This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Sunday, February 08, 2015
Keeping The Blues/Folk Lamp Burning- Les Sampou's "Lonesomeville"
From The American Left History blog-March 2012 CD Review Lonesomeville, Les Sampou, Flying Fish CD, Rounder Records, 1996 The substance of this review was originally used in the review of Les Sampou’s “Borrowed And Blue” album. I have revised that review and most of the points made apply to the other three CD’s reviewed in this space as well.
The name Les Sampou most recently came up in this space, in passing, as part of a review of blues/folk stylist/ songwriter Rory Block’s work. I made the point there that Rory (and Les, Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and precious few others) were performing a great service by keeping the female blue singer tradition alive (and, for that matter, male-witness the songs covered by all four). Along the way doing the same for the more amorphous contemporary folk tradition with their own fair share of masterful songwriting efforts. Since I placed Les Sampou in such august company it was, thus, only a matter of time before I got around to giving her a few kudos of her own. The following paragraph from the Rory Block review can serve here for Les as well:
“But more than that, thanks for this great album of country blues classics some famous, some a little obscure and known only to serious aficionados but all well worth placing in the album with the quirky little Rory Block treatment that makes many of the songs her own. Oh, did I also mention her virtuoso strong guitar playing. Well, that too. I have gone on and on elsewhere in this space about the old time women blues singers, mostly black, like Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and Ida Cox. I have also spilled some ink on more modern, mainly white, women blues singers like Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and a local talent here in Boston, Les Sampou, and their admirable (and necessary) efforts to carry on this proud tradition. Rory belongs right up there with these women.”
As For “Lonesome” here is the ‘skinny’:
I will make the same point I made in reviewing the “Les Sampou” album because that same spirit pervades this effort. There are a lot of way to be “in” the contemporary folk scene. One way is to write some topical songs of love, longings for love, maybe, a little politics thrown in and maybe some snappy thing about the vacuity of modern life. Yes, that is the easy stuff and Les can, if the occasion calls for it, summon up some very powerful lyrics to make those points. Witness “Holy Land ” and “Home Again”. But, something more is going on here. This is a woman who has been through the emotional wringer, and survived. Listen up.
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Hello Everyone!
What a great month(s) of gigs
coming up! I'm having fun playing solo gigs again, introducing many of the new
songs that will be on my next album due out next fall! Also, teaming up with
Ed Grenga in our Ida Sessions project and recently jamming it up at Passim with
John Graham and Phil Sottile. The audiences (YOU!) have been way
wonderful!
Sunday, February
15, 2015 The Ian Murray Concert Series, Ian Murray Studios 201
Oak Street, Pembroke, MA 02359 339-499-8506 Purchase tickets This is a special opportunity for
photographers and an intimate setting for all music concert lovers. Ian is an
exceptional music photographer and teacher. Many of his students come to the
concert series at his studio and learn to take concert photos. This takes place
during the first set only and is very unobtrusive. Please contact Ian about his
photography lessons and this concert you can reach him at murrayi@comcast.net.
Seating limited to 40.
Please share this email with
your friends who you think would like to attend, and if you have the time,
"LIKE" me on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LesSampouFanPage. It's a great way
to keep in touch, find out news about the new album, etc.
Thank
you!! Les
To
download the Track "I Love You" for free, go to http://lessampou.com/dl and
enter the code 26cm-b0qh
From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future
Logo Of The Communist Youth International
Markin comment on this series:
One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.
More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few. That is beside the question of numbers in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing in between generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help; differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s night of the long knives through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since); differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).
There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available on-line at the press of a button today. When I developed political consciousness very early on in my youth, albeit a liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.
As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.
The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.
Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:
"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."
This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
**********
Third Congress of the Communist International
The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
12 July 1921
1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.
In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.
2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).
In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.
3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.
4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.
The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.
The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.
Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.
The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.
5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.
It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.
The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.
If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.
Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.
Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.
6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.
At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.
7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses.
In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.
8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).
Free Chelsea Manning-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Now!
