The Last Waltz, Indeed

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
Note: The term “last waltz” of the title of this piece is used as a simple expression of the truth. The life, or better, half-life of this sketch came about originally through reviewing, a few years ago, a long-running series of “Oldies But Goodies” CDs from the 1950s and early 1960s, the time of my coming of age time. After reviewing ten of these things I found out that the series was even longer, fifteen in all. Rather than turning myself into some local hospital for a cure I plugged on. Plugged on intrepidly with full knowledge that such things had their saturation point. After all how much could one rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those of us who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in those treasured compilations. How many times, after all, can one read about wallflowers, sighs, certain shes (or hes), the moonlight glow on high school dance night (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough!

Or so I thought until my old friend, my old mad monk, merry prankster, stone freak, summer of love (1967 version) compadre from Olde Saco up in Maine, Josh Breslin. Yes, that Josh Breslin, or rather Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who have read his by-line over the years in half the radical chic or alterative vision publications in this country, called me up in a frenzy just after I had finally completed the last damn review. And as usual when he calls in the dead of night it was “girl” trouble, if that is the appropriate way to say it for sixty-somethings.

His frenzied problem? Josh’s Old Saco Class of 1967 was going to have its fortieth reunion, and through the now weathered Mainiac grapevine he found out that some middle school (then junior high) sweetheart, Lucy Dubois (Olde Saco is a central gathering spot for French-Canadians and French Canadian Americans, including Josh’s mother, Delores, nee LeBlanc), was going to show and he needed a refresher on the old time tunes. More importantly, he continue why he, madcap love ‘em and leave Josh, still had a “crush” on Ms. Dubois and what was he going to do about it come reunion night. So the following is just a little mood music from Josh’s backward trek.
********
No question that those of us who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s were truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents please. Or look it up on Wikipedia if you are too embarrassed to not know ancient history things. Join the bus.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that one’s parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.

Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable forty or fifty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation like the ones Peter Paul has been mad monk reviewing but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. Just don’t tell Lucy that, okay. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.

But what about the now seeming mandatory question, the inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that I really want to talk about. Or rather about Lucy Dubois’ (I won’t use her married name because she still lives up around Olde Saco). The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumbly-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar).

Here the 1960 Mark Dinning tune Teen Angel fills the bill. Hey, I did really like this one, especially the soulful, sorrowful timing and voice intonation. Yes, I know, I know the lyrics are, well, not life-enhancing. And, yes, I also know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you? And what song did we, Josh Breslin and Lucy Dubois, trot out on that wintry November reunion night? Come on now, guess.
*************
....and a trip down memory lane.

MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

From The Socialist Archives


[Seamus Whelan recieved over three thousand votes onprimary day in Boston September 24, 2013]

******

A Voice for the 99%!

Seamus Whelan for City Council At-Large

As a Boston resident for over 25 years, and a West Roxbury resident for 16 of those years, I see many Boston families facing home foreclosures, school closures and cuts in vital programs while the super rich get corporate handouts and tax breaks. I believe we need to change the way we do politics by electing candidates that will resist the corporate domination of politics and who will support and help build the struggles of the 99%.

For 15 years, I have been a bedside registered nurse and active union member in the Massachusetts Nurses Association. I believe that it is not enough to take care of patients when admitted to hospital but on discharge real solutions to the causes of peoples illness and suffering must be found.

I have helped to organize community campaigns for quality guaranteed health care and against high stakes standardized testing in our schools. As an activist in Socialist Alternative and as a nurse activist, I am involved in a campaign for safe staffing in our hospitals and care centers, necessary to allow the safe delivery and provision of quality care to Boston residents.

In the capitalist economic crisis, politicians of both parties at the local, state and national level have proposed bailouts for the banks and big companies while workers and youth face slashed social programs and attacks on union rights. Workers and youth need to stand up and fight back in the streets, workplaces and in elections against the right-wing agenda of the 1%.

Boston is controlled by unelected organizations, from the school committee to the Boston Redevelopment Authority to the MBTA Board and the vultures on State Street. We need an economy that works for everyone and not just the rich and powerful. We must organize to build structures that allow working people make the important decisions that affect our lives.

We Demand:

Jobs for All at a Living Wage - For a public works program to improve our social programs and infrastructure with union jobs. Raise the minimum wage to $15 / hour.

Improve education - decrease class sizes by hiring more teachers and end the high-stakes standardized testing. Stop the privatization and union-busting in education. For an elected Boston School Committee as a step towards community control of the schools.

Housing is a Human Right - an end to home foreclosures and evictions. Make the banks pay, not ordinary homeowners. For a ceiling on rent to make housing quality and affordable for all. Elect the Boston Redevelopment Authority - for democratic city planning.

Stop Discrimination - End the deportation of immigrants. For democratic community control of public safety to stop police violence.

Expand Public Transportation - Save the environment and create jobs with more public transportation. End the T fare hikes and service cuts; for a democratically-elected MBTA Board.

How Can We Win These Demands?

We need a mass movement of working people and youth to take mass direct action against the policies of the 1%. We need to prepare protests and strikes against layoffs, attacks on union rights and cuts to social spending. To get better services, we need to tax the 1% and the corporations. We need a mass party of working people to resist the Democrats and Republicans who are dominated by corporate interests. We need a socialist movement to raise consciousness and to resist the blind alley of capitalism.

The Vote Whelan campaign for City Council is part of a growing movement to challenge corporate control of politics and our lives. If elected, Seamus Whelan will take the wage of an average worker, donating the rest to movements against the rule of the 1%. Whelan would use his City Council position to publicize struggles against injustice and call hearings and protests to build a movement for more jobs, better schools and fundamental socialist change.

