***Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Warren Smith’s “Rock And Roll Ruby”

 

A YouTube film clip of Warren Smith performing his classic rockabilly song, Rock 'N' Roll Ruby.

WARREN SMITH ROCK´N´ ROLL RUBY LYRICS

Well I took my Ruby jukin'

On the out-skirts of town

She took her high heels off

And rolled her stockings down

She put a quarter in the jukebox

To get a little beat

Everybody started watchin'

All the rhythm in her feet

She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock

And when she started rockin'

She just couldn't stop

She rocked on the tables

And rolled on the floor

And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!"

She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

It was 'round about four

I thought she would stop

She looked at me and then

She looked at the clock

She said: "Wait a minute Daddy

Now don't get sour

All I want to do

Is rock a little bit more"

She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

One night my Ruby left me all alone

I tried to contact her on the telephone

I finally found her about twelve o'clock

She said: "Leave me alone Daddy

'cause your Ruby wants to rock"

She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

Rock, rock, rock'n'roll

When Ruby starts a-rockin'

Boy it satisfies my soul

*****

Nobody had seen Billy (William James Bradley for those who are sticklers for detail) for a while, a few months anyway. I had drifted away from his circle, his corner boy circle, when my family moved across town to the other side of Adamsville, North Adamsville a couple of years before. And when Billy got into some stuff, some larceny stuff, mainly clipping things and stealing cars if you must know, and when I decided, decided almost at the last minute, that I wanted no part of that scene that pretty much ended it. I still kept in touch with him for about a year or so after and then when he got into his new “jag”, robbing stores and the like, through keeping in touch others. Rumor had it, and it was always rumor with Billy whether he was right in the room or got his fate reported by one of his boys, one of his legend-producing boys definitely including me at one time, that he was shacked up with some “broad.” I admit I did my fair share to build up the Billy legend but that’s all, he just naturally filled in the empty spaces, empty spaces that he hated, and that characteristic goes a long way in telling why we hadn’t heard from him for a while except through that rumor mill.

The rumor mill also had it, to fill in the particulars, that Billy had stolen some car, a classic hopped-up 1949 Nash owned by a tough guy, real tough guy, named “Blindside” Buckley (that moniker tells you all you need to know so just keep clear of him, or his progeny alright) or something like that, or maybe it was that he had stolen one car, abandoned it, and had stolen another. Either way sounds about right. Stole the cars and was holed up somewhere with a honey, Lucy (description to follow), that he had met down at the Sea and Surf teen nightclub across from the Paragon Park Amusement Park in Nantasket, a few miles outside of the town limits of Adamsville. Now this honey, this Lucy honey, was a little older than Billy but, and like I say this is rumor, she jumped on him from minute one when he walked in the door, leaving the guy she was with looking kind of stupid. And in the scheme of things, in the great Mandela, probably prepared to commit mayhem.

Billy, no question was a good-looking guy, was a real good dancer and, best of all, he had a great voice, a great rock and roll voice, that fit nicely, very nicely into the music that we were all listening to, listening to like crazy, on our little transistor radios. So maybe, for all I know, she had heard Billy sing, sing at one of the two billion talents shows that he was always entering in order, as he constantly said, to win his fame and fortune. Like I said he was good, good at covering Top Forty stuff, but just short, just short, I guess, of making that “projects” jail break-out move that he was always confident would occur once the talent guys heard him, really heard.

And this honey, this red-headed, luscious red-lipped honey was, reportedly, just the exact kind of honey that Billy dreamed of grabbing for his own. Great shape (great shape then meaning all fill-out curves and leggy legs, or something like that), great boffo hair (dark red, an obviously Irish girl), kittenly sexy, and most importantly ready to go all night whether dancing, doing this and that (figure it out), or helping plan some caper. Just the kind of girl the priests and parents were always warning us against but we still secretly dreamed of, dreamed of hard. Yah, just Billy’s action, just his catnip. And so when I first heard that rumor, that Billy holed up rumor, I said yah, that seemed about right.

