BYU Alternative Commencement - Orem, UT

I grew up in Orem, UT - one of the reddest cities in the reddest of red counties in the reddest of red states. So it was a glad day for me to be able to play "To Protest the War," right here in my hometown, to a crowd of cheering people.

The BYU Alternative commencement, and the courage and chutzpah it took for the organizers and attendees to make it go down in a place like Orem, is evidence to me of an erupting volcano of civic consciousness that's rumbling everywhere. It's like the bear known as "civic spirit" as Commencement keynoter Ralph Nader called it, is waking up from hibernation.

It's a good day when folks remember that every "Freedom" they say they enjoy and that exemplifies their "values," (the abolition of slavery, child labor, racial, gender, and disability discrimination, civil rights, women's suffrage, the huge glob of labor rights: from minimum wage, to the right to form a union) were all combusted out of domestic warfare: cops beating the shit out of traitors, hypocrites, heretics, trouble-makers, and unpatriotic ingrates (nowadays called: "Patriots and heroes") who demanded justice at the feet of their conservative, contented neighbors.

As Nader put it: "dissent is the mother of assent." Dissent birthed every "Freedom" Americans enjoy. Definitely not a point that we're reminded of very often growing up in America.

Though I consider myself an Anarchist, I agree with Nader's means: ignite our civic spirit, actively participate in the decision making processes of our communities (aka: activism), and putting the power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people. I don't however, totally agree with Nader's ends: an America that lives up to its ideals. My ends could care less about "America" or whatever other government that's currently occupying this land calls itself, all I care about is that the people are activated. My feeling is that if folks are actively participating in the civic arena, the rest will take care of itself - whether that takes the form of "government" or councils, or much looser forms of organization. That doesn't matter to me.

I'd like to reiterate how much I admire everyone who organized and participated in this event, and I'd like to thank them again for inviting me to be involved. Here I am talking to Jack Healy, hero of Amnesty International and many other things. He told me about a movie Hollywood's making about his life - it looks like he's either going to be played by Leo DiCaprio or Tobey Maguire.

Highlights for me included Nader remarking from the podium on my performance: "If music is a form of communication, as it certainly is, Gabe really knows how to communicate doesn't he! - with every bone and muscle in his body."

Here's me holding Nader's new book: "17 Traditions," which rocks, and Nader holding "Sing It As You Please," which also rocks.

His demeanor reminds me of Mr. Rogers sort of - very gentle, very strong and wise - grandfatherly. Unlike every politician I've ever met, there's not even one ounce of malice, greed, or competition the man exudes. He's like a redwood tree.

After the "product-placement-picture" above, he told me something that reminded me of something Bob Dylan once said. Nader said that he'd been listening closely to the words of "To Protest the War" and that he appreciated that the words mattered, and that the music was serving the lyrics and not the other way around - something that he missed in much of modern music. Dylan's quote, which is about the same goes: "You can't let the music run your life. Your life has to run the music."

Here's to the alternative grads, the organizers, the speakers, Jon the violinist, my sister Kira who womaned the SYP! table, and everybody who's insisting that their lives run the music, and not the other way around! Here's how it is "leaders" - we play, you dance. Dig it.

After the festivities a number of us went up to violinist Jon's (who KILLED us with his piece at alt.mence. People near me were crying. I had chills on my bones. Nader: "a real master.") cabin up at Sundance, and hung out and played more music. Can somebody say Godspell!?!

It was an out-of-body experience when at one point in the evening, folks who I'd just met that night started requesting SHAKE YOUR PEACE! songs, and then when I played them, knew all the words. I was trying to hang on to reality as all these beautiful voices around me confidently sang all the words to "In the Arms of the Gypsy" when in my mind I felt myself rocking back and forth in the water at All Seasons Marina in Brooklyn, sitting in The Gypsy, on the wooden bench with the yellow foam cushions on it covered in green velour, under the light of our single hanging light bulb, scrawling on a piece of college-ruled paper at the crumbling particleboard collapisble table, surrounded by Nora's plants, and a mason jar full of pens, scissors, and a ruler. I heard "Come to bed already, it's late!" from the other end of the boat, and I remembered what it felt like to wrestle and yank these words out of myself, that I didn't know yet, that didn't exist yet, but that I knew HAD to exist sooner or later.

Filled with this memory, I watched these words sung effortlessly to me, in a cabin somewhere in the distant future, by people I'd never met before.

Songs truly have their own lives.

When we woke up in the morning I took off up Timpanogos to chill at Stewart Falls for awhile. I dunked my head and face in a freezing pool of snowmelt below the falls and just thanked Timpanogos for being there, thanked the mystery for making waterfalls and sunlight and heads and faces that can feel drips of water on them. Then I biked home.

Today I'm heading off to Santaquin... like a beaver continuing to slowly make his home out of the whole big tree called Utah.

Come meet up with the Caravan, and wear your helmet.... TIIIMMMMBBEEEERRRR!!!!