On “The Long March” From North Adamsville High School- For Linda, Class of 1964-With Ernesto “Che” Guevara In Mind

A YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing Whole Lotta Shaking Goin' On to get the juices flowing for those who need a memory jog.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). Moreover, I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.

Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Or even Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.

Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:

"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.

The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year (2010), as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.

And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.

Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics

Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)

Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)

In The Time Of The Be-Bop Baby Boomer Jail Break-Out- “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era-1964”- A CD Review

A YouTube film clip of Martha and the Vandellas performing Dancing In The Streets (lordy, lordy, yes).

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1964-Still Rocking, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989
I have recently been on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in this extensive Time-Life Rock ‘n’ Roll series. A lot of these reviews have been driven by the artwork which graces the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may, to the themes expressed in these artwork scenes. Here we have the latter, the not fit in part, for this reviewer anyway.

This 1964 art cover piece with its drawing of a high school girl (school used as backdrop here to let you know, just in case you were clueless, that the rock scene was directed, point blank, at high school students, high school students with discretionary money to buy hot records, or drop coins in the local juke box), or rather her high heel sneakers (Chuck Taylor high tops, for sure, no question, although there is no trademark present no way that they can be some knock-offs in 1964, no way, I say). The important thing, in any case, is the sneakers, and that slightly shorter than school regulation dress, a dress that presages the mini-skirt craze that was then just on its way from Europe. Naturally said dress and sneakers, sneakers, high- heeled or not, against the mandatory white tennis sneakers on gym days and low-heel pumps on other days, is the herald of some new age. And, as if to confirm that new breeze, in the background scouring out her high school classroom window, a sullen, prudish schoolmarm. She, the advance guard, obviously, of that parentally-driven reaction to all that the later 1960s stood for to us baby-boomers, as the generations fought out their epic battles about the nature of the world, our world or theirs.

But see that is so much “wave of future” just then because sullen schoolmarm or not what Ms. Hi-heel sneakers (and dress, ya, don’t forget that knee-showing dress) is preening for is those guys who are standing (barely) in front of said school and showing their approval, their approval in the endless boy and girl meet game. And these guys are not just of one kind, they are cool faux beat daddy guys, tee-shirted corner boy guys, and well, just average 1964- style average guys. Now the reality of Ms. Hi-heel sneakers (and a wig hat on her head) proved to be a minute thing and was practically forgotten in the musical breeze that was starting to come in from Europe (British invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) but it was that harbinger of change that the old schoolmarm dreaded and we, teenagers, especially we teenagers of the Class of 1964, were puzzled by. All we knew for sure, at least some of us knew , was that our class, at least for a moment, was going to chase a few windmills, and gladly.

That is the front story, the story of the new breeze coming, but the back story is that the kind of songs that are on this CD with that British invasion coming full blast were going to be passé very soon. Moreover, among my crowd, my hang-out crowd, my hang-out guy and girl crowd of guys who looked very much like those guys pictured on the artwork here, if not my school crowd (slightly different) the folk scene, the Harvard Square at weekend night, New York City Village every once in a while folk scene, the Dylan, Baez, Van Ronk, Paxton, Ochs, etc. scene was still in bloom and competitive (although that scene, that folk scene minute, ironically, would soon also be passé).

Thus 1964 was a watershed year for a lot of the genres, really sub-genres, featured here. Like the harmony-rich girl groups (The Supremes, Mary Wells, The Shangri-Las, Martha and the Vandellas, Betty Everett) and the surfer boy, hot-rod guys of blessed neighborhood memory (Ronnie and the Daytonas, The Rivieras, and The Beach Boys, a little). But it was also a watershed year for the guys pictured in the artwork (and out in the neighborhoods). Some would soon be fighting in Vietnam, some moving to a commune to get away from it all, and others would be raising holy hell about that war, the need for social justice and the way things were being run in this country. And Ms. Hi-heel sneakers? Maybe, just maybe, she drifted into that San Francisco for the Summer of Love night, going barefoot into that good night. I like to think so anyway.

Watershed year or not, there are some serious non-invasion stick-outs here. Under The Boardwalk (great harmony), The Drifters; Last Kiss, Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers; Dancing In The Streets (lordy, lordy, yes), Martha and the Vandellas; Leader Of The Pack (what a great novelty song and one that could be the subject of a real story in my growing up neighborhood), The Shangri-Las; Hi-Heel Sneakers, Tommy Tucker (thanks for the lead-in, Tommy), and, the boss song of the teen dance club night, no question, no challenge, no competition, Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen

A Mixed Bag Musical Potpourri-Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock And Rockabilly- The BlueGrass Gospel Project

A YouTube's Film Clip Of The Bluegrass Gospel Project Doing "Take Me In Your Life Boat".

