Dogs have dog years and Backwoods Hipster counts birthdays by the issue. Yea!

One wouldn’t normally associate the turning of summer into autumn with green, as in Green Is The Night, but we have our own way of reckoning around here, so if your own majinashuns aren’t up to task, go immediately to the corner and put your nose against the wall.

Truth be told, we hear there’s gonna be a little fête in a clearing in the woods, with some live music and some green fairy squeezins and who knows what else. It’s the Virgo/ cusp and a special birthday and we hear that the dark carnival is coming to town. As the shift into darkness and contemplation gathers force, let the clowns of abundance toot their kazoos, and the Goddess of the Harvest cast her loving gaze across the valley. Soon enough we’ll all be huddled around the hearth with merry fires crackling on the grate and mugs of wine and beer clinking to eloquent toasts.

Out in the real world, the pot continues to boil, with some scorching on the bottom. It sucks that evil clowns are trying to take control. Don’t fall for their antics. Their navy blue suits and red neckties are no match for big noses, bushy moustaches, Andy Warhol wigs, ridiculously baggy trousers and kazoos, lots of kazoos.
Bill Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage, but he forgot to mention that the stage was in a carnival sideshow!

This article first appeared in the Jefferson Day 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster.

Here we are again for the next installment of the Home Butchering made simple series (brought to you by Backwoods Hipster & Mark the Butcher). This article will cover what I like to call the medium sized animals i.e. Deer, Sheep, and Goats. These three animals have the same breakdown process, while cows and pigs require a slightly different process and a little more equipment.

As the temperature rises and Córdoba season draws near, it’s a good time to start thinking about which of your animals you want to slaughter. This allows you to start mentally preparing for the event. It is also a good time to make sure you have all of the necessary equipment to do the job. The material list includes: a very sharp knife (for the butchering part), a slightly dull knife (for skinning only) a gun for the killing (a .22 caliber rifle is perfect), a butcher saw if available (a very clean hacksaw will work also), rope, a sturdy tree limb or large tripod w/pulley and a gambrel. A gambrel is the device that holds your animal in the air. Nearly any strong piece of metal or wood will work, I prefer to use re-bar because you can bend it in a vise to the standard shape. I should also add that I have seen a fencing t-post used in place of a traditional gambrel. Other materials include: garden hose w/running water, clean 5 gal. buckets for the guts, large bowl or pot for the trimmings to be ground for burger, a large table covered w/plastic or butcher paper (can be obtained from grocery store meat rooms or the local processing plant),plastic wrap and freezer paper(enough to double wrap everything). It’s a good idea to make sure all of these items are in order a few days before you plan to butcher. You don’t want to be scrambling for one of these items in the middle of the process. Some old timers say that when the temperature only reaches 40 to 45 degrees during the day, its time to butcher. An easier way is to just plan on doing your butchering between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The reason for this is that the internal temperature of the animal needs to be at or below 40 degrees if you plan on doing any smoking or curing of the meat, otherwise you run the risk of having the meat go sour. If you are butchering a deer, age doesn’t really matter. But sheep and goats are usually butchered around 9 months or less. It is important to be conscious of your vibe when rounding up the animal or animals to be slaughtered. Your animals are sensitive to your energy so BE CALM.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty. First, locate where to make the kill shot. Visualize 2 lines, each one going from one ear to the to opposite eye on top of the animals head. Make your shot where the lines intersect or X marks the spot. Once the animal is dead make cuts in between the Achilles tendon and the ankles. If that doesn’t make sense look at your own ankles and you will get the picture. This is where the gambrel comes into play. Place your gambrel or stick or whatever you are using into the cuts you made by the ankles. This holds the animal’s legs apart. Now you can hoist the animal up off the ground using your rope and a tree limb or tripod. Once the animal is hung, it’s time to bleed it. Stick your sharp knife into the side of the throat and cut outward toward the skin, making sure to sever the main arteries. While you’re down around the head you might as well remove it as well. To do so, just continue the cut you made, to the throat all the way around the neck until the spine is exposed. Use your saw to finish the job and set the head aside to be processed later. Important side note: never try to cut through the animal’s hair inward. This will only dull your knife.

And speaking of dull knives, now is the time to pull out that slightly dull knife for the skinning. In my experience using a somewhat dull knife for skinning is the best way to go, especially if you plan on saving the hide for tanning. I should also add that most livestock, and all deer, have scent glands on the inside of the ankle. Be extra careful when removing these as they can taint the meat and your hands. Bs sure to wash your hands after removing these glands.

Being very careful not to cut the Achilles tendon, cut the hide around the leg just below the ankle. Do this on the front legs also. Then cut the hide, moving down the inside of each leg to the centerline of the animal and finally slice the hide from the crotch to the neck. Once your first cuts in the hide are made keep downward pressure on the hide. Doing so makes it so you barely have to tap your skinning knife at the area where the hide meets the skin. I should note that the hide around the rump of a sheep, goat, or deer is the hardest part to work on. I say this because it sometimes feels like the hide is glued on at that spot. So just take your time.

