Feb. 17, 2005
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On the cover:
Darryl Cherney and Chernobles perform at Muddy Waters in Arcata.
Photo by Bob Doran
by BOB
DORAN
On a cool, crisp Saturday night,
Darryl Cherney and the Chernobles take the stage at a coffeehouse
in Arcata, preparing to rip into a twangy country tune. Cherney
prefaces the song with a pronouncement, "This is a true
story. All the songs you'll hear tonight are true stories."
Then while a steel guitar cries
behind him, he strums his acoustic guitar, singing, "Now
I'm just a hippie environmentalist thumbing through this redneck
town. I've got an Earth First! shirt, two layers of dirt, not
the kind they wanted hangin' around."
Of course, the song is not about
Arcata. "Grant's Pass" is set in a southern Oregon
town that Cherney describes in rhyme as "a place where they
want to kick my ass." It tells the tale of an Earth First!
direct action protest against logging by "Oregon clear-cutters,"
"furrow-browed head-butters" that he compares with
the city's Neanderthal mascot.
It's a funny song, and the audience
responds with laughter. A major portion of the crowd appear to
be fans, both young and old, many presumably Earth First! associates
or at least sympathizers. Some who seem to know the words sing
along.
At the end of January, a week
before the Arcata gig, Cherney turned 49. He spent just about
20 of those years here in Humboldt County earning a reputation
as a media savvy, rabble-rousing, frontline environmental activist,
spokesman for the local faction of Earth First!
That was the old Darryl Cherney.
Today there's a new one. For one thing he says he is "not
involved at all in North Coast Earth First!" at this point.
In fact, his role in local eco-politics has taken a turn, and
the show in Arcata is part of it. It's not that his strong opinions
have shifted; it's just that he feels like it's time for a change.
"I've had two closures
in my life recently, in terms of my political work," said
Cherney in a conversation before the show. "One of them
was in 2002: the victory over the FBI and the Oakland police."
Cherney was referring to the jury verdict in a lawsuit that he
and Judi Bari's estate filed stemming from the 1990 bombing of
Bari's car. The verdict eventually led to a $4 million settlement.
(Bari died of breast cancer in 1997.)
Cherney's other closure came,
he said, with the establishment of the Headwaters Forest Reserve
in 1999. "That was something I worked on from beginning
to end," he said. "With that in mind, I asked myself,
`Am I going to just sit in trees and challenge timber harvest
plans and organize protests for the rest of my life?'
"In the past I did activism
and wrote songs about it. Now my songs are going to be my activism.
I basically decided I'm going to dedicate the next phase of my
life to the arts, to my music."
Not that he plans on making
it big in the music industry. His sense of humor is a bit too
acerbic for that and his music is not exactly commercial.
"I don't think there's
any singer in the world that everyone likes, and I'm not particularly
famous," he conceded, adding, "I always say I'm infamous."
The Chernobles: L-R, drummer
Mike "Tofu" Schwartz, guitarist Steve Hesh, Darryl
Cherney, bassist Peter Amazing
Nothing in moderation
Like him or not, there's no
denying Cherney inspires strong emotions.
Third generation logger Bill
Boak [photo below left]
of McKinleyville figures that Cherney
"never did this county any good. I don't think he does anybody
any good. He sure as hell didn't do the environmental movement
any good.
"If
Darryl Cherney and his like would fade out of the picture it
might help. They just deal in propaganda and threats, that crowd
he runs with. A lot of this protesting and all of this blab is
started by people like Darryl Cherney who are making a living
protesting."
Paul Mason got to know Cherney
in the mid-'90s while working with the Garberville-based Environmental
Protection Information Center (EPIC).
"Darryl is someone who
definitely provokes feelings one way or the other," said
Mason, now a legislative representative working in Sacramento
on forestry issues for the Sierra Club. "Very few people
have no opinion about Darryl. He's one of those people who --
you either love him or hate him. And that's because he does not
get attention through moderate statements. He tends to say things
in black and white terms."
Cherney is not one to deny his
confrontational nature. "I may grate on people, but I think
people have more respect for people who tell you what they're
really thinking, as opposed to someone who tries to please everybody,
who doesn't show all their cards."