Find out how you can help! Visit (facebook page for campaign) to become part of the growing movement for fundamental change.

Socialist Alternative website and logo with phone number.

***Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Blind Alfred Reed's "HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE?" (1929)

A YouTube film clip of Blind Alfred Reed performing HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE?
Markin comment:

This song, with appropriate changes for the times and not many at that, could have been written today. Right?


HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE? (BLIND ALFRED REED) (1929)

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).


This song was recorded by Blind Alfred Reed in New York, NY, 4 Dec 1929 and released as RCA VICTOR Vi V-40236.
Manfred Helfert


Lyrics as reprinted in liner notes for "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?" Rounder 1001, 1972


There once was a time when everything was cheap,
But now prices nearly puts a man to sleep.
When we pay our grocery bill,
We just feel like making our will --
I remember when dry goods were cheap as dirt,
We could take two bits and buy a dandy shirt.
Now we pay three bucks or more,
Maybe get a shirt that another man wore --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?
Well, I used to trade with a man by the name of Gray,
Flour was fifty cents for a twenty-four pound bag.
Now it's a dollar and a half beside,
Just like a-skinning off a flea for the hide --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, the schools we have today ain't worth a cent,
But they see to it that every child is sent.
If we don't send everyday,
We have a heavy fine to pay --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Prohibition's good if 'tis conducted right,
There's no sense in shooting a man 'til he shows flight.
Officers kill without a cause,
They complain about funny laws --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls,
That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole.
We can hardly get our breath,
Taxed and schooled and preached to death --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, it's time for every man to be awake,
We pay fifty cents a pound when we ask for steak.
When we get our package home,
A little wad of paper with gristle and a bone --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Well, the doctor comes around with a face all bright,
And he says in a little while you'll be all right.
All he gives is a humbug pill,
A dose of dope and a great big bill --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love” (1956) - A 55th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billie's 1956 View

A YouTube film clip of the Teen Queens performing the classic Eddie My Love.

Markin comment:
This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived, and what we listened to back in the day.


EDDIE MY LOVE
(Aaron Collins / Maxwell Davis / Sam Ling)
The Teen Queens - 1956
The Fontane Sisters - 1956
The Chordettes - 1956
Dee Dee Sharp - 1962

Also recorded by:
Lillian Briggs; Jo Ann Campbell; The Sweethearts.

Eddie, my love, I love you so
How I wanted for you, you'll never know
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait to long

Eddie, please write me one line
Tell me your love is still only mine
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

(Transcribed from the Teen Queens
recording by Mel Priddle - May 2006)

**********
Billie here, William James Bradley, if you don’t know already. To “the projects” born but you don’t need, or at least you don’t absolutely need to know that is get the drift of what I have to say here. I am here to give my take on this latest song, Eddie My Love, that just came out and that the girls are going weepy over, and the guys are saying “that a boy, Eddie.” At least that’s what the wiser guys I hang around with say when they hear the record played on the radio. Except, of course, sappy Markin, Peter Paul Markin if you don’t know, my best friend at Adamsville Elementary School (or maybe best friend, he has never told me one way or the other what it was with us from his end, but sappy as he may be at times, he is my best friend from my end) who thinks Eddie should be righteous and return to his forlorn girl. What is he kidding? Eddie keep moving wherever you are, and keep moving fast. And please, please don’t go within a mile of a post office.

Why do I hold such an opinion and what gives me the “authority”, some authority like the pope of rock and roll, or something to speak this way? Well, first off, unlike Markin, I take my rock and roll, my rock and roll lyrics seriously, hell, I have written some myself. Also I have some talent in this field and have won vocal competitions (and dance ones too), although there have been a few more I should have won. Ya, should have won but the fix was in, the fix was in big time, against project kids getting a break, a chance to make something out of the jailbreak music we are hearing. I’ll tell you about those bad breaks some time but now I am hot to straighten everybody out, even Markin, on this one. Markin pays attention to, too much attention to, the “social” end of the question, looking for some kind of teenage justice in this wicked old world when there ain’t none. Get it, Peter Paul.

Look, I can read between the lines of this story just like anybody else, any pre-teenage or teenage anybody else. Parents, my parents, Markin’s parents, Ozzie and Harriet, whoever, couldn’t get it if you gave them that Rosetta Stone they discovered to help them with old time Egyptian writing and that we read about in Mr. Barry’s class. No way. But Billie, William James Bradley, who will not let any grass grow beneath his feet is wise, very wise to the scene. Hey, it’s not rocket stuff, it’s simply the age old summer fling thing. Eddie, handsome, money in his pocket, super-charged car under his feet, gas in the tank, and an attitude that he is king of the known world, the known teenage world, sees this cutie, makes his play, they have some fun, some teenage version of adult fun for any not wise kids, school days come and he is off to his next cutie. Ya, he said he would write and, personally, I think that was a mistake. A quick “I'll be in touch,” and kiss on the cheek would have been smarter.

See Eddie, love ‘em and leave ‘em Eddie, is really a hero. What did this teen queen think was going to happen when Eddie blew into town? Love, marriage and here comes the teen queen with a baby carriage. Please. Eddie, Eddie your love ain’t got no time for that. And that old threatening to do herself in or whatever she means by “my next day might be my last,” is the oldest trick in the book, the oldest snare a guy trick that is. Ya, maybe someday when things are better, and guys don’t have that itch, that itch to move on, and maybe can settle down in one place and have plenty of dough, plenty of ambition, and the old wicked world starts taking care of its own better. Whoa… wait a minute, I’m starting to sound like Markin. Jesus, no. Eddie just keep moving, okay. Billie’s pulling for you.