Now we are ready to start eviscerating the animal. To start we must separate the large intestine from the rest of the body. Begin by cutting around the anus with a small sharp knife, being very careful to not cut any holes in the intestine. When the anus is cut free, pull it out enough to be able to tie it off. Some people say that tying is not necessary, but I find that the more steps taken toward cleanliness the better the finished product will be. Make a small cut in the abdominal wall at a high point between the hind legs. Slice the abdominal wall enough to be able to fit your knife hand inside the body cavity with the knife pointing out. I have done this step other ways before. They work OK, but this method seems to be the safest and easiest way. Slice downward through the abdominal wall to the sternum. At this point a bucket should be placed beneath the animal to catch the stomach and intestines. If the animal is a male, remove the penis and then carefully make a cut with your saw in the area between the anus and the genitals. Some call this bone the aitch bone or taint, but whatever you call it, don’t saw all the way through. Just score it and it will snap by pushing the hind legs apart. This will make the removal of the bladder and anus a little easier. It is important to take your time during this step because one slip with the knife could cause the contents of the intestines to spill out and potentially spoil the meat it comes in contact with. Once the bladder and anus are free, reach in and pull out the rest of the intestines, stomach liver, and kidneys. These should be set aside for processing later.

What should be left is an empty abdominal cavity, with the diaphragm separating you from the heart and lungs. Follow the inside rim of the ribcage with your knife to remove the diaphragm and once it is out of the way, reach way down with your knife and cut the connective tissue behind the heart and lungs. Set these aside with the other organs for later processing. Lastly, remove the windpipe, working from the outside to the inside. Be sure that the opening is clear all the way up. Wash the entire animal with cold water and you are ready to either hang it for a few days or begin butchering.

To start butchering you first remove the front legs by pulling outward and cutting behind the leg. Keep pulling and slicing until the leg is removed and repeat this step on the other side. On smaller animals the front shoulders are usually put into burger, sausage or stew meat. But if you are careful a couple of nice roasts can be saved. Once the shoulders are deboned, it is time to pull out what we in the biz call backstraps or back tenderloin. Find where the spine meets the pelvis and make a horizontal cut across the back muscle. Next, with your knife, follow the ridge of the spine, cutting as close to the bone as possible and peeling the back loin as you move downward. Do this on both sides and what you will have are two long strips of meat to cut into boneless chops or roasts. Now all that is left are the hind legs. To remove the legs from the carcass, start your cut on the inside of the leg, cutting enough to be able to pop the ball out of its socket. Once the ball is partially out you will have to get the tip of your knife down into the socket to cut the tendon holding it in place. Now you can just slice the leg from the carcass and start cutting it up. The hind leg can be broken down into three different roasts: sirloin tip, bottom round, and inside round. To debone the hind leg, start by standing it up so you are looking down at what would be the knee and making a cut perpendicular to the knee, make sure to go all the way down to the bone. Now lay the leg down with the inside facing up; you should be able to see the femur bone, as it is not covered by muscle in this spot. With your knife, follow the bone from the knee to the ball, this is the first seam to be aware of. Separate the meat from the bone all the way around, and lay the meat so that the inside is facing up. Now there should be two more seams to slice. These are fairly obvious once the meat is off the bone. At this point you will have three roasts in front of you waiting to be cut into steaks or left whole. Double wrap all meat that is to go into the freezer, and if its going to be in there for a long time, triple wrap it. Now its time to cut up the bones for soup or the dogs and deal with the organs. The heart, lungs liver and stomach can be made into haggis, if you’re brave enough, or the head can be made into headcheese. Whatever you choose to do with the organs do it quickly, as they will spoil if not processed right away. This concludes part two of the Home Butchering Made Simple series. Keep an eye out for part III which will cover cows and pigs.

Mark the Butcher

This article first appeared in the Jefferson Day 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster.

This manifesto first appeared in the latest edition of SLOW, the journal of the Slow Food movement. BH has many friends in the seed business, all of them small organic farmers doing very fine work in selecting high quality seed. This past year we lost a friend who had been growing seeds in the valley for thirty years and had developed cultivars well-suited to local growing conditions. This manifest sums up nicely what many of us having been talking about for years.

Seeds, the first link in the food chain, the concrete reality of cultural and biological diversity, a mine for the future evolution of life, the symbol of life itself, are today under siege.

Industrial agriculture has led to severe erosion of the biological diversity of seeds, of crops, of animal breeds. The FAO conference in Leipzig in 1996 identified the substitution of local varieties as the most important cause of genetic erosion.

Monocultures are ecologically unstable. The shrinking genetic base of agriculture leads to an increase in the vulnerability of production and a threat to food safety.

In history there are many examples of the value of biodiversity maintenance. In many cases it was only thanks to wild varieties of cultivated species that it was possible to limit the harmful consequences that epidemics had on staple crops for the human diet.

The genetic resources of cultivated species are being reduced at the rate of 1-2% yearly (FAO, 1993) and it is estimated that since the early 1900’s about 75% of agricultural crop diversity has already been lost.

Worldwide, domestic animal breeds are disappearing at an annual rate of 5%, or 6 breeds per month. (FAO, 1995). Out of 4,500-5,000 breeds, 1,500 are at risk of extinction.

In order to stop the threat to our seeds and our growers, in order to regenerate biodiversity and strengthen the rights of farmers, we are obliged to pursue the following principles.

I. A Strategy of diversification

I.1-Diversity in the use of seeds

So as to ensure the future of mankind, it is urgent to reverse the dangerous tendency to limit the diversity of plants that are used and the genetic diversity within a species itself.