CD Review

“The Heavenly Choir”

Wander On, the Bluegrass Gospel Project, Vital Records, 2005

At first blush it would not appear that a somewhat secular bluegrass tradition and the very definitely religious-oriented gospel tradition would be a good mix. Silly me though. Of course they mix if one thinks about the roots of both genre then, while not a ‘match made in heaven”, the two traditions share at least a common isolated mountain Saturday night partying- Sunday repentance connection. That said, this group composed mainly of denizens of Vermont (although I do not believe most of them are natives) has caught the essence of both traditions, complete with mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and the like. A remarkable group of talented musicians and with the vocals of Patti Casey they have everything they need to lead a ‘heavenly choir” (or musically set the barn on fire).

I have actually heard this group in person and between the two their live performance gives a better take on how good they really are. For those not so fortunate this CD will be a fine substitute though. Feast on “Angel Band” and the classic Tommy Dorsey (the old time Blind Willie McTell blues companion turned gospel singer not the 1940’s band leader) song “Come, Let Us Go Back To God”. I just wish “Poughkeepsie” was included here. Patty Casey “amped it up” on that one at the live performance I mentioned above.

Stanley Brothers
Angel Band lyrics

My latest sun is sinking fast
My race is nearly run
My longest trials now are past
My triumph has begun

Chorus
Oh come angel band
Come and around me stand
Bear me away on your snow white wings
To my immortal home
Bear me away on you snow white wings
To my immortal home

Oh bear my longing soul to him
Who bled and died for me
Whose blood now cleanses from all sins
And brings me victory

[chorus]

I know I'm near the holy ranks
Of friends and kindred dear
I brush the dew on Jordan's banks
The crossing must be near

I've almost gained my heavenly home
My spirit loudly sings
The holy ones, behold they come
I hear the noise of wings

When Radio Ruled The Air-Waves- "Stardust:Decca Records:Classics and Standards Collection"

A YouTube film clip of the Inkspots performing I’ll Get By.

CD Review

Stardust: The Classic Decca Hits and Standards Collection, various artists, Decca Records, MCA, 1994

I am a first generation child of the television age, although in recent years I have spent more time kicking and screaming about that fact than watching the damn thing. Nevertheless I can appreciate this little compilation of Decca hits and standard tunes from the 1940s and 1950s as a valentine to the radio days of my parents’ youth, parents who came of musical age (and every other kind of age as well) during the Great Depression of the 1930s and who fought, or waited for those out on the front lines fighting, World War II. I am just old enough though, although generation behind them, to remember the strains of songs like the harmonic –heavy Mills Brothers Paper Dolls (a favorite of my mother’s) and The Glow Worm (not a favorite of anybody as far as I know although the harmony is still first-rate) that came wafting, via the local Adamsville radio station WJDA, through our big box living room radio in the early 1950s. It seemed they, or maybe the Andrews Sisters, be-bopping (be-bopping now, not then, you do not want to know what I called it then), on Rum And Coca-Cola or tagging along with Bing Crosby on Don’t Fence Me In were permanent residents of the airs-waves in the Markin household.

I am also a child of Rock 'n' Roll but those above-mentioned tunes were the melodies that my mother and father came of age to and the stuff of their dreams during World War II and its aftermath. The rough and tumble of my parents raising a bunch of kids might have taken the edge off it but the dreams remained. In the end it is this musical backdrop, behind the generation musical fights that roils the Markin household in teen times, that makes this compilation most memorable to me. Just to say names like Dick Haymes (I think my mother had a “crush” on him at some point), Vaughn Monroe, The Inkspots (who, truth, I liked even then, even in my “high, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly days, especially on If I Didn’t Care and I’ll Get By-wow), and Lois Armstrong. Or songs like Blueberry Hill, You’ll Never Know, A- Tisket- A Tasket, You Always Hurt The One You Love and so gather in a goodly portion of the mid-20th century American Songbook. Other talents like Billie Holiday, The Weavers, and Rosemary Clooney and tunes like Lover Man (and a thousand and one Cole Porter Billie-sung songs), Fever, and As Time Goes By (from Dooley Wilson in Casablanca) came later through very different frames of reference. But the seed, no question, no question now, was planted then.

Let’s be clear as well going back to that first paragraph mention of television - there something very different between the medium of the radio and the medium of the television. The radio allowed for an expansion of the imagination (and of fantasy) that the increasingly harsh realities of what was being portrayed on television did not allow one to get away with. The heart of World War II, and in its immediate aftermath, was time when one needed to be able to dream a little. The realities of the world at that time seemingly only allowed for nightmares. My feeling is that this compilation will touch a lot of sentimental nerves for the World War II generation (that so-called ‘greatest generation’), including my growing-up Irish working class families on the shores of North Adamsville. Nice work.