Film Noir Fans Shed A Tear-1940s Femme Fatale Actress Lizabeth Scott Passes On At 92.... “I didn’t want any part of her, but I kept smelling that jasmine in her hair, and I wanted her in my arms. Yeah. I knew I was walking into something.” Bogie in Dead Reckoning
From The American Left History blog-July 27, 2012 From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Jane Greer Move Over-Lizabeth Scott’s “Too Late For Tears” DVD Review
Too Late For Tears, starring Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, United Artists, 1949 Too late for tears is right, probably too late at about age six for our shoot-‘em-up femme fatale Jane (played her is demonic fashion by usually demure, if always husky-voiced, Lizabeth Scott). They, those tears, got all dried up and shriveled as she furtively pushed her way forward in this wicked old world. And every man in sight had better watch out, and not turn his back. Jane Greer from Out Of The Past had better move over because there is a new sheriff (actually anti-sheriff) who is not to afraid put a slug, or six, in a guy who will not do her bidding, or even think about not doing it. There are two kinds of femme fatales in this wicked old world, those with hearts of gold and those with no hearts. Dear Jan e fits the later in surprising interesting B crime noir under review, Too Late For Tears
Yes, some of the dialogue is a little stiff and the copy I reviewed had some technical glitches in it but this one nevertheless held my attention. Partially because cinematically anyway it is easy to “fall” for a heartless femme, especially when she gets those wheels in her head turning madly for whatever is it is she is after (and gets those guns blaring too). Partially as well because the theme of the film, although greed as a driving force in human history has been done unto death, crime doesn’t pay gets a little different workout here as the plot develops and is resolved.
Divorcee Jane (prior husband committed suicide, prompted or not, by his business failures and therefore no dough status made him bum of the month is dear Jane’s eyes) is married to a regular middle class guy, Alan, (with nice digs in Hollywood, 1940s Hollywood) who she had latched onto to make her fame and fortune (mainly the latter). While convertible cruising the Hollywood hills a passing car dumps a parcel in the backseat (good aim) of their car. Turned out there was some serious dough (serious 1940s dough now strictly coffee and cakes money) stashed there as part of a blackmail payoff. Naturally the money hunger wheels start working in Jane’s head (although not in Alan’s for which he would pay dearly, very dearly). She taunts Alan into keeping it at the bus station for a while, although against his better judgment.
Enter the “owner” of the dough Danny (played by Dan Duryea) who wants it back (naturally). The rest of the plot centers on Jane playing off every man who gets in her way, starting with kindred spirit Danny, as she tries to “con” a con. Hubby Alan is the first by a few off-hand point blank shots from his own gun when he decides to turn the dough in. Later, after hubby’s demise, when Danny now knee –deep as an accomplice to Jane’s madness gets cold feet at murder (murder of a woman in this case, Alan’s sister, who is getting suspicious about missing Alan’s whereabouts) he takes the fall, this time with some untimely poison administered by guess who. And eventually trouper that she is, Jan is getting ready to plug a guy who turned out to be her ex-husband’s brother who is seeking revenge (possibly) for his brother’s death before her own untimely death. Whoa! So guys if some husky-voiced dame, a blonde probably, wants to keep some off-hand dough, let her keep it, and for god’s sake don’t turn your back.
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Lizabeth Scott, Film Noir Siren, Dies at 92
Photo
Ms. Scott with Van Heflin in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946), one of her first films.Credit Paramount Pictures, via Photofest
Lizabeth Scott, a sultry blonde with a come-hither voice cut out for the seething romantic and homicidal passions of her Hollywood film noir roles in the late 1940s and early ’50s, died on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles. She was 92.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center confirmed the death, but did not give a cause.
Ms. Scott was billed as another Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake, and in many of her 22 films she portrayed a good-bad girl with love in her head and larceny in her heart, or vice versa. Her co-stars were Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and other tough gents, and her movies’ titles were lurid stuff: “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” “Dead Reckoning,” “Pitfall,” “Dark City,” “I Walk Alone” and “Bad for Each Other.”