I.2-Diversity in agricultural systems

Agricultural policies aimed at promoting the diversity of cultivars must encourage the development and spread of agricultural systems based on an integral approach, in which biodiversity is an indispensable too for reducing external input.

I.3-Diversity in producer-consumer relations

Agricultural biodiversity improves when production from seeds enters into production and consumption circuits that permit the grower to have an adequate income. The concentration of the distributive system reduces biodiversity, while systems in which producers are directly in contact with consumers enhance it.

I.4-Diversity of cultures

The maintenance, conservation and renewed spread of surviving farming traditions and cultures is an immediate and urgent challenge to avoid impoverishing even further future possibilities at the global and regional level. It also involves having respect for and valorizing diverse traditions, the different ways of perceiving nature and the food cultures.

I.5-Diversity in the paths of innovation

Hundreds and thousands of farming communities and cooperatives, millions of families, subsistence farmers throughout the world not only form the basis for maintaining the current reserves and varieties of seeds and the knowledge that comes from indigenous or industrial cultivations, but also for the future development of seeds. If we can guarantee fair and just cooperation among these groups, the researchers and the professional farmers and integrate the various degrees of knowledge and experience, there is no reason to be afraid of future challenges.

II. “Freedom of life”

II.1-Freedom of access for farmers

Farmers and farming communities having access to seeds and genetic resources must not be restricted by patents, or private ownership, or by the refusal to supply germplasm conserved outside the region of origin.

II.2-“Open source”

By definition the knowledge incorporated in seeds and germplasm is not an invention, but the shared legacy of mankind that other discoveries can be based on. This knowledge must be made freely available and accessible to everyone.

II.3-Freedom to re-sow

Growers and farmers have the right to conserve and re-sow any kind of seed they have grown.

II.4-Freedom to produce seeds

This includes developing new varieties from these seeds.

II.5-Freedom of exchange

This also includes the right to sell and share seeds on non-exclusive bases.

III. Respect for life

III.1-Biosecurity

The introduction of new varieties and plants must take into consideration the potential environmental risks as well as other possible risks to agriculture.

III.2-Genetic engineering

As a precaution, genetically modified seeds should not be dispersed in the environment. Nations, regions and communities have the right to ban the dispersion and utilization of GMOs.

III.3-Sterile and suicide seeds

The production of seeds that cannot reproduce themselves goes against the very nature of seeds inasmuch as they are the source of the reproduction of life and of freedom for the growers. The introduction of these features must be banned at a global level because such seeds are studied to create a monopoly on a world scale.

III.4-Hybrid seeds have no future

We must stop developing seeds that cannot be naturally reproduced by growers.

IV. Growing the seeds of tomorrow

IV.1-Conservation and development of seeds based on the values of the Food Communities.

The modern technologies of selection, identification and cultivation should be based on the experience and ingenuity of the growers and the Food Communities they are part of, and should aim to have them actively participate in the scientific aspects of cultivation as well.

IV.2-Introduction in agricultural ecosystems

The future objective regarding the utilization and development of seeds should be to integrate farm production in agro-ecosystems.

IV.3-Reducing greenhouse gases

The aim should be to develop zero emission farming practices based on soil or biological resource.

IV.4-Gradually eliminate the use of toxic substances

In order to reduce toxic contamination inside our food chain and our environment, cultivation must no longer be based on the use of chemical products, but on the utilization of seeds better suited to the needs of eco-agricultural practices.

IV.5-Diversity within varieties

In order to reduce the risk of susceptibility to parasites and adverse environmental conditions and to increase natural diversity, future development of seeds should be based on the widest genetic diversity possible.

IV.6-Growing quality food

Genetic selection should always be focused on quality, understood both as taste and as respect for the physiological and cultural characteristics of peoples. The production of seeds by Food Communities should be inspired by these principles.

IV.7-Women, the protagonists of biodiversity

All over the world, women represent the majority of the farm labor force and possess and pass on knowledge abut the quality and the methods of processing food. They should therefore have a central role in protecting biodiversity and in the conservation, exchange and reproduction of sees.

This article first appeared in the Jefferson Day 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster

“The illusion of the secret operates in such a way as to position its object outside of discourse and that only through a “breaking of the secret” can we “clear the way leading to it.”

-Foucault

Do you ever have the feeling that you’re being watched, or that what you’re doing could be easily figured out if some FedGoons at the NSA decided to target you? If so, you have been effectively consumed by panopticism, the all-seeing system of surveillance that instills one with the sense of always being watched. Panopticism makes it impossible to know if one is being monitored at any given time. The mere possibility that one could be under surveillance makes the panoptical system effective. Subjects of the panoptical system learn to govern and discipline themselves, the impetus being that the purveyors of panopticism could get inside one’s life at any time and use their findings against the subject. The power of panopticism is secrecy: 1) that the subject has none, 2) that the “panoptical gaze” may be watching one. Regardless of whether or not one is being monitored, the possibility always exists, so one must always assume that one is being watched. However, the very concept of panopticism, and its effectiveness, requires that one’s actions be attached to a body. The entire thrust of panopticism is that “they” can watch “you” at any time and place, that you have something to hide or be embarrassed about, and that this “something” could be used against “you.” Without any of these elements, panopticism loses much of its effectiveness. A person’s physical actions can be monitored, by other people and by cameras. Online, it is more difficult. Actions can be monitored by many methods (ask your neighborhood hacker), but until these actions are attached to a body, they cannot be attributed to the body. Whether or not the actions are legal, they are not completely useful until actions and body are united. An action must occur, such as a computer break-in or an e-mail. A body must be identified. The action must be proven to have been executed by the body. If one is able to obscure the action, make the action unknowable, or make the body unidentifiable, the gaze of panopticism has been broken.