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night - A CD Review

A YouTube film clip of The Platters performing the juke-box Saturday night classic, Only You.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The 50’s: Keep On Rockin’, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1988
Recently I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered) hanging from the lips, Coke, big sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, natch. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.

Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them). Moreover, I clued you in, and keep this quiet, about sex, or rather I should say doin’ the do in case the kids are around, and about the local “custom” (for any anthropologists present) of ocean-waved Atlantic “watching the submarine races.”

Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back indoors again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days. Bowling alleys, drugstores (drugstores with soda fountains- why else would healthy, young, sex-charged high school students go to such an old-timer-got-to-get medicine-for-the-arthritis place. Why indeed, although there are secrets in such places that I will tell you about some other time when I’m not jazzed up to go be-bop juke-boxing around the town.), pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and so on. Basically any place where kids were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

A lot of it was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention as they came in the door. The cover artwork on this compilation shows dreamy girls waiting for their platters (records, okay) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. There is your chance, boy, grab it. Just hanging around the machine with some cashmere-sweater-ed, beehive-haired (or bobbed, kind of), well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) chatting idly was worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Not after nine at night though or before eight because that was when she was talking to her boy friend. Lucky guy, maybe.

But here is where the real skill came in. Just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking to her friends as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boy friend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next. Then you made your move-“Have you heard Only You. NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up. Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to … for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc, etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. On that self-same jukebox you were very, very likely to hear some of the songs on the compilation on this CD: Here are the stick outs (and a few that worked some of that “magic” mentioned above on tough nights):

Oh Julie, The Crescendos (a great one if you knew, or thought you knew, or wanted to believe that girl at the jukebox’s name was Julie); Lavender Blue, Sammy Turner (good talk song especially on the word play); Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Chuck Berry (discussed above, and worthy of consideration if your tastes ran to those heart-breaking little rock and rollers. I will tell you about the ONE time it came in handy sometime); You Were Mine, The Fireflies; Susie Darlin’, Robin Luke (ditto the Julie thing above); Only You, The Platters (keep this one a secret, okay, unless you really are a sensitive guy).

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel" (1960)- A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billie’s 1960 View

A YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing the classic Teen Angel.

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own. This song, Teen Angel, came out at a time when I had left the projects, had moved cross town, acquired new friends, and, most importantly, had definitely moved away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. Still he knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

*********

MARK DINNING
"Teen Angel"

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

***********
Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he moved “uptown” to North Adamsville came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of the old neighborhood and we got to talking about this latest record, Teen Angel, by Mark Dinning that had us both baffled at first, but now I can give to you my take on it. And for one of the few times in recorded history, recorded Billie and Peter Paul from the old projects history, we agree right down the line that this weeper is strictly for the girls.

Ya, I know, and Markin does too, (I won’t keep saying “Markin does too” but I have to admit I was astounded when he agreed with me, especially on the ring stuff, so I had to say it at least this once) this is a guy lamenting his lost teen angel. So you think right off that he is all broken up about his baby. But that’s just for public consumption. (Do you like that term? Nice, huh?) What’s a guy suppose to say after his bimbo, yes, bimbo, and I will explain that in a minute, runs back to save his f-----g ring from a clunker (probably) stuck on some old railroad track. In fact the guy should be fuming that this b---o (okay) thought more of his “symbolic” ring (after all they were just “going steady”) that keeping herself alive in order to keep him company on those now lonely Saturday nights down by the seashore, or the carnival or the drive-in (restaurant or movie). Ya, Markin says there should be a law against the "bim" (compromise, okay) doing such a thing and the guy should sue, like with divorce stuff. And you know I think he might be right.

What really grips me though is that f- - (hell, you know what kind of ring it was) ring thing. I’m not going to beat a dead horse over her running back. That’s over and done with. But let’s face facts, and everybody who knows anything about anything knows that those high school class rings are strictly from cheapsville, from nowhere, nada, nothing. Got it. All glitter and glow for lots of dough. But like I said cheapsville. Fake jewels, fake gold, hell, maybe fake lettering. Frankly stuff that I wouldn’t even bother to grab off some kid I was thumping. Definitely not a girl. Got it.

Christ, I “clipped” better stuff at Woolworth’s and gave it to my younger sister, as a gag. But see I could have gotten this guy some good stuff, a nice ring that he could have given her, a ring she would have been proud to go back for, although I wouldn’t wish her to give up her young life over it. While I am at it if anybody reading this screed needs rings, bracelets,or other trinkets as signs of eternal love or just to give your honey something just get a hold of me. There won’t be any fako stuff either. Got it.

When you think about it though, and although I am glad that my boy Markin brought it up, how much time can you really spend on this set of lyrics. See here is where my papal authority comes in. I put this one strictly under novelty items, and like I said strictly for girls, weepy girls. Up in their lonely rooms waiting by that midnight telephone. No way, no way in hell, is this that moony swoony song that sets up your mood thing down at that previously mentioned seashore. Or do you really want to spent the whole night at the high school dance waiting for that last dance so that the she you have been eyeing all night just falls all over you, and then this “downer” comes on. Take it from the pope, no way. Got it.