"The contemplative, modest,
well-reasoned comment is not what makes a headline," said
Mason. "It's the inflammatory stuff that gets the attention,
the clever turn of phrase that's a little over the top that people
remember. And that's where Darryl plays the game -- he's good
at that."
Where did Cherney learn the
PR skills that helped him grab headlines? He started young.
West side story
A self-described "dyed-in-the-wool
New Yorker," Cherney was born and raised on the west side
of Manhattan. His father was an English teacher; his mother,
an office manager.
But another strong influence
in his youth was Tony Schwartz, one of his neighbors on West
57th Street.
A legend in New York advertising,
Schwartz is perhaps best known for creating what is known as
"the daisy ad," a television spot for Lyndon Johnson's
campaign against Barry Goldwater that juxtaposed a little girl
picking a daisy with an atomic bomb explosion.
Schwartz was also known as a
pioneer in using real children in his radio and television commercials.
One of the children Schwartz used was young Darryl.
"When I was 5 years old,
riding my tricycle in the neighborhood, Tony spotted me and approached
my mother, asking if he could do some sound takes," Cherney
recalled. "I did ads for Quaker Oats, for Ivory Snow and
Equitable Life Insurance, for high grade bologna. (The vegans
will kill me for that one, but I didn't know.) I made $35,000
by the time I was 11."
It was in Schwartz's home studio
that Cherney got his initial political education.
"I would go over to Tony's
house and be surrounded by politics. It was on the walls, on
the bookshelves, in the record library. He had autographed pictures
of John Kennedy on the wall -- he did four presidential campaigns."
Cherney said he started getting
involved in political campaigns when he was just 9, and music
was also part of his life from an early age. He studied classical
piano from the age of 7 and got himself a guitar at 10. "I
picked up the guitar, and as soon as I had learned three chords,
I started writing songs: political songs, or even environmental
songs."
It began with "The Long
Island Expressway in Rush Hour," a song about congested
traffic set to the tune of "Snoopy and the Red Baron,"
and other parodies.
As he grew older he continued
songwriting, but was dissatisfied with it. "I knew that
there was something I didn't know, something missing in my consciousness.
And it was reflected in my songs; they were not sophisticated
enough, not analytical. They didn't embrace a holistic politicism.
Maybe I hadn't formed an ideology yet."
Mover-shaker-Pagan
Cherney would eventually embrace
a holistic political ideology, one with spiritual underpinnings,
but not based on traditional organized religion.
Describing himself as "Jewish
by descent," Cherney said, "I never went to temple;
never went to Hebrew school. I was never bar mitzvahed. We celebrated
Christmas and we ate pork, never did Hanukkah. The only thing
that [my parents] told me was that there is a God, but it wasn't
within the practice of any faith."
By 1982, Cherney had graduated
from Fordham University in New York City with a BA in English
and a master's degree in education. Besides teaching at a local
business school, he dabbled in marketing on the side.
He also got involved in the
New York City Folk Musicians Cooperative, an organization run
by the folksinger Jack Hardy. At the time Cherney was earning
a living as a "man with a van," through a business
he called Prime Mover. "I would use other folk musicians
for my crew," he recalled.
The co-op was where Cherney
met Judy Zweiman, "my first Judy, I call her. She was playing
bass with a group, Josh Joffen and Late for Dinner. We dated
pretty steady for a couple of years, from '84 to '85."
Zweiman introduced Cherney to
the spiritual practice of paganism, not long before he left New
York for California. "She told me I was a pagan and I didn't
know it. Eventually I knew it. I've been a practicing pagan since
1984. I'm a lifetime member of the Church of All Worlds.
What does it mean to be a pagan?
"It means I honor the Goddess as well as honoring God. It
means that I see the divine in all things, whether it be the
wind, the sun or a blade of grass. I see different elements of
the sacred. It means that I participate in rituals: We greet
the four seasons with ceremonies."