I’ll not mince words here. The international gangster banksters at the top of the food chain, and every minion down the line love to know what people are doing without the people knowing that those stinkers know what they know. Fair enough (or not!). Whether or not what they do is right or wrong, they want to protect their interests. Who doesn’t? Some of those interests include telecommunications systems (internet, cable, cellular, telephone, satellite, and any other medium that connects systems together), electric power, and oil and gas transportation. These systems are often co-located with communications wiring and power, which creates co-focal vulnerabilities.

There is also banking and finance. The Gross National Product (goods and services) of the US is about $7.5 trillion and $30 trillion worldwide. Electronic money in the virtual economy is between $25 and 50 quadrillion, a factor of a thousand larger.

Let’s not forget water supply. The controls for moving fresh water and maintaining sewers and waste treatment plants are electronic.

But what about those of us who don’t want to be snooped on? It’s a fallacy of logic to assume that the desire for privacy means one has something to hide. Doesn’t that famous document-cum-toilet paper, the U.S. Constitution, say something about unreasonable search and seizure, and our right to be safe in our homes? We certainly aren’t going to get satisfaction beseeching those whores-in-suits, the congressional branch; nor from the judicial (which one is Cheney’s hunting buddy?).
So, here’s something extremely fascinating and exciting that more people need to know about. It’s called encryption, and it’s available to anyone, right now, for free. And it’s absolutely unbreakable, even by the most powerful computers.

In 1991, a fellow named Phil Zimmerman released a software package that he developed called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Based on an astonishing breakthrough in encryption technology called asymmetrical encryption, he wrote the code for this program that could be used to send data protected over the internet, or to protect information on one’s personal computer. Originally, he had planned to sell the software, but there were indications that the Feds were going to seize it, so he posted it for free, and forever changed the face of encryption, letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak. Though based on complex computations, the power of computers had become so great that a home computer could now run the programs required to encrypt and decrypt data.

Before we jump into what Mr. Zimmerman is up to now, let’s go over the ideas of actions and bodies again. The very essence of jurisprudence requires that an action be attributed to a body. A bank robber is captured on film at the bank or captured with a suitcase full of bank notes. Outside of legal structures, such as a posse or a mob hit, the action still must be attributed to a body, though the burden of proof is less of a nuisance.

With computers and the internet, actions can be seen, but the body is invisible. Yet there are ways to make a good guess as to who the body is based on the actions being monitored. Actions occur. Series of actions create patterns. Repeated patterns create profiles. The actions contain information that can be seen by others. In order to break the panoptical gaze, one must either hide the fact that an action has occurred, hide the location of the action, or hide what information the action contains.

Every time you turn on your computer and log into your internet service provider, an “address” is created that tracks your activity. Every time you click on something on a website, you are requesting information and those requests are logged on the computers at your service provider. The address looks like this: 258.258.258.258. Four sets of 2 or 3 numbers. Go to www.showIPaddress.com and type in any IP address and they will tell you where where the address is located.

To simply hide your actions, you can go to websites such as www.proxify.com or www.surfola.com. There you can cruise the internet and they have sophisticated software that breaks your actions into packets and sends them through routers that make it nearly impossible for anyone to follow. To hide any action from occurring on your computer is beyond the scope of this article and this brain.

To hide the content of your messages, Mr. Zimmerman has created a service called HushMail at www.HushMail.com. There you can get a simple, free e-mail account that encrypts all messages. Neither Hushmail people nor the government can crack your messages. It functions best when both sender and receiver use hushmail accounts. Obviously, don’t use any words or names in your Hushmail e-mail address that could identify you or help a social engineer construct a profile of you.

If having a HushMail account weren’t fun enough, choosing your passphrase is more fun. Notice I said passphrase and not password. What use is encrypted e-mail if someone hacks your password and can read your messages? In order for a passphrase to be safe, experts recommend 4 to 9 five-letter words. To be totally random, use five dice to generate your words. Get your dice first and then go to www.DiceWare.com and read up on how to do it.

Basically, get five dice, roll them and record the results. Then look at the word list at DiceWare and write down the word that corresponds to each roll of the five dice. Not all words will have five letters.

25241-farm
64234-wind
14465-boggy
41525-map

So you end up with the passphrase: farmwindboggymap. Not bad. You can make it stronger by adding a character between each word, such as farm10wind9boggy8map7. To make it even stronger, you can add a little “salt,” a non-random word at the end of the phrase, such as your last name or your favorite region of Italy:

farm10wind9boggy8map7tuscany6.

The more important it is that your messages not be compromised, the better to use up to nine words with characters in between and some salt. Even the most whip-ass government or corporate computers would take years to crack the phrase.

To make your passphrase even stronger yet, use casino grade dice. It has been shown that cheapo dice tend to roll higher numbers on average. If you consider that more material is removed to make the dots for 4, 5 and 6 than for 1, 2, and 3, it makes sense. The heavier sides land on the bottom. If sophisticated hackers were to attack your passphrase with powerful computers, they may try the higher numbers first. So use good dice and don’t work off the same word list every time. There are word lists in several languages. Try to be as unpredictable as possible when working with sensitive information. It’s your duty and your right. Next time we’ll talk more about this exciting subject!
This article first appeared in the Jefferson Day 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster.

