***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Ain’t Got No Time For Corner Boys Down In The Street Making All That Noise- When Billie Ruled The Roost- First Take

He was the first. A certified 1958 A-One prime custom model first. Yes, Billie was the first. Billie, William James Bradley that is if you did not know his full moniker, was the first. No question about it, no controversy, no alternate candidates, no hemming and hawing agonizing about this guy’s attributes or that guy’s style and how they lined up against Billie’s shine in order to pick a winner. No way, get it. Billie, first in what anyway? Billie, first, see, first in line of the then ever sprouting young schoolboy king corner boy wannabes. Wannabes because the weres, the corner boy weres, the already king corner boy weres, the older, mainly not schoolboys or, christ, not for long schoolboys, mainly not working, jesus, mainly not working, mainly just hanging around (laying about was a name for it, a fit name at that) were already playing, really hip-swaying, lazily hip-swaying if you wanted to win games, wizard pinball machines in the sacred corner boy small town mom and pop variety night or cueing up in some smoke-filled big town pool hall.

Or working on hot souped-up cars, a touch of grease pressed, seemingly decaled pressed, into their uniform white tee-shirts (no vee-necks need apply) and always showed, showed an oily speck anyway, on their knuckles. But the cars were to die for, sleek tail-finned, pray to god cherry red if you put the finish on right (no going to some hack paint shop, no way, not for this baby, not for that ’57 Chevy), dual exhaust, big cubic engine numbers that no amateur had a clue to but just knew when sighted that thing would fly (well, almost fly) into the boulevard night, that sea air, sex-charged boulevard night. Tuned-up just right for that cheap gas to make her run, ya, that cheap City Service gas that was even cheaper than the stuff over at the Merit gas station, by two cents.

Or talking some boffo, usually blonde, although not always, maybe a cute rosy red-lipped and haired number or, in a pinch, a soft, sultry, svelte brunette, tight cashmere sweater-wearing, all, Capri pant-wearing, all, honey out of her virtue (or maybe into her virtue) down by the seashore after some carnival-filled night. A night that had been filled with arcade pinball wizardry, cotton candy, salt-water taffy, roller coaster rides, and a few trips in the tunnel of love, maybe win a prize from the wheel of fortune game too. A night capped with a few illicit drinks from some old tom, or johnny, Johnny Walker that is, rotgut to make that talking easier, and that virtue more questionable, into or out of. All while the ocean waves slap innocently against the shore, drowning out the night’s heavy breathed, hard-voiced sighs.

Or, get this, because it tells a lot about the byways and highways of the high-style corner boy steamy black and white 1950s night, preparing, with his boys, his trusted unto death boys, his omerta-sworn boys, no less to do some midnight creep (waylaying some poor bedraggled sap, sidewalk drunk or wrong neighborhooded, with a sap to the head for dough, or going through some back door, and not gently, to grab somebody’s family heirlooms or fungibles, better yet cash on hand) in order to maintain that hot car, cheap gas or not, or hot honey, virtuous or not. Ya, things cost then, as now.

And, ya, in 1958, in hard look 1958, those king hell corner boy weres already sucked up the noteworthy, attention-getting black and white television, black and white newsprint night air. Still the lines were long with candidates and the mom and pop variety store-anchored, soda fountain drugstore-anchored, pizza parlor-anchored, pool hall-anchored corners, such as they were, were plentiful in those pre-dawn mall days. But see that is the point, the point of those long lines of candidates in every burg in the land or, at least became the point, because in 1948, or 1938, or maybe even 1928 nobody gave a rat’s ass, or a damn, about corner boys except to shuffle them out of town on the first Greyhound bus.

Hell, in 1948 they were still in hiding from the war, whatever war it was that they wanted no part of, which might ruin their style, or their dough prospects. They were just getting into those old Nash jalopies, revving them up in the "chicken run" night out in the exotic west coast ocean night. In 1938 you did not need a Greyhound bus coming through your town because these guys were already on the hitchhike road, or were bindled-up in some railroad jungle, or getting cracked over the head by some “bull”, in the great depression whirlwind heading west for adventure, or hard-scrabble work. And in 1928 these hard boys were slugging it out, guns at the ready, in fast, prohibition liquor-load filled cars, and had no time for corners and silly corner pinball wizard games (although maybe they had time for running the rack at Gus’s pool hall, if they lived long enough).

That rarified, formerly subterranean corner boy way of life, was getting inspected, dissected, rejected, everything but neglected once the teen angst, teen alienation wave hit 1950s America. You heard some of the names, or thought you heard some of the names that counted, but they were just showboat celebrities, celebrities inhabiting Cornerboy, Inc. complete with stainless tee-shirt, neatly pressed denim jeans, maybe a smart leather jacket against the weather’s winds, unsmoked, unfiltered cigarettes at the ready, and incurably photogenic faces that every girl mother could love/hate.

Forget that. Down in the trenches, ya, down in the trenches is where the real corner boys lived, and lived without publicity most days, thank you. Guys like Red Hickey, tee-shirted, sure, denim-jeaned, sure, leather-jacketed, sure, chain-smoking (Lucky Strikes, natch), sure, angelic-faced, sure, who waylaid a guy, put him in an ambulance waylaid, just because he was a corner boy king from another cross-town corner who Red thought was trying to move in, or something like that. Or guys like Bruce “The Goose” McNeil, ditto shirted, jeaned, jacketed, smoked (Camels), faced who sneak-thieved his way through half of the old Adamsville houses taking nothing but high-end stuff from the swells. Or No Name McGee, corner boy king of the liquor store clip. Ya, and a hundred other guys, a hundred no name guys, except maybe to the cops, and to their distressed mothers, mainly old-time Irish and Italian novena-praying Catholic mothers, praying against that publicity day, the police blotter publicity day.

But you did not, I say, you did not hear those Hickey, McNeil, No Name stories in the big town newspapers or in some university faculty room when those guys zeroed in on the corner boy game trying to explain, like it was not plain as the naked eye to see, and why, all that angst and alienation. And then tried to tell one and all that corner boy was a phase, a minute thing, that plentiful America had an edge, like every civilized world from time immemorial had, where those who could not adjust, who could not decode the new American night, the odorless American night, the pre-lapsarian American night shifted for themselves in the shadows. Not to worry though it was a phase, just a phase, and these guys too will soon be thinking about that ticky-tack little white house with the picket fence.

Ya, but see, see again, just the talk through the grapevine about such guys as Red, The Goose, No Name, the legendary jewelry store clip artist, Brother Johnson (who set himself apart because he made a point of the fact that he didn’t smoke, smoke cigarettes anyway), and a whole host of guys who made little big names for themselves on the corners was enough to get guys like Billie, and not just primo candidate Billie either, hopped-up on the corner boy game. Ya, the corner boys whose very name uttered, whose very idea of a name uttered, whose very idea of a name thought up in some think-tank academy brain-dust, and whose very existence made a splash later (after it was all over, at least the public, publicity all over, part), excited every project schoolboy, every wrong side of the tracks guy (and it was always guys, babes were just for tangle), every short-cut dreaming boy who could read the day’s newspaper or watch some distended television, or knew someone who did.

And Billie was the first. The star of the Adamsville elementary schoolboy corner boy galaxy. No first among equals, or any such combination like that either, if that is what you are thinking. Alone. Oh sure his right-hand man, Peter Paul Markin, weak-kneed, bookwormy, girl-confused but girl-addled, took a run at Billie but that was seen, except maybe by Peter Paul himself, as a joke. Something to have a warm chuckle over on dreary nights when a laugh could not be squeezed out any other way. See, Peter Paul, as usual, had it all wrong on his figuring stuff. He thought his two thousand facts knowledge about books, and history, and current events, and maybe an off-hand science thing or two entitled, get this, entitled him to the crown. Like merit, or heredity, or whatever drove him to those two thousand facts meant diddly squat against style, and will.

