***Out In The 1950s Corner Boy Night- Rock 'Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman  

It did not take a sociology wizard, and there were plenty of them around categorizing and characterizing all kinds of groupings after World War II here in America, to figure that not “all boats were rising” in the red scare Cold War 1950s night. There would always be thereafter and here there is no telling tales out of school, marginal guys, you know, hobos, tramps, bums, con men, repo men, drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, and an occasional jack-roller around who did not get the word that the good ship plenty had arrived. And furthermore it took no sociology wizard sparing no expense to come to the old projects neighborhood to find out that there was more teen alienation per square inch in that (and others) locale than one could shake a stick at. Here is the story, the close by story since it was originally told to me by an old neighborhood youth nation flame that will have those soc profs’ ears ringing.    

********

This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. (Clintondale Elementary was/is locally known as the “Acre” school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway.).  Betsy is also now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High with me. Whatever flames we had for each other died long before.Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a “pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.

John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, politely asked, or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk as he is still with us, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.

The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.

And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning from over in England, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the “boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.

And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the old Clintondale headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.

Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.

Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her.

Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend, “Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.

Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up.

Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).

After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping here through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life on the old car radio. What do you think?

From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Serge, Poretsky, Etienne: A Paris Hotel, 1937

 

YEAR ONE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION by Victor Serge

Book Review 

Present At The Creation 

I have read several books on subjects related to the Russian Revolution by Victor Serge and find that he is a well-informed insider on this subject although the novel rather than history writing is his stronger form of expressing his views. See his The Case of Comrade Tulayev. This book can be profitably read in conjunction with other better written left-wing interpretations of this period. Sukhanov's Notes on the Russian Revolution (for the February period), Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution and John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World come to mind.

The task Serge sets himself here is to look at the dramatic and eventually fateful events of first year of the Russian Revolution. Those included the Bolshevik seizure of power, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and the struggle by the Bolsheviks against other left-wing tendencies in defining Soviet state policy, the fight to end Russian participation in World War I culminating in the humiliating Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany and, most importantly, the beginnings of Civil War against the Whites. In short, he investigates all the issues that will ultimately undermine and cause the degeneration of what was the first successful socialist seizure of state power in history.

Serge's history is partisan history in the best sense of the word. It is rather silly at this late date to argue that historians must be detached from the subject of their investigations. All one asks is that a historian gets the facts for his or her analysis straight. And then stay out of the way. Serge passes this test. Serge worked under the assumption that the strategic theory of the Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky was valid. That premise stated that Russia as the weakest link in the international capitalist system could act as the catalyst for revolution in the West and therefore shorten its own road to socialism. The failure of that Western revolution, the subsequent hostile encirclement by the Western powers and the inevitable degeneration implicit in a revolution in an economically undeveloped country left to its own resources underlies the structure of his argument.

The Russian revolution of October 1917 was the defining event for the international labor movement during most of the 20th century. Serious militants and left -wing organizations took their stand based on their position on the so-called Russian Question. At that time the level of political class-consciousness in the international labor movement was quite high. Such consciousness does not exist today where the socialist program is seen as, at best, utopian. However, notwithstanding the demise of the Soviet state in 1991-92 and the essential elimination of the Russian Question as a factor in world politics on a day to day basis anyone who wants learn some lessons from the heroic period of the Russian Revolution will find this book an informative place to start.
Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
******** 

Ernest Rogers

Serge, Poretsky, Etienne: A Paris Hotel, 1937

CROMWELL was reputed to have advised the artist portraying him not to flatter him, but to paint him warts and all. I assume that Victor Serge would not have wanted anything less.