Assad: Risk of regional war if West strikes Syria

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SYLVIE CORBET, AP
3 hours ago

Syrian refugees arrive at the Turkish Cilvegozu gate border, Monday, Sept. ...

PARIS (AP) — Syria's president warned Monday that the Middle East is a "powder keg" and potential Western military strikes against his country risk triggering a regional war.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Bashar Assad also was quoted as saying that Syria has challenged the U.S. and France to provide proof to support their allegations that Damascus has used chemical weapons, but that the leaders of both countries "have been incapable of doing that, including before their own peoples."

President Barack Obama and his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, have accused Assad's regime of carrying out a deadly chemical attack against rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Aug. 21. The Syrian government denies the allegations, and blames opposition fighters.

Obama initially seemed poised to launch military action, but abruptly announced on Saturday he would first ask Congress for authorization. Hollande also has called for a forceful response against Assad, but is awaiting a decision from Washington first.

If the U.S. and France decide to strike, Assad said "everyone will lose control of the situation."

"Chaos and extremism will spread. The risk of a regional war exists," he added.

Asked whether France, which has been a staunch supporter of the opposition, has become an enemy of Syria, Assad said that whoever contributes "financially and militarily to terrorists is an enemy of the Syrian people."

"The French people are not our enemy, but the policy of their government is hostile to the Syrian people. Insofar as French government policy is hostile to the Syrian people, this state will be its enemy," he said.

As the U.S. has been presenting its case to a wary public, the French government on Monday published a nine-page intelligence synopsis that concluded that the Syrian regime launched an attack on Aug. 21 that involved a "massive use of chemical agents." The report also said that Assad government could carry out similar strikes in the future.

The U.S. said it has proof that the Assad regime is behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children.

Russia, which along with Iran has been a staunch supporter of Assad through the conflict, brushed aside Western evidence of an alleged Syrian regime role.

"What our American, British and French partners showed us in the past and have showed just recently is absolutely unconvincing," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday at the country's top diplomatic school. "And when you ask for more detailed proof they say all of this is classified so we cannot show this to you."

Lavrov said "there was nothing specific there, no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals." He did not describe the tests further.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed Monday to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the U.S. to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress. Two top Russian legislators suggested that to Putin, saying polls have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria to punish its regime for an alleged chemical weapons attack.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. received new physical evidence in the form of blood and hair samples that show sarin gas was used in the Aug. 21 attack. It was not immediately clear whether that evidence had been shared with Russia.

U.N. chemical inspectors toured the stricken areas last week, collecting biological and soil samples, but it is not clear when they will present their findings.

The Obama administration has failed to bring together a broad international coalition in support of military action, having so far only secured the support of France.

Britain's parliament narrowly voted against British participation in a military strike last week, despite appeals by Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Arab League has stopped short of endorsing a Western strike against Syria.

In an emergency meeting on Sunday, the 22-state League called on the United Nations and the international community to take "deterrent" measures under international law to stop the Syrian regime's crimes, but could not agree on whether to back U.S. military strikes.

Russia or China would likely veto any U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning a Western strike against Syria.

China is "highly concerned" about possible unilateral military action against Syria and believes the international community must "avoid complicating the Syrian issue and dragging the Middle East down into further disaster," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Monday.

In Washington, the Obama administration was lobbying to secure domestic support.

Obama was to meet Monday with former political rival Sen. John McCain at the White House, hoping the foreign policy hawk will help sell the idea of U.S. military intervention.

On Capitol Hill, senior administration officials briefed lawmakers in private on Sunday to explain why the U.S. was compelled to act against Assad. Further meetings were planned from Monday to Wednesday.

The Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad that later degenerated into a civil war. More than 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict.

In Damascus, the Syria representative of the U.N. refugee agency, Tarik Kurdi, said that five million Syrians have been displaced inside the country by the war.

In addition, nearly 2 million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries, according to previous U.N. figures, bringing the total number of uprooted Syrians to about 7 million, or nearly one-third the country's estimated population of 23 million.

Kurdi said the need for aid is far greater than what the international community has provided so far.

"Whatever efforts we have exerted and whatever the U.N. has provided in humanitarian aid, it is only a drop in the sea of humanitarian needs in Syria," he told The Associated Press. The funding gap "is very, very wide," he added.