Happy Jefferson Day everyone! Finally, a holiday that celebrates freedom, plain and simple. No more 4th of July for the Backwoods Hipster, except to sit around, make a BBQ and get fat, because that’s about all the bloody thing is worth anymore. I’d say that the people of this great nation today suffer under more regulations, taxation and mental warfare than those that led the colonists to rebel back in the day (1776 to be exact). But nobody is doing anything about this filthy mess, as the only growth in our country seems to come in the form of cancerous tumors, Wal-Mart associate hiring, and the nasty, nasty Executive Branch of the federal government.

So, whatever the ol’ 4th of July stood for, independence from England and their nasty, nasty government, really doesn’t mean much these days. That’s why BH now celebrates Jefferson Day, which stands for freedom. Not freedom or independence from something, just freedom. And you can be certain that we know what we’re talking about because we invented Jefferson Day!

You see, Thomas Jefferson was one of the better wig-wearing white guys. Really quite a fellow. Too bad Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist model has come to dominate the country. T.J. believed in minimal government and to prove it, he repealed the Alcohol Excise Tax that Hamilton imposed on the people to pay for the War of Independence. Some thanks, huh? Fight and win a war for a bunch of rich, white wankers and the thanks they give you is to tax you in order to pay their bills. From 1802 to 1862, there was no tax on alcohol. Then, guess what? This time another white guy, not rich but ugly, comes along and reimposes the tax to pay for…another war! Sweet. And to collect the money, he creates one of the most beloved of all our institutions, the Department of Internal Revenue. Thanks Mr. Lincoln.

I know what you might be saying now. “But he did free the slaves, Mr. Backwoods Hipster.” Indeed, he did, and BH does not slight this event in the least. But with the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the corporate structure was created, in addition to giving citizenship to former slaves. Almost too clever to be a coincidence, no? In fact, in the years following the Civil War, the 14th was used almost exclusively to further the rights and privileges of the fictional personhood that corporations enjoy today. If it weren’t for that smokescreen, many corporate officers would be hustling their skinny little asses out of town with the justified fear of being tar and feathered.

Would it make sense almost 150 years later to repeal the part of the 14th that gives corporations the rights of personhood? I would be all for it. And if it did happen, the damn thing should be signed on, you got it, June 30, Jefferson Day!

The new e-book by editors of Backwoods Hipster and Duende Publishing entitled The Absinthe Alchemist: How To Make Superior Quality Absinthe is now available from AbsintheAlchemist.com. Based on years of knowledge in the herbal product manufacturing industry and tons of research, this volume is certain to find a place in many an absinthe maker’s research library. It covers all the basics, including plant data sheets for the traditional absinthe plants plus many other herbs and spices that can be used to make a drink suited to every palate.

Go to www.AbsintheAlchemist.com to find out more about The Absinthe Alchemist: How To Make Superior Quality Absinthe.

OK, Let’s set the record straight right now, before we even begin. Alexander Hamilton was a stinker! Thomas Jefferson was cool! In fact, Jefferson was so cool that Backwoods Hipster endorses a new holiday, Jefferson Day, to be celebrated on June 30th each year. The Fouth of July has become an empty holiday. It’s a shell. Piss all over it. Especially here in the State of Jefferson, our new holiday shall be a tribute to the genius of a free people, which incidentally, Jefferson believed enough to repeal the evil federal excise tax on alcohol (instigated by Mssr. Hamilton) on June 30, 1802. Let’s take a look at some moonshine history and see how pivotal it was in the early history of the US.
(note: BH is aware of the disaster that white settlement caused the Injuns. We do not condone the annihilation nor murder of anybody. History is often f#*%ed up, as is the present.

As early as 1639, settlers in Massachusetts were beginning to make wine from pumpkins, grapes, currants, elderberries, and parsnips. Soon they were distilling ardent spirits from blackberries, persimmons, plums, whortleberries, sassafras bark, birch barks, corn stalks, hickory nuts, pumpkins, pawpaw, turnips, carrots, potatoes, and small grains.

Scotch/Irish and, to a lesser degree, German and other settlers, brought distilling skills with them from the auld country. All along the frontier, in the days before roads, “whiskey farming” was a way to raise money to pay taxes. A settler could produce 40-60 bushels of corn per acre but had no way to transport it to market. But one pack horse could carry two eight-gallon kegs of whiskey, the equivalent of 24 bushels, or 128 pounds of corn. By the end of the 18th century a complete copper still and worm was worth a 200 acre farm within 10 miles of Pittsburgh.
So it was taken as an act of treachery when Secretary of Treasury, the arch-Federalist Alexander Hamilton, decided to tax whiskey distilleries and whiskey production to pay off the country’s 21 million dollar war debt. Congress voted the whiskey tax into law on March 3, 1791. This was a blow to the frontiersmen who fought and were Washington’s favorite troops. One of America’s first “trippers” or transporters of illicit alcohol was John Hancock, the Scotch-Irish Bostonian. He smuggled Madeira wine into Boston.

Luckily, there was one old school wig wearer that had the interests of the common man in mind. Thomas Jefferson repealed the whiskey excise tax on June 30, 1802, by Thomas Jefferson, declaring that the “infernal” whiskey excise was hostile to the genius of a free people.

