Eugene makes a favorable impression on tourists: leafy, prosperous, and functional. The streets are extremely clean. Traffic rules are observed. Single female runners trot safely during daylight hours on city streets. Older women in neon colors on bikes with panniers called out greetings to me, recognizing a sister. Hybrid buses travel routes that reach to the suburbs on the transit system called Emex, for Emerald City. Seattle is also called the Emerald City, but City of Eugene says it claimed the name first. We are staying across from the Emex transit hub and have seen about two panhandlers with similar signs: “Disabled Vet. Anything helps. God bless,” and only one abandoned tent. The park-like area under the downtown overpasses leading to the highway and bridges was surrounded by cyclone fencing and signed, “Restoration in Progress.” Spray-painted on the concrete column supporting the overpass was the heartfelt wish, “Fuck Yer Grass.” It reminded me of a news story last week, that an arsonist had torched City of Santa Cruz work vehicles and spray-painted “Stop the Sweeps!” where the trucks were garaged. Sweeps are when the authorities displace homeless people camping on city lots. Ha, Eugene, our nutty anarchists are more destructive than yours.
While walking back from the river at sunset, we encountered a few rougher sorts: a profanity-shouting female meth head, an old drunk awake but in a stupor, a Goth longhair in black naughtily letting his hairy white backside pop out of his low-slung track pants. Could be Santa Cruz.
Coincidentally, Bob Dylan was performing that night at the downtown Hult Center. The gray hairs waiting to get in looked like our Opera San José crowd, but dressed for a barbecue. Bob Dylan, age 81, is coming to the Santa Cruz Civic later this month. Tickets will cost $326. It is not called the “Rock Me On Your Walker” tour. Maybe he’s singing “Whoo-Ee! Ride Me High Out of my Depends.” Or “The Kids Don’t Call No More Blues.” Or “Blue Pill Saturday Night.” Or “Don’t Think Twice, I Can’t Remember Shit.”
Artists get to grow, change, and age. You may recall Bob Dylan was publicly Born Again and wrote album after album of slick Christian praise music. I guess if you do enough drugs, you end up seeing Jesus whether you’re dead or alive. There’s no shame in growing old, only shame in becoming a shill of the Christian Right.
Clockwise from Top Left: Rosa Parks, Door to U of OR Library, Restroom Sign, Hotel Window View, Oregon White Oak on Campus
JohnandJanet'sJourney 
Eugene sounds like Santa Cruz, but more functional. The anti-authority rebels are less destructive and the public transit is more accessible.
Artists get to age and change like everyone else, but some artists grow into ideologies worrisome enough to retroactively render all their previous work suspect. They get to — of course they get to — but sometimes the knowledge of how they grew adds context which changes the meaning of their art.
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