Billie tried to straighten him out, gently at first, with a short comment that a guy who had no denim blue jeans, had no possibility of getting denim blue jeans, and was in any case addicted to black chinos, black cuffed chinos, has no chance of leading anybody, at any time, in anything. Still Peter Paul argued some nonsense about his organizing abilities. Like being able to run a low-rent bake sale for some foolish school trip, or to refurbish the U.S.S. Constitution, counted when real dough, real heist dough, for real adventures was needed. Peter simmered in high-grade pre-teen anguish for a while over that one, more than a while.

Billie and Peter Paul, friends since the first days of first grade, improbably friends on the face of it although Billie’s take on it was that Peter Paul made him laugh with that basketful of facts that he held on to like a king’s ransom, protecting them like they were gold or something, finally had it out one night. No, not a fist fight, see that was not really Billie’s way, not then anyway or at least not in this case, and Peter Paul was useless at fighting, except maybe with feisty paper bags or those blessed facts. Billie, who not only was a king corner contender but a very decent budding singer, rock and roll singer, had just recently lost some local talent show competition to a trio of girls who were doing a doo wop thing. That part was okay, the losing part, such things happen in show biz and even Billie recognized, recognized later, that those girls had be-bopped him with their cover of Eddie, My Lovefair and square. Billie, who for that contest was dressed up in a Bill Haley-style jacket made by his mother for the occasion, did the classic Bill Haley and the Comets Rock- Around-The-Clock as his number. About halfway through though one of the arms of his just made suit came flying off. A few seconds later the other arm came off. And the girls, the coterie of Adamsville girls in the audience especially, went crazy. See they thought it was part of the act.

After that, at school and elsewhere, Billie was besieged daily by girls, and not just stick-shaped girls either, who hung off all his arms, if you want to know. And sensitive soul Peter Paul didn’t like that. He didn’t care about the girl part, because as has already been noted, and can be safely placed on golden tablets Peter Paul was plenty girl-confused and girl-addled but girl-smitten in his funny way. What got him in a snit was that Billie was neglecting his corner boy king duty to be on hand with his boys at all available times. Well, this one night the words flew as Billie tired, easily tired, of Peter Paul’s ravings on the subject. And here is the beauty of the thing, the thing that made Billie the king corner boy contender. No fists, no fumings, no forget friendships. Not necessary. Billie just told Peter Paul this- “You can have my cast-offs.” Meaning, of course, the extra girls that Billie didn’t want, or were sticks, or just didn’t appeal to him. “Deal,” cried Peter Paul in a flash. Ya, that was corner boy magic. And you know what? After that Peter Paul became something like Johnson’s Boswell and really started building up Billie as the exemplar corner boy king. Nice work, Billie.

You know Freddie Jackson too took his shots but was strictly out of his league against the Billie. Here it was a question not of facts, or books, or some other cranky thing bought off, bought off easily, by dangling girls in front of a guy a la Peter Paul but of trying to out dance Billie. See Freddie, whatever else his shortcomings, mainly not being very bright and not being able to keep his hands out of his mother’s pocketbook when he needed dough so that he had to stay in many nights, worst many summer nights, could really dance. What Freddie didn’t know, and nobody was going to tell him, nobody, from Peter Paul on down if they wanted to hang with Billie was that Billie had some great dance moves along with that good and growing singing voice. See, Freddie never got to go to the school or church dances and only knew that Billie was an ace singer. But while Freddie was tied to the house he became addicted to American Bandstand and so through osmosis, maybe, got some pretty good moves too.

So at one after-school dance, at a time when Freddie had kept his hands out of his mother’s pocketbook long enough not to be house-bound, he made his big move challenge. He called Billie out. Not loud, not overbearing but everybody knew the score once they saw Freddie’s Eddie Cochran-style suit. The rest of the guys (except Billie, now wearing jeans and tee-shirt when not on stage in local talent contests where such attire got you no where) were in chinos (Peter Paul in black-cuffed chinos, as usual) and white shirts, or some combination like that, so Freddie definitely meant business. Freddie said, “If I beat you at dancing I’m running the gang, okay?” (See corner boys was what those professors and news hawks called them but every neighborhood guy, young or old, knew, knew without question, who led, and who was in, or not in, every, well, gang). Billie, always at the ready when backed up against the wall, said simply, “Deal.” Freddie came out with about five minutes of jitter buggery, Danny and the Juniors At The Hop kind of moves. He got plenty of applause and some moony-eyedness from the younger girls (the stick girls who were always moony-eyed until they were not stick girls any more).

Billie came sauntering out, tee-shirt rolled up, tight jeans staying tight and just started to do the stroll as the song of the same name, The Stroll, came on. Now the stroll is a line dance kind of thing but Billie is out there all by himself and making moves, sexual-ladened moves, although not everybody watching would have known to call them that. And those moves have all the girls, sticks and shapes, kind of glassy-eyed with that look like maybe Billie needed a partner, or something and why not me look. Even Freddie knew he was doomed and took his lost pretty well, although he still had that hankering for mom’s purse that kept him from being a real regular corner boy when Billie got the thing seriously organized.

Funny thing, Lefty Wright, who actually was on the dance floor the night of the Freddie-Billie dance-off, pushed Billie with the Freddie challenge. And Freddie was twenty times a better dancer than Lefty. Needless to say, join the ranks, Lefty. Canny Danny O’Toole (Cool Donna O’Toole’s, a stick flame of Billie’s, early Billie, brother) was a more serious matter but after a couple of actions (actions best left unspecified) he fell in line. Billie, kind of wiry, kind of quick-fisted as it turned out, and not a guy quick to take offense knew, like a lot of wiry guys, how to handle himself without lots of advertising of that fact. He was going to need that fist-skill when the most serious, more serious than the Canny Danny situation came up. And it did with Badass Bobby Riley, Badass was a known quality, but he was a year older than the others and everybody knew was a certified psychopath who eventually drifted out of sight. Although not before swearing his fealty to Billie. After taking a Billie, a wiry Billie, beating the details of which also need no going into now. And there were probably others who stepped up for a minute, or who didn’t stay long enough to test their metal. Loosey Goosey Hughes, Butternut Walsh, Jimmy Riley (no relation to Badass), Five Fingers Kelly, Kenny Ricco, Billy Bruno, and on and on.

But such was the way of Billie’s existence. He drew a fair share of breaks, for a project kid, got some notice for his singing although not enough to satisfy his huge hunger, his way out, he way out of the projects, projects that had his name written all over them(and the rest of his boys too). And then he didn’t draw some breaks after a while, got known as a hard boy, a hard corner boy when corner boy was going out of style and also his bluesy rockabilly singing style was getting crushed by clean-cut, no hassle, no hell-raising boy boys. And then he started drawing to an outside straight, first a couple frame juvenile clip busts, amid the dreaded publicity, the Roman Catholic mother novena dread publicity, police blottered. Then a couple of house break-ins, taking fall guy lumps for a couple of older, harder corner boys who could make him a fall guy then, as he would others when his turn came. All that was later, a couple of years later. But no question in 1958, especially the summer of 1958 when such things took on a decisive quality, Billie, and for one last time, that’s William James Bradley, in case anyone reading needs the name to look up for the historical record was Billie's time. Ya, 1958, Billie, ah, William James Bradley, and corner boy king.

Funny, as you know, or you should know, corner boys usually gain their fleeting fame from actually hanging around corners, corner mom and pop variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner pool halls, corner bowling alleys, corner pinball wizard arcades, becoming fixtures at said corners and maybe passing on to old age and social security check collection at said corner. Or maybe not passing to old age but to memory, memory kid’s memory. But feature this, in Billie’s great domain, his great be-bop night kingship, and in his various defenses of his realm against smart guys and stups alike, he never saw so much as a corner corner to rest his laurels on. And not because he did not know that proper etiquette in such matters required some formal corner to hang at but for the sheer, unadulterated fact that no such corner existed in his old-fashioned housing project (now old-fashioned anyway because they make such places differently today), his home base.