Critical remarks were made of Serge’s character. Isaac Deutscher said:

He was one of Trotsky’s early adherents, a gifted and generous, though politically ingenuous, man of letters. The worst that might have been said of him was that he had a foible for vainglorious chatter, and that was a grave fault in a member of an organisation which had to guard its secrets from the GPU. (I. Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast, London 1963, pp. 391–2)

But the clearest justification for a critical attitude came from Elizabeth Poretsky. After she and Henk Sneevliet had attended the funeral in Switzerland of her husband, Ignace Reiss, who had been assassinated by the NKVD, they stopped in Paris en route to Amsterdam. Sneevliet told her that she had a visitor. She did not want to see anyone. In came Serge. Poretsky said:

To our dismay, he was not alone. With him was a young man I had never seen before … Sneevliet took Serge outside, and I heard him storm at him for having been indiscreet enough to bring another person … The young man introduced himself as Trudman, a friend of Serge and Sedov, Trotsky’s son. His real name was Mark Zborovsky, known to the Trotskyists as Etienne.

When Sneevliet and Serge re-entered the room, Serge was visibly embarrassed, and Sneevliet looked white and shaken … When the visitors had gone, Sneevliet did not try to hide his fury at Serge for having brought Etienne along … The fact that he had passed onto Etienne the highly confidential word that I was in Paris, and worse, had brought Etienne with him to the hotel, gave Sneevliet a shock that never wore off. After this incident, he understood why I had said Serge was the last person I wanted to see. (E. Poretsky, Our Own People, London 1969, pp. 244–5)

She continued:

Serge published an account of his meeting with me in the hotel in Paris quite different from the one I have given. But Serge was not a professional conspirator, he was essentially a writer. ‘Poets and novelists are not political beings’, he himself wrote, ‘because they are not essentially rational … The artist … is always delving for his raw material in the subconscious … If the novelist’s characters are truly alive … they might eventually take their author by surprise.’ This insight no doubt accounts for his version of events. (Poretsky, p. 246, citing V. Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, London 1963, p. 265)

In view of the fact that this Etienne, so recklessly introduced by Serge to Poretsky and her whereabouts, was a Stalinist agent connected with the murder of her husband and an attempt to kill her and her child with a box of poisoned chocolates, her conclusion as to Serge’s character is … restrained!

 

***Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Doo Wop Night- When Lady Jack Doo Wopped

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Sure everybody who counted in the 1950s red scare cold war night, meaning if you must know, teen-agers, sullen downcast corner boy teenagers just waiting for something to break open and let them breathe a little or even over-the-top yah-yah teens with plenty of spending money and nothing to spend it on flipped out when one Frankie Lymon blew a doo wop fresh breeze over the land. The land that counted, the teen-age land. Oh sure Elvis got all the young girls and their older sisters all wet and slinky, Bo Diddley worked his ass off sweating up the rock in rock ‘n’ roll and Mister Chuck Berry was letting everybody know (and you know by now who everybody was) that Mister Beethoven's time had passed. But a lot of that was over the heads of kids, projects kids, who did not have dough for musical instruments. So when Frankie and his cohorts blew into town with, really, nothing but voices and harmonics to wow the girls we were in very heaven. Not the least impressed and inspired was corner boy Jack Fitzgerald. Lady Jack, who got a strange new lease on life, got long gone daddy daddy bopped in that fetid red scare cold war 1950s night when that fresh breeze hit town. Let me tell you.                

**********

Jack Fitzgerald thought about it for a while, a long while, before he approached the other guys, the other corner boy guys, junior varsity division, but not in that division when it came to singing, singing harmonic rock stuff, yes, doo wop stuff. They were ready to turn big time, well, local big time anyway. And here is where Jack’s thinking was headed, but wait a minute, maybe some things should be mentioned first. Well, first when the word corner boy comes on the horizon most people think about young male teenage boys, white or black, hell, Hispanic too if you lived in the cities, the big melting-pot cities not cities like Clintondale, a strictly white-bread city, mainly Irish like Jack, with a mix of Italians, or as Lenny, Lenny Smith, one of Jack’s corner boys liked to say Eye-talians. All very much Catholic, very high-roller Roman Catholic, not those off-shoot Orthodox guys who split early on from the real church and got crazy with their ritual stuff. Maybe a few protestant white-breads too left over from the days when Clintondale produced presidents, ran revolutions, and caused holy hell for old mother, England.