———

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Ryan Lucas and Karin Laub in Beirut contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Carried Out by Rebels, Says UN

Aug 27 - w/ update

As the Syrian revolt continues to tear the country apart, the international community has been eager to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as it became clear that the rebels do not, in fact, represent a popular uprising against the oppression of the Assad regime. According to UN diplomat Carla del Ponte, however, it appears that the recent chemical weapons attack, in April, was carried out by the Syrian rebels and not the regime, as it had been widely assumed. Speaking to a Swiss television channel, del Ponte said that there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels had carried out the attack. She also said UN investigators had seen no evidence of the Syrian army using chemical weapons, but that further investigation was needed.
A spokesman for the rebels denied responsibility for the most recent attack, which allegedly involved the deployment of sarin nerve gas. He pointed out that the Free Syrian Army does not possess the missiles or shells necessary to deliver the chemical agent. Sarin gas, however, can be delivered in a number of ways. Additionally, while the rebels claim that the chemical agent was delivered by missiles or artilery, there is no evidence of a missile strike or shelling in any of the many videos that have been uploaded to the internet in the wake of the alleged attack.

After swift initial progress in the more than two-year-old conflict, the rebel advance was stalled as Lebanese terror group Hezbollah sent fighters to the regime’s aid. Whilst a number of towns have been taken and then retaken by each side, Assad’s forces have gradually gained the upper hand. With his army making gains and the eyes of the world upon him, it seems unlikely that the Syrian President would risk carrying out a chemical attack – particularly against an urban area. The Syrian government has flatly denied responsibility for this latest alleged chemical weapons attack and although not widely reported in the western media, there is broad suspicion that it was, indeed, carried out by the rebels. Ultimately, it may prove impossible for UN inspectors to determine who was responsible for the incident. Further, their investigation may be curtailed by the seemingly imminent military action – possibly in the form of cruise missile strikes – by the United States and the United Kingdom.

US President Obama has sent out mixed messages, regarding his intentions towards Syria; whilst he has stated that the US would not take military action against Syria without a UN mandate, it appears that preparations for an attack are already well underway, with American and British naval forces massing in the region. There is widespread speculation that strikes could be carried out within a week, despite strong and repeated warnings from both Russia and Iran, as well as the Syrian regime itself.

One of the most ominous repercussions of US intervention against the Syrian government is the possibility that Iran and it’s surrogate in Lebanon, Hezbollah, will launch strikes against Israel, in retaliation. This, in turn, could lead to a regional war, with Russia and the US lined up on opposing sides.

The United States government has been quick to condemn the Syrian government for the latest chemical weapons attack. Now that much of the evidence suggests it may have been carried out by the al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels, President Obama should remember that he, along with his supporters and political allies, devoted much time to condemning his predecessor for leading the US into war based on questionable intelligence.



UPDATE: This article was updated to clarify one or two points that some of our readers found misleading: The chemical attack earlier this year was widely blamed on the Syrian regime. It is this attack that the UN now concludes was carried out by Syrian rebels. It appears unlikely – for a number of reasons – that the most recent August 21st attack was carried out by government forces – despite the rush to judgement within the international community – although this has yet to be fully determined. It is clear that both sides in the Syrian conflict have the means to use chemical weapons and it would be misguided to assume that either side has a moral objection to such attacks.

As Jean Pascal Zanders, formerly of the European Union Institute for Security Studies, has pointed out ”In fact, we – the public – know very little beyond the observation of outward symptoms of asphyxiation and possible exposure to neurotoxicants, despite the mass of images and film footage. For the West’s credibility, I think that governments should await the results of the U.N. investigation.”

An Editorial by Graham J Noble

Poet's Corner -Seamus Heaney -RIP

Digging

Digging

By Seamus Heaney 1939–2013 Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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Seamus Heaney, "Digging" from Death of a Naturalist. Copyright 1966 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.

Source: Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Watch Out, Watch Way Out For Two-Timing Dames

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Glenn Fallon should have known better, should have realized that going down that road was treacherous. After all he had been down that road before, that what they called the deadly man-trap women road in the old film noir movies he watched incessantly at the Bijou Theater in his Lancaster youth. But would he listen. No. No he had to play out the hand his way. Maybe he thought his small town good looks, his small town good manners and charm would shield him when the going got rough, would protect him when some femme fatale gave him that come hither look. Maybe he just plain thought he was lucky, hell he had survived to manhood and then some hadn’t he. And maybe it was just plain ordinary vanilla hubris that drove him to take up with some women who had hellishness written all over them. Yah, Glenn Fallon should have known better, but let’s get to the details and stop trying to figure out what a guy will do when that come hither look (and that slight whiff of intoxicating perfume) catches him flat-footed. 

 

Like I say Glenn had been down that road before. I should know since he spent a lot of time when I first knew him, knew him after he got back from ‘Nam and he was assigned to my stateside unit at Fort Ord out in California in order to finish out his time before being discharged talking endlessly about that time before the service when he had hooked up with a live one, a real heartbreaker, a what did he call her, yah, a femme, femme fatale. Yah, all he could talk about was Rita, Rita Hayes, and how she had left him so high and dry that when they called his number to go he was ready to face whatever Charlie had to throw at him, big guns, little guns, just to get away, and keep away from her.        

