Jackson Hole Underground

(Editor’s note: This dispatch comes from Clint Troxel, eminent computer guru, J-lister and mandolinist who with a group of friends trucked it out to The Gorge for Memorial Day weekend. Sasquatch Fest has become a popular road trip for Jacksonites looking for a spring fix of new music.)

The Sasquatch Festival at The Gorge has provided this music fan a necessary good-music-infusion for a few years running. It never fails to surprise, inspire, and re-invigorate. Check out the lineup.

Highlights included Blue Scholars’ conscious hip-hop, Yeasayer’s awesomely re-created set of self-described “Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel” — and, let’s not forget The Flaming Lips! I know jhunderground is a Michael Franti fan, but my vote for Musical Prophet Of The Year goes to Wayne Coyne. The Flaming Lips UFO show might actually have been from out of this world. If you haven’t heard (or seen!) The Flaming Lips since “She don’t use jelly,” do yourself a favor. This show is a spectacle.

In terms of “most memorable” it was hard to beat, but I can’t stop thinking about R.E.M. I’ve never paid much attention to R.E.M. — for some reason they never clicked. Until Sasquatch.

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Some of the highlights from the 2008 Wyoming Democratic Convention:

• Willie Neal is going to Denver.
• Obama picked up two more delegates. Overall tally for Wyoming at this point: Obama 12, Hillary 5, Undecided 1.
• We persuaded Wyoming Democrats to unanimously endorse Wild and Scenic designation for the Snake River headwaters.
• Gary Trauner is a rock star.
• Gov Dave came out swinging.
• Brian Schweitzer wowed ‘em.

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As I drove north in Grand Teton National Park yesterday morning, I listened as Fish-mon of KMTN played Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” on the radio in honor of Memorial Day.

The lyrics, written from a soldier’s perspective in Vietnam, convey some powerful imagery of combat and camaraderie:

We came in spastic like tameless horses
We left in plastic as numbered corpses
And we learned fast to travel light
Our arms were heavy but our bellies were tight

… We had no cameras to shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes
And it was dark, so dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we’d write

As I imagined what it was like for these men hunkered down in the midst of war, I passed the Jackson Hole Airport, where Air Force Two was parked on the runway. How fitting, I thought, that the great warrior Dick Cheney is resting comfortably in Jackson Hole for Memorial Day weekend, while the 150,000 or so U.S. troops he foolishly sent to Iraq are fighting for their lives.

Like many in east Jackson, I had been awakened around 7 a.m. by Cheney’s convoy of Blackhawk helicopters thundering over town. As if the luxury vacation weren’t infuriating enough, the thought of burning aviation fuel to go fishing or play golf was like injecting Napalm into one’s veins.

We all go down together, right?

(Updated 5/23 — be sure to see comment below)

The cold, dreary weather outside is a cinema owner’s dream, especially when a certain snake-fearing professor in a fedora returns to crack the whip.

Besides last night’s midnight premiere, Movieworks has five screenings of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 4:15, 5, 7, 8 and 9:30 p.m. There will be two additional matinees at 1:30 and 2 p.m. over Memorial Day weekend. (Movie listings always can be found here.)

The N.Y. Times review laments the lack of “any sense of rediscovery,” and there are plenty of reader comments decrying the efforts of Lucas and Spielberg, but you’d have to work pretty hard to spoil the fun of an Indiana Jones movie. Then again, the Star Wars prequels kind of sucked.

We have idolized Harrison Ford since Han Solo first fired the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace, but that boy crush turned man crush was cemented when, on our first or second day of work in Jackson Hole, Ford came into Billy’s Burgers for lunch. We knew we were in the right place.

Since then we have followed his exploits running the Snake River and swooping in with his helicopter to rescue a sick hiker in the Tetons. At 65, he continues to be an inspiration for us all, especially to anyone who has seen him work the bar at Rendezvous Bistro.

AP photo. Click to enlarge.

Nearly five months ago, on a cold winter’s night in Iowa, and Jackson Hole, as I sat at my computer watching the election returns pour in from the country’s first Democratic caucus, I got the feeling something extraordinary was unfolding, the kind of moment in history that raises hairs on the back of your neck, like the protester stopping tanks in Tiananmen Square or the U.S. hockey team upsetting the Soviets.

Barack Obama had shocked the American political establishment, winning by a sound margin. One could sense that a movement was afoot, one that with ordinary people rolling up the sleeves to take back their government, actually could succeed.

Last night, I got that feeling again. Obama was back in Iowa as voters in Oregon gave him the overall majority of pledged delegates for the Democratic nomination. What had started as an improbable dream was just about coming to fruition.

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