But whatever the ethnic identity code, teenage boys clad in white tee-shirts (no vee-necks need apply those are for old grandpa guys, old grandpa railroad guys maybe), blue jeans, work boots, but they better be black engineer boots, with buckles, at least they had better be if you want to be a corner boy in Clintondale, and yes, hanging watch fob chain (no, not to tell the time, what is time to a corner boy, but just in case, just in case something comes up and a chain could come in very handy) and yes, for those who could afford such things (or had the guts to “clip” them), a tight waist-sized leather jacket, black, against the New England colds, and the offshore winds that blew up, blew up out of nowhere. And Jack, Lenny and Jack’s other corner boys, Benny, Bobby, Billly, Sean, and Larry were, like Jack thought, junior varsity division copies, minus the singing, of that Clintondale corner boy world.

Oh yah, except they, Jack’s they, didn’t have a corner. See, there was no mom and pop variety store, no bowl-a-whirl bowling alley, no Bop’s pool hall, no Bijou movie house, no Doc’s drugstore; you name it no, in all of the Acre section of Clintondale. So boys, corner boys or not, being inventive, or trying to be “squatted’, squatted out in the back section, the section down by the old-time sailors’ graveyard, of the old Clintondale North Elementary School where they had all just graduated from the sixth grade (called locally, in the neighborhood, the Acre school and everybody knew what school you were talking about). And nobody, no Jimmy’s Smith’s corner boys (Lenny’s older brother), no Acre Low-Riders, the motorcycle-riding corner boys, better come near, or else. Yes, or else, although Jack sometimes worked up a sweat thinking what kind of hell would occur if those older guys decided they wanted to stake a claim to that back section. And definitely no girls, no stick girls, no stick twelve-year old girls unless of course, Jack and The Guys (the name of their budding doo wop group, junior division looking to go big time if you didn’t know) were harmonizing and the girls, the shy and bossy alike, started coming around like lemmings from the sea when the boys started their thing. And that was where the problem was.

No, not what you’d think, as Jack continued thinking about his dilemma. Girls were starting to be okay, very okay, mostly, even when the boys were not doo wopping, if you could believe that, because in fifth grade, just a year ago, generic girls were barred, barred no questions asked, from hell’s little back acre. No, what was on Jack’s mind was break-out. Breaking out of the Acre. And even twelve-year old Jack, twelve-year old corner boy Jack, knew that the only way he, and Lenny and the others, were going to break out was by riding the doo wop wave.

The only ways that he could see to ride that wave, was one, by getting a girl singer to give a better balance to the now getting too harsh voice-changing age harmonics. But a girl, one girl, meant trouble and Jack knew deep in his young bones that there would be trouble because the only one who qualified, voice-qualified, looks-qualified, and well, just wanted-her-around qualified, was Lonnie Callahan, Sean’s year older sister. But a bunch of boys, corner boys and one looker spelled trouble, watch-fob chain trouble.

And two, maybe worst trouble, the guys needed an original song, and just then an original song with a girl’s name in it like that longing for Deserie stuff by the Charts, My Juanita by the Crests, Aurelia by the Pelicans, Marlena by the Concords, Linda by the Empires, and Barbara by the the Temptations or some other good girl name song that girls couldn’t get enough of and were buying doo wop 45s of like crazy. See all the names Jack and the Guys thought of were girls who they were, individually, looking to make points with and so some girls were going to get the short end of the stick. And short end of the stick meant they would not be coming like lemmings to the sea to listen to Jack and The Guys do doo wop in the Acre be-bop night. So you can see Jack’s problem. Good luck brother because the road to perdition awaits.  