 

Here’s the way he told me the story, although it was a while ago and maybe I have forgotten a point or two but mainly it was like he told it, told it then enough that I thought I was part of it. He had met this Rita down on the Santa Monica Beach near the pier one summer day when she was sunning herself, or whatever femmes do in the daytime. He was there, new to California, without a job, looking out at the ocean which amazed him a boy brought up and bred on the prairies of Kansas and he spied her looking all beautiful, red hair, nice shape, long legs and he thought, what the hell he would take a chance on making a play. As he approached her he noticed she was probably a couple of years older than him but she had this smile, this come hither smile and so that was that. So as guys and dames will do they talked, talked some more, and kind of hit it off, hit it off nicely. And nicely meant that later on they headed for one of the motels that dot the heights above the beach.

 

Just your average boy meets girl story until she lowered the boom. She “forgot” to tell him that she was married, married to some older guy who was a financial speculator who had plenty of dough. The way Glenn found out about her being married was weird. She brought him around to her old hubby, Bart, and without telling Glenn who the old guy was or the old guy who Glenn was she told him to offer him a job, pretty please for Rita offer him a job. Which Bart did and then left the pair. It was only after that episode that Rita told Glenn who Bart was, who had thought the guy was her father, or something. Her idea she said was that with him working for Bart it would keep him around her without too much suspicion. When I heard that statement I blurted out to Glenn that that should have been the signal when he reached for the door. But see she had her hooks into him by then, had them in bad, had him ready to accept any fate just to be around her, her and that come hither look. I have been around dames and their looks enough to know what he meant so I didn’t press the issue. But I could read trouble ahead without him having to say another word.               

 

And that trouble came, came fast and furious, came bad enough for him in the end to face Charlie’ s guns without complaint. For a couple of months Glenn worked hard for Bart, liked the guy and the way he operated (although that like did not keep Glenn from playing around with his wife) and got wrapped up in his financial dealings. It seems that Bart was trying to corner the copper market and thus control the world- wide price and make a killing. That was fair enough, Glenn had no trouble with that although some of Bart’s “partners” in the scheme seemed kind of weird, kind of slimy. That part was okay but Rita was then amping up her own plan (while driving Glenn crazy with all kinds of new, new to farm boy Glenn, and enticing little tricks in bed). Her plan, frankly, involved murder as it usually does with these femmes, although murder dressed up as an accident. And Glenn was the accident-maker, was the guy who was to do the heavy work. I could see where that whole line of talk was leading, how she was just using him to dump hubby and take the dough and run, run with or without Glenn I wasn’t sure but I let him run out his story.             

 

Naturally this “accident” thing should been obvious to the cops when they came to investigate the death of old Bart. He had driven down a ravine too fast they said and having alcohol on his breathe must have maneuvered the wrong way. All they did after a perfunctory investigation was to charge the thing up to faulty brakes and let it go at that. Strangely Glenn had not touched the brakes as that was too obvious but had messed with the steering mechanism which was not even close to the brake system. Nobody even had to show for a coroner’s inquest though.

 

Beautiful, beautiful except old Bart kind of had the last laugh. Two ways. First after the “accident” something soured a little between Glenn and Rita, a little unspoken thing on Rita’s part stemming from the dastardly deed Glenn thought. Second it seems that Bart had put up all his dough in the copper speculation and when he died the whole thing kind of imploded and the price of copper shares went through the floor. That is why Rita was cool to Glenn if you ask me. He was a no dough guy and thus expendable. And he was. One night, one steamy summer night, she tried to shot poor Glenn over some dispute, some nothing dispute. She missed but a couple of days later she was gone, taking everything including some jewelry she had given to Glenn when their love was in bloom. A couple of days after that, after trying to pick up her trail without success he began to realize, realize just a little  that he had been a fool. The next day he enlisted in the Army. Later , when he was over in ‘Nam he would heard from some source that she had married a big time criminal lawyer, rich as hell, up in Frisco. He had chuckled at that, at the gallows’ humor of it, that she had her lawyer already set up in place for her next caper.               

 

Yah, so Glenn had been down that road, had been beaten like a gong as only a woman can do to a guy. I figured after that he had learned his lesson about wild dames and their wanting habits. He said ‘Nam was a piece of cake compared to that and I believed him. We kept in touch for a while after he got out and things seemed to be going his way. He had gone back to small town Kansas, had gotten a good job at a bank, and had a sweet fiancée, Betsy, a high school sweetheart of sorts, and they were to be married as soon as they had gathered enough money for a little house. Then she came through the door.    