"When you say ambition to me, that’s when you get me started!" Ms. Scott was widely quoted as saying. "My greatest ambition is to be the whoppingest best actress in Hollywood. You can’t blame a girl for trying! I don’t want to be classed as a ‘personality,’ something to stare at. I want to have my talents respected, not only by the public but by myself."
Photo
Lizabeth Scott in 2007, at a Barbara Stanwyck tribute.Credit Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
She had the goods: the luminous eyes and moist lips that belied a heart of stone, the slinky figure, the sculptured cheekbones, the cascading hair and husky voice suitable for torch songs or seductive close-ups. She gave a riveting performance as a killer in “Too Late for Tears” in 1949 and was captivating as Charlton Heston’s singer girlfriend in the revenge thriller “Dark City” in 1950.
By then postwar film noir was losing its appeal, and her last foray into the genre was in “The Racket” (1951), with Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan. Later in the ’50s she drifted into mediocre melodramas and even a western.
Ms. Scott’s heyday lasted barely a decade, and film historians say it never matched the Bacall magic or the Lake sensuality. Her later performances were scorned by many critics, though some said she was thoroughly convincing in unsympathetic roles.
Her film career was further damaged, perhaps fatally, by an innuendo-laced 1954 article in Confidential magazine suggesting that she was a lesbian. The article noted that she had never married, quoted her as saying that she “always wore male colognes, slept in men’s pajamas and positively hated frilly feminine dresses,” and said that she had been “taking up almost exclusively with Hollywood’s weird society of baritone babes.”
Ms. Scott sued for $2.5 million, contending that the magazine had portrayed her in a “vicious, slanderous and indecent” manner. The outcome was never made public, but the suit, filed in 1955, was believed to have been settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The scandal, however, was nearly ruinous. She made two more unremarkable films in the 1950s, then turned to singing, recording for RCA Records.
There were also television appearances, on game shows and occasionally on drama series including “Studio 57,” “The 20th Century Fox Hour,” “Adventures in Paradise” and “The Third Man.” She performed on radio shows like “The Lux Radio Theater,” and even did television voice-overs for juice and cat-food commercials. She appeared in her last film, “Pulp,” with Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney, in 1972.
In her later years, Ms. Scott led a quiet, largely private life. She helped raise funds for museums, art galleries and charities, including hemophilia research and hunger, and turned down many requests for interviews and guest appearances. There were rumors in the 1960s that she might marry Hal B. Wallis, the producer who discovered her, but she remained single.
The film historian Karen Burroughs Hannsberry, in “Femme Noir: Bad Girls of Film” (1998), called Ms. Scott “a unique product of Hollywood’s Golden Age” and “one of film noir’s archetypal femmes.”
She was born Emma Matzo on Sept. 29, 1922, in Scranton, Pa., one of six children of Ukrainian immigrants. She attended Marywood College, but quit to move to New York City. She enrolled at the Alvienne School of Drama, got work in summer stock and modeling and started calling herself Elizabeth Scott. Information on survivors was not immediately available.
In 1942, Ms. Scott was the understudy for Tallulah Bankhead in the Broadway production of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” but had no chance to substitute. When Miriam Hopkins replaced Bankhead in 1943, Ms. Scott returned to modeling. But she was called back to the show to fill in for an ailing Gladys George, who had replaced Hopkins. She won rave reviews, and played the lead in the play’s Boston run.
Mr. Wallis noticed her. Screen tests and a Paramount contract followed. She had already dropped the “E” in her first name — “to be different,” she said. She made her film debut in “You Came Along” (1945), then was cast in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946), with Barbara Stanwyck and Kirk Douglas. Her scenes were limited, but reviewers praised her performance.
Her breakthrough was “Dead Reckoning” (1947), opposite Bogart. In her ensuing mystery-thrillers — “I Walk Alone” and “Pitfall” in 1948, “Too Late for Tears” in 1949, “Paid in Full” in 1950 — she joined the classic pantheon of film noir: beautiful schemers caught in maelstroms of jealousy, greed, betrayal and murder, but irresistible.