See, the guys who made the projects “forgot” that, down and out or not, people need at least a mom and pop variety store to shop at, or nowadays maybe a strip mall, just like everybody else. But none was ever brought into the place and so the closest corner, mom and pop corner anyway, was a couple of miles away up the road. But that place was held by a crowd of older corner boys whose leader, from what was said, would have had Billie for lunch (and did in the end).

But see here is where a guy like Billie got his corner boy franchise anyway. In a place where there are no corners to be king of the corner boy night there needs to be a certain ingenuity and that is where “His Honor” held forth. Why not the back of the old schoolhouse? Well, not so old really because in that mad post-World War II boom night (no pun intended), schools, particularly convenient elementary schools even for projects

kids were outracing the boomers. So the school itself was not old but the height of 1950s high-style, functional public building brick and glass. Boxed, of course, building-boxed, classroom-boxed, gym-boxed, library-ditto boxed. No cafeteria-boxed, none necessary reflecting, oddly, walk to school, walk home for lunch, stay-at-home mom childhood culture even in public assistance housing world. And this for women who could have, if they could have stood the gaff from neighbor wives, family wives, society wives screamed to high heaven for work, money work. That was Billie world too, Billie day world. Billie September to June world.

But come dusk, summer dusk best of all, Billie ruled the back end of the school, the quiet unobserved end of the school, the part near the old sailors’graveyard, placed there to handle the tired old sailors who had finished up residing at the nearby but then no longer used Old Sailors’ Rest Home built for those who roamed the seven seas, the inlet bays, and whatever other water allowed you to hang in the ancient sailors’ world. There Billie held forth, Peter Paul almost always at hand, seeking, always seeking refuge from his hellfire home thrashings. Canny Danny, regularly, same with Lefty and Freddie (when not grounded), and Bobby while he was around. And other guys, other unnamed, maybe unnamable guys who spent a minute in the Billie night. Doing? Ya, just doing some low murmur talking, most nights, mostly some listening to Billie dreams, Billie plans, Billie escape route. All sounding probable, all wistful once you heard about it later. All very easy, all very respectful, in back of that old school unless some old nag of a neighbor, fearful that the low murmur spoke of unknown, unknowable conspiracies against person, against the day, hell, even against the night. Then the cops were summoned. But mainly not.

And then as dusk turned to dark and maybe a moon, an earth moon (who knew then, without telescope, maybe a man-made moon), that soft talk, that soft night talk, turned to a low song throat sound as Billie revved up his voice to some tune his maddened brain caught on his transistor radio (bought fair and square up at the Radio Shack so don’t get all huffy about it). Say maybe Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers Why Do Fools Fall In Love? and then the other ragamuffins would do harmony. Ya, that was twelve, maybe thirteen year old night, most nights, the nights of no rough stuff, the nights of dreams, maybe. But like some ancient siren call that sound penetrated to the depths of the projects and soon a couple of girls, yes, girls, twelve and thirteen year old girls, what do you expect, stick girls and starting shape girls, would hover nearby, maybe fifty yards away but the electricity was in the air, and those hardly made out forms drove Billie and his choir corner boys on. Maybe Elvis’ One Night as a come on. Then a couple more girls, yes, twelve and thirteen year old girls, have you been paying attention, sticks and starting shapes, join those others quietly swaying to the tempo. A few more songs, a few more girls, girls coming closer. Break time. Girl meet boy. Boy meet girl. Hell, even Peter Paul got lucky this night with one of Billie’s stick rejects. And as that moon turned its shades out and the air was fragrance with nature’s marshlands sea air smells and girls’ fresh soap smells and boys’ anxiety smells the Billie corner boy wannabe world seemed not so bad. Ya, 1958 was Billie’s year. Got it.

***Bowling Alone In America?- For Chrissie M., Class Of 1964

Peter Paul Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:

Chrissie, Christine Anne McNamara, bowls. Chrissie McNamara, the “hottest” sweet sixteen quail in 1962 at North Adamsville High School bowls. Oh sure Chrissie does other things, things like cheer-leading for the raider red gridiron goliaths in the brisk, bright, leave-filled fall (and doesn’t cheer-lead the basketball team because winter time is primo bowling time), participates in the school play, writes for the school newspaper, has a sweet what-you-see-is-what-you get personality, and is off-handedly beautiful. Not your drop dead, remote ice queen, who will need plenty of cosmetic help as she frightens away the age lines coming, beautiful but whole package beautiful (looks, personality, intellect) that will have you, hell, has me scratching my head. Scratching and figuring as I watch her reading something just this minute about two rows over from where I sitting in this dead-ass last period study class. Best of all, even if all my scratching and figuring don't work out today, in not too many minutes I will get to go past her house, after I have made sure she is walking in front of me, on the way to my own house, and will probably get a big Chrissie smile as I do so. And maybe a “Joey Bowey” hi from her as well. That’s me, Joseph Bowdoin, and the Joey Bowey thing is from the kid’s stuff back in middle school, and I don’t like it, like it at all. Except from Chrissie it is okay. Yah, it’s like that.



Yes, but here is the problem in a nutshell, Chrissie bowls, and if you want to get anywhere with Chrissie, as everybody knows, and has known since about fourth grade, way before I got here, is that you had better bowl too. You can be James Bond 007 (or Sean Connery) and have done all kinds of adventurous stuff but if you don’t bowl go slump-shouldered to the back of the Chrissie line. You could be the greatest running back in the history of football, breaking every record and every linebacker’s mean-spirited heart but no bowl-no go. Or get, heart-broken, in back of Sean in that just-mentioned line. If you are a nerdy guy (as I am, somewhat) but you bowl, well, theoretically you have a chance, but let’s face it plenty of talented, good-looking guys, who under ordinary circumstances would give bowling the gaff, are, even as I speak, sharpening up their games to get a crack at those ruby-red lips. Damn.



Oh, did I mention that I have been in love, or half in love, or some percentage in love with Chrissie ever since she gave me an innocent kiss at her twelfth birthday back when I first came to North Adamsville in the seventh grade. Really, the kiss was nothing but a good wishes peck on the lips that wouldn’t count for anything for older guys (or girls, either) but for a shy twelve-year old new boy I was in very heaven. Call me crazy, call me a nutcase ready for the funny farm, but every once in a while when Chrissie calls me Joey Bowey from her front door I swear she says it in such a way that maybe that kiss wasn’t so innocent after all. In any case I have been plotting, maybe not every day, but plotting ever since to get a second, real kiss from her ruby-red lips. And to hold that slender hour glass figure, to dance close to those well-formed legs, and to tussle with that flaming mass of red hair that goes with those ruby-red lips. And, and… well you get the idea.



But see Chrissie bowls and I don’t, although I have, lately anyway, spent a fair amount of time at Jake’s Bowl-a-World, the bowling alley located downstairs across from my real hang-out, my corner boy hang-out, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor up the Downs. Now Jake’s is not the kind of bowling alley that Chrissie or any other foxy girl would hang out in because, honestly, it’s a creepy place where young junior high school wannabe hoods, real high school drop-outs, rejected no-go corner boys, and beer-swilling adults hang out and make noise. But, see, it is the perfect place for a not bowling guy to hang out and “learn” bowls, on the quiet.



Oh, did I mention the other problem, the problem beyond my not bowling, my not being (so far) worthy of that second ruby-red lipped Chrissie kiss. I see that I didn’t now that I have read back. Well, here it is if you can believe it. I can’t get to bowl with Chrissie, can’t get to bowl with her that is unless I ask her for a date which is way ahead of where my current plans for her have unfolded, because at school, at foolish North, the boys and girls have separate bowling teams that don’t even bowl at the same places. Yes, I thought you would see my dilemma. See the idea was that I would start bowling with one of the teams, she would notice me and notice that I could use a few pointers, would come over and give me those few pointers, and then when I walked by her house not only would she give me that big warm smile but probably want to talk about this or that, bowling this or that, and that would be my opening to ask her to go bowling, bowling alone with me. Foolproof, right? Except for that stupid school rule thing.