***When Be-Bop Bopped In The Doo Wop Night- “Street Corner Serenade”- A CD Review

A YouTube film (From American Bandstand) of The Classics performing the old time classic ( I think originally from The Mills Brothers), Till Then.
CD Review

The Rock ‘n’ Roll, Era: Street Corner Serenade, Time-Life Music, 1992

Sure I have plenty to say about early rock ‘n’ roll, now called the classic rock period in the musicology hall of fame. And within that say I have spent a little time, not enough, considering its effect on us on the doo-wop branch of the genre. Part of the reason, obviously, is that back in those mid-1950s jail-breakout days I did not (and I do not believe that any other eleven and twelve year olds did either), distinguish between let’s say rockabilly-back-beat drive rock, black-based rock centered on a heavy rhythm and blues backdrop, and the almost instrument-less (or maybe a soft piano or guitar backdrop) group harmonics that drove doo-wop. All I knew was that it was not my parents’ music, not close, and that they got nervous, very nervous, anytime it was played out loud in their presence. Fortunately, some sainted, sanctified, techno-guru developed the iPod of that primitive era, the battery-driven transistor radio. No big deal, technology-wise by today’s standard’s, but get this you could place it near your ear and have your own private out loud without parental scuffling in the background. Yes, sainted, sanctified techno-guru. No question.

What doo-wop did though down in our old-time working class housing projects neighborhood, and again it was not so much by revelation as by trial and error, is allow us to be in tune with the music of our generation without having to spend a lot of money on instruments or a studio or any such. Where the hell would we have gotten the dough for such things when papas were out of work, or were one step away, and there was trouble just keeping the wolves from the door. Sure, some kids, some kids like my home boy elementary school boyhood friend Billie, William James Bradley, were crazy to put together cover bands with electric guitars (rented occasionally), and dreams. Or maybe go wild with a school piano a la Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, or Fats Domino but those were maniac aficionados. Even Billie though, when the deal went down, especially after hearing Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers was mad to do the doo-wop and make his fame and fortune.

The cover art on this compilation shows a group of young black kids, black guys, who look like they are doing their doo wop on some big city street corner. And that makes sense reflecting the New York City-derived birth of doo-wop and that the majority of doo-wop groups that we heard on the AM radio were black. But the city, the poor sections of the city, white or black, was not the only place where moneyless guys and gals were harmonizing, hoping, hoping maybe beyond hope, to be discovered and make more than just a 1950s musical jail-breakout of their lives. Moreover, this cover art also shows, and shows vividly, what a lot of us guys were trying to do-impress girls (and maybe viz-a-versa for girl doo-woppers but they can tell their own stories).

Yes, truth to tell, it was about impressing girls that drove many of us, Billie included, christ maybe Billie most of all, to mix and match harmonies. And you know you did too (except remember girls just switch around what I just said). Ya, four or five guys just hanging around the back door of the elementary school on hot summer nights, nothing better to do, no dough to do things, maybe a little feisty because of that, and start up a few tunes. Billie, who actually did have some vocal musical talent, usually sang lead, and the rest of us, well, doo-wopped. We knew nothing of keys and pauses, of time, notes, or reading music we just improvised. (And I kept my changing to teen-ager, slightly off-key voice on the low, on the very low.) Whether we did it well or poorly, guess what, as the hot sun day turned into humid night, and the old sun went down just over the hills, first a couple of girls, then a couple more, and then a whole bevy (nice word, right?) of them came and got kind of swoony and moony. And swoony and moony was just fine. And we all innocent, innocent dream, innocent when we dreamed, make our virginal moves. But, mainly, we doo-wopped in the be-bop mid-1950s night. And a few of the songs in this doo-wop compilation could be heard in that airless night. The stick outs here: Deserie, The Charts; Baby Blue, The Echoes; Till Then, The Classics; Tonight (Could Be The Night), The Velvets.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- You've Got To Be  A Football Hero....

Markin comment:

Well, I guess I can trust Frankie after all. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, my old middle school and high school pal who I have been telling one and all about in a few stories, stories that prove, prove beyond a doubt, that teen angst, teen alienation, teen love, teen whatever is not some recent invention. Hell, even we now celebrated (maybe) baby-boomers had those maladies. I would further argue that we developed them into rarefied art forms, but that is for another time.

What I have on my mind at this time is based on Frankie’s creditable story about his pre- friendship with me (with me, Peter Paul Markin) adventures in the great carnival skeets night. I got kind of nervous at first when he started right off the bat about my take on his attempt to be king of the teen dance club night scene but by the end of his tale I kind of automatically dismissed his early remark as just sour grapes and a rather unreasonable bitterness about a mere passing fancy. The carnival skeets story, well, it was good. Frankie good.

Like I said in the introduction to Frankie’s guest skeets story I have plenty of my own carnival and amusement park stories to tell, with and without Frankie, and will, but today I am, once again, giving my space over to Frankie, Frankie straight up, Frankie in his own voice, and his story about how he fared as a budding young football star. The time of this story is, as least the heart of it, also once again just before I linked up with him in middle school (I didn’t arrive at the school until about mid-school year of seventh grade). As I also mentioned in introducing the skeets story the other stories I have told you about were from later, later, when I was there as an eye witness so I can trust them a little. This one though also seems kind of, well, Frankie-like so let him take responsibility for telling it.

Note: I do not have, other than as sporting propositions (bets, okay), as a fervent youthful follower of the hometown North Adamsville High School football team, and a rooting interest in the results of the “mythical” college football national championships, have much insider information about the nature of the game on the field and so do not really know much about the inside stuff that Frankie will tell you, if he does so. You know things like how to crack block a guy across from you and not get caught by the refs, or what kind of jaw-breaking stuff to have in your hands for the close in-fighting, or talking trash about the mother of the guy across from you to throw him off his game. Kid’s stuff really. If it sounds kind of fishy to you don’t blame me, or if you, can let me know where something is off and set me straight so I can tell Frankie off.