Bogart, in “Dead Reckoning,” put it this way:
“I didn’t want any part of her, but I kept smelling that jasmine in her hair, and I wanted her in my arms. Yeah. I knew I was walking into something.”
***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- The Weary Blues
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
February is Black History Month
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway .... He did a lazy sway .... To the tune o' those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man's soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-- "Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quit ma frownin' And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more-- "I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can't be satisfied-- I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died." And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Langston Hughes
…he, black as night, black as forbear Mother Africa could make him come to the slave ship new world all shackled but left alone by master and the overseer still hearing in some womb moment the siren call of some Africa left beat some ancient young prince putting metal to metal or string to string, big, big lungs, born of a thousand crying generations, crying since the fall the banishment of the high white note east of Eden, but only banishment for the fallen sin. He, some young son, hell, maybe grandson, of the president, no not that president, guys like him never mixed the search for the fallen high white note with politics, loose rhetoric, all manic, so much mechanic, the Prez, sainted Lester Young who howled behind the Duke, made Billie all smooth and sentimental without being sappy, yeah, so the lines were there, the bloodlines and the search for the fallen high white note that he heard the prez blow from some mother’s womb. He, showing some schooling like all the new guys do, do so they know what grandpas blew when they blew after hours when the real jam began after the staid white-breads took to their sullen beds thinking they heard the real thing before midnight cabs took them home .
He showed his stuff and stuff school stuff style maybe from Berkeley up in Boston where all the new cats learned to blow, learned to take those big lungs and riff them, learned about the high white note, learned about that sound going back to Mother Africa before the chains. He home now sat on a dead-ass bench on a lonely wind-blown winter corner of 125th Street in high Harlem, Harlem with the ghosts of the Prez, Billie, the Duke, all the royalty just like he never spent day one in school, and blew, blew playful, put some passer-by money in the brother’s basket playful, stop and listen to that brother blast, sweet white notes this way and that on a big sexy sax, tenor sax for the aficionados, against the moving traffic blowing those notes back in his face. And he back to the honking noise, the hustle and the bustle started drawing a foot-sore crowd, a crowd hurrying by but stopped by the play between those big-lunged riffs and the cab cadence. Nice.
He, on 125th Street although truth be told he had never before worked those corners, Grandma said to stay away from the riff-raff reefer rats (her term, he, hell Berkeley-bound, knew those sweet smokes from about fifteen) even though he only lived over in the Bronx, evoking some big joyous immense faded tale remembrance when Duke, yes, that Duke, and all the jazz age cats, big and small, held forth nightly at the old Cotton Club where the Mayfair swells got their high-hats flattened, got their expensive illegal liquor chilled, and their high yella dream nights sated, were chasing that faded high white note, chasing it far into the street.
There on that street-wise corner he, the princeling anointed now paying his dues, his street-wise dues once some professor told him he needed to see if he could out-blow those Harlem cabs, remembered what his father, or maybe it was old grandfather told him about the night Johnny H., yes again, that Johnny blew the high white note, blew it to hell and back, and it never came back in his face, never. Yes, Johnny blew that big sexy sax, all dope high, sister, legal in those days, legal when Mister didn’t know he could make a dollar off of it, rather than let some iffy druggist sell it over the counter, maybe a little reefer to flatten the effect and then he blew, blew that big note on A Train, a high white note that trailed out the club door, headed down to the river, make that the East River for those not familiar with New Jack City, or high Harlem, and hit this guy, this lonely black guy, maybe just up from Mississippi goddam or red tide ‘Bama from his ragged attire and head down demeanor learned, hard-headed learned from Mister James Crow , who started grooving (maybe not using that word, maybe not even knowing that word, proving how raw he was, how new city) on that note, started to patter on that note-be-bop, be-bop, be-bop, be-bop (and this before Dizzy crowned boppy be-bop and Charlie swaggered that big sexy horn).
But that brother, that ebony night brother, just couldn’t quite get the hang of the thing, was wrapped up in some old time no electricity juke joint “blues ain’t nothing but a good woman on your mind,”or “old Mister take your hand off me” delta fade-out.
