21.
The group’s educational program comprises a large chunk of its
work. “A lot of our services are reactive,” Rice explains,
“but the empowerment component is proactive. We have to bring the
issue to the forefront and talk about it. Not to laugh, not to snicker,
but to have a discussion.”
This discussion is critical now more than ever considering the profound
spike in clients Our Voice has seen in recent months. Normally a slow
month, January 2004 saw 69 new clients seeking help in the Buncombe
County office of Our Voice. In the 12 years Rice has worked for the
organization, these are the highest numbers she’s seen. “The
numbers have been creeping up since last October,” she laments,
rivaling only 1992-3 “right after the first Gulf War. It was the
worst summer; people were settling back into the economy. There were
a lot of murders as well. Oh God, it was awful.”
Confronted with such dismal statistics, how do the staff and volunteers
at Our Voice react? Just as they do when the numbers are low: they remain
on call for victims reaching out and they keep the conversation going.
Rice pronounces, “Silence protects no one but the perpetrator.”
Our Voice is not going to quiet down.
You can contact the Buncombe Crisis Hotline 24 hours at 255-7576. The
Madison County Hotline number is 649-3912. For volunteer training or
further information, call Our Voice at 252-0562.
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