 

Yes, Gloria came sashaying through the door of the bank all blonde, all shape, all flaming red lips, looking, well, looking for trouble except Glenn couldn’t see it. I guess it is okay to speak of it now that the coast is clear, now that Glenn is in parts unknown, or unknown to the coppers. They will never get anything from me since I don’t know where he is, and wouldn’t say if I did. See if a guy takes one tumble with a femme well that’s a rookie error but twice the guy needs help, and not any slammer help that some gun-toting copper would be glad to provide. Besides I am not sure that Glenn did anything wrong, legally wrong anyway although he would not win any prizes from Betsy on that score. Let me lay it out for you, lay out how I pieced most of it together and you figure it out.  

 

Naturally in a small town like Lancaster the femme fatale traffic is going to be light, or that’s what a guy should figure. Those femmes from the sticks are moving to the big city to show their stuff. Well this Gloria seemed to be stuck in Podunk, nobody knew the details why really, and Glenn didn’t have time to fill anybody in. Or want to. That sashaying day at the bank Gloria was looking for a loan, a small loan to get a car she said. Mainly her eyes gave her the loan as Glenn bought her hard luck story and she seemed okay. Of course part of the okay way that she sweet-talked him into meeting her after work for a drink. Maybe he was restless that day, maybe it was the perfume, maybe humankind, or mankind, is incapable of learning a lesson but he went. And they had a drink, a drink or six and you can fill in the details of what Glenn and Gloria did after the bar closed.  

 

And so they saw each other quietly on the sly at her apartment on the outskirts of town, quietly for a couple of months although he had not broken it off with Betsy at that point. Then Gloria’s husband came to town. (Jesus aren’t there any single femmes, or if married just leave guys alone). This guy, a big gruff beefy guy, Biff, who was a big railroad superintendent which explained his absences, had heard that wifey was not on the square. He beat her trying to find out who the lover was. She, finally, coped to a confession after he nearly beat her to death. But see she named a rich older lover, Larry, from Tulsa whom she had left for Biff. One night a few weeks later they found Larry, beaten to death, in a pool of blood in his Tulsa apartment.

 

Gloria freaked out, went crazy when Biff told her what he had done and he then beat her into submission. She would never tell she swore. When Glenn saw her condition he freaked too and that is when she was able to enlist Glenn in her plot to kill her husband. There would be no accident this time, this time it was strictly murder, murder one, and the chair if they got caught. The plan was for Gloria to get Biff drunk, she would take a little beating after she refused his besotted advances and Glenn would come by, grab a convenient gun and shoot him, place the gun in her hand, knock her out and leave. She would claim self-defense and the beating marks would be her alibi. Nice.

But it never got to that, never came close. Something had happened earlier in the evening, Gloria had shot Biff dead herself and had split, leaving no forwarding address. None. Glenn, figuring he would be the fall guy, or close to it, also split with no forwarding address. Except he wrote me later that if I heard anything about Gloria to send her a message that he said hello. Jesus. Jesus, learn something from this tale guys and stay away, far away from two-timing dames even if they have that come hither look or wear that damn fragrance. Enough said.                                

NO WAR ON SYRIA!

President Obama is recommending a military strike against Syria. 80% of the U.S. people are opposed. We say HANDS OFF SYRIA! We say fund the people’s needs, not the military and corporate greed! Congress will be reconvening on September 9 and is being asked to authorize this military action. Call your Congressional representative and tell him or her to vote NO to a military strike against Syria.

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 1-202-224-3121

Ask for your representative. Leave a message:

VOTE NO TO WAR ON SYRIA!

-- Chelsea Uniting Against the War/ Chelsea Uniéndose en Contra de la Guerra – Chelseauniting@gmail.com – 617-8892841

--

Labor Day 2013 -Bread And Roses (1912) In Lawrence, Massachusetts

In 1912, a new state law went into effect reducing the work week of women and children from 56 to 54 hours. But because so many women and children worked in the mills, men’s hours were also reduced. When the first paychecks of the year revealed a cut in pay, thousands of workers, already barely surviving on an average pay of $8.76 a week, walked out of the mills, and the Great Strike had begun.

The strike united workers from 51 different nationalities. Carried on throughout a brutally cold winter, the strike lasted more than two months, defying the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically divided workers could not be organized. In late January, when a bystander was killed during a protest, I.W.W. organizers Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti were arrested on charges of being accessories to the murder. I.W.W. leaders Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came to Lawrence to run the strike. Together they masterminded its signature move, sending hundreds of the strikers’ hungry children to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. The move drew widespread sympathy, especially after police stopped a further exodus, leading to violence at the Lawrence train station.The IWW raised funds on a nation-wide basis to provide weekly benefits for strikers and dramatized the strikers’ needs by arranging for several hundred children to go to supporters’ homes in New York City for the duration of the strike. The union established an efficient system of relief committees, soup kitchens, and food distribution stations, while volunteer doctors provided medical care.