Francis Xavier Riley comment:


Football is serious business, American-style football that is, manly football, not that namby-pamby old sod knee pants and polo shirt soccer stuff everybody else in the world calls football. At least it was serious, American serious, business in my 1950s growing-up cold-water flat in a North Adamsville tenement, Sagamore Street tenement, presided over by one Patrick James Riley, my father, but known far and wide (neighborhood, far and wide, especially Shamrock Grille far and wide) as “Boyo” Riley.

Who knows, I certainly don’t in any case, when I got my first inkling that football was indeed the serious business of the Riley quarters. Maybe a Cold War night pick-up sandlot grade school game where blessed, or half-blessed, maybe, Patrick “Boyo” Riley, cheered bloody murder from the sidelines when my oldest brother, four years older brother, Tommy (known as “Tommy Thunder” in his high school playing days for those who remember that legendary North Adamsville High name) pushed one over the goal-line.

Or, maybe, even back before memory, before football name memory, sitting in the old (now old), wind-swept, uncomfortable-seat Veterans Stadium watching, totally confused and only marginally interested, as North Adamsville duked it out with cross-town arch-rival Adamsville for bragging rights for the year on hallowed Thanksgiving Days. Or, maybe, and more probable than not, hearing the lord Boyo making another of those ill-timed, ill-advised “sneak” (sneak from my mother, blessed mother, not half-blessed, no way, Maude) bets over the hushed telephone on “Fighting Irish” Notre Dame in their ignoble 1950s black night period.

Although I cannot name that first time, for sure, I can name the time of the time of Francis Xavier Riley’s understanding of when he knew he had better make football serious business, or else. Yes, indeed it was that sandlot grade school game, that now inevitable Riley baptism game where that self-same blessed, or half-blessed, maybe, Patrick “Boyo” Riley, cheered bloody murder from the sidelines when my next older brother, two years older brother, Timmy (known as “Timmy the Tiger” in his high school playing days for those who remember that also legendary North Adamsville High name) pushed one over the goal-line. That’s where Boyo laid down the law that come next fall, that 1956 next fall, I would be getting my Riley turn to tear up that sandlot over the younger brothers of those on the field that day.

And I bought into it, bought into it heart and soul, then anyway. So, naturally, dutifully the next fall I was in passed down uniform as one Patrick “Boyo” Riley screamed bloody murder from the sidelines as I performed my Riley baptism in that sandlot grade school game, and pushed my own football over the goal-line. Pushed that football for all it was worth, moaning and groaning, twisting and turning, all one and ten pounds of me, maybe, over some guys like Fallon, McNally, and Hennigan, who would take their own places along side Tommy Thunder and Timmy the Tiger come their Class of 1964 North Adamsville time.

But I have to tell you about the why, seriously. The why of why I bought into the Riley curse. Sure I was just a grade school kid of ten and didn’t know what the hell I wanted, or didn’t want. And, yes, before you all go off and try to psycho-analyze my behavior to kingdom come, I wanted to please Boyo. Or else. That "or else" being a boxing, or six, behind the ears, if you didn’t know. And actually football was fun, for the minute it took anyway, to find “daylight” and run like crazy, unimpeded, on that field toward that goal-line. With Boyo, and his cronies screaming that bloody murder like crazy. (I didn’t know until later, about twenty years later, that the damned fool bet, “sneaky” bet, from my mother, as usual, heavily on these games with said cronies. Jesus.)

But that’s just the obvious stuff. Here’s the boy’s-eye stuff that kept me going for more than a while. Tommy (I won’t use the Thunder part, although Markin would probably beat that nickname to death if he told the story) was beginning to make a name for himself up at the high school, even if it was only the junior varsity at first, when I started to notice how I fit into the Riley scheme of things. See, because Tommy, tough, hard, chip off the old block (of Boyo, naturally), corner boy, hell, king corner boy who else would it be, bulging tee-shirt, swivel-hipped Tommy was getting attention for his football exploits. People, old people, and others would give me the “nod.” You know the nod, right. Nothing said, just a little tip of the neck to signify that you were somebody, or related to somebody that mattered in the North Adamsville universe. And, of course, I gave that same nod back to signify that I knew that they were paying proper respect to the brother of their knight-errant. Ask Markin about it, about the nod. I think, now that I have had a good amount of time to think on it, that half the reason that he hung around me was to bask in that nod glow. Ya, ask him, although on this so-called "pre-markinian” stuff he may be agnostic. The bastard. Whatever else I swear just the nod, and the expectation of the nod, kept me on track for a year, maybe more.

There’s more though, and maybe in today’s hyped-up and pampered football world when serious prospects start getting the royal treatment at about age six this is no big deal. Tommy started to get some serious attention from my father’s cronies (there is no other way to describe this Irish mafia lot, who inhabited that Shamrock Grille like it was a holy sanctuary, and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was) and “cadging” an occasion drink, a liquor drink, a fellowship liquor drink from them. Ya, everybody wanted to be around Tommy, just for the rub off. And you know, I still don’t know whether all that crazy attention was good or bad. See, the idea was that they thought that he was going to be picked up by some college team after high school (he really was that good) and they would have inside information on some real bets. Of course, they all secretly or openly, were praying, if they knew how to pray, or remembered, wanted that college to be black night 1950s Notre Dame but I don’t know for a fact that they were all that choosy about what school took him.

Okay enough with the early reasons. They were all right, and sufficient, but as Tommy’s fame grew a little wider (and Timmy started making moves in that same football star direction) all of a sudden (all of a sudden for then girl-shy, but girl-interested, girl mystery charms interested anyway, me) girls, good-looking girls, some from the high school, some from I don’t know where, started showing up at the Sagamore Street cold-water flat. With cars. And with letting Tommy drive those cars. And not some dumpy your father’s car either (if your father had a car, which Boyo, like Markin’s father, usually didn’t which is probably why we both friendship connected on the car issue).