Perhaps the sixty years from 1802 until 1862 were the last three score in which the American people lived in freedom. For on July 1, 1862, Congress re-imposed the excise tax to pay for the civil war. The Act created the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue (we have honest Abe to thank for the IRS). On March 3, 1863, the position of Deputy Commissioner was created and three detectives were authorized to “protect the revenue.” They became known as revenuers.

Some people didn’t have to run from the revenuers. Take the 450 lb. Melungeon Big Betsy the she-devil queen. She became so heavy due to a glandular disorder that she couldn’t walk and therefore didn’t have to worry about being arrested for her bootlegging activities.
Henry M. Wiltse, in his 1895 book Moonshiners wrote, “She (Betsy) keeps open house all the year round, and extends to the officers as well as other people a cordial invitation to visit her whenever it suits their convenience…She could not be taken out of the house without taking the roof off and hoisting her out with a derrick; and a derrick could not be taken there for the purpose, for she lives way up on Newman’s Ridge, more than three miles from the nearest spot at all accessible with team and wagon. After her death, her people removed boards from one end of the house reserved for a fireplace, wrapped her in quilts, and gently rolled her down the hill to be buried next to her kinfolk.”

After a 60 year break, tripping again became a profitable occupation, the consolation prize for being harnessed again by Lincoln . One fellow who put trippers to good use was Amos Owens, “cherry bounce king” of Rutherford County, North Carolina. His “bounce” formula was a generous portion of his finest corn whiskey, with a few dashes of sourwood honey and cherry juice added, the juice, so it was said, having been trod from the cherries by the bare feet of his beautiful daughters, in true Old World style.

But what really changed tripping was the Volstead Act in 1919. “Corn whiskey went big-time—attracting babulous prices from thirsty consumers everywhere, but particularly in the major cities, where the big gangs contracted for every drop of homemade whiskey they could lay their hands on.”

In the 1920’s trippers found they could make enough money on one run to buy a new Model A Ford. A favorite among the early trippers was the 1926 Model T Ford roadster. It could hold 90 gallons of whiskey.

With the exception of a few hot rod buffs, about the only people interested in high performance cars in the 20’s and early 30’s were the liquor runners.

Here’s a cherry bounce recipe from the book of east Tennessee recipes, Smoky Mountain Magic: To one gallon of white spirits put two quarts of water and five to six quarts of wild cherries. Wash cherries and put in jug with alcohol. Corn cob stopper in jug. After they stand three monthes, drain off liquor and strain it well, sometimes twice. Make a thick syrup with one and one-half pounds white sugar and water until ropy. Add the syrup to liquor from jug to taste.

This article first appeared in the Cinco de Mayo 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster

We had the good fortune of being turned on to Jason Webley by a mutual friend a few years back. Since then we’ve seen him numerous times when on his West Coast tours. Here is the long awaited interview with JW. He plays the Blacksheep in Ashland on May 10. Also playing are Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band from Indianapolis. Go to JasonWebley.com to immerse yourself in Webleyana.

BH: Please describe your musical education (formal, informal, otherwise) and musical milestones.

JW: Um… all my life I’ve written songs, even when I was a little boy.  I studied music and theater at the University of Washington. After that I was a recording engineer at a small studio in Seattle. It was terrible. I recorded Muzak versions of pop songs and did voice-overs for advertisements. Then in 1998 I started playing accordion on the street.

BH: Did you play in bands? When did you start touring alone?

JW: I was in a punk band in high school. And then I was in a couple bands in college, but none of them were really representative of what I was thinking of at the time. I never found the right people and I always felt that in order to make my music happen I needed to have those ‘right’ other people playing. It was 1998 when I first realized I could do something on my own without a band behind me. I traveled back then quite a bit, just street performing and following festivals, but didn’t start actually ‘touring’ until 2001.

BH: You’ve been compared a lot to Tom Waits. Does that piss you off?

JW: At first I was flattered, then annoyed, then I stopped caring.  Nowadays the comparison doesn’t come up so often. Tom Waits is great, though.

BH: How and why did you start going to Russia?

JW: They invited me. I got an e-mail from some guys saying they wanted to bring me to Russia. I thought they must either be crazy or criminal. I was a bit worried the trip was going to cost me a kidney or something. But they sent me a ticket and I went. Turns out, the company is run by these really wonderful young guys, and we’ve gone on to be good friends. Their promotion company also works with the Tiger Lilies, Devotchka and a few others. I was the their second international project. This was in 2002, before it was so common for independent artists to make it to Russia. I’ve been there six times now and have a bigger following in Moscow these days than anywhere else in the world.  Everything is always a bit crazy there. On the second trip the promoter from Saint Petersburg tried to kill the drummer by throwing him out of the window of a moving train. But I keep going back and I guess I feel a special connection to Russia.

BH: Being alone quite a bit, driving between towns, what do you think about on the road?

JW: My mind is often blank. Or blankish. Driving for me is very meditative. Or like sleeping almost. I hardly know it is happening often. When I am driving, I drive a lot. Sometimes five hundred or more miles a day, every day with a show every night.  Sometimes songs get stuck in my head that I have never heard before.

BH: Going from being alone for long periods to being surrounded by people for long periods, especially by fans that are attentive to you, is it a difficult transition, a welcome one?