So that Johnny deflated note floated down to the sea, out to some homeland Africa fate. And that down south brother never did get another chance to grab the high white note, and probably would have just faded away except he had a son, or was it a grandson, who knew how to be-bop beat that drowsy old delta gimme, knew how to curl it around his big lung sexy sax and blow that thing from the East River haunts all the way up to 125thStreet, all the way up to faded Cotton Club Johnny dreams and endless Mayfair swells reeling out the door (with or without their high yellas) early in the harsh Harlem morning. He…
Time for the Global Super Power for Peace and Justice to Rise Again!
V
Take Action on February 15 and
Beyond…
On February 15, 2003, the world said
no to war. Over 20 million people in at least 600 cities around the world took
to the streets to oppose the impending invasion and occupation of Iraq, giving
voice to the sentiment of billions. The New York Times called it the rise of a
new superpower: world public opinion.
War, occupation and austerity have not made the 99% safer. War
benefits the arms makers, military brass, energy cartels, war lords, drug lords
and opportunistic and corrupt politicians everywhere, but leads only to misery,
destruction, dislocation and death for the majority of ordinary
people.
In honor of February 15, 2003 and the Global Superpower
of the people let’s rise againto work together anew to build a sustainable world without racism,
militarism and police brutality that is rooted in true peace with justice,
dignity and respect for all!
February 15th: The
World Says NO to War! We Say YES to Peace with Justice! Consider organizing a rally, march, vigil, speak-out, die-in,
reading of names; leaflet or engage in more creative nonviolent actions at
police stations, military facilities , corporate offices or government buildings
in your community.
March 19th: Commemorate the
12th anniversary of “Shock and Awe” with candlelight
vigils, events and discussions about the cost of war to our families and
communities.
April 15 (Tax Day in the U.S.): This year’s Global day of Action on Military
Spending is April 13. It will be observed in the US on
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“The Next Girl Who Throws Sand In My Face Is…” –With Johnny
Silver’s Sad Be-Bop 1960s Beach Blanket Saga In Mind.
A YouTube film
clip of the Falcons performing You're So Fine.
No question that Jimmy Callahan and his
corner boy comrades, including Sam Lowell, of the old Frankie Riley-led
Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out “up the Downs” (no further explanation is
necessary for any old corner boy who knew pizza parlors were exceptionally good
places to hang your knee against a wall waiting, well just waiting for whatever
might come up for any others it was nearly impossible to be a corner boy if you
did not have a corner and that should be enough on this matter) from the day
high school got out for the summer in the early 1960s drew a bee-line straight
to the old-time Adamsville Beach of blessed memory. One day recently Jimmy had
been thinking back to those times, back a half century at least, as he walked
along the beach at Big Sur and had been telling his girlfriend, Miranda, that
his love affair with the sea started almost from the day he was born near that
beach, a beach that still held his sway although he had seen, and was seeing
right there with her better beaches since then. (As far as that girlfriend
designation goes with Miranda Jimmy always wondered what the heck do you call
somebody whom you are not married to but are intimate with who is along with
you pushing the wrong side of sixty, so Jimmy’s simple girlfriend it is until
somebody comes up with something better that “significant other,” what the hell
does that mean, “consort,” like he/they were royalty or something or “partner,”
like you were ready for incorporation rather than romance.)
The old Adamsville beach with its
marshlands anchoring each end, its stone-laden sands uncomfortable to sit on,
its rendezvous teen meet-up yacht clubs, its well-sat upon seawalls, and its
thousand and one night stories of late night trysts in fugitive automobiles and
while on skimpy beach blankets, its smoldering fried clams at the Clam Shack
fit for a king or queen, its Howard Johnson’s many-flavored ice creams still
held memories wherever he was in later life.