See Billy one night, one twelve-year old summer night, down in back of old Adamsville South Elementary School where we used to hang out because that was the only real hang-out place around, and talk, talk of futures, talk of dreams just like everybody else, every twelve-year old everybody else Billy kind of laid the whole thing out for us. He was going to parlay his singing voice, his rock and roll singing voice, into fame and fortune and when his ship came in he was going to search for his rock and roll soul-mate. He didn’t put it just this way but the idea was to get the hottest, sexiest, dancingest girl around and sail off into the sunset leaving that dust of the projects behind, way behind.

So it looks like Billie has one part of his dream coming true, although being on the lam, being big time on the lam, from the cops, the owner of that hopped-up classic 1949 Nash, or maybe even that guy left looking stupid, take your choice, wasn’t part of the description back in those twelve- year old summer nights. But being sixteen, being in some dough, and being with the rock and roll queen of the seaside night still seems like a bargain worth having made with whatever devil Billy needed to consult to pull the caper off. Hell, it makes me think that maybe I made a mistake moving away from Billy’s orbit. But just call that a rumor in case any cops are around, alright. Anyway, now that Billy is holed up, any girls who want to dance the night away just call out my name. Hey, I can dream too.

 

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A World to Win: The Revolutionary Ideas of Marxism A public forum hosted by the Boston ISO Tuesday April 22, 3:30 PM UMass Boston - Wheatley Hall 4th Floor Room 141 (CPCS Conference Room) Directions (JFK/UMass stop, take Shuttle #1 to campus) Check out the handy map below. If you get lost, call (617) 506-3762! You can’t keep a good idea down. As much as pundits try to declare Marxism dead, it's coming back again. Why? Because it is the best way to understand the insanity of a world governed by an unrelenting drive to profit, and it is a roadmap to fight for a better world. We know that if we let capitalism run its course, it will lead to ruin. The only alternative is to take back the immense wealth accumulated by a tiny minority at the expense of the majority, and use it to democratically serve human need rather than corporate greed. We call that alternative socialism. Join us for a discussion of the problems we face today and the sort of movement we need to solve them. Featured speaker: Shaun Harkin, an activist in Chicago and frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review Hosted by the International Socialist Organization

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Obama focuses updated Cold War approach on Putin

By Peter Baker

 | New York Times   April 20, 2014

WASHINGTON — Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.

Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state.

Obama has concluded that even if there is a resolution to the current standoff over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he will never have a constructive relationship with Putin, aides said.

As a result, Obama will spend his final 2½ years in office trying to minimize the disruption Putin can cause, preserve whatever marginal cooperation can be saved and otherwise ignore the master of the Kremlin in favor of other foreign policy areas where progress remains possible.

“That is the strategy we ought to be pursuing,” said Ivo H. Daalder, formerly Obama’s ambassador to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “If you just stand there, be confident and raise the cost gradually and increasingly to Russia, that doesn’t solve your Crimea problem and it probably doesn’t solve your eastern Ukraine problem. But it may solve your Russia problem.”

The manifestation of this thinking can be seen in Obama’s pending choice for the next ambassador to Moscow. While not officially final, the White House is preparing to nominate John F. Tefft, a career diplomat who previously served as ambassador to Ukraine, Georgia, and Lithuania.

When the search began months ago, administration officials were leery of sending Tefft because of concern that his experience in former Soviet republics that have flouted Moscow’s influence would irritate Russia. Now, officials said, there is no reluctance to offend the Kremlin.

In effect, Obama is retrofitting for a new age the approach to Moscow that was first set out by the diplomat George F. Kennan in 1947 and that dominated US strategy through the fall of the Soviet Union.

The administration’s priority is to hold together an international consensus against Russia, including even China, its longtime supporter on the UN Security Council.

While Obama’s long-term approach takes shape, though, a quiet debate has roiled his administration over how far to go in the short term.

So far, economic advisers and White House aides urging a measured approach have won out, prevailing upon a cautious president to take one incremental step at a time out of fear of getting too far ahead of skittish Europeans and risking damage to still-fragile economies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The White House has prepared another list of Russian figures and institutions to sanction in the next few days if Moscow does not follow through on an agreement sealed in Geneva on Thursday to defuse the crisis, as Obama aides anticipate. But the president will not extend the punitive measures to whole sectors of the Russian economy, as some administration officials prefer, absent a dramatic escalation.