Now here is how I heard the story, although I might be off on a few points, of why there are two separate teams and why they bowl at different places. A few years ago Jake’s used to be the place where everybody, boys and girls, bowled after school for practice a couple of days a week and for the home competitions with other schools. And that made sense because it only took about ten minutes to get there from school. Now, like I explained to you already, this Jake’s is nothing but a run-down place with about ten lanes, an ice cooler filled with tonic (that’s soda for you foreigners), a couple of food vending machines, a few pinball wizard machines, rest room I avoid using, if possible, and that’s about it. Small time stuff. Everything kind of dusty and seedy from the minute you head down the darkened stairs right on through. Good enough, like I also said before for hoods, corner boys, and rookie bowlers.



But then, back in the bowling team days, it was kept up better and was a magnet for kids, boys and girls alike, to come and bowl…and other things. Those other things being listening to the big oversized jukebox filled with a ton of records, rock and roll records to cry for, and three for only a quarter too, dancing, close dancing, on the small dance floor that was set up then (and that you can still see all scuffed up and scummy now), and some off-hand hanky-panky, kid’s stuff really, from what I heard, the usual boys copping a “feel” and the girls letting them like has been going on since they invented teenagers, in a couple of small back rooms that Jake, sweet brother Jake, let the kids use.

You can see where this after school jukebox rock and roll, close dancing, back room thing is going, just like I could when I heard it. Murder and mayhem. No, not from the kids gone wild under the influence of communistic rock and roll, or libertine close dancing, or hell-bent back rooms but when the parent police heard about it. That part is foggy but it, as usual, involved a snitch by someone to his (or her) parents, or something overheard on the telephone by a parent, or something. And from there to the headmaster police, and from there to the real cops. Nothing ever came of it from the real cops, which tells you automatically that the parent and headmaster cops overreacted, as usual. But now you can see what a fix I am in. So Chrissie right this minute is probably chalking up spares over at the North Adamsville Bowl-a-Drome and the guys are over the other side of town at Mr. Bowl’s place and never the twain shall meet. And you wonder why kids, including this kid, are ready to jump off the rails, and none too soon either. But I still hold my dream of bowling alone with those ruby-red lips. I’ll let you know if I work out another fool-proof plan, okay.

Out In The Jazz Age Night – John O’Hara’s Appointment At Samarra

Books in Brief

Appointment At Samarra, John O’Hara , Harcourt, Brace, 1934

John O’Hara is a novelist who has undeservedly faded from the top ranks of American writers. At one time he was, not without reason, compared most favorably with contemporaries like Dos Passos, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Well, some much for literary fashions and trends. Here, in his first novel, O’Hara explores the trials and tribulations of three eventful days in the lives of a conventionally rich young Pennsylvania (fictional Gibbsville, to be exact, a scene for more than one of his later novels) country club set couple, the Englishes, and the narrowness of their little world and the poverty of their horizons. O’Hara always had a good ear for describing the contradictions and the frustrations of the essential meaninglessness of life for these denizens of the small town ‘smart set’, a preview of the homogenization of business-oriented society that would burst out after World War II in the sagas of the men in the grey flannel suits. Julian English is their father or older brother. And his fate is not pretty. Moreover, there is the catch. As explained in an Arabian proverb in the front of the book- you cannot escape your fate, even if you, as Julian desperately did, take action to move away the consequences of it. Well, maybe. But read the book.

From The When The Blues Is Dues Series- When Cab Calloway Held Forth

… he, Cab Calloway he, all long and lanky, all square shoulders (maybe a little padded to enhance that square shoulders to carry the world effect) to march up and down the musical world, all slip step this way and that way, all, slo-mo jitterbug , all sandman back step, back step, back step, front step, front step, front step, then some more slo-mo jitterbug just a little bit faster, a quick pause for some hip-hop, hip-hop hippest hop ho, then back again, forward, fix the gelled hair, flip around to conduct some be-bop band business, then flip again, shoulders, or rather right shoulder turning on a pivot to swing through that left shoe, a very slight pause while the reefer kicks in (legal then, legal as hell so don’t get your dander up), then back, back, back, a couple of twists, a half summersault, some old time gymnast move, learned, learned maybe in seventh grade gym class, or someplace like that, certainly not at mother-sent Miss Prissy’s Saturday morning dance class, no way, and then a finale, a double, triple axel loop-the-loop worthy of an Olympic ice queen, then the handkerchief, the well-deserved handkerchief , to wipe off the sweat, the dust , the dope, the last scotch and whatever else exploded. He swore, he swore on seven bibles he stole the whole routine from the late Michael Jackson...

The camera focuses on the stage and one sees a few rows of musicians, mostly black, all male, filling up some old time ballroom chairs, working mainly to get those horns, sexy saxes, trombones, drums, violins and every other musical instrument known to a big band sound in tune, ready for the boss man to do his wild man run through. The night before last it was the Kit Kat Club in Moline, last night The Hi Hat in Decatur, tonight, ah, tonight’s (hell, Joe, where are we anyway?), oh yah, The Strutter’s in Davenport and since this is new territory Cab wants the stuff to be purr-perfection for the local Mayfair swells who will drink enough whiskey and scotch to make sure they get paid. The farther from Chi town Cab and the boys got, the whiter the crowd, no question, but the better the dough because those white breads had hollow legs, they loved their liquor (and after looking at some of the dames, not all, not all at all, you would need a battleship full to make it through the night). Still, despite his wild man reputation, despite a few runs in with the law, despite a few runs in with irate husbands, a few white brother husbands too, Cab was a pro and expected everybody to be on their toes especially when he got rolling (and that rolling depended on those dressing room scotches and cadged reefers), got into his shimmy-shaking habits, the stuff that made the crowd go wild and the women, well, made them sweat, if that’s what women do when they get excited. Just then Cab came out, came out cool as a cucumber, all dressed in black tails, shoes shined to black heaven, conductor’s stick under his arm and began his thing. He starts with Jumpin’Jive, and they were off. He swore, he swore on seven bibles, Cab stole the whole routine from the late Michael Jackson...

After hours, the show over for about an hour by then, most of the chairs up, an old dusky janitor cleaning up this and that, everybody, every performer, everybody, with tie untied, shirt buttons opened, including Cab, a few guys from other clubs in the area who had come by to pay their respects, and to show their wares, to compete, a few Mayfair swells with bottles of high-shelf scotch in both hands as payment for being allowed to stick around when the boys really started kicking out the jams, a few women, a couple white, some hangers-on, some looking for kicks in the black night, some here because they are holding life-line reefer, or sister. And so it started, not the pitter-patter of an hour ago, not the hijinks glad-hand stuff but some attempt, attempt mind you to blow back to Mother Africa, to that sound embedded in each man’s head looking for a way to get expressed even in nowhere Davenport. And Cab held forth, as Cab would, in these after-hours soirées, and he belted out the meanest version of Hustling Dan anybody ever heard, or ever heard for a long time. And the way he sang that damn made that unnamed observer swear, swear on seven bibles, he stole the whole song from the late Michael Jackson...

Out In The 1950s Film Noir Night- Dick Powell’s Cry Danger

DVD Review

Cry Danger, starring Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, William Cannon, RKO Pictures, 1951

No way, no way on this good green earth was Dick going to let by-gones be by-gones, not after he had been framed, framed with a big-sized frame, squared, rectangled, rhombused [sic, okay], you name it framed, right, and then had spent a nickel’s worth of that lifetime frame up in Q, and Q, as anybody could tell you, would be happy to tell with no big fanfare, at least anybody, any guy, any right guy who had sniffed the walls of the place was no Sunday school picnic, not unless your Sunday school picnic was filled with tough cops, tough prison guards and even tougher inmates, inmates like his buddy, Danny, who had also been big, fat picture framed and was ready to move hell and heaven to get out, get out to his Rhonda , his sweet woman Rhonda (if she was still waiting, waiting all lonely night waiting as Dick said she would be, but you never know about women, lonely night waiting women, waiting a nickel’s worth now too) .