Sure the cars were a draw early, sweet Chevvies, some convertibles, a little of this and that but as I got older just having those girls around when I started to know the what’s up about girls, although there still was plenty of mystery about them, was enough. See, the girls were practically camped out in front of the house. They obviously didn’t notice or care about the crooked, jammed front door that you had to lift just right to get in the front door of the tenement downstairs. Or that paint, that paint that was desperately needed about six years before as the shingles had that weather-beaten look, that weather-beaten look that spoke of careless renters and not owner-occupiers. All I know was that there were horns at all times of the day and night, especially in summer, pushed down by nervous girls of all sizes and shapes, all foxy sizes and shapes that is.

This you will not believe but one time three girls showed up together. I asked them where they were going to meet the other two guys on the date at just to pass the time of day (and, as Tommy’s brother, to see whether they met my secret worthiness test). And one, one honey blond, slender with black Capris on, and, and , well, let’s leave it at that, plus about a hundred pounds of purring sexuality (and who caused me more than one restless night, and a few hundred Hail Marys) said, “Oh no, we’re all going together with just Tommy.” What? And Tommy, Tommy said, well, you know what he said- “What can a man do?” Yes, indeed, what can a man do. So I will give you three guesses about what kept me motivated, football motivated, when the nod thing got old.

And so, as 1958 arrives and “serious” seventh grade organized middle school football was all the talk, you expect me to now go into my own Riley legendary status. Right? And I would, except there isn’t one. See, old rugged, chip off the old block, corner boy tough (and that was tough in those days if you wanted to keep your place in front of some mom and pa variety store) Tommy and old muscle-chiseled Timmy got whatever one Patrick “Boyo” Riley (and sainted Maude) had to give in the way of football genes to his progeny. Tommy weighed in at about 210, a mean football field 210 (heck, that was a corner store hangout, beach shoreline drinking bout complete with hanging girls, off-hand barroom brawl 210 as well) and chiseled Timmy (no drink) at 195. I never weighed more than 120 (or more than 140, wet or dry it seemed, all through high school) once I made my big move at that sandlot debut I told you about before. More than that though, I had the "slows" that need no further description, and was un-coordinated to boot. Finished. So in seventh grade, the autumn “pre-markinian” (watch Peter Paul go crazy over that one like he did when he read my skeets story) seventh grade part, I tried out for the team but didn’t make it. And, funny, the old man, the old man for once did not box ears, or moan and groan about some mystical Fighting Irish lost and continued black night because I was not going to, single-handedly, save their “bloody arses” (a Boyo quote on that last part).

But still, and blame this strictly on Tommy and Timmy not the old man, the half-blessed old man, maybe, and certainly not sainted Ma, Maude, I developed a very, a very healthy, interest in girls, and kept looking for one like that honey blond that I interviewed and told you about before. (Ya, the one that gave me the restless nights, that one.) But, see, that kind of thing takes a whole different skill set. You bet it does. So when I didn’t make the team I started going book nutty. Oh sure I liked books before, and liked to read, especially detective stories (that’s where I got half the names I made up to call twists, oops, girls), but now I started to read everything and anything.

Why? Well, maybe you don’t remember, or maybe you’re just too young to know, but when we were growing up and Markin will back me up on this, christ we talked about it enough, the “beat” thing, or as Markin put it in one of his foolish stories about me the “faux” beat thing, was in high gear. What I noticed, or two things I noticed, was that the “beat” girls I saw in Boston and Cambridge looked kind of foxy (and kind of easy to get to know) and that some of the nubiles (ya, girls, I learned that one from going to the Museum of Fine Arts over there on Huntington Avenue in Boston. They had some neat Egypt stuff there too.) at old North Adamsville Junior High (ya, ya, I know just like Markin that it’s now middle school) were dressing kind of “beat.” So I started dressing (much to Maude’s and Boyo’s displeasure, especially Maude’s) beat-flannel shirt, work boots (couldn’t afford engineer boots that I would have died for), black chino pants (no cuffs, Markin, get it) and my own personal touch, what I was known for from middle school to the end of high school- my midnight sunglasses.

So with my dressing the part and my new found wisdom I started to make my moves, my “faux” beat moves, quietly at first just a little off-hand remark here or there to some girl. Most moved off, offended by something, probably the midnight sunglasses in school. But here is where psychology comes in. If I started saying stuff in a sing-song way, a really be-bop way like you’d see or hear the beat poets do, and I kept at it rather than give up after a few words some of the girls, and here is the beautiful part, some of the best looking, cutest, and brightest girls, the girls that counted started to stay around me. That’s where Markin came in, came to our school, and cashed in on my psychological insights.

And guess who one of the girls was who liked my pitter-patter, although not the first, definitely not the first with her little Catholic rectitude thing (a serious copy of Ma Maude’s little Catholic rectitude thing), my everlovin’ sweetie, my main squeeze (although I wouldn’t dream of calling her that to her face, even in private), my middle school and high one and only, Joanne. Now Markin said this thing was about football so I will see if I can talk him into letting me tell you about the ins and outs of my “courtship” of Joanne another time. Probably not, see, they, Markin and Joanne, didn’t get along, although they were always civil to each other, at least that’s how I remember it. But, maybe, I can tell you something here that will cause him to relent. Markin was sweet, sweet as a girl-shy, off-beat, hell, timid, boy could be, in middle school, on Joanne. And she was sweet on him, at least that’s what I heard. Sweet on him before I worked my be-bop in the 1950s schoolboy beat night on her. After that, strictly no contest.