Although from what Red Rowley, an old
corner boy comrade, had told Jimmy a while back when they had touched base for
a minute in Sweeney’s Funeral Parlor over in landlocked Clintondale a couple of
towns away after the death of a Jimmy family member the old beach had seen
serious erosion, serious stinks and serious decay of the already in their day
ancient seawalls and no longer held the fancy of the young who back in the day wanted
to go parking there at night to “watch the submarine races.” (For the clueless
that is an old local custom gag because looking for midnight submarines off
shore was not what was going on in the back seat of some Wally’s car.) Also the
beach no longer served as a coming of age spot for winter-weary guys watching
winter-weary well-tanned girls in skimpy bikinis between the yacht clubs hot
spot for such activity. In fact Red said that last time he checked on a hot
July summer’s day at high noon nobody, young or old, was in that sacred spot.
Red Rowley who was the youngest boy in
the Rowley household and who had been afraid of girls, not closet gay or gay afraid,
but just afraid of girls and their ways had like a lot of Irish guys who took
their stern religious upbringing too seriously never married and had stayed in
town the whole time, stayed in the same house, and once his mother’s health
declined after his father died never thought to leave. So Red could, as an old
fixture like the street lights, see what changes had occurred around town. And
he would ask young people, some of who were interested in talking to him, what
they were up to, what they knew about the old time customs of the high school
and of the town.
Hell, Red said, the young guys in the
neighborhood didn’t know what he was talking about when he mentioned “watching
the submarine races,” that old code word for getting in the back seat of an
automobile (or if car-less and desperate on a skimpy beach blanket against that
stony sand) with a girl and seeing what was what, coming up for air to check
for any midnight submarine sightings. One guy even asked how one could see a
submarine at night if one was in the neighborhood of the beach. Jesus. Also
they, and here Red meant both sexes, had no idea on this good green earth that
those now old tumble-down yacht clubs in dire need of serious paint jobs after
the slamming of the seas and the furious winds had done their work had been the
site of many a daytime planning for the night heat sessions. Were clueless that
guys would ogle girls there, thought it kind of, what did one of them, one of
the girls, call it, yeah, sexist. Jesus doubled.
Red, by the way, was one of those
ancient Irish Catholic corner boys who had stayed in town to help mother in
order to have clean socks and regular six o’clock suppers without the bother of
matrimony but also like Jimmy, hell, like Sam Lowell and every guy who breathed
their first breaths off an off-hand sea breeze, also stayed to be near the
ocean too. But Red had mainly watched the town change from an old way station
for the Irish and Italians to the South Shore upward mobile digs further south to
a “stay put” moving from the big city immigrant community which he was not
particularly happy about since he could not speak any of the new languages
(frankly in high school he had serious trouble with the English language) or
understand the cultural differences when they, the collective mix of immigrants
none from European homelands, did not bend at the knees in homage on Saint
Patrick’s Day. But Red’s trouble with the new world of America (not really so
new since these shores since the sixteen hundreds had seen wave after wave of
immigrants just back then they had been from Europe, or had been Africa branded),
or the real condition of Adamsville Beach was not what had exercised Jimmy on
that trip to Big Sur with Miranda but about the old beach days, the now
fantastic beach days.
Jimmy had chuckled to himself when he told
Miranda- “Did we go to said beach to be “one” with our homeland, the sea? You
know to connect with old King Neptune, our father, the father that we did not
know, who would work his mysterious furies in good times and bad. Or to connect
as one with denizens of the deep, fishes, whales, plankton, stuff like that.
No.” Then he went down the litany of other possible motives just as a little
good-humored exercise. “Did we go to admire the boats and other things floating
by? The fleet of small sailboats that dotted the horizon in the seemingly
never-ending tacking to the wind or the fewer big boats, big ocean-worthy boats
that took their passenger far out to sea, maybe to search for whales or other
sea creatures? No.” “Did we go to get a little breeze across our sun-burned and
battered bodies on a hot and sultry August summer day?” Jimmy, a blushed red
lobster in short sunlight who was sensitive about that red skin business
declared a loud “No,” although Red, Frankie, Peter, and Josh, his other comrade
corner boys less sensitive to the sun would have answered, well, maybe a
little.