JW: It comes pretty naturally. I rarely get into a mood where that attention is unwelcome or I become overwhelmed. Luckily the people who are drawn to my music are usually very sweet kind people, I feel pretty blessed. I occasionally wonder if it is healthy to oscillate so rapidly between such social extremes.

BH: Spending the nights in peoples’ homes, what is the range of accommodations you’ve been offered? What is the lamest night you’ve endured? The best?

JW: I’ve stayed in some really nice places. An abandoned cathedral in the Netherlands, Tolkein-like treehouses, boats, mansions, squats, etc.  I still like my home the best. I have a tiny little houseboat on a river up near Seattle. The sketchiest place I have stayed is hard to say. I remember once arriving at this place up the northern coast of California. A friend of a friend of a fan had organized a place for me to stay. It was a foggy night when we arrived and the place was in this trailer park. We showed up (I was with a friend on that tour) and nobody was home. We got really bad feelings and were going to leave when this beat up pick-up truck comes up. A tiny man with a thick Eastern European accent and one arm gets out and welcomes us. He takes us inside.  The place is a wreck. Broken televisions flickering static and piles of videotapes everywhere, and there was this really disturbing gurgling sound coming from somewhere that turned out to be a car battery that was mysteriously making this noise all night.

BH: I don’t get the impression that you’re a big partier, and thus not prone to blackouts or periods of indiscretion (or maybe so?) what is the most compromising position you’ve found yourself in at someone’s home?

JW: I’m not a big partier, I don’t think. But I have certainly made a few mistakes.

BH: How do you fend off girls or guys whose homes you are staying at but don’t want to offend and get kicked out?

JW: That hasn’t been an issue, really.

BH: Do you think of the accordion as a girl or a boy or neither?

JW: I go through accordions quickly. Usually it takes less than a year for me to destroy one. And in that short time, none of them really have had time to acquire a gender. My last couple accordions have been Excelsiors, and I’ve tried to refer to them as my ‘exes’ but it hasn’t really caught on.

BH: Has your accordion ever got you into trouble or out of it?

JW: Hard to say. The accordion in a lot of ways has shaped my life these past few years, so any trouble I have of or haven’t gotten into could be the accordion’s fault.

BH: Have you ever incorporated the accordion into a sexual act?

JW: Umm… no. I once had a lovely moment of playing the left side of a very small accordion with a very pretty girl in the Czech Republic while she played the right side and told me the chords.  At some point during the experiment our lips met for the first and only time.

BH: Do you think you’ll keep on touring mostly solo or form a band or project?

JW: I like playing solo, I’ll probably keep doing that most of the time, but I have been doing other projects with other musicians lately and that has led to touring with other people, which has been really good. Right now I am about to start a tour with the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band from Indianapolis. I also went out last November with a quartet backing me up. All really good friends and amazing musicians. It was a lot of fun and could be addictive. I think we are going to do a bigger tour together this October.

BH: Who are you inspirations, musically, theatrically?

JW: If you don’t mind, I’ll just pick one and talk about it. I remember seeing the Blind Boys of Alabama years ago. And being totally blown away by two things. First was just their raw energy. I love seeing people on stage pouring ever ounce of strength that they have into every moment, as if they are somehow just on the verge of collapsing the whole time, but being held together miraculously by God knows what. I’ve seen very few performers like that, and these guys were sixty or seventy years old.  The second and the more important thing was what happened to the crowd. I’ve always felt a bit alienated and uncomfortable in the few times I have found myself at religious services and everyone has been singing together. But this was different. They were even singing Christian songs, but still it was different. There was another message behind the words that was even louder and that was what people were responding to. They were singing about loving life and their music was an invitation to join and celebrate that. And it worked.  The whole Seattle Opera House was on its feet, clapping, dancing and singing at the top of its lungs. Even me, to my surprise. I’ve never forgotten that and have tried my best to do something similar with my little concerts.

BH: Being on the road all over the country, you see a large cross section of America. In your opinion, what is the pulse of the country? I know it’s hard to generalize but try to give a little picture of roadside and coffeehouse America from Jason Webley’s perspective.
JW: You don’t ask very nice questions you know? By nice, I mean questions I already have an answer for. You know, that’s why it has taken me a year to get this back to you. The pulse of this country. I know that my sense of that is pretty skewed. Even though I get to see so many places, my lens is pretty faulty, as I am often seeing things through the filter of how people respond to my music. But I will say this. I am in a small town right now.  Twin Falls, Idaho. In many senses, you can tell what the heart of America is up to by putting your ear to the ground here better than you will ever be able to in New York City. I was just there a couple weeks ago.

BH: In what performing tradition, if any, do you place yourself? I always have a hard time describing your act without resorting to a string of words, as in travelling bard-slash-wild accordion player-slash-storyteller-etc. How do you sum up your act?

JW: I am certainly part of some archetypal tradition. I suppose I am as close to a modern minstrel as you get without being totally disenfranchised

BH: Are you disappointed that the accordion has become so damn hip and do you think you’ll start playing something nerdier so that people don’t think you’re so trendy?

JW: That’s funny. Sometimes, I look out the window and all I can see are young men with accordions and hats and I think things certainly have changed in the last 9 years since I started doing this. Mostly I think it is great.

BH: You have a fondness for vegetables. Can you name one that you think will take the world by storm in the near future?