The more hawkish faction in the US State and Defense departments has grown increasingly frustrated, privately worrying that Obama has come across as weak and unintentionally sent the message that he has written off Crimea after Russia’s annexation.

The prevailing view in the West Wing, though, is that while Putin seems for now to be enjoying the glow of success, he will eventually discover how much economic harm he has brought on his country. Obama’s aides noted the fall of the Russian stock market and the ruble, capital flight from the country and increasing reluctance of foreign investors to expand dealings in Russia.

 

 

***From The Jean Bon Kerouac Beat-John Leland’s Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons Of On The Road

Book Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons Of On The Road (They’re Not What You Think), John Leland, Viking, New York, 2007      

Everybody with any literary skills coupled with some wild-eyed youthful romance vision of the open road, long forgotten and suppressed, scurried like crazy to get something in print for the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s great American novel and classic road travelogue, On The Road, in 2007. While Jack Kerouac was clearly the leader of the pack of 1950s “beat” writers, and is rightly regarded as such by most literary critics and the general reading public still interested in such matters, the areas to be mined in order to say something new about that classic “coming of age” saga has gotten rather barren of late. So John Leland in the book under review, The Lessons Of On The Road, tried a different tact by going to the source as a reference point for an alternative way of living, or looking at living. Whether he was successful in that endeavor is an open question, although no question he provoked a certain amount of thought about the effects the book has had on the several “youth nation” generations since the book was first published in 1957.

For this writer, a member in good standing of the Generation of ’68, the generation after Jack’s “beats,” the import of the book was, despite Kerouac’s vociferous disclaimers to the contrary, as a road map to break out of the stifling bourgeois respectability that our parents, parents bringing up children in the frigid red scare Cold War 1950 night wanted to impose on us. In short, we  were mesmerized (we young men anyway) by the buddy duo of Dean and Sal as they headed out on the open highway, breaking convention, busting out the dope, lusting after women, and getting all naked and funky in the process while being be-bop daddies in the wide open towns of this country, especially  San Francisco. For us that was the great lesson and no more needed to be applied.           

John Leland’s analysis recognizes that aspect of the book but wishes to tell us that we, we of the Generation of ’68, had it all wrong because in many ways, political, social, literary Jack Kerouac was arguing for, searching for a way to deal with traditional values, was not looking to bust out but rather was looking for a home. And Mister Leland proceeds in a couple of hundred pages of analysis to lay out that case. To point out how conventional Sal/Jack and Dean/Neal when the deal went down actually were. Some of the points are certainly of literary interest, for example his sections on the Holy Fools, the goofs, the fellaheen, the search for lost fathers, the breaking out of the nine to five mold with a different work ethic, the effect of be-bop Jazz’s influence, and the deep influence of Jack’s growing up a hard Roman Catholic (Gallic version) on his worldview. Some interesting material to think through here but I keep getting this nagging suspicion that wine, women, song and the open road is what will draw the young (and others) to this book as we wait upon the centennial. Read up, please.       

***Poet's Corner- William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916"

 

 

 

A word on the Easter Uprising

 

In the old Irish working-class neighborhoods where I grew up the aborted Easter Uprising of 1916 was spoken of in mythical hushed reverent tones as the key symbol of the modern Irish liberation struggle from bloody England. The event itself provoked such memories of heroic “boyos”  (and “girlos” not acknowledged) fighting to the end against great odds that a careful analysis of what could, and could not be, learned from the mistakes made at the time entered my head. That was then though in the glare of boyhood infatuations. Now is the time for a more sober assessment.  

The easy part of analyzing the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916 is first and foremost the knowledge, in retrospect, that it was not widely supported by people in Ireland, especially by the “shawlies” in Dublin and the cities who received their sons’ military pay from the Imperial British Army for service in the bloody trenches of Europe which sustained them throughout the war. That factor and the relative ease with which the uprising had been militarily defeated by the British forces send in main force to crush it lead easily to the conclusion that the adventure was doomed to failure. Still easier is to criticize the timing and the strategy and tactics of the planned action and of the various actors, particularly in the leadership’s underestimating the British Empire’s frenzy to crush any opposition to its main task of victory in World War I. (Although, I think that frenzy on Mother England’s part would be a point in the uprising’s favor under the theory that England’s [or fill in the blank of your favorite later national liberation struggle] woes were Ireland’s [or fill in the blank ditto on the your favorite oppressed peoples struggle] opportunities.