Jimmy said that he soon tired of those
non-reasons, this little badger game, and got to the heart of the matter,
laughed to himself as he thought and then mentioned to Miranda-“Come on now we
are talking about sixteen, maybe seventeen, year old guys. They, every
self-respecting corner boy who could put towel and trunks together, which meant
everybody except Johnny Kelly who had to work during the day in the summer to
help support his mother and fatherless younger brothers and sisters , were
there, of course, because there were shapely teeny-weeny bikini-clad girls [young
women, okay, let’s not get technical about that pre-woman’s liberation time]
sunning themselves like peacocks for all the world, all the male teenage North
Adamsville world, the only world that mattered to guys and gals alike, to see.
Had been sunning themselves in such a manner since bikinis and less replaced
those old-time bathing suits that were slightly less cumbersome that the street
clothes you saw in your old grandmother’s scrapbook. And guys had been
hormonally-charged looking at them that long as well.”
“Here is the catch thought,” Jimmy
continued. “They, and they could be anywhere from about junior high to the
first couple of years in college although they tended to separate themselves
out by age bracket were sunning themselves and otherwise looking very desirable
and, well, fetching, in not just any old spot wherever they could place a
blanket but strictly, as tradition dictated, tradition seemingly going back
before memory, between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. So,
naturally, every testosterone-driven teenage lad who owned a bathing suit, and
some who didn’t, were hanging off the floating dock right in front of said
yacht clubs showing off, well, showing off their prowess to the flower of North
Adamsville maidenhood.” And said show-offs included, Jimmy, of course, Frankie
Riley (when he was not working early mornings at the old A&P Supermarket
and did not show until later in the afternoon), his faithful scribe, Pete
Markin (who seemingly wrote down for posterity every word Frankie uttered and
some that he did not, and others including the, then anyway, “runt of the
litter,” Johnny Silver. And Sam Lowell too.
It is Johnny’s sad beach blanket bingo
tale that Jimmy had suddenly thought about when he had driven pass the old
beach one day to confirm Red’s recent beach judgment mentioned at the funeral
parlor and wanted to relate to Miranda as the over the top waves pummeled the
scarred rock faces in the secluded reaches of Big Sur to give her an idea of
what the sea meant to a lot of guys he knew. If, in the Jimmy telling, it all
sounds kind of familiar, too familiar even to old time non-corner boys, to those
who do not live near the oceans of the world, to the younger set who may have a
different view of life than what carried the day back then, it is because, with
the exception of the musical selections, it is. This is how it all started
though:
“The next girl who throws sand in my
face is going get it,” yelled Johnny Silver to no one in particular as he came
back to the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boy summer beach front acreage just
in front of the seawall facing, squarely facing, the midpoint between the North
Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. “For the clueless,” and Jimmy assumed
Miranda was in that vast company so he took pains to spell it out, “the corner
boy world in North Adamsville, hell, maybe every corner boy world everywhere meant
that you had certain “turf” issues in your life not all of them settled with
fists, although an issue like some alien corner boy looking the wrong way at
one of the Salducci girls could only be resolved that way.” But mostly it was a
matter of traditions, traditional spots which the “unwritten law” held for
certain groups and the spot between the boat clubs was theirs, and had been the
“property” of successive generations of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boys
since at least the end of World War II when Frankie Riley’s father and his
corner boys, some very tough boys transplanted from South Boston to work in the
shipyards and some restless guys who had like Frankie’s father served in the
war but were not ready to settle down “claimed” the spot.”
Johnny, after having his say, fumed at
no one in particular as the sounds of Elvis Presley’s Loving You came
over Frankie Riley’s transistor radio and had wafted down to the sea, almost like
a siren call to teenage love. Then one of those “no one in particulars,” Pete
Markin replied, “What did you expect, Johnny? That Katy Larkin is too tall, too
pretty and just flat-out too foxy for a runt like you. I am surprised you are
still in one piece. And I would mention, as well, that her brother, ‘Jimmy
Jukes,’ does not like guys, especially runt guys with no muscles bothering his
sister.” Johnny came back quickly with the usual, “Hey, I am not that small and
I am growing, growing fast so Jimmy Jukes can eat my… ” But Johnny halted just
in time as one Jimmy Jukes, James Allen Larkin, halfback hero of many a North
Adamsville fall football game running opponent defensive players raggedy in his
wake, came perilously close to Johnny and then veered off like Johnny was
nothing, nada, nunca, nothing. And after Jimmy Jukes was safely out of sight,
and Frankie flipped the volume dial on his radio louder as the Falcons’ You’re
So Fine came on heralding Frankie’s attempt by osmosis to lure a certain
Betty Ann McCarthy, another standard brand fox in the teenage girl be-bop
night, his way Johnny poured out the details of his sad saga.