Heading west
In 1985, Cherney the moving
man decided to pack his 1976 Dodge and move himself, leaving
New York. "I had pre-rented a place in San Francisco. I
did not have any job in mind, but I knew you could always make
money moving furniture."
He also knew he "wanted
to do something political, to work for social change." In
an oft-told tale, he recounted how he was diverted on his way
to San Francisco after picking up Kingfisher, a traveling Cheyenne
"road man" somewhere in Oregon.
"Kingfisher asked me, `What
do you want out of life?' I said, `I want to learn how to live
off the land and save the world.' He said he knew where I needed
to go: Garberville. When we drove into town he took me straight
to the EPIC office."
The nonprofit advocacy organization
EPIC formed in 1977 around a successful campaign opposing the
timber industry practice of aerial herbicide spraying. By 1985
the group was working on a variety of other timber-related issues.
"I immediately started
learning about the redwoods falling," said Cherney. "I
arrived in November of '85, right after [Charles] Hurwitz made
his bid to take over Pacific Lumber. That's what was in the headlines
at the moment. Here I was a New Yorker, a provincial Manhattanite,
so I was like, `What? You can cut down the redwoods?' When I
found out they were clear-cutting them, I couldn't conceive of
it; I didn't believe it could be legal."
While he was working with EPIC, another
group caught his eye: the more radical environmentalists known
as Earth First! Cherney had never heard of them before he saw
a sticker on the door of the EPIC office showing the Earth First!
clenched fist logo.
"What differentiates Earth
First! from other environmental advocacy [groups] is the fact
that direct action strategies are employed," explained Karen
Pickett, an Earth Firster since 1983 who works with the Bay Area
Coalition for Headwaters.
Asking around, Cherney found
that there were no Earth Firsters active on the North Coast in
the mid-1980s. "Bill Devall at Humboldt State had had an
Earth First! group in Arcata that took on the G-O Road [plans
for a road from Gasquet to Orleans through land considered sacred
by local tribes]. In Mendocino they had formed around the Sinkyone
[wilderness issue]. They had come and gone. So I was not the
first Earth Firster [in this area]; I just rejuvenated it, along
with Greg King and eventually Judi Bari, of course. We brought
it to a new level."
While EPIC was fighting battles
on several fronts, before long Cherney and the journalist King,
who met in 1986, pulled together a cadre of Earth Firsters and
mounted a campaign to save a grove of redwoods on Pacific Lumber
property near Fortuna known as Headwaters Forest.
In doing so "he brought
into focus a totally unknown world view for most of the resource-oriented
community around here," said 2nd District Supervisor Roger
Rodoni.
"He did not
become everybody's friend. He was the guy, if you [were talking]
about a timber protest, Redwood Summer, Earth First! all of that
side of the equation, Darryl Cherney's name was going to be in
the forefront. He was the pioneer. Sure, there's a lot of people
who are going to say that's not good. Me, I'm not so quick to
say that's not good. If it took Darryl Cherney to create that
awareness, that's a positive thing."
According to Pickett, "Darryl
played a major role in the forest campaign in Northern California
and in the Earth First! movement in general. He's been a very
visible and vocal character in the landscape. He's a skilled
organizer, and one of the things he brought to the forest campaign
and to the larger movement was his musical ability."
Utilizing his background in
PR, Cherney bombarded local and national media with press releases
about various demonstrations, many orchestrated with theatrical
pizzazz, and punctuated by his topical songs.
He became a master at the provocative
sound bite, the face of radical environmentalism on the North
Coast. In the eyes of those he opposed, a target for anger at
the environmental movement in general.
"In some ways he was someone
to vilify," said Mason. "But if it wasn't him, it would
be someone else, someone like me."
In 1988 Cherney ran for Congress
in the Democratic primary, calling himself "the singing
candidate." While he lost the race to incumbent Doug Bosco,
he gained a new collaborator along the way, a politically aware
graphic artist and organizer who volunteered her services: Judi
Bari. As an added bonus, she played fiddle. They became partners
and lovers.
Above left: Cherney
leads illegal Earth First! treeplanting crew on Pacific Lumber
land near Lawrance Creek in 1988. He was later sued by P.L. for
the action.