 

***Johnny Prescott’s Itch- With Kudos To Mister Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

You know, well you know if you were present at the creation meaning that you were part of the Generation of ’68 first kissed by the effect, that the fresh brisk breeze of rock and roll that flooded this sullen 1950s red scare cold war land knocked kids then over for a loop. Those who had been brain-deadened by their parents’ 1940s Bing/Frank/Inkspots/Andrews Sisters and their et.al on the family radio front and center in the living room came to life. Those who had thought that doing John Philip Sousa martial music was the cat’s meow flipped out. Sedate and proper Beethoven freaks were told by, and obeyed, Mister Chuck Berry to tell their mentor to move over and turned in their tubas for guitars. Even cool breeze be-bop jazz aficionados like Johnny Prescott got twisted and turned around as the “devil’s music came abounding down the teenage road. Here’s Johnny’s “conversion” which has all the elements of a second coming great awakening revival burning over the land.         

********

 

He had the itch. John Prescott had the itch and he had it bad, especially since his eyes flamed up consumed with hell-bend flames when he saw Elvis performing live on the Ed Sullivan Show one Sunday night. He double-flipped when he heard an underground recording of Elvis doing the original, the orginal man, One Night Of Sin that had been transmogrified in One Night With You by the parent/headmaster/cop/record company cabal. He had it so bad that he had missed, unbeknownst to his parents who would have been crestfallen and, perhaps, enraged if they had known, his last few piano lessons.

Sure, he had covered his butt by having big sweet boy saxophonist Sid Stein, rat-tit-tat drummer Eddie Shore, and sublime bass player Kenny Jackson from his improvisational school jazz combo, The G-Clefs (yah, a well-thought out name for a musical group) come by his house to pick him up. While standing at the Prescott door parents and sidemen went through the “well aren’t things looking up for you boys,” and “they seem to be” scene without missing a beat. But as soon as Kenny’s 1954 Nash Rambler turned the corner of Walnut Street Johnny was a long-gone daddy, real long-gone. And where he was long-gone but not forlorn to was Sally Ann’s Music Shop over on the far end of West Main Street. Now the beauty of Sally Ann’s was that it was, well, Sally Ann’s, a small shop that was well off the main drag, and therefore no a likely place where any snooping eyes, ears or voices that would report to said staid Prescott parents when Johnny went in or out of the place.

 Everyone, moreover, knew Sally Ann’s was nothing but a run-down, past its prime place stocking obscure Charley Patton, Skip James and Son House blues stuff, gave Big Joe Turner, Ike Turner, and Elmore James space and even stocked, you know, mountain music, the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers whoever they were. If you really wanted all the best 45s, and musical instrument stuff then every self-respecting teenager hit the tracks for Benny’s Music Emporium right downtown and only about a quick five-minute walk from North Clintondale High where Johnny and the combo served their high school time, impatiently served their high school time.

Now while everybody respected old Sally Ann’s musical instincts (she was the queen of the jitterbug night in the 1940s, had been on top of the be-bop jazz scene with Charley, Dizzy and the guys early on, guys whom the G-Clefs covered, covered like crazy, and nixed, nixed big time that whole Patti Page, Teresa Brewer weepy, sad song thing in the early 1950s) she was passé, old hat when it came to the cool blues coming out of Chicago, and the be-bop doo wop that kids, white kids, because there were no known blacks, or spanish, chinese, armenians, or whatever, in dear old Clintondale were crazy for ever since Frankie Lyman and his back-up guys tore up the scene with Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

But her greatest sin, although up until a few weeks ago Johnny would have been agnostic on that sin part, was that she was behind, way behind the curve, on the rock ‘n’ rock good night wave coming though and splashing over everybody, including deep jazz man, Johnny Prescott. But Sally Ann had, aside from that secluded locale and a tell-no-tales-attitude, something Johnny could use. She had a primo Les Paul Fender-bender guitar in stock just like the one Gene Vincent used that she was willing to let clandestine Johnny play when he came by. And she had something else Johnny could use, or maybe better Sally Ann could use. She had an A-Number One ear for guys who knew how to make music, any kind of music and had the bead on Johnny, no question. See Sally Ann was looking for one more glory flame, one more Clintondale shine moment, and who knows maybe she believed she could work some Colonel Parker magic and so Johnny Prescott was king of the Sally Ann day.