Congressional hearings followed, resulting in exposure of shocking conditions in the Lawrence mills and calls for investigation of the “wool trust.” Mill owners soon decided to settle the strike, giving workers in Lawrence and throughout New England raises of up to 20 percent.

The Boston Industrial Workers of the world see this event as a critical part of our history and fully support The Bread & Roses Heritage Committee. we call to all workers to come out on labor day SEPTEMBER 2, 2013 to recognize, commemorate, inform, and share the labor history and social justice legacy of Lawrence’s 1912 Bread & Roses strike.

an injury to one is an injury to all!

http://www.breadandrosesheritage.org/

http://iwwboston.org/

***Singing The Blues For His Lord- The Reverend Gary Davis Is On Stage

A YouTube film clip of the Reverend Gary Davis playing Children Of Zion on Pete Seeger's 1960 television show Rainbow Quest.

CD Review

Twelve Gates To The City: Reverend Gary Davis: In Concert 1962-1966, Shanachie Records, 2000
I have mentioned many of the old time black male country blues singers in this space, for example, Son House, Bukka White and Skip James. I have also mentioned the close connection between this rural music, the routine of life on the farm (mainly the Mississippi Delta plantations or sharecropping) and simple religious expression in their works. The blues singer under review meets all of those criteria and more. The Reverend Gary Davis, although not as well known in the country blues pantheon, has had many of his songs covered by the denizens of the folk revival of the 1960's and some rock groups, like The Grateful Dead, looking for a connection with their roots. Thus, by one of the ironies of fate his tradition lives on in popular music. I would also mention here that his work was prominently displayed in one of the Masters Of The Blues documentaries that I have reviewed in this space. That placement is insurance that that the Reverend's musical virtuosity is of the highest order. As an instrumentalist he steals the show in that film. Enough said.

Stick out songs here are the much-covered Samson and Delilah (most famously, I think, by Dave Van Ronk), Cocaine Blues (from when it was legal, of course), Twelve Keys To The City and the gospelly Blow Gabriel and Who Shall Deliver Poor Me.

Some Biographical Information From the Back Cover Of This Album
Durham, North Carolina in the 1930's was a moderate sized town whose economy was driven by tobacco farming. The tobacco crop acted somewhat as a buffer against the worst ravages of the Depression. During the fall harvest, with its attendant tobacco auctions, there was a bit more money around, and that, naturally, attracted musicians. Performers would drift in from the countryside and frequently took up residence and stayed on. Two master musicians who made Durham their home, whose careers extended decades until they become literally world famous, were Reverend Gary Davis and Sonny Terry.

REV. GARY DAVIS
Reverend Gary Davis was one of the greatest traditional guitarists of the century. He could play fluently in all major keys and improvise continually without repetition. His finger picking style was remarkably free, executing a rapid treble run with his thumb as easily as with his index finger and he had great command of many different styles, representing most aspects of black music he heard as a young man at he beginning of the century. Beyond his blues-gospel guitar, Davis was equally adept at ragtime, marches, breakdowns, vaudeville songs, and much more. Born in Lawrence County, South Carolina in 1895, Davis was raised by his grandmother, who made his first guitar for him. Learning from relatives and itinerant musicians, he also took up banjo and harmonica. His blindness was probably due to a congenital condition. By the time he was a young man he was considered among the elite musicians in his area of South Carolina where, as in most Southern coastal states, clean and fancy finger picking with emphasis on the melody was the favored style. Sometime in the early 1950's, Davis started a ministry and repudiated blues. In 1935, he recorded twelve gospel songs that rank among the masterpieces of the genre. In 1944, he moved to New York where he continued his church work, and sometimes did some street singing in Harlem. By the early 1960's, with the re-emergence of interest in traditional black music, Davis finally received the recognition and prominences he so richly deserved.

Poet’s Corner- Seamus Heaney Passes –Take Three

 

On The Passing Of Seamus Heaney

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (nee Francis Riley) 

 

A word. He came from the land of poets, porridge, potatoes, publicans, paupers, prayers, pissers and peat, the well-known eight p’s (a ninth,  protestants, will be left unspoken). He spoke the mother tongue, nay, the grandmother’s tongue never quite the King’s and then time passing the Queen’s English but that surly brogue that bespoke of ancient sorrows, ancient oppressions, ancient dreams against the hard seas surrounding dear mother. Spoke against the oppressor night language too, some bloody Anglo-Saxon heathen tongue, the straightjacket tongue enforced under penalty of gaol (quaint English word, hey). Spoke of dear green earth mother born of sorrows, sea-borne easy prey for reckless adventurers seeking simple riches and too easy passage to points east and west when the troubles come.