Besides Dick figured that there was the question of the dough, the dough from the bank robbery that he, and Danny, did not commit and that was laying around somewhere, a cool one hundred thousand dollars somewhere and he had an idea, a pretty good idea where. Yah, I can hear the reader groan what is the big deal about a hundred Gs, walking daddy money, barely enough to buy coffee and cakes today but back in the 1950s, the time of Dick’s frame, nothing to sneeze at, nothing at all, and the kind of dough that would have the coppers, the eager grafters, any self-respecting grifter, hell, maybe just lonely housewives and off-the-shelf hookers very interested in taking a piece of that pile. And it did

So Dick, as any pallid prison pardoned guy in his right mind would do, started after the money, after the dough, and he suspected that the dough trail would lead him to the frame, and that lead would probably put him at Cannon’s door, Cannon his old boss, and running companion before he, Cannon, got ideas about going big time, big time at some other guy’s expense. His. And while Dick had taken his beatings when he was younger, had done some small times, a few months here or there in some county cell for some misbegotten caper, he was not built to take another guy’s time. And so in the end brother Cannon was a marked man, a Dick-marked man. The only question was how he was going to get it. The dough was going to be icing on the cake, services rendered, twenty thou for each sweaty stinking year up in Q. And things started to come together once he landed in town, once he got L.A. under his feet, once he checked this and that out and began to draw the noose around old Cannon’s head.

But wouldn’t you know, know just like the sun rises in the east, that a dame would gum up the works, gum it up bad and twist him inside out before she was done. Yah, a dame. See Dick told Danny he would look in on his wife, Rhonda, Rhonda of the flaming red hair and the meaningful looks back in the days when she was his girl, before good-looking smooth-talking maybe willing to cut a corner or seven Danny swept her off her feet and left him hanging. But a nickel’s worth without a man, an around man anyway, can make a girl lonely. And then they, Dick and Rhonda, had those old torches to cut up, and like a lot of good intentions that Dick look-in turned into something else, an old flame thing. And Rhonda depended on that, depended on that old time feeling. So as Dick closed in on Cannon, she started closing in on him.

Of course along the way Dick took a couple of off-hand beatings, par for the course when serious, serious 50s dough, was about, gave a couple, also about par for the course for the same reason, was in and out of trouble with the coppers who were looking for that elusive dough as well, has a few well-deserved drinks, bought and paid for by all kinds of eager-beavers trying to loosen him up (foolish guy and dolls, didn’t they know Dick was not the buying kind, no way) , smoked about ten thousand cigarettes, some serially (unfiltered of course), and kept up a line of proper film noir guy who has been around the block patter before the fall…

And hence this film.

From The Boston Bradley Manning Support Committee Archives (September, 2012)

Nous allons redoubler d'efforts pour libre soldat Bradley Manning-président Pardon Obama Bradley Manning-faire de chaque place de la ville en Amérique (et du monde) A Bradley Manning Place de Boston à Berkeley pour nous de Berlin-Join In Davis Square, Somerville-The Stand-Out Est Tous les mercredis De 4:00-17h00

Markin commentaire:

Le soldat Bradley Manning cas se dirige vers un procès milieu de l'hiver. Ceux d'entre nous qui soutiennent sa cause doit redoubler d'efforts pour obtenir sa liberté. Pour les derniers mois il ya eu une semaine stand-out dans le Grand Boston en face de la Davis Square Redline arrêt MBTA (rebaptisé Bradley Manning place pour la durée du stand-out) dans Somerville vendredi après-midi, mais nous avons depuis Juillet 4, 2012 a changé l'heure et le jour à 04 heures 00-17h00 le mercredi. Ce support-a, pour le moins, été très peu fréquentée. Nous devons le construire avec plus de supporters présents. S'il vous plaît joindre à nous quand vous le pouvez. Ou mieux encore, si vous ne pouvez pas vous joindre à nous lancer un soutien Bradley Manning hebdomadaire stand-out dans un certain endroit dans votre ville que ce soit dans la région de Boston, Berkeley ou Berlin. Et s'il vous plaît signer la pétition pour sa libération, soit en personne ou par l'intermédiaire du Réseau Bradley Manning soutien. J'ai placé des liens vers le réseau Manning et Manning site Place-dessous.

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Réseau Bradley Manning soutien

http://www.bradleymanning.org/~~V

Manning Place site web

http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/

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Ce qui suit est une remarque que j'ai été axés sur la construction de la fin du soutien à la cause du soldat Manning au stand-out, marches et des rassemblements. Nous de la communauté internationale mouvement anti-guerre n'étaient pas en mesure de faire grand-chose pour affecter l'administration Bush-Obama la guerre en Irak ou le calendrier, à compter de maintenant, l'Afghanistan un, mais nous pouvons sauver le seul héros de cette guerre, soldat américain Bradley Manning privé. Le cas Manning juridique et soldat Manning en tant qu'individu d'un courage exceptionnel, peut et doit servir à rallier tous ceux qui recherchent une façon concrète d'exprimer leur indignation contre la guerre à la persistance des politiques américaines de guerre atroces impériales. Le message ci-dessous peut servir de justification continue pour mon (et votre) soutien à cette dénonciation honorable.
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Combattants pour la Paix se dresse fièrement en signe de solidarité avec et pour la défense de, soldat Manning Bradley.

Je suis debout dans la solidarité avec les agissements présumés du soldat Bradley Manning à mettre en lumière, juste un peu de lumière, quelques-unes des malveillantes liées à la guerre agissements de ce gouvernement, sous Bush et Obama. Ces bits d'information précieuses fuites à Wikileaks sur les soldats américains commettent des atrocités de la guerre en Irak comme la chronique dans la bande connue sur YouTube comme «Assassiner Collateral" et l'Irak et les journaux de guerre afghans. S'il a fait de tels actes ne sont pas un crime. Aucun crime du tout dans mes yeux ou aux yeux de la grande majorité des gens qui savent de l'affaire et de son importance comme un acte individuel de résistance aux injustes et barbares dirigées par les Américains guerres en Irak et en Afghanistan. Je dors un peu plus facile ces jours-ci ombre sachant que soldat Manning ont pu exposer ce que nous savions tous, ou aurait dû savoir-la guerre en Irak et les justifications de guerre afghans reposait sur une maison boniments de cartes. Gun-toting de l'impérialisme américain flim-flam château de cartes, mais les cartes quand même.

Je suis debout dans la solidarité avec le soldat Bradley Manning, parce que je suis outré par le traitement infligé à Manning privé, probablement un homme innocent, par un gouvernement qui prétend lui-même avoir une certaine «phare» du monde civilisé. Bradley Manning a été organisé en solidarité à Quantico, d'autres endroits, et maintenant, à Fort Leavenworth au Kansas depuis plus de deux ans, et a été détenu sans procès pendant plus longtemps, alors que le gouvernement et son armée essayez de coller une affaire ensemble. L'armée et ses sbires dans le département de la Justice, ont obtenu plus sournois mais pas plus intelligent depuis que je suis un soldat dans leur ligne de mire plus de quarante ans.

Beaucoup d'entre nous sont devenus quelque peu habitués aux situations comparables de botte comportement tortueux de la part de l'armée américaine dans des endroits comme Guantanamo, Bagram et d'autres emplacements nationaux de sécurité enfer boîte noire contre des ressortissants étrangers. Nous sommes également devenus insensibles, ou du moins ne m'étonne plus, lorsque les citoyens américains civils sont soumis à de telles actions, et plus probablement mort. Cependant, les allégations que ces dernières avant le procès conduite tortueuse tolérée par l'autorité militaire de haut (voir les allégations et les mouvements de rejeter chargée sur le site Bradley Manning Support Network) par le Soldat civil de Manning avocat de la défense David Coombs clairement, ces actes ne sont pas limités à les ressortissants étrangers et les citoyens américains civils. La torture du soldat Manning, un soldat américain, par le gouvernement américain devrait nous donner à tous une pause. Et aurait dû nous en criant vers le ciel pour sa libération.

Ce sont des raisons plus que suffisantes pour rester debout dans la solidarité avec soldat Manning et sera jusqu'au jour où ce brave soldat est libéré par ses geôliers. Et je vais continuer à manifester leur solidarité avec fierté soldat Manning jusqu'à ce grand jour.