JW: Vegetables don’t take things by storm. They are steady, calculating and subtle in their military operations. We could learn a lot from them. Vegetables take over individuals one by one.  It has perhaps happened to me. I get asked all the time what my favorite vegetable is, and I always say “I love them all” or “I don’t have a favorite” or “I hate vegetables” but I will tell you those are lies. The artichoke has made a very good case for itself. First, the taste is amazing. Buttery and softly rich with a texture that kinda melts and explodes when it meets your saliva. But mostly I love it because it is a process food. The artichoke demands patience and reveals her mystery slowly. I love unpeeling the layers, dipping the leaves in the butter one at a time, then you have to push your way past a bunch of prickly little fibers and hairs until you finally get to the tastiest part. And the heart of the artichoke is so generous, so completely giving. It is easy to lose yourself in the heart. The artichoke is hands down, the sexiest food on the planet.

BH: Why do you think people keep coming back to your shows?

JW: I am really good at cooking artichokes. And making borscht.  Maybe they are hoping that once they are more familiar to me, I will make dinner for them?

BH: What’s your favorite pizza and do you have a recipe you’d like to share?

I hate artichokes on pizza. It seems like such a waste to pickle them and rob them of their mystery. Every artichoke heart I see pickled makes me sad somehow. But I really like spinach on pizza. That is totally acceptable. I don’t really make pizza myself.  But I make really good borscht. But I don’t have a recipe. You just need beets, red cabbage, a bit of potato and some caramelized onions. Let all of that cook for at least 45 minutes.  Maybe longer. Until it is done. Add salt and pepper to taste.  Then serve with a huge dollop of sour cream and a few sprigs of fresh dill.

This article first appeared in the Cinco de Mayo 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster

By Mark the Butcher

This will be a two-part article, designed to take some of the mystery and fear out of processing your own animals. Part one will cover birds, while part two will address the larger animals like deer, cow, and pig. Butchering anything is dirty work, definitely not for those with a weak stomach. It is bloody, smelly, and messy, and you are taking the life of another being. That being said, the latter seems to be the hardest part for the average person to cope with. Sure we all want to go down to the café and eat a tasty buffalo burger w/organic French fries, but do we want to be there when the animal is shot in the head or stunned with high voltage and bled to death? This article will hopefully give people the tools and knowledge to take this process into their own hands. It won’t make killing any easier, but you will know what to do after the killing is done.

All right, let’s talk turkey, or chicken if you prefer. The process for butchering birds is the same for all species, regardless of size. You will need: 1 or 2 large pots of gently boiling water, a killing rack*, a very sharp knife, running water (garden hose), ice water bath, and of course a full grown bird. The first step will be to construct a killing rack (not necessary for doing just 1 bird). The rack consists of one 2×6x10 or 12, depending on your needs, and 4 roadway cones. Milk jugs do OK in a pinch but let’s see you hold a writhing bloody chicken down in that milk jug (it ain’t pretty). Hang the 2×6 about shoulder height between 2 trees, preferably in the shade. Cut the narrow tops of the roadway cones just enough so when you place the chicken in the bottom its head hangs out. Use 2 screws with washers to attach the cones to the 2×6 evenly spaced. Place a nail to the outside of the outer cones, this nail will be used to hang and pluck the birds. Hammer the nails about halfway in and hang a piece of twine or rope from the nails. Make two loops that can be loosened and tightened. These will hold the bird’s feet during the plucking phase. While the killing rack was being constructed, the water should have been brought to about 160°F. Now we’re ready to start killing! Grab one of the birds, place in the cone upside down so the neck sticks out the bottom. Take that very sharp knife, thank the Creator, the chicken, or whoever, and make a clean cut across the bird’s neck. I prefer to take the head off in one slice. While others may do it differently, I find, in the end, that it is cleaner and more efficient.

Now if that part wasn’t bad enough, here comes the really fun stuff. Wait until the bird has stopped convulsing, remove from the cone and dip the whole bird into the hot water, about 2-3 seconds at a time for 6-8 dips. Use the nail on the rack to hang the bird and start plucking. Now is the time for focus, because the slower you go the faster the bird cools down which means the feathers get harder to pull.

Once the bird is plucked and rinsed its time to pull the guts out, (or eviscerate if you prefer). Take that very sharp knife, and make an incision at the base of the sternum. To find the sternum, use your fingers and follow the line going straight down from the head and neck. You should find a hard bone in the middle of the bird’s breast. Where this bone ends is the base of the sternum. You must be very careful to only slice the skin and not any organs. Once the body cavity is open just reach up in there, again being careful not to damage organs, and peel out the intestines and other lower organs. Before pulling them all the way out notice where all of the innards are headed, the anus. This is important. Do not rip this out. You have to carefully cut around the anus and bladder then remove. Now all that should be left are the lungs and upper organs. The best way to get them is to rip them out with your hand, making sure to get a hold on the windpipe when you pull. One more wash off with the hose and you cut off the feet. To easily cut the feet off, lay the bird on a cutting board or table. Find the seam where the leg bends, next make an incision in the seam and bend the leg in the opposite way it normally would move. As you bend the leg apply pressure with your sharp knife and it will slice right through. Next put the bird in an ice bath for about 15 or 20 minutes, one more rinse and into the freezer or barbeque it goes. That’s it for now. Stay tuned for butchering large animals in future editions.

This article first appeared in the Cinco de Mayo 2007 print edition of Backwoods Hipster