The hard part is to draw any positive lessons of that national liberation struggle experience for the future. If nothing else remember this though, and unfortunately the Irish national liberation fighters (and other national liberation fighters later, including later Irish revolutionaries) failed to take this into account in their military calculations, the British (or fill in the blank) were savagely committed to defeating the uprising including burning that colonial country to the ground if need be in order to maintain control. In the final analysis, it was not part of their metropolitan homeland, so the hell with it. Needless to say, cowardly British Labor’s position was almost a carbon copy of His Imperial Majesty’s. Labor Party leader Arthur Henderson could barely contain himself when informed that James Connolly had been executed. That should, even today, make every British militant blush with shame. Unfortunately, the demand for British militants and others today is the same as then if somewhat attenuated- All British Troops Out of Ireland.

In various readings on national liberation struggles I have come across a theory that the Easter Uprising was the first socialist revolution in Europe, predating the Bolshevik Revolution by over a year. Unfortunately, there is little truth to that idea. Of the Uprising’s leaders only James Connolly was devoted to the socialist cause. Moreover, while the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army were prototypical models for urban- led national liberation forces such organizations, as we have witnessed in later history, are not inherently socialistic. The dominant mood among the leadership was in favor of political independence and/or fighting for a return to a separate traditional Irish cultural hegemony. (“Let poets rule the land”).

As outlined in the famous Proclamation of the Republic posted on the General Post Office in Dublin, Easter Monday, 1916 the goal of the leadership appeared to be something on the order of a society like those fought for in the European Revolutions of 1848, a left bourgeois republic. A formation on the order of the Paris Commune of 1871 where the working class momentarily took power or the Soviet Commune of 1917 which lasted for a longer period did not figure in the political calculations at that time. As noted above, James Connolly clearly was skeptical of his erstwhile comrades on the subject of the nature of the future state and apparently was prepared for an ensuing class struggle following the establishment of a republic.

That does not mean that revolutionary socialists could not support such an uprising. On the contrary, Lenin, who was an admirer of Connolly for his anti-war stance in World War I, and Trotsky stoutly defended the uprising against those who derided the Easter rising for involving bourgeois elements. Participation by bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements is in the nature of a national liberation struggle. The key, which must be learned by militants today, is who leads the national liberation struggle and on what program. As both Lenin and Trotsky made clear later in their own experiences in Russia revolutionary socialists have to lead other disaffected elements of society to overthrow the existing order. There is no other way in a heterogeneous class-divided society. Moreover, in Ireland, the anti-imperialist nature of the action against British imperialism during wartime on the socialist principle that the defeat of your own imperialist overlord in war as a way to open the road to the class struggle merited support on that basis alone. Chocky Ar La.

Guest Commentary

This is the 98^th  Anniversary of the Irish Easter Uprising-

BELOW ARE TWO FAMOUS POEMS BY THE ANGLO-IRISH POET WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS-CHOCKY AR LA

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good-will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When, young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our winged horse;

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vainglorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

And a horse plashes within it;

The long-legged moor-hens dive,

And hens to moor-cocks call;

Minute by minute they live:

The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse -

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born. 80

September 25, 1916

 

 

 

Sixteen Dead Men

O but we talked at large before

The sixteen men were shot,

But who can talk of give and take,

What should be and what not

While those dead men are loitering there

To stir the boiling pot?

You say that we should still the land

Till Germany's overcome;

But who is there to argue that

Now Pearse is deaf and dumb?

And is there logic to outweigh

MacDonagh's bony thumb?

How could you dream they'd listen

That have an ear alone

For those new comrades they have found,

Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone,

Or meddle with our give and take

That converse bone to bone?

President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning

Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.

We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.

We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.

Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.

“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”

Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”

Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:

• Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

• Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

• Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

• Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.

Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.

Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but  the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.

Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.

She has been:

• Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.

• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.

• Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.

• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.

Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.

We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.

FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________

STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________

CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________

EMAIL& PHONE _____________________________________________________________

Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org

Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

 

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.