Of all of the places I’ve been so far this summer, Colorado was the first to tempt me away from my beloved Pacific Northwest. After the harrowing drive out of Utah that I wrote about previously, I was thrilled to arrive at Karen’s beautiful home outside of Fort Collins. She taught me a lot about the area on a hike, pictured in the recent post, took me out for beers at Odell Brewing, and gave me a peaceful space to record and edit Praxis. We had great conversations about living in conservative places, dealing with differences of opinion among loved ones, climate change, and what’s next for humans. I stayed with her for two nights and headed to Denver on Saturday.
I had only met my Denver host, Debra, once before. She had traveled through Spokane on a tour with the documentary “Shadows of Liberty”, part of a series of tours that she organized alongside panel discussions about the film which looks at corporate control of mass media and the effects of that control on the democratic process. We stayed in touch on Facebook and she ended up being an incredible connection in this area. She and Drew were not only willing to host me at their home, but also brought together a great group of potential interviewees and connections for me at a backyard fire and BBQ. I got to reconnect with a former community radio ally, Gavin, and meet a ton of friendly and interesting new people, too. I found a few great leads for interviews through the weekend and made plans to meet up with the Romero Theater Troupe at their rehearsal the next day.In the morning, Debra and I headed to Red Rocks Amphitheater for a hike and to see the space. I loved that the space is free and open when there isn’t a show going on and liked watching the mixture of tourists, hikers, and exercise enthusiasts running the stairs. I then headed to the University of Colorado campus in Denver to meet the Romero Theater Troupe. They had just received the César Chávez Accion Y Compromiso Human & Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association and showed me the video below of the presentation of the award, which will summarize their work and its importance better than I can in a brief time. I got to watch them work on scenes for an upcoming performance in Pueblo and learned about some of the unsung heroes of Colorado history, like Flaming Milka—a 19 year old woman who became a fierce labor activist– and Ben Salmon —a WWI era war resister. I’ve been considering for the past few years how best to incorporate the arts into my life, since I have a theater background and a lot of interest in the form, and hanging out with the passionate and interesting people of the Romero Troupe encouraged me to think more seriously about how to get involved in storytelling back at home in creative ways.
I met Arnie there, who’s been working in the sanctuary movement for some years now and had shared the story of Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, a man who’s been living in sanctuary in the Unitarian church in Denver for the last nine months as he appeals his potential deportation. I happened to be there on the eve of his release as ICE officially deprioritized his case and interviewed him on his final day of living in the basement. We talked about his case, and the unfair way he’s been treated. That full interview will be posted here soon. He gave me a tour of the church, where he’s stayed busy by fixing things here and there and repainting hallways for them. It was good timing to meet him during the ongoing sanctuary fight in Spokane, where a group has attempted to overturn the light protections for undocumented people living in the city. Immigration hasn’t been a central focus of this trip, but once again all issues bleed into one another and connect in myriad ways.
From there, I drove into Boulder, Colorado to see David Barsamian of Alternative Radio. I’ve been listening to AR for a long time; it used to precede Praxis on KYRS when I still did the show on Monday mornings and I had the outro quite memorized. David and I talked about his decades of work, starting from scratch and ending up with one of the most impressive collections of interviews in the country with a thought-provoking cast of characters. We talked about the ties between corporate media and our culture’s failure to respond to climate change, endemic racism, and other problems and you will be able to hear that full interview here soon. We traded some garlic from Debra’s garden for a CD of one of the most popular recent broadcasts: Vandana Shiva talking about radical compassion.
From the AR headquarters, it’s only a short drive away to the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. There, I would meet Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, who leads the Energy & Climate Justice Program at the Environmental Center at UC Boulder, but who also works independently of her role there to educate people about the toxic legacy of pollution at Rocky Flats. I interviewed her about that advocacy work and the hidden history of Rocky Flats. The site was used to manufacture plutonium pits, or triggers, for nuclear weapons and left a trail of incredible levels of radiation and other carcinogenic waste. Now, it’s been designated as a wildlife refuge, open to the public, and being developed as a high-end “green” housing development called Candela’s. Through Candela’s Glows, the organization that’s sprung up around this development, she’s been able to tell the story of Rocky Flats to people who have lived nearby and never heard it. You can hear parts of her interview on Praxis 141 and the full interview here soon.
After talking more with Michelle, I drove back to Denver to meet Jamie and Stephen, better known as Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit respectively, of Flobots on their new music project, No Enemies. Talking with them brought my whole Denver-Boulder experience full circle as we talked about the power that art brings to movements that they would otherwise lack. The name No Enemies is meant to suggest an invitation to participate in a space where people can transform as we work together to transform society in a broader sense. No Enemies on the most basic level is about getting people to sing together. Writing new songs, reclaiming old songs, and hacking pop culture to bring it into movement culture are all tactics used. I loved talking with these two and even got to learn one of their songs.
After such a packed two days full of incredible people, I was spilling over with ideas to bring home. But, I also had to sleep and get ready to continue on to South Dakota, despite being willing to stay in Colorado for a long time. Here, like in other places on this trip, I was fascinated to see the ways in which people’s passions become their lives whether through reacting to a crisis or through planning a trajectory. Looking at history in all of these cases too–from the stories that Romero Troupe revives to the personal histories that become intertwined with the ill-fitting complexities of border politics or nuclear war to the slow steady collection of stories that’s done by non-corporate media to the remembrance of something as simple as raising our voices together as a means to reclaim and build our power–affirmed that collecting stories now is important as we shift, undeniably, into something new.
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