| August 4, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth Haines
Fair Selling its Soul
It was a brilliant, hot day in Haines ... a perfect day for a fair. The last time I was in Haines for the Southeast Alaska Sate Fair, Girdwood’s Photon Band, Peter Rowen and those sharp Fairbanks/Ohio bluegrass boys, Clarke County, all played sets. The fair is known for bringing up great musicians, starting with Taj Mahal a decade ago. I anticipated there would be a good band to ensure that, by the end of the night, shaggy-bearded men and women in colorful skirts would be out shakin’ it in their rubber boots. But, when I saw the line up for this year’s fair, I knew there wouldn’t be much dancing. There were no recognizable headliners and we didn’t stay to watch the guest musician with the suspiciously-80’s name, Brock Skywalker. This year’s Southeast Alaska State Fair is rebuilding after financial mistakes, apparently unrelated to previous fair receipts, left it insolvent. So, organizers took desperate measures. When I passed the gate, the first vender booth I saw was an Army recruiter’s tent. It made me think of the bombing of Lebanon, the stiff, charred bodies of children carried on stretchers from rubble, and Condoleezza Rice grinning with her Israeli counterpart. I rounded a bend to the main stage and noticed that one of this year’s sponsors is Conoco Phillips. Then, beneath one of two large speakers, a loud, white banner blared “ExxonMobil” and nothing more. A loud roar came from a set of bleachers near a cleared section of woods. I walked over to watch two potbelly men with checkered shirts tear through a log with a double-ended chainsaw. They pressed down on the whining bar and waited. We all waited. Soon a slice fell off the log. Everyone clapped. According to the local paper, it is probably the last year for the logging competition. The organizers are in their seventies, and few loggers are around anymore to compete. Say goodbye to the working class. Those left are kissing the ass of the ruling class. Last year, the fair ran into controversy when organizers brought up folk singer Steve Earle. Earle sings a song about Condi Rice that would puzzle the military recruiter. “Skank for me Condi, show me what ya got! They say you’re uptight, I say you’re not!” A few Haines rednecks complained and threatened to hold a protest, calling the Grammy-winning artist a “communist.” Only three people showed up at the demonstration and Earle played for a packed audience. Someone I talked with at the Mountain Market told me he was only worried about a crank “whose probably never even listened to Steve Earle” messing with the sound equipment. Had those angry right-wingers in Haines bothered to listen to Earle, they’d find he speaks to the community’s troubles in a deeper way than any suspender-wearing logger. Earle sings about the domination of the public airwaves by a corporate-slathered FCC (Haines depends on pubic radio station KHNS, it’s “Hometown Security”), about poor boys fighting a rich man’s war, and of growing up in a small mining town in Harlan County. But that was last year’s fair. This year, the festival seemed to be licking its wounds. No controversy ... just recruiters and Big Oil ads. The hippies were caged in at the Dalton City saloon. Haines lefties, take your fair back! Bring in the old folk musicians, churn out an underground paper, and fund your show without turning to corporate black money. The revolution starts now! Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
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