Episode II (Also pretty sweet)

Today on Hobo's Lullaby we heard from special in-studio guest Chazaq Llinas about the best 24-hour hang out in Ocean City, Maryland, from Rae Borsetti (in absentia) on expectations v. reality in Buenos Aires, from your host Carter Thomas on going to four Defiance Ohio shows in a row, and from yours truly, Jenna Brager, on the importance of passing a gender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We also played a poem by Andrea Gibson, who is the first feature in the Terpoets Queer Poetry Series (which Jenna helped plan) on Friday night at 7 pm in the Prince George's Room of Stamp Student Union. Her work can be found at http://www.andreagibson.org/.

This morning's playlist:

1. The Ditty Bops: Moon over the Freeway
2. Bill Monroe & Doc Watson: East Tennessee Blues (Live Duet)
3. Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger
4. Bob Dylan: Dirt Road Blues
5. Ani DiFranco: Gravel
6. Woody Guthrie: I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore
7. Phil Ochs: Outside A Small Circle of Friends
8. Gordon Lightfoot: Steel Rail Blues
9. Odetta: Nine Hundred Miles
10. Whiskeytown: Jacksonville Skyline
11. Dave End: Going to College
12. Adhamh Roland: Train Wrecks
13. Tom Rush: Panama Express
14. Robinella: Brand New Key
15. Ani DiFranco & Utah Phillips: Joe Hill
16. "Haywire Mac" McClintock: The Preacher & The Slave
17. Johnny Paycheck: Take this Job & Shove It
18. Bread & Roses: Dump the Bosses Off Your Back
19. Zora Young: Two Trains Running
20. Tom Waits: Cold Water
21. Chris Isaak: Western Stars
22. Andrea Gibson: Blue Blanket
23. Shannon Murray: The Preacher & The Slave
24. Gillian Welch: Leaving Train

Our WONDERFUL WOBBLY of the week was: JOE HILL!



Joe Hill was a radical songwriter, labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Born in 1879 in Sweden, Hill traveled widely in the U.S. organizing with the IWW. He was responsible for writing many famous political songs and poems, including “The Tramp,” “There Is Power in a Union,” “Rebel Girl,” and “The Preacher and the Slave,” in which Hill coined the phrase “pie in the sky.”
Hill was executed in 1915 by firing squad after a controversial murder trial. Common belief holds that Hill was framed in the robbery/ murder that he was convicted of, because of his status as a foreigner and a radical. This can be compared to the later trial and execution of Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927.
Right before his execution, Joe Hill wrote a letter to IWW organizer Bill Haywood, saying, “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” Since his death, Joe Hill’s life, legend, and words have inspired countless radicals and artists. He has been immortalized in song, and had his songs immortalized, by the likes of Phil Ochs, Earl Robinson, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Riotfolk, and many other notable musicians.

Today's in absentia guest rambler was: Rae Borsetti, who is currently living and studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina!

Anthropology or Something Like It by Rae Borsetti

"The only two times I’ve ever been to Latin America and actually had a chance to get to know Latin Americans, I was meeting members of 1) a Mayan pueblo and 2) The Landless Worker’s Movement. Between these trips and learning about leftist movements in Latin America, from Chavez to the Oaxaca to the reclaimed factories of this city, I had developed this sense that Latin America must be made up of these really awesome people who all believe in community solidarity, have a developed class consciousness and analysis, and a radical politic.

Then, I moved to middle class Buenos Aires. I wanted to spend six months immersed in a new culture, only I wanted it to be the culture I imagined. I wanted the Hotel Bauens mixed with Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, some piquetes, manifestaciones, and murales. I came to see la lucha contra el capitalismo and I was transported to the land of billboards, leather boots (don’t leave the house without them), and more varieties of Diet Soda on every corner than even I had ever wished for.

I saw the Madres, but more of my experience has been watching one Madre try to get her beautiful, thin thirteen-year-old daughter to eat less. I met an army of women who aren’t fighting oppression but their scales, who don’t leave the house without their hair perfect and who drink cafecitos instead of eating meals. I saw one pointed mural with naked bodies in a shopping cart that read “No queremos seguir shopping,” but I mostly saw three-hundred posters of naked women selling cars per block, with a break every once in a while for one that just read “proba los sabores nuevos!!” Instead of a celebration of indigenous culture, I heard my Literature teacher today explain point-blank that the Europeans had civilization and the rest was barbarie.

I’ve been disenchanted, sure. But today, I realized that the adventure of being here isn’t supposed to be finding what I hoped for. It’s experiencing what I find. I learned about community solidarity in Guatemala and Brazil. I learned things about how I want to live. Here, I’m learning a little bit more about capitalism, machismo, and our blindness to our privilege, but those are important lessons too. I can’t demand that Argentina be what I want it to be, but I can learn from what it is.

Today, we went to a home for women and children in my class on the Social Solidarity Movement, and I met people who are fighting. It occurred to me that it’s the side of the culture I’m seeing that triggers the culture of resistance came to find. If Buenos Aires weren't what it is, there wouldn't be anything to fight for."

Don't Mourn, Organize!
~Jenna