J'invite tout le monde à signer la pétition demandant à l'armée américaine pour libérer soldat Manning Bradley soit ici ou sur le site Web de Bradley Manning Support Network. Et si nous ne pouvons obtenir soldat Manning libéré de cette façon je vous exhorte tous à commencer une campagne dans votre région pour demander au président Barack Obama, le président ou la personne qui en soldat Manning est incarcéré, de pardonner à ce brave soldat. Le président américain a le pouvoir constitutionnel d'accorder le pardon aux coupables et innocents, les condamnés et les accusations qui pèsent contre. Je demande au président Obama de gracier soldat Manning maintenant.

Immédiate retrait inconditionnel de toutes les troupes américaines / Allied et des mercenaires en Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Libre soldat Manning maintenant! Manning Président Obama Pardon privé!

From The Boston Bradley Manning Support Committee Archives (September, 2012)

Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Davis Square, Somerville –The Stand-Out Is Every Wednesday From 4:00-5:00 PM

Markin comment:

The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a mid- winter trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly stand-out in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the stand-out’s duration) in Somerville on Friday afternoons but we have since July 4, 2012 changed the time and day to 4:00-5:00 PM on Wednesdays. This stand-out has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly stand-out in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area, Berkeley or Berlin. And please sign the petition for his release either in person or through the Bradley Manning Support Network. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.

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Bradley Manning Support Network

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Manning Square website

http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
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The following are remarks that we have been focusing on of late to build support for Private Manning’s cause at stand-outs, marches and rallies.

We of the international anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable or, as of now, the Afghanistan one, but we can save the one hero of that war, American soldier Private Bradley Manning. The Manning legal case, and Private Manning as an exceptionally brave individual, can and should serve to rally all those looking for a concrete way to express their anti-war outrage at the continuing atrocious American imperial war policies. The message below can serve as a continuing rationale for my (and your) support to this honorable whistleblower.

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Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and in defense of, Private Bradley Manning.

I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. Those precious bits of information leaked to Wikileaks about American soldiers committing war atrocities in Iraq as chronicled in the tape known on YouTube as Collateral Murder and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a flim-flam house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting flim-flam house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning has been held in solidarity at Quantico, other locales, and now at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for over two years, and has been held without trial for longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Many of us have become somewhat inured to the constant cases of jackboot torturous behavior on the part of the American military in places like Guantanamo, Bagram and other national security hellhole black box locations against foreign nationals. We have also become inured, or at least no longer surprised, when American civilian citizens are subject to such actions, and more likely death. However, as recent allegations of pre-trial torturous conduct condoned by high military authority (see the allegations and motion to dismiss charged on the< i>Bradley Manning Support Network </i>website) by Private Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs make clear, those acts are not confined to foreign nationals and American civilian citizens. The torture of Private Manning, an American soldier, by the American government should give us all pause. And should have us shouting to the heavens for his release.

These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day this brave soldier is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.

I urge everyone to sign the petition calling on the American military to free Private Bradley Manning either here or on the <i>Bradley Manning Support Network</i> website. And if we cannot get Private Manning freed that way I urge everyone to begin a campaign in your area to call on President Barack Obama, or whoever is president while Private Manning is incarcerated, to pardon this brave soldier. The American president has the constitutional authority to grant pardons to the guilty and innocent, the convicted and those facing charges. I call on President Obama to pardon Private Manning now.

Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Private Manning Now! President Obama Pardon Private Manning!

***Those Oldies But Goodies-Folk Branch-Tell Me Utah Phillips Have You Seen “Starlight On The Rails?”

STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS

(Bruce Phillips)


I can hear the whistle blowing

High and lonesome as can be

Outside the rain is softly falling

Tonight its falling just for me


Looking back along the road I've traveled

The miles can tell a million tales

Each year is like some rolling freight train

And cold as starlight on the rails


I think about a wife and family

My home and all the things it means

The black smoke trailing out behind me

Is like a string of broken dreams

A man who lives out on the highway

Is like a clock that can't tell time

A man who spends his life just rambling

Is like a song without a rhyme

Copyright Strike Music

@train @lonesome

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“Hey, Boston Blarney, lend me a dollar so I can go into Gallup and get some Bull Durham and, and, a little something for the head,” yelled out San Antonio Slim over the din of the seemingly endless line of Southern Pacific freight trains running by just then, no more than a hundred yards from the arroyo“jungle” camp that Boston Blarney had stumbled into coming off the hitchhike highway, the Interstate 40 hitchhike highway, a few days before. Pretending that he could not hear over the din Boston Blarney feigned ignorance of the request and went about washing up the last of the dishes, really just tin pans to pile the food on, metal soup cans for washing it down, and “stolen” plastic utensils to put that food to mouth, stolen for those enthralled by the lore of the road, from the local McDonald’s hamburger joint. Like that corporation was going to put out an all- points bulletin for the thieves, although maybe they would if they knew it was headed to the confines of the local hobo (bum, tramp, someone told him once of the hierarchical distinctions but they seemed to be distinctions without a difference when he heard them) jungle.

That washing up chore fell to Boston Blarney as the “new boy” in camp and before he had even gotten his bedroll off his sorely-tried back coming off that hard dust Interstate 40 hitchhike road, it was made abundantly clear by the lord of the manor, the mayor of the jungle, Juke Duke, that he was more than welcome to stay for a while, more than welcome to share a portion of the unnamable stew (unnamable, if for no other reason than there were so many unknown ingredients in the mix that to name it would require an act of congress, a regular hobo confab, to do so, so nameless it is), and more than welcome to spread his bedroll under the conforms of the jungle night sky but that he was now, officially, to hold the honorific; chief bottle washer, pearl-diver to the non-hobo brethren.

So Boston Blarney washes away, and stacks, haphazardly stacks as befits the ramshackle nature of the place, the makeshift dinnerware in a cardboard box to await the next meal as a now slightly perturbed Slim comes closer, along with his bindle buddy, Bender Ben, to repeat the request in that same loud voice, although the last Southern Pacific train is a mere echo in the distance darkening Western night and a regular voiced-request would have been enough, enough for Boston Blarney. This though is the minute that Boston Blarney has been dreading ever since he got into camp, the touch for dough minute. Now see Boston Blarney, hell, William Bradley, Billy Bradley to his friends, on the road, and off. That Boston Blarney thing was put on him by Joe-Boy Jim the first night in camp when Joe-Boy, who was from Maine, from Maine about a million years ago from the look of him, noticed Billy’s Boston accent and his map of Ireland looks and, as is the simple course of things in the jungle that name is now Billy’s forever moniker to the moniker-obsessed residents of the Gallup, New Mexico, yah, that's one of those square states out in the West, jungle, although don’t go looking for a postal code for it, the camp may not be there by the time you figure that out.

Now here are the Boston Blarney facts of life, jungled-up facts of life is that no way is he going to be able to beg off that requested dollar with some lame excuse about being broke, broke broke. (by the way I will use this Boston Blarney moniker throughout just in case anybody, anybody Billy does not want to have known of his whereabouts, is looking for him. In any case that moniker is better, much better, than the Silly Willy nickname that he carried with him through most of his public school career put on his by some now nameless girl when rhyming simon nicknames were all the rage back in seventh grade.) See everybody knows that San Antonio Slim, who belies his moniker by being about five feet, six inches tall and by weighing in at about two hundred and sixty, maybe, two-seventy so he either must have gotten that name a long time ago, or there is some other story behind its origins, has no dough, no way to get dough, and no way to be holding out on anyone for dough for the simple reason that he has not left the camp in a month so he is a brother in need. Boston Blarney is another case though, even if he is just off the hitchhike highway road, his clothes still look kind of fresh, his looks look kind of fresh (being young and not having dipped deeply in the alcohol bins, for one thing) and so no one, not Slim anyway, is going to buy a broke, broke story.