King, that is, until James and Martha Prescott spotted the other G-Clefs (Kenny, Sid, Eddie) coming out of the Dean Music School minus Johnny, minus a “don’t know where he is, sir,” Johnny. And Mr. Dean, Johnny’s piano instructor, was clueless as well, believing Johnny’s telephone story about having to work for the past few weeks and so lessons were to be held in abeyance. Something was definitely wrong if Mr. Dean, who was the man more than anyone else who recognized Johnny’s raw musical talent in about the third grade had lost Johnny's confidence.

But the Prescotts got wise in a hurry because flutist Mary Jane Galvin, coming out the school just then and overhearing the commotion about Johnny’s whereabouts, decided to get even with one John Prescott by, let’s call a thing by its right name, snitching on him and disclosed that she had seen him earlier in the day when she walked into Sally Ann’s looking for an old Benny Goodman record that featured Peggy Lee and which Benny’s Emporium, crazed rock ‘n’ rock hub Benny’s would not dream of carrying, or even have space for.

The details of the actual physical confrontation with Johnny by his parents (with Mr. Dean in tow) are not very relevant to our little story. What is necessary to detail is the shock and chagrin that James and Martha exhibited on hearing of Johnny’s itch, his itch to be the be-bop, long-gone daddy of the rock ‘n’ roll night. Christ, Mr. Dean almost had a heart attack on the spot when he heard that Johnny had, and we will quote here, “lowered himself to play such nonsense,” and gone over to the enemy of music.

As mentioned earlier Mr. Dean, before he opened his music school, had been the roving music teacher for the Clintondale elementary school sand had spotted Johnny’s natural feel for music early on. He also knew, knew somewhere is his sacred musical bones, that Johnny’s talents, his care-free piano talents in particular, could not be harnessed to classical programs, the Bachs, Beethoven, and Brahms stuff, so that he encouraged Johnny to work his magic through be-bop jazz then in high fashion, and with a long pedigree in American musical life. When he approached the Prescotts about coordinating efforts to drive Johnny’s talents by lessons his big pitch had been that his jazz ear would assure him of steady work when he came of age, came of age in the mid-1950s.

This last point should not be underestimated in winning the Prescotts over. James worked, when there was work, as welder, over at the shipyards in Adamsville, and Martha previously solely a housewife, in order to pay for those lessons (and be a good and caring mother to boot) had taken on a job filling jelly donuts (and other donut stuff) at one of the first of the Dandy Donuts shops that were spreading over the greater Clintondale area.

Christ, filling donuts. No wonder they were chagrined, or worst.

Previously both parents were proud, proud as peacocks, when Johnny really did show that promise that Mr. Dean saw early on. Especially when Johnny would inevitably be called to lead any musical assemblage at school, and later when, at Mr. Dean’s urging, he formed the G-Clef and began to make small amounts of money at parties and other functions. Rock ‘n’ rock did not fit in, fit in at all in that Prescott world. Then damn Elvis came into view and corrupted Johnny’s morals, or something like that. Shouldn’t the authorities do something about it?

Johnny and his parents worked out a truce, well kind of a truce, kind of a truce for a while. And that kind of a “truce for a while” is where old Sally Ann entered the sketch again. See, Johnny had so much raw rock talent that she persuaded him to have his boys (yes, Kenny, Sid and Eddy in case you forgot) come by and accompany him on some rock stuff. And because Johnny (not Sally Ann, old Aunt Sally by then) was loved, loved in the musical sense if not in the human affection sense by the other boys they followed along. Truth to tell they were getting the itch too, a little.

