June 7th, 2007
I remember about 30 years ago first coming up to Skagit Valley and seeing the tulip fields. Pretty amazing. Ten years later I drove down Best Road thinking I might catch a view of the fields and maybe lunch in La Conner. It must’ve been two days later when I finally managed to get off Fir Island. For some reason I’ve never liked tulips ever since. Sure got to thank the Chamber of Commerce for that. I’m sure the farmers thank em too.
But I been thinking — how can we turn this public relations machine to our advantage — and I hit on something I think the Skagit Valley Economic Council can sink their sharp little teeth into. Tulip Fuel. Bio-diesel with Hi Octane Petal Power. You drive in the Tulip Station and you can choose from candy apple red to lemon drop yellow. Earth Friendly, Home Grown Flower Power Fuel. The Valley’s sort of where the 60’s hit the Sound, never really ended. So Flower Power won’t be real hard to sell. The Co-op’s next big Expansion will include 10,000 gallon underground tanks and those colorful pumps. High pollen octane for the BMW crowd. Bulb mulch for the Volkswagens.
Oh, I suppose the backups will be sort of long, but spread out longer than 2 weeks, nothing like the Tulip Festival. Plus knowing you’re doing something great for the planet should help. Something that should’ve been done long ago. You know, putting a halt to that Tulip Gridlock.
Petal Power —- think about it!
June 7th, 2007
A lot of folks think the Band is a pack of communist liberals, howling Trotskyites with subversive instruments from the New Deal, looking for government grants. I sure don’t know how they got this idea and I don’t care what the Band says, it can’t be these pithy wisdom-packed commentaries…..
On the South End we believe in Free Speech. Used to be the whole country did, but now that Unbridled Capitalism is the religion of the times, anything free is looked on with cold hard suspicion. A band that plays a benefit, for instance, is not only a slap in the face to the mantra of profit-making, it’s an affront to god herself who put us on this monopoly board to prove we could earn a place by her side on the Boardwalk of Heaven.
Oh, I know, we could play for the fame and the fortune, the glitter and the gold. We could market our CD’s using our massive collective capitalistic insights, probably make fortunes larger than the GNP of Stanwood or Arlington. We could cut deals with the Camano Coffee Roaster for mugs with scenes from our concerts, we could sell String Band Action Figures down at the Uff Da Shoppe, we could publish an exclusive coffee table book about our meteoric rise from backporch obscurity to the megawattage of the Floyd Norgaard stage.
But the Band doesn’t have to prove anything to the naysayers or the neoconservatives. We’re just glad we can share a few ditties, a bit of so-called wit, and do it all without converting you all to the evils of a banjo based philosophy of life. Meaning, we got too big a band now so we aren’t auditioning for new members.
So next time you hear somebody refer to the String Band as a mob of anarchists bent on world domination, tell em to get a grip on their rocker. We’ll gladly accept checks, money orders or MasterCard, Course, we’ll use it to channel armaments to the South End Freedom Fighters, our 501-c-3 artist group. You want to help the cause, our lobbyists are standing by, waiting to sell our Cd’s over there. Buy two. You might just be saving democracy.