The problem, the problem Boston Blarney already knows is going to be a problem is that if he gives Slim the dollar straight up every other ‘bo, bum, tramp, and maybe even some self-respecting citizens are going to put the touch on him. He learned, learned the hard way that it does not take long to be broke, broke on the road by freely giving dough to every roadster Tom, Dick, and Harry you run into. “Here, all I have is fifty cents, until my ship comes in,” says Boston Blarney and Slim, along with his “enforcer”, Bender Ben, seem pleased to get that, like that is how much they probably figured they could get anyway. Blarney also knows that he was not the first stop in the touch game otherwise old hard-hand veteran Slim would have bitten harder.

Well, that’s over, for now Blarney says to himself softly out loud, a habit of the single file hitchhike road time when one begins to talk, softly or loudly, to oneself to while away the long side of the road hours when you are stuck between exits in places like Omaha or Davenport on the long trek west. And just as softly to himself he starts to recount where his has been, where he hasn’t been, and the whys of each situation as he unrolls his bedroll to face another night out in the brisk, brisk even for a New England hearty and hale regular brisk boy, great west star-less October night. First things first though, no way would he have hit the road this time, this time after a couple of years off the road, if THAT man, that evil man, that devil deal-making man, one Richard Milhous Nixon, common criminal, had not just vacated, a couple of months back, the Presidency of the United States and had still been in office. After that event, after that hell-raising many months of hubris though, it seemed safe, safe as anything could be in these weird times, to get on with your life. Still, every once in a while, when he was in a city or town, big or small, large enough to have sidewalk newspaper vending machines he would check, no, double check to see if the monster had, perhaps, “risen” again. But Blarney’ luck had held since he took off from Boston in late August on his latest trip west in search of ...

Suddenly, he yelled out, no cried out, “Joyel.” Who was he kidding? Sure getting rid of “Tricky Dick” was part of it, but the pure truth was “woman trouble” like he didn’t know that from the minute he stepped on to the truck depot at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike in Cambridge and hailed down his first truck. And you knew it too, if you knew Billy Bradley. And if it wasn’t woman trouble, it could have been, would have been, should have been, use the imperative is always woman trouble, unless it was just Billy hubris. Nah, it was woman trouble, chapter and verse. Chapter twenty-seven, verse one, always verse one. And that verse one for Joyel, lately, had been when are we going to settle down from this nomadic existence. And that Joyel drumbeat was getting more insistent since things like the end of the intense American involvement in Vietnam, the demise of one common criminal Richard Milhous Nixon, and the ebbing, yes, face it, the ebbing of the energy for that newer world everybody around them was starting to feel and had decided to scurry back to graduate school, to parents’ home, or to marriage just like in the old days, parent old days.

Blarney needed to think it through, or if not think it through then to at least see if he still had the hitchhike road in him. The plan was to get west (always west, always west, America west) to the Pacific Ocean and see if that old magic wanderlust still held him in its thrall. So with old time hitchhike bedroll washed, basics wrapped within, some dollars (fewer that old Slim would have suspected, if he had suspected much) in his pocket, some longing for Joyel in his heart, honestly, and some longing that he could not speak of, not right that minute anyway, he wandered to that Cambridge destiny point. His plan with the late start, late hitchhike start anyway, was to head to Chicago (a many times run, almost a no thought post-rookie run at one point) then head south fast from there to avoid the erratic rockymountainhigh early winter blast and white-out blocked-in problems. Once south he wanted to pick up Interstate 40 somewhere in Texas or New Mexico and then, basically because it mostly parallels that route “ride the rails,” the Southern Pacific rails into Los Angeles from wherever he could pick up a freight. Although he never previously had much luck with this blessed, folkloric, mystical, old-timey, Wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World, IWW) method of travel a couple of guys, gypsy davey kind of guys, not Wobblie guys, told him about it and that drove part of his manic west desire this time.

As he eased himself down inside his homemade bedroll ready for the night, ready in case tomorrow is the day west, the day west that every jungle camp grapevine keeps yakking about until you get tired of hearing about it and are just happy to wait in non-knowledge, but ready, he started thinking things out like he always did before the sleep of the just knocked him out. Yes sir, chuckling, just waiting for the ride the rails west day that he had been waiting for the past several days and which the jungle denizens, with their years of arcane intricate knowledge, useful travel knowledge said “could be any day now,” caught him reminiscing about the past few weeks and, truth to tell, started to see, see a little where Joyel was coming from, the point that she was incessantly trying to make about there now being a sea-change in the way they (meaning him and her, as well as humanity in general) had to look at things if they were to survive. But, see if she had only, only not screamed about it in those twenty-seven different ways she had of analyzing everything, he might have listened, listened a little. Because whatever else she might have, or have not been, sweet old Joyel, was a lightning rod for every trend, every social and political trend that had come down the left-wing path over the past decade or so.

Having grown up in New York City she had imbibed the folk protest music movement early in the Village, had been out front in the civil rights and anti-war struggle early, very early (long before Billy had). She had gone“street” left when others were still willing to go half-way (or more) with LBJ, or later, all the way with Bobby Kennedy (as Billy had). So if she was sounding some kind of retreat then it was not just that she was tired (although that might be part of it) but that she “sensed” an “evil” wind of hard times and apathy were ahead. She was signaling, and this is where they had their screaming matches, that the retreat was the prelude to recognition that we had been defeated, no mauled, as she put in one such match.

So, as Billy got drowsier from having taken too many rays in the long hard sun day and was now fading nicely under the cooling western night he started connecting the dots, or at least some dots, as he thought about the hitchhike road of the past several weeks. He, worse, started to see omens where before he just took them as the luck of the road, the tough hitchhike roads. Like how hard it was to get that first ride out of Boston, Cambridge really, at the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike down by the Charles River where many trucks, many cross-country traveling trucks begin their journey from a huge depot after being loaded up from some railroad siding. A couple of years ago all you had to do was ask where the trucker was heading, whether he wanted company, and if yes you were off. Otherwise on to the next truck, and success. Now, on his very first speak to, the trucker told him, told him in no uncertain terms, that while he could sure use the “hippie” boy‘s company (made him think of his own son he said) on the road to Chicago the company (and, as Billy found out later, really the insurance company) had made it plain, adamantly plain that no “passengers” were allowed in the vehicle under penalty of immediate firing. And with that hefty mortgage, two kids in college, and a wife who liked to spent money that settled the issue. He left it at, “But good luck hippie boy, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

He finally got his ride, to Cleveland, but from there to Chicago it was nothing but short, suspicious rides by odd-ball guys, including one whose intent was sexual and who when rebuffed left Billy off in Podunk, Indiana, late at night and with no prospects of being seen by truck or car traffic until daybreak. Oh yah, and one guy, one serious guy, wanted to know if anybody had told him, told sweet-souled Billy Bradley, that he looked a lot like Charles Manson (and in fact there was a little resemblance as he himself noticed later after taking a well-deserved, and needed, bath, although about half the guys in America, and who knows maybe the world in those days, looked a little like Charles Manson, except for those eyes, those evil eyes of Manson’s that spoke of some singularity of purpose, not good).

And thinking about that guy’s comment, a good guy actually, who knew a lot about the old time “beats” (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and had met mad man saint Gregory Corso in New York City), and for old time’s sake had picked Billy up got Billy thinking about a strange event back in Cambridge about a year before. Although he and Joyel had lived together, off and on, for several years there were periods, one of those chapter twenty-seven, verse one periods when they needed to get away from each other for one reason or another. That had been one of those times. So, as was the usual routine, he looked in the Real Paper for some kind of opening in a communal setting (in short, cheap rent, divided chores, and plenty of partying, or whatever, especially that whatever part). One ad he noticed, one Cambridge-based ad looked very interesting. He called the number, spoke to one person who handed him off to the woman who was handling the roommate situation and after a description of the situation, of the house, and of the people then residing there was told, told nonchalantly, to send his resume for their inspection. Resume, Cambridge, a commune, a resume. Christ! He went crazy at first, but then realized that it was after all Cambridge and you never know about some of those types. He quickly found a very convivial communal situation, a non-resume-seeking communal situation thank you, in down and out Brighton just across the river from hallowed Cambridge but at more than one of those whatever parties that came with this commune he never failed to tell this story, and get gales of laughter in response.