That little itch turned into a very big itch indeed when at that very same dime-dropper, Mary Jane Galvin’s sweet sixteen party concert (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), the G-Clefs finished one of their covers, Dizzy’s Salt Peanuts with some rock riffs. The kids started to get up, started dancing in front of their seats to the shock of the parents and Mary Jane (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), including the senior Prescotts, were crazy for the music. And Johnny’s fellow G-Clefs noticed, noticed very quickly that all kinds of foxy frails (girls, okay), girls who had previously spent much time ignoring their existences, came up all dream-eyed and asked them, well, asked them stuff, boy-girl stuff.

Oh, the Sally Ann part, the real Sally Ann part not just the idea of putting the rock band together. Well, she talked her talk to the headmaster over at North Clintondale High (an old classmate, Clintondale Class of 1925, and flame from what the boys later heard) and got the boys a paying gig at the upcoming school Spring Frolics. And the money was more than the G-Clefs, the avant guarde G-Clefs made in a month of jazz club appearances, to speak nothing of girls attached. So now the senior Prescotts are happy, well as happy as parents can be over rock ‘n’ roll. And from what I heard Johnny and the Rocking Ramrods are going, courtesy of Aunt Sally, naturally, to be playing at the Gloversville Fair this summer. Be-bop-a-Lula indeed.

 

The Struggle Continues... The Zumwalt destroyer was "christened" today at Bath Ironworks. Over 100 people protested the event. Here are there reasons why! [imho, opportunity lost; imagine the possibilities for civil disobedience; imagine what good you could do the $4 billion; fwiw, video published by Regis Tremblay, director of Ghosts of Jeju] "what's taking place today, with the launching of this ship, is something quite terrible. This is a ship that's designed to ultimately kill a lot of people, to participate in a war that could become a nuclear war ... the united states is basically insisting that we should be the power, we should be the rulers" ~Joe Gerson, AFSC

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In Cambridge- FRI 4/18, 5 PM, DEFEND JOHANY PILAR! PICKET PLUS PHONE & EMAIL ZAP

Occupy Boston Announcement

Dear All, HUCTW* member & activist Johany Pilar sued Harvard for sexual harassment, gender bias and retaliation when she was repeatedly grabbed by a co-worker and disciplined for reporting it. She was promoted 3 salary grades, and the discipline was rescinded, after a campaign which featured picketingand public pressure . Recently HUMS** managers have renewed their retaliation against Johany, yelling at her that she is a "trouble-maker," physically holding the door to prevent her from leaving a closed room, and hassling her about doctors' appointments. Let's stand up for Johany! Supporters will gather in front of the Smith Campus Center (formerly Holyoke Ctr) at 1350 Mass. Ave. Cambridge(very close to the Harvard Square Red Line MBTA stop and next to Au Bon Pain), starting at 5 pm, this Friday, 4/18. You're invited to join us! The Facebook event is here . Please phone and email Harvard's Director of Labor and Employee Relations, William Murphy, at (617) 496-9193, bill_murphy@harvard.edu. Suggested message: "It is reprehensible that HUMS management continues to harass HUCTW member Johany Pilar. I demand you use your influence to arrange a transfer for Johany into an at least comparable position. End the culture of victim-blaming and retaliation at Harvard!" In Solidarity, Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW Delegate, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) *Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers / AFSCME Local 3650 **Harvard University Mail Services

Dear All,

HUCTW* member & activist Johany Pilar sued Harvard for sexual harassment, gender bias and retaliation when she was repeatedly grabbed by a co-worker and disciplined for reporting it. She was promoted 3 salary grades, and the discipline was rescinded, after a campaign which featured picketing and public pressure. Recently HUMS** managers have renewed their retaliation against Johany, yelling at her that she is a "trouble-maker," physically holding the door to prevent her from leaving a closed room, and hassling her about doctors' appointments. Let's stand up for Johany!

Supporters will gather in front of the Smith Campus Center (formerly Holyoke Ctr) at 1350 Mass. Ave. Cambridge (very close to the Harvard Square Red Line MBTA stop and next to Au Bon Pain), starting at 5 pm, this Friday, 4/18. You're invited to join us! The Facebook event is here.