As for the football. Did I regret not growing big enough to eat a house for lunch and have room to spare and also not having to work overtime to have the girls come ‘round the house like they did with Tommy and Timmy. Well, yes I did, but like Tommy always used to say- “What’s a man to do?’’ Do not get me wrong, I spend many an enjoyable granite-grey autumn Saturday afternoon watching and screaming my head off as the lads, some of those same lads that I ran roughshod over in sandlot grade school, did their business, especially that final victory over arch-rival Adamsville High in November, 1963. The thing is what they did the rest of the week? Those six periods of gym per day must have been exhausting. Those 'study' halls must have really taxed their abilities to the limit. Moreover, being fed the victor's grapes by nubile young women must have atrophied their mental capacities. Meanwhile this long gone daddy, this arcane knowledge-ladened long gone daddy, with Markin in tow, always in tow, be-bopped his way into the 1960s night.

From The American Left History Blog Archives(2008)- On American Political Discourse - A MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS FOR THE 2014 ELECTIONS (Updated)

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.
************
This commentary was edited and updated on October 1, 2013

A MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS FOR THE 2008 ELECTIONS

IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!

I originally planned to repost the blog below in the summer of 2007. However, two trends have forced me to republish earlier than I planned. The first is the fact that the whole 2008 bourgeois electoral process has gone into warp speed. Yes, yes I know that thinking about electoral politics, or any politics, in the spring of 2007 is only for political junkies and other misbegotten types. I confess to that sin and someday I will turn myself into the appropriate twelve-step program. Nevertheless the campaign season goes full throttle. Thus if we are to have any effect on the 2008 campaign on behalf of our fight for socialism we better get in harness now.

The second trend revolves around the periodic publication of, and commentary on, the not so startling, by now, fact that the wealth distribution gap between the very, very rich here in America and the rest of us has over the last few years once again become wider, the widest since the 1920s. In response a number of political commentators, especially liberal commentators, have bemoaned this condition noting that part of the problem is the very real ‘class struggle’ by the rich and their minions. One of the better commentators on this subject the Boston Globe Op/Ed writer Robert Kuttner, who is almost always worth reading to gauge the pulse of the Eastern liberal part of the Democratic Party, recently placed the blame on the fight against unionization by the corporations and their political hangers-on. So far, no argument there.

Where we part company is over his exclusive and eternal strategy of relying on the political ‘goodwill’ of the ‘friends of labor’ in the Democratic Party to make capitalism fairer. He further argues that this is where labor has found its earlier successes. No, one thousand times no. Despite Kuttner’s obviously truncated reading of labor history (if at all) the way unions were organized, particularly in the 1930’s the heyday of militant action, usually meant hard-fought factory and street actions over and against those so-called ‘friends of labor’. This is the simple truth that we must get out and have labor militant candidates shout to the rooftops. LET OUR CAMPAIGN BEGIN.

MODEST PROPOSAL-RECRUIT, RUN INDEPENDENT LABOR MILITANTS IN FOR THE 2006 ELECTIONS.

Updated April 2007. In the summer of 2006 I wrote a commentary about writing in workers party candidates based on a program for the fall 2006 elections. With the hoopla already starting for the 2008 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftist to use the 2008 campaign to further our propaganda needs.

All “anti-parliamentarian”,“anti-state”,“non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 70^th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois state and the bourgeois government. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades.

As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2006 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Iraq, immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti- same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design’. And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and Greens have a monopoly on the public square.

I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives. You get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that that. In any case, this writer presents a five point program that labor militants can run on (you knew this was coming, right?). As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.

1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!

The quagmire in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East (Palestine, Iran, Syria you name it is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.

But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the ‘popular front’ days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the war fight for this no funding position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yah, those progressive Democrats) who unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.

2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less families, can live on the minimum wage of $7/hr. (or proposed $10/hr). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s, go a long ay to turning the conditions of labor around.

3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with ant-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2013 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But, so be it.

4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.

The Donkeys, Elephants and Greens have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans and Greens!

5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT.
THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS.

We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.

Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yah, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is you have got to fight for it.

Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good now. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES

The Big Knock-Out

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Every wise guy, every sporting guy, every crippled corner newsie, hell, everybody over the age of twelve, no more, knows, knows to a certainty that boxing, you know guys (and these days gals) beating each other down for the amusement of the blood-lusted crowds is fixed. Is fixed six ways to Sunday even before the first bell is sounded. It is worst now than in the old days when you at least knew that when a champ was crowned he was the one and only champ not like now the World Boxing this, Federated Boxing that, and United Boxing the other thing handing out gaudy belts like they were going out of style. But just so nobody gets all nostalgic about the good old days, gets misty-eyed that only one champ meant only one skinning on the bet line, only one fix, let’s look at our trusty brother tough-edged, hard guy private eye Philip Marlowe as he tried to unravel murder and mayhem on the canvas. And while Marlowe had seen it all, had figured out a few things in his time he almost for a minute believed with this kid, this well-built, scrappy kid that was being groomed for a championship fight was on the up and up. That momentary slip almost cost him his life so listen up.

Philip thought that he really should have passed on the job, should have just walked away and maybe seen if that graveyard shift as the house peeper at the old Taft Hotel was still available. Yes, he was short of dough, short of office rent money, short of room rent but lining himself up with Jacky Craig, the, ah, boxing promoter, and man of many operations, mostly illegal gave him pause. But damn that rent had to be paid and so in the year of our lord 1940 one more gumshoe took a walk on the wild side and he showed up at Craig’s gym to find out what was expected of him. See what Jackie wanted to see him about.