Redwood Summer
In 1990 while Californians
were preparing to vote on the future of timber harvesting, choosing
between the Forests Forever initiative crafted by environmentalists
and a rival initiative put forward by the timber industry, Bari
and Cherney declared "Redwood Summer." It was a series
of protests emulating the Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964, when
voter registration workers descended on America's South as part
of the fight for civil rights.
"Earth First! raised the
profile of what was happening," Mason recalled. "Clearly
the world came to see that (lumber companies) were still clear-cutting
ancient redwoods."
What happened next sent shock
waves through the movement. While Bari and Cherney were driving
through Oakland on their way to play a concert in Santa Cruz,
a homemade bomb exploded in Bari's car. The police and FBI accused
the activists of carrying the bomb themselves. The lawsuit filed
by Bari and Cherney alleging violation of their civil rights
was finally settled last year. (The identity of the bomber
has never been established.)
At least 3,000 protesters came
from across the United States to participate in Redwood Summer
protests in Humboldt County and elsewhere in the state. While
Bari spent most of the summer in the hospital and rehab, she
emerged for an August rally in San Francisco in her honor. In
November, the Forests Forever and the timber industry counterinitiative
both failed at the polls.
The Headwaters Deal, which preserves
about 10,000 acres of woodlands, was clinched in 1999.
Above right: Cherney
plays for a Redwood Summer Rally, 1990
Who Bombed Judi Bari? an
album of songs and speeches by Bari, was produced by Cherney.
A new activism
Cherney noted that his writing
has changed of late. For one thing he says he is expanding his
focus "outside the redwood region to world politics."
Second, "I'm speaking more in what I'd call the authentic
first person. When I'm singing `You Can't Clear-cut Your Way
to Heaven' or `Where You Gonna Work When the Trees Are Gone?'
I'm pretending to be someone else. But now, I'm writing in the
first person and actually singing about me.
Besides working on some new
songs, he plans on revisiting songs he never finished or recorded.
"I need to go over all my old tapes," he said. "I
have cassette tapes going back to 1969. Songwriters like myself,
we sing ideas into tape recorders, sometimes even complete songs,
then sometimes never go back and listen to them. Why? Because
I was busy going out and organizing actions or getting arrested."
Cherney's most immediate plan
is to finish work on a collection of songs by and about Judi
Bari. "I've collected about 36 songs from different writers
[for] a two-disc set. By nature some of those songs are also
about me, but mostly they're about Judi."
In part he will have the liberty
to pursue these new projects because of the cash settlement from
the lawsuit. Cherney says his share will be "about a half
a mill, after taxes," spread over a few years, "four
payments from Oakland and one from the feds [the FBI]."
"I don't have all of it,"
he noted. "We're getting three more payments from the Oakland
police over the next three years. [The money] will give me time
to work on my music, focus on my art."
Having money in the bank is a
new thing for Cherney, who has always bristled at the notion
that he got involved in activism to live an easy life as a professional
protestor.
He still lives what he terms
a life of "voluntary simplicity" in a "hippy shack,"
a one-room geodesic dome he has been renting for $125 a month
for the last 15 years. "I cut my own firewood. I'm way off
the grid; I have solar panels. I have an outhouse. My shower
is outdoors. So whatever people might think, I'm certainly not
living the traditional high life." [photo at left]
But now that he has some cash
in hand, he says, "I'm looking to buy land. I never thought
I'd want to buy land, but then I realized that if you just hold
onto your money it loses value like crazy, so you have to choose
where you put it."
Even though he's planning on
moving into more comfortable digs, and he's not planning on getting
himself thrown in jail again, Cherney is still singing for his
old comrades.
"My favorite audience is
still around the campfire, without any amplification. For me,
that's the ideal stage, singing for people who may be going out
to get arrested the next day doing a forest action or a treesit.
The effect that the music has on them may be even more powerful
than if I were on the radio broadcasting to thousands. You just
don't get as famous."
The infamous Darryl Cherney
and the Chernobles perform in Garberville at Cecil's restaurant
on Friday, Feb. 25, 7-10 p.m.
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