Please phone and email Harvard's Director of Labor and Employee Relations, William Murphy, at (617) 496-9193, bill_murphy@harvard.edu. Suggested message: "It is reprehensible that HUMS management continues to harass HUCTW member Johany Pilar. I demand you use your influence to arrange a transfer for Johany into an at least comparable position. End the culture of victim-blaming and retaliation at Harvard!"

In Solidarity,

Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW

Delegate, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

*Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers / AFSCME Local 3650

**Harvard University Mail Services

Pivoting for Peace in Asia/Pacific

CHALLENGING US MILITARISM AND CORPORATE DOMINANCE

KEYNOTE ADDRESS Hideki Yoshikawa, environmental campaigner; leader of the Okinawa movement against U.S. military bases; professor at Univ. of the Ryukyus and at Meio Univ. SPEAKERS  The Pivot: Motivations, Dimensions, Impacts, Possible Consequences Joseph Gerson, AFSC: Overview Duncan McFarland, UJP: Chinese foreign & military policies Alex Brown, Pres., IUE-CWA Local 201: Trans Pacific Partnership   Introductions: The Most Dangerous Hot Spots Hyun Lee, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development: Northeast Asia Yuichi Moroi, Temple University: Senkaku/Diaoyu; Japan-China-US Impacts of the Pivot at Home: Building a Movement Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space: Solidarity Mike Prokosch, New Priorities Network, Dorchester People for Peace: Move the Money, Costs of the Pivot Speaker from Asian American Resource Workshop: The View from Asian American Communities

Saturday, April 19, 2014, 9:30 am to 5:00 pm

Cambridge Friends Meeting • 5 Longfellow Park, off Brattle St., Cambridge • Harvard T 

Amidst the crisis over Ukraine, President Obama is returning to Asia and the Pacific in April to press a military, economic and diplomatic “Pivot” to Asia and the Pacific. The goal: to “manage China’s rise” in ways that ensure continued U.S. dominance. 60% of the Air Force and 60% of the Navy are being deployed to the region. Military alliances are being deepened, new military bases built, and hundreds of billions of dollars diverted to deploy dangerous advanced weaponry. And the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is being negotiated in secret.

Though most Americans don’t realize it, we’ve come to the brink of war – potentially nuclear war – twice in the last two years, first during tensions with North Korea and then over the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands. Our hundreds of military bases have devastating impacts on people in “host” communities. And TPP will cost us jobs, worsen working conditions and assault the environment, all to increase U.S. economic leverage over China and further maximize corporate profits and power.

This one day conference will bring us to date on what is happening in Asia/ Pacific, how it will affect us here at home, and what we can do. Join us as we build our ability to pivot for peace, instead of for war.

Sponsored by American Friends Service Committee, Massachusetts Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace, Asian American Resource Workshop, and MoveOn.org Boston Council

Registration $10; with lunch $20.  Donations to the event beyond the cost of registration and lunch are tax-deductible. They are needed to meet the travel costs for our speakers.

Register: http://pivoting-for-peace.bpt.me or call 800-838-3006

Info: JSherysr@afsc.org   phone: (617) 661-6130

Schedule: masspeaceaction.org/4978

Download the Flyer

United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice. Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org	617-383-4857	www.justicewithpeace.org

Upcoming Events: 

Pivoting for Peace in Asia/Pacific	Sat Apr 19	9:30am	Cambridge Friends Meeting	Cambridge
Jobs Not Jails Rally on Boston Common!	Sat Apr 26	12:00pm	Boston Common	Boston
Stephen Walt: Taking On the Israel Lobby: Opportunities and Obstacles	Wed May 7	7:00pm	Cambridge Friends Meeting	Cambridge
Music for Peace: Johannes Brahms Birthday Concert	Sat May 10	7:30pm	Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church	Cambridge
Sing-Along to Pete Seeger Songs	Sat May 24	7:00pm	Calvary United Methodist Church	Arlington

More Peace and Justice Events.    How to Submit Events
 

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Anti-war activist proudly pleads guilty to ‘disturbing’ U.S. war criminal General Petraeus

By Tom Burke | 

April 16, 2014

Read more articles in Antiwar Movement

Grand Rapids, MI - Anti-war activist Deb Van Poolen appeared in the 61st District Court here, April 15, with a group of supporters. Van Poolen pled guilty to the charge of creating a disturbance on Jan. 31 at the DeVos Place Convention Center.