Of course a wise guy, if he wants to stay a wise guy, or at least alive covers himself with layers of protection so Philip was prepared when he was frisked by Frankie Lip, a cheapjack gunsel who had been with Craig for years, before entering his majesty’s office. The nature of Craig’s offer though was pretty straight up, pretty straight up on the face of it, a job for a tough guy private eye and not for some brainless muscle only good for taking shots to protect the boss. What Jackie wanted was for Marlowe to investigate who had been threatening Earl Avery, the best fighter in his stable and a boxer everybody said was slated to take a run for the light heavy-weight championship, when he was ready. Not only had somebody, some punk, Jackie called him been threatening the Earl but also Jean, the girlfriend that Jackie had provided to keep Earl amused, and to keep an eye on him in the sex, drugs, booze department.  No booze, no dope and one girl, this Jean who had Earl under her thumb about two minutes after he saw her.         

This Jean was a looker, the kind of woman Marlowe favored, the kind he would take straight aim at if she wasn’t attached to the Earl, or to Jackie. Hell, taking a second look he thought if things worked out right he might take that run anyway, especially once he got close enough to get a small whiff of that sandalwood perfume she was wearing, wearing just enough to make a guy, a red-blooded guy, jump.  Moreover Jean story, when Marlowe got around to hearing it, included some tough times, some down times. She had come West like a million other frails as she tried to make a go as a singer, along with another  woman doing duos and had finally caught on when Jackie heard her over at the Club Lola near the Santa Monica Pier. Jackie signed them to perform at his club-casino, The Lighthouse, up in Malibu. But enough of Jean, enough for now because Philip Marlowe was on the case to find out what the hell was going on in that murky world of boxing, big time money boxing out on the angel streets of his city.

 

What happened was simplicity itself a guy like Jackie Craig doesn’t take chances, tries to control his environment and so it was the case here too. Jackie tried to control his arena, his boxing business, tried to control the new boxing commissioner, Steve Earle, a former state senator and power in the state capital, who had come in declaring the he was going to “clean the sport up.” So Jackie tried by might and main to buy him off, buy him off good. And Brother Earle turned out to be looking for the main chance, and that had Jackie’s signature all over it. That was what Philip was up against and after a few fists flying, a few off-hand shootings at The Lighthouse, and a few off-hand tosses under the sheets with Jean he closed down Jackie’s operation, closed down Earle’s operation and felt he had done some good work. Even if he got no dough to pay that office rent coming due at the end of the week.                    

Oh yeah, about Jean, about that perfume driving Marlowe crazy very time he came with a mile of her. The Earl Avery thing was strictly as a favor to Jackie, a favor to get her act on his stage and before long Philip and she were roughing up some sheets. Here is the funny thing though this Jean had her own ax to grind, grind against Steve Earle. Her previous performance companion, Ada, had committed suicide after they were forced, after striking out in few mean street gin mills doing opening act duos for third-rate has-beens out in the heartland, to turn a few tricks out on the mean streets to keep body and soul together and she was too ashamed to face that fact. The funny part although obviously not funny is that this Ada was allegedly Steve Earle’s daughter and so Jean had drifted to L.A. to squeeze Earle for some dough, for retribution dough. When Earle tumbled under Jackie’s weight when Marlowe pulled the hammer down on his operation Jean lost her chance for serious dough. But ever the trouper all Jean said when her current partner said that The Lighthouse was closed was “I guess we have to hit the road again.” Nice. Nice too that Marlowe told her to keep in touch, and keep wearing that sandalwood next time they met.           

Free Lynne Stewart Now- Let Granma Go Home!

Please sign the NEW petition for Lynne Stewart . Your signature will send a letter to Bureau of Prisons Director Samuels and to Attorney General Holder requesting that they expedite Lynne Stewart’s current application for compassionate release. The NEW petition is at https://www.change.org/petitions/new-petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-support-compassionate-release (Please follow the link on the first petition site in case the link is stripped from this message.)

A Message from Lynne Stewart:
From Deep in the Belly of the Beast ... that is, Texas.

Now another month has passed and I am getting increasingly irritable that these jokers are so cavalier with my life and what time I have left. (I also am getting weaker.)

My application for compassionate release is moving but glacially (Are there any glaciers left? Only in the bureaucracy...). We learned that the request has left the General Counsel's office of the Bureau of Prisons in Washington and is now being considered by an "Independent Committee" (whatever that means). From there it will ostensibly go to the Director, Mr. Samuels, for the final recommendation and request for a motion to the Judge.

As you can appreciate there is still plenty of room for slips between cup and lip. I truly understand that I, with the strong and consistent support of all 30,000+ of you, do constitute a "threat" in their small universe. That is to say that, the will of the People cannot be ignored forever. With that in mind, I want to urge everyone to come on out on

OCTOBER 8, TUESDAY, MY 74th BIRTHDAY
FOR A LOCAL SHOW OF OUR COLLECTIVE WILL
IN OPPOSITION TO THE '"DEATH PENALTY "

ORGANIZE • ORGANIZE • ORGANIZE • ORGANIZE • ORGANIZE

YOU AND YOUR COMRADES, FRIENDS, ACQUAINTANCES CAN GATHER AT YOUR LOCAL FEDERAL (U.S.) COURTHOUSE OR POST OFFICE TO REMIND THEM THAT WE WILL NOT LET ME DIE IN A JAIL CELL!!!

If you can do this please notify Ralph of your location by sending an email to my web site or to this site. We hope this will be nationwide and we can spread the word of the senseless cruelty in the way the Bureau of Prisons administers a program that is supposed to be compassionate. I may be the "poster child" but this is done on behalf of all the prisoners who are languishing, in pain or worse, trying to go home.

Be out there on October 8. It is already an historic day. Let's make it More So!!! Let's Win.

Lynne Stewart

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