 

Grandmother, gone to Amerikee, gone to easy sea-borne passage east or west when the troubles came, famine, field rot, rack-rents and imperial decrees, spoke unto death, and maybe beyond the grave too, spoke in brogue too (and not just grandmother in her generation, her Dublin “shawlie” generation transported with lace curtain dreams among the shanty to shanty M Street, Southie and Ashmont Street, Dorchester) defiant against vanilla Americanization, against tarnished green turned to somber brown, against some lost old sod memory of potato fields, endless potato fields, of endless sweated labor, of thatch- roof cottages pulled down in time of famine and hunger, of shabeen fathers toasting one and all at the drop of a hat, of crooked teeth, and, alas of Johnny Larkin stolen away from her by Liverpool and damn Anna O’Brien.

 

And so DNA-wired her sprawl unto the third generation learned, prosaic and poetic both, the swirl of language, the twisting of a word upon the tongue, the savoring of it, the blarney, insincerely and flatness of it too when needed. The choice Joycean barb or mot although what would she know of Trinity College lads and their chandelier ways. More comfortable with O’Casey plainsong and shawlie backwater tenement remembrances, although what she know of Abbey Theaters and the like. Yet she knew the delight in catching just the right breeze of a phrase, learned from lost love worker poet Johnny Larkin fled to a foreign land, as it passed foam-flecked  into some bay (always some bay or inlet present, these were a sea-bound, sea-faring people, if only to diaspora) drifting back across the seas. Across the seas to that good green earth.             

 

And grandmother’s tongue, speak plainly brother, grandmother’s brogue bespoke not just of flailed language, and of savorings, but as repository of other sights, smells and sounds, and ancient clan customs. Plain spoke behind eternal white sheets, pillow cases, towels, underwear (men’s, women’ s hung somewhere, some modest somewhere, hidden from sex-distorted youth and lecherous old men) flying in the back porch triple-decker wind trying to make due for the umpteenth time although one and all can almost see though the hand wrung bleached whiteness of the things. The sound of the trains belching coal dust fumes almost into the back door as they ferry THEM to their busyness.

 

The smell of oatmeal bread, oatmeal set aside from the daily ration, fresh baked from widow lady Ida’s Bakery (really the downstairs part of her house converted of necessity into a money-producing operation since Mister’s passing), and Friday buns (yes, yes too, Lenten hot-cross reprieve buns I hadn’t forgotten). The no smell of the boiled dinner (non- descript meat, someone’s leavings, yes, yes, potatoes, cabbage and so on, boiled to perdition by the time the damn thing boiled, got boiled down). The smell of whiskies (and Uncle Sean, named after Sean Flynn, whisky breathes) cheap low-shelf whiskies, the cheapest Johnny Walker could bring forth, to make the pennies go farther, and of stouts and ales too when whiskey credits were short. The acrid smell of sweaty barrooms, men only, ladies by invitation, and when the Riley sisters had the thirst that invitation best be forth-coming, the  just before last call, just before a whole slew of grizzled fathers, uncles, older brothers crabbed their ways home to some sullen sleep. The smell, after a chaste night or drunken sots, of sunken sunrise Sunday church (Roman Catholic, naturally) all dank and foreboding, faint wisps of wine sand incense left from some past ceremony, and young innocent boys (and girls too but they can speak for themselves, them and their rosary-saying, stations of the cross praying ways all dressed in white, Mary white, to drive young boys crazy, damn them) filled with wonder about hell, heaven and that hope, the high hope of purgatory as a way-station,       

 

Spoke of eight hundred year oppressions, dimmed hovel lights, bloody massacres, and scratching on hard rock earth against foreign slayings.  Of 1916, always of the men of ’16, eternally of the men of ’16, of James Connolly and his pipedream workers’ republic above all, who was right and who was wrong when Mick Collins and Harry Boland had it out, and later the boys in the North when they came under British guns and that unnamed unadorned tin can sitting atop the Dublin Grille counter filled with dollars and nobody, no matter what their thirst and no dough, touched that tin under, well, under penalty of death so not touched.  Yes, to the boys in the north, and never quite getting the whole thing settled.

 

Spoke too of shame, of shanty shame, also DNA-etched from time before mist. Of clannish keeping one own counsel, also known as not airing the family’s linen in public unlike those threadbare sheets flailing away on the back porch. Above all spoke of the “shawlie” net-work that ran amok over every tenement block and kept the whole wide world informed, kept young and old in line under the threat of terrible shawlie justice (not until later was it understood as sham). Informed the whole wide world not in the language of the poet by the way. All past now. So too Seamus Heaney passes.