With great interest, Judge Kim Schaefer asked the defendant if she had created a disturbance that day. Van Poolen proudly said, “Yes, I stood up and spoke in front of several hundred people, and I said, ‘General David Petraeus you are a war criminal responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children. I am a graduate of Calvin College and a follower of Jesus Christ and I am here to speak out.’”

Judge Schaefer interrupted and asked what the effect was. Van Poolen responded, “Petraeus stopped speaking and then two men brought me outside.”

Next Van Poolen’s lawyer David LeGrande spoke in her defense, saying, “It was an intentional act of civil disobedience. The tradition sees it as appropriate to break laws and deal with the consequences…to right injustice.” Defense attorney LeGrande continued, “She performed a public service by challenging militarism and the often unchallenged acts of aggression by the U.S. She is a full-time ideologue and I mean that in the best sense of the word. She has the support of local activists in court today and the support of communities in other parts of our country and the world.”

Judge Schaefer, appreciating this exceptional plea in her court. asked if Van Poolen had any final comments.

Van Poolen responded, “I was practicing free speech in a non-violent way. I did so with the sincere belief that, to call attention to the outrageous and immoral acts of U.S. leaders, civil disobedience is required. I hope my actions followed in the footsteps of other great and inspiring leaders.”

Van Poolen is required to pay $160 in restitution as requested by the prosecution and about $300 in court costs and fees for a total near $460. She plans to enter a work program with other low-income women doing physical labor to pay off their debts to the justice system. Anti-war activists in Grand Rapids are also raising funds in solidarity with her bold action.

From Deb: 

1. Because I will only work off $120 of the total fees, I am hoping to raise the remaining $340 from supporters.  I am very grateful that several people have donated already, covering earlier costs.  Other associated expenses include my travel costs of returning to Grand Rapids for this court appearance.  If you are interested financially supporting this action, please send a check to the following address (along with an email to tell me to look for your envelope):  

Deb Van Poolen

c/o Johanna Sizick

Free Chelsea Manning Now!

Together we'll demand accountability and justice Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Call the White House now: 202-456-1111 Call today and urge President Obama to pardon Chelsea Manning! Monday, April 14th, the office of court martial Convening Authority Major General Buchanan publicly rejected Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning's request for clemency. The military has again trampled on civil liberties by providing no accountability for Chelsea's illegal pretrial punishment, lengthy pretrial confinement or undue command influence. Outrageously, the White House has claimed it won't even respond to Chelsea's request for presidential clemency until after legal appeals are exhausted. We need your help to show President Obama this cowardly stalling tactic won't be tolerated. Call the White House today, and demand that President Obama respond to Chelsea's pardon request before he's out of office! Call the White House now: 202-456-1111 Alternative number: 202-456-1414 Tell President Obama: Chelsea Manning's 35-year sentence is an injustice. She's a patriot, and she deserves to have her pardon request granted immediately! In Chelsea's letter to President Obama she wrote: "The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in... We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others."  Chelsea Manning was 22 years old when she was arrested, and has spent the past four years in prison. She doesn't deserve to spend the next 30 years behind bars. Her sentence makes a mockery of American justice. President Obama's White House website states: "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." President Obama's promises of a transparent government ring hollow when Chelsea Manning has received the longest sentence ever given for sharing information about government actions with the public. Call today and demand she be set free! Call the White House now: 202-456-1111 Alternative number: 202-456-1414 Tell President Obama: Chelsea Manning's 35-year sentence is an injustice. She's a patriot, and she deserves to have her pardon request granted immediately! Will you help us fight this injustice?

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