The school year neared its end, I felt exhausted, and I asked myself:
What can a poor, burned-out teacher do, except play in a (student) rock 'n' roll band?So that's what I did on Friday, June 11, at the inaugural Newport High School Rock Festival I organized this spring. We dubbed it "Cubstock," and it went down in true hardcore Oregonian fashion (meaning drizzle fell at the beginning of the show and hippie kids emerged from the forest to dance).
I doubt anything I'll ever do the rest of my teaching career will top what transpired that afternoon on the Oregon Coast. It's been a brutal year for many Lincoln County families: poverty, homelessness, unemployment, addictions. Many of my students are visibly struggling with basic needs of food, shelter, and lack of decent health care. I've never seen anything like it in my career and it's only getting worse.
Witnessing this daily misery did play a large part of why I staged the festival. I want my students to feel special, that someone cares enough to take it over the top for them. I had teachers do this for me growing up and I feel compelled to do the same. I honestly believe that's how all teachers should think and act in their classrooms. Take it over the top! If they all did, we wouldn't need a union to protect the losers, and corporations and politicians couldn't blame public education for all of America's problems.
Right before the madness began, I told the talent and stage crew that we were about to make Newport High School history, and that quite likely, at this precise moment, we were the only school in Oregon staging a rock festival. They'll never forget that. They will forget the tests.
All social-service agency aside, I just wanted to rock out on an outdoor stage wielding my new guitar, with some of the most creative and fascinating students of my career. I needed the release that only live music can provide.
What a show: Love. Peace. Rock. Jazz. Dance. Art. Happiness. Love. Dogs. Guitars. An RV for a green room. A Journey cover! A William Shatner impression. A Tool-sounding thrash tune about... plants... yes, photosynthesis! The crew put it all out there, live, outdoors, in the wind, with rain threatening, playing with such vigor on the creaky wooden stage of the forlorn Lincoln County Fairgrounds, where once, many years ago, a shit-faced Johnny Paycheck forgot the words to "Take This Job and Shove It."
We didn't forget the words, although I was close a couple of times. And no one was shit-faced. But we were sky-high on our collective sense of purpose to perform and entertain. You don't get that from taking a fucking state test! How come the experts never get that?
True, I can't really play the guitar all that well, but I've found with live music it's more about going for it, which is exactly what we did. We brought some new blood to a stage that seemed all but entombed.
I knew if the Teahounds (the house band comprised of several kids and two veteran Newport musicians I recruited as a crack rhythm section) could get the show rockin' from the start, then everything would roll out beautifully.
That's what happened, and then the freshmen started dancing in front of the stage when the NHS Jazz Band ripped into a thumping big band standard... and I knew we were home free.
I think the highlight of the set for me was playing "Organic Oregonian," the theme song I wrote for the school's 172-page literary review my creative writing class produced this year. Surely this is the only song in the history of rock and roll with the names "Tom McCall" and "Ken Kesey" and "Steve Prefontaine" in a verse. I also threw in "hacky sack" and "clearcuts." Listen for yourself here.
Here are the chords and lyrics:
"Organic Oregonian"
D G A D (capo third fret)
(Chorus)
I'm Just an Organic Oregonian
Love hacky sack and my salmon well done
Love my trees green and tall
Hate umbrellas and shopping malls
Got hippie blood in my veins
Key cars with California plates
Love Kesey and Prefontaine
Barely see the sun but never complain
Dig the beaches and Mt Hood snow
Hate clearcuts and Styrofoam
Worship Tom McCall and Oswald West
When rain falls, I love that best
(Chorus)
Just an Organic Oregonian
Love hacky sack and my salmon well done
Love my trees green and tall
Hate umbrellas and shopping malls
Breakdown (A-G) three times
Progression whistle (meaning we whistle the melody)
Gonna ride my bike all over town
Seeing litter makes me frown
I feel sorry for the kids in Nebraska
Hey, living in Oregon is hella fantasic!
(Chorus)
Just an Organic Oregonian
Love hacky sack and my salmon well done
Love my trees green and tall
Hate umbrellas and shopping malls
(repeat)
We closed with "Groovin'" and "Free Fallin'." We waved our hands in the air, swayed to the music, and when the bell rang, the crowd left the field and we all returned to reality... but all feeling a whole lot better.
I haven't felt that happy in years.