But that was then. And here is where connecting the dots and omens came together. On the road, as in politics, you make a lot of quick friends who give you numbers, telephones numbers, address numbers, whatever numbers, in case you are stuck, or need something, etc. A smart hitchhiker will keep those numbers safely and securely on him for an emergency, or just for a lark. One night Billy got stuck, stuck bad in Moline and called up a number, a number for a commune, he had been given, given just a few weeks before by a road friend, a young guy who gave his name as Injun Joe whom he had traveled with for a couple of days. He called the number, told of his plight and received the following answer- “What’s Injun Joe’s last name, where did you meet him, where do know him from?” Not thinking anything of it Billy said he didn’t know Injun Joe’s last name and described the circumstances that he met Injun Joe under. No sale, no soap, no-go came the reply. Apparently, according to the voice over the telephone, they knew Injun Joe, liked him, but the commune had been “ripped”off recently by “guests” and so unless you had been vetted by the FBI, or some other governmental agency, no dice. That voice did tell Billy to try the Salvation Army or Traveler’s Aid. Thanks, brother. Yah, so Joyel was not totally off the wall, not totally at all.

And then in that micro-second before sound sleep set in Billy went on the counter-offensive. What about those few good days in Austin when a girl he met, an ordinary cheer-leader, two fingers raised Longhorn Texas girl, who was looking to break-out of that debutante Texas thing, let him crash on her floor (that is the way Billy wants that little story told anyway). Or when that Volkswagen bus, that blessed Volkswagen bus stopped for him just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in, as Thomas Wolfe called them, one of the square western states that he now still finds himself imprisoned in, and it was like old times until they got to Red Rock where they wanted to camp for a while (hell, they were probably still there but he needed to move on, move on ocean west).

But Red Rock was more than some old time hippie community, including passing the dope freely. Red Rock was where he met Running Bear Smith, who claimed to be a full Apache but who knows (and where did the Smith part come in). Now Running Bear was full of mystery, full of old-time stories about the pride of the dog soldiers, about his ancestors, about the fight against the ravages and greed of the white man. And about the shamanic ceremonial that he learned from his grandfather (his father had been killed, killed in some undisclosed manner when he was very young, about three), about dancing with the spirits of by-gone days, and dancing he added, or Billy added, under the influence of communion wafer peyote buttons. Several days ago, or rather nights, just a few days before he encamped in this broken down jungle Running Bear and he had “walked with the ‘Thunder Gods,’” as Running Bear described it. Billy described it somewhat differently, after the buttons took effect, and Running Bear stoked the camp fire with additional wood to make a great blazing flame that jumped off the wall of the cavern adjacent to where they were camping out. The shadows of the flames made “pictures” on the cavern walls, pictures that told a story, told Billy a story that one man could fight off many demons, could count later on many friends coming to his aid, and that the demons could be vanquished. Was that the flame story or the buttons, or Billy’s retort to Joyel? All he knew was that Running Bear’s “magic” was too strong for him and he began “smelling” the ocean some several hundred miles away. Time to leave, time to get to Gallup down the road, and the hobo jungle wait for the ride on the rails.

Just then, just as he was closing accounts on the past several weeks by remembering his reactions on entering this ill-disposed jungle that was in no way like the friendly, brotherly, sisterly Volkswagen encampment at Red Rock, old-time stew ball “Wyoming Coyote” yelled, yelled almost in his ear, although Billy knew that he was not yelling at him personally, but that the Southern Pacific was coming through at 4:00AM. The Southern Pacific going clear through to Los Angeles. Billy’s heart pounded. Here he was on the last leg of his journey west, he would be in L.A. by tomorrow night, or early the next morning at the latest. But the heart-pounding was also caused by fear, fear of that run to catch that moving freight train boxcar just right or else maybe fall by the wayside.

This was no abstract fear, some childhood mother-said-no fear, but real enough. On the way down from Chicago, after being enthralled by the gypsy davies talk of “riding the rails” he had decide that he needed to try it out first in order to make sure that he could do it, do it right when a train was moving. Sure he had caught a few trains before but that was always in the yards, with the trains stationary, and anyway as a child of the automobile age, unlike most of the denizens of the jungle he was more comfortable on the hitchhike road than the railroad. So, as practice, he had tried to catch an Illinois Central out of Decatur about a half-mile out just as the train started to pick up steam but before it got under full steam and was not catchable. He ran for it, almost didn’t make it, and cursed, cursed like hell those coffin nails that he smoked, and swore to give them up. So he was afraid, righteously afraid, as he fell asleep.

At 3:30AM someone jolted Billy out of his sleep. He woke with a start fearing someone was trying to rob him, or worst, much worst in a grimy jungle camp trying to sexually assault him, some toothless, piss-panted old drunken geezer caught up in some memory fog. Damn, it was only San Antonio Slim shaking him to wake him up for the Southern Pacific coming, just in case it came a little early, although according to the jungle lore it came on time, with maybe a minute or so off either way. Billy asked for a cigarette and Slim rolled him a choice Bull Durham so smartly that Billy blinked before he realized what Slim had produced. He lit up, inhaled the harsh cigarette smoke deeply, and started to put his gear quickly in order, and give himself a little toilet as well. Suddenly Slim yelled out get ready, apparently he could hear the trains coming down the tracks from several miles away. Nice skill.

The few men (maybe seven or eight) who were heading west that night (not, by the way, Slim he was waiting on a Phoenix local, or something like that maybe, thought Billy, a Valhalla local) started jogging toward the tracks, the tracks no more than one hundred yards from the jungle. The moon, hidden for most of the night under cloud cover, made an appearance as the sound of the trains clicking on the steel track got louder. Billy stopped for a second, pulled something from his back pocket, a small weather-beaten picture of Joyel and him taken in Malibu a few years before in sunnier days, and pressed it into his left hand. He could now see the long-lined train silhouetted against the moonlit desert sands. He started running a little more quickly as the train approached and as he looked for an open boxcar. He found one, grabbed on to its side for all he was worth with one hand then with the other and yanked himself onto the floor rolling over a couple of times as he did so. Once he settled in he again unclasped his left hand and looked, looked intensely and at length, at the now crumbled and weather-beaten picture focusing on Joyel’s image. And had Joyel thoughts, hard-headed Joyel thoughts in his head “riding the rails” on the way to the city of angels.

From The American Left History Blog Archives(2008) - On American Political Discourse 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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VICTORY TO THE QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS

COMMENTARY

I must apologize at the outset for not having posted a solidarity statement with the Quincy, Massachusetts Education Association (QEA) before today, June 11, 2007 the second day of their walkout. This is doubly egregious as I was born in Quincy-the City of Presidents (John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams). The Quincy teacher walked out on Friday June 8, 2007 after taking a vote. From the news that I had heard I believed that their action was a one day affair a fairly familiar way to deal with stalled contract negotiations. However, these brothers and sisters are for real and seem determined to make their point and get a just contract. This in the face of a state Labor Relations Board decision that their walkout is illegal and the determination of the Quincy School Committee to seek an injunction to force the teachers back to work.

The major issue, and a recurring stumbling block to many of today’s labor contracts, is health benefits. That is the surface issue at least but the reality is wages. The favorite ploy for the government (and private employers, as well) is to grant some reasonable wage increase and then off-set it with an increase in employee contributions to their health insurance plans. The net effect is that over the life of a contract the teachers will either stand still or go backwards in their real standards of living. Make no mistake this is an important fight and is being watched by teachers unions (and school committees) throughout the state of Massachusetts where this same issue is in dispute in many contract negotiations. Let us be clear-teachers do not make nearly enough in comparison with other highly skill professions. In a just world teachers, the transmitters of learning and culture to the young generations, would be held in higher esteem and compensated accordingly. And would have much more say in educational decisions, along with parents, students and other school employees. However until that day-Victory to the Quincy, Massachusetts School Teachers