Seems that Katy Larkin was in one of
Johnny’s classes, biology he said, and one day, one late spring day Katy, out
of the blue, asked him what he thought about Buddy Holly who had passed away in
crash several years before, well before he reached his potential as the new
king of the be-bop rock night. Johnny answered that Buddy was “boss,”
especially his Everyday, and that got
them talking, but only talking, almost every day until the end of school. Of
course, Johnny, runt Johnny, didn’t have the nerve, not nearly enough nerve to
ask a serious fox like Katy out, big brother or not, before school let out for
the summer. Not until that very day when he got up the nerve to go over to her
blanket, a blanket that also had Sara Bigelow and Tammy Kelly on board, and as
a starter asked Katy if she liked Elvis’ That’s
When The Heartache Begins.
Katy answered quickly and rather curtly
(although Johnny did not pick up on that signal) that it was “dreamy the way
Elvis sang it, but sad when you think about all the trouble guys bring when
they mess with another boy’s girl.” Then Johnny’s big moment came and he
blurted out, “Do you want to go to the Surf Dance Hall with me Saturday night?
Crazy Lazy is the DJ and the Rockin’ Ramrods are playing?” And as the reader
knows, or should be presumed to know, Johnny’s answer was a face full of sand.
And that sad, sad beach saga is the end of another teen angst moment. So to the
strains coming from Tammy’s radio of Robert and Johnny’s We Belong Together we will move along.
Well, not quite. It also seems that
Katy Larkin, tall (too tall for Johnny, really), shapely (no question of “really”
about that), and don’t forget foxy Katy Larkin had had a “crush” since they had
first started talking in class on one John Raymond Silver if you can believe
that. She was miffed, apparently more than somewhat, that Johnny had not asked
her out before school got out for the summer. That “more than somewhat”
entailed throwing sand in Johnny’s face when he did get up the nerve to ask. And
nothing else happened between them for the rest of the summer, except Johnny
always seemed kind of miserable when he leaned up against the wall in front of
Salducci’s to confer with his corner boys about life being kind of crazy. But
get this- on the first day of school, while Johnny was turning his radio off
and putting it in his locker just before school started, after having just
listened to the Platters One In a Million
for the umpteenth time, Katy Larkin “cornered” (Johnny’s term) Johnny and said
in a clear, if excited voice, “I’m sorry about that day at the beach last
summer.” And then in the teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all women imperative,
“You are taking me to the Fall All-Class Mixer and I will not take ‘no’ for an
answer.”
Well, what is a guy to do when that
teenage girl imperative, hell, maybe all women imperative voice commands. After
that Johnny started to re-evaluate his attitude toward beach sand and thought
maybe, after all, it was just a girl being playful. In any case, Johnny had
grown quite a bit that summer and it turned out that Katy Larkin was not too
tall, not too tall at all, for Johnny Silver to take to the mixer, or anywhere
else she decided she wanted to go. “
Here is what Jimmy told Miranda that
Big Sur day to put a philosophical twist on the whole episode fifty years
later.After stopping his car toward the
middle of Adamsville Beach, the place between the two yacht clubs where he and
the Salducci corner boys hung out, the two clubs whose appearance that day spoke
to a need of paint and other fixing up, the place that had stirred his memoires
that day Jimmy Callahan thought Red had it all wrong, all wrong indeed, it had
nothing to do with the condition of the clubs, the beach, the sand, the waves
or the boats. Mr. John Raymond Silver and Ms. Katy Silver (nee Larkin), now of
Naples, Florida, are proof of that statement.
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