President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind

President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I was asked by a fellow member of Veterans For Peace at a monthly meeting about the status of the case of Chelsea Manning since he knew that I had been seriously involved with publicizing her case and he had not heard much about the case since she had been convicted in August 2013 (on some twenty counts including several Espionage Act counts) and sentenced by Judge Lind to thirty-five years imprisonment to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That had also been the time immediately after the sentencing when Private Manning announced to the world her true sexual identity and turned from Bradley to Chelsea.

I responded to my fellow member that, as usual in such super-charged cases involving political prisoners, once the media glare of the trial and sentencing is over the case usually fell by the wayside into the media vacuum while the appellate process proceed on over the next several years. At that point I informed him of the details that I did know to that point. Chelsea immediately after sentencing had been put in the normal isolation before being put in with the general population at Fort Leavenworth. She seemed to be adjusting according to her lawyer to the pall of prison life as best she could. Later she had gone to a Kansas civil court to have her name changed from Bradley to Chelsea Elizabeth which the judge granted although the Army for a period insisted that mail be sent to her under her former male Bradley name. Her request for hormone therapies to help reflect her real sexual identity had either been denied or the process stonewalled despite the Army’s own medical and psychiatric personnel stating in court that she was entitled to such measures. At the beginning of 2014 the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, General Buchanan, who had the authority to grant clemency on the sentence part of the case, despite the unusual severity of the sentence, had denied Chelsea any relief from the onerous sentence imposed by Judge Lind. Locally on Veterans Day 2013 we honored Chelsea at the annual VFP Armistice Day program and in December 2013 held a stand-out celebrating Chelsea’s birthday (as we did in December 2014).  Most important of the information I gave my fellow VFPer was that Chelsea’s case going forward to the Army appellate process was being handled by nationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander and her associate Vincent Ward. Thus the case was in the long drawn out legal phase that does not generally get much coverage except by those interested in the case like well-known Vietnam era Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, various progressive groups which either nominated or rewarded her with their prizes, and the organization that has steadfastly continued to handle her case’s publicity and raising financial aid for her appeal, Courage to Resist (an organization dedicated to publicizing the cases of other military resisters as well.   

At last month’s meeting (February 2015) that same VFPer asked me if it was true that as he had heard the Army, or the Department of Defense, had ordered Chelsea’s hormone therapy treatments to begin. I informed him after a long battle, including an ACLU suit ordering such relief, that information was true and she had started her treatments a month previously. I also informed him that the Army had thus far refused her request to have an appropriate length woman’s hair-do. On the legal front the case was still be reviewed for issues to be presented which could overturn the lower court decision in the Army Court Of Appeals by the lawyers and the actual writing of the appeal was upcoming. A seemingly small but very important victory on that front was that after the seemingly inevitable stonewalling on every issue the Army had agreed to use feminine or neutral pronoun in any documentation. They had last June also been successful in avoiding the attempt by the Department of Defense to place Chelsea in a civil facility as they tried to foist their “problem” elsewhere.

On the political front Chelsea continued to receive awards, and after a fierce battle in 2013 was finally in 2014 made an honorary grand marshal of the very important GLBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco. Recently she has been given status as a contributor to the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper that was central to the fight by fellow whistle-blower Edward Snowden, where her first contribution was a very appropriate piece on what the fate of the notorious CIA torturers should be, having face such torture down in Quantico added to the poignancy of that suggestion.  Locally over the past year we have marched for Chelsea in the Boston Gay Pride Parade, commemorated her fourth year in prison last May with a vigil, honored her again on Armistice Day, celebrated her 27^th birthday in December with a rally, and continue to urge one and all to sign the on-line Amnesty International petition asking President Obama to grant an immediate pardon as well as asking that those with the means sent financial contributions to Courage To Resist to help with her legal expenses.

After I got home that night of the meeting I began thinking that a lot has happened over the past year and one half in the Chelsea Manning case and that I should made what I know more generally available to more than my local VFPers. Just one more example of our fervent belief that as we have said all along we will not leave our sister behind…              

 

From A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin Series- In The Heat Of the Be-Bop 1960s Rock Night- Yah, We Were All Exiles On Main Street

From A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin Series- In The Heat Of the Be-Bop 1960s Rock Night- Yah, We Were All Exiles On Main Street

 

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

 

A while back, a few months ago although the project had been percolating in his brain for the previous year or so after some incident reminded him how much he missed his old corner boy from the 1960s North Adamsville night, the late Peter Paul Markin, Bart Webber wrote up what he called, and rightly so I think, an elegy for him, A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin. Bart had approached me about doing the chore since we now live in the same town, Carver about thirty miles south of our growing- up town. He figured that since he had retired from the day to day operations of his print shop which was now being run by his oldest son, Jeff, and I was winding down my part in the law practice I had established long ago I would have plenty of time to write and he to “edit” and give suggestions. He said he was not a writer although he had plenty of ideas to contribute but that I who had spent a life-time writing as part of my job would have an easy time of it. Bart under the illusion that writing dry as dust legal briefs for some equally dry as dust judge to read is the same as nailing down a righteous piece about an old time corner boy mad man. I turned him down flat which I will explain in a moment.

The way Bart presented that proposal deserves a little mention since he did it one night when the remnant of Markin’s old comrades still alive who still reside in the area, Frankie, Josh, Jack Callahan, Jimmy Jenkins, Bart and me were drinking now affordable high-shelf liquors at “Jack’s” in Cambridge near where Jimmy lives. During the conversation, not for the first time, Bart mentioned that he was still haunted by the thought  he had the year before about the time that Markin had us in thrall one night out in Joshua Tree in 1972 when we were all high as kites on various drugs of choices and he, at first alone, and then with Josh began some strange Apache-like dance and they began to feel (at least according to Josh’s recollection) like those ancient warriors who tried to avenge their loses when white settlers had come to take their lands and we all for one moment were able to sense what it was like to be warrior-avengers. Markin had that effect on the rest of us, was always tweaking us on some idea from small scale larcenies to drug-induced flame-outs. Yeah, that miserable, beautiful, so crooked he could not get his legs in his pants, son of a bitch, sainted bastard still is missed, still has guys from the old days moaning to high heaven about that lost. Bart insisted there was a story there, a story if only for us and someone (all eyes on me) should write it up.             

I can say all of that and say at the same time that I can say I couldn’t write the piece. See while at times Markin was like a brother to me and we treated each other as such he also could have his “pure evil” moments which the other corner boys either didn’t see, or didn’t want to see. These may be small things now on reflection but he was the guy who almost got me locked up one night, one summer night in 1966 before our senior year when Frankie who usually was the “on-site” manager of our small larcenies was out of town with his girlfriend. Markin figured since he was the “brains” behind the various capers that he could do one on his own but he needed a look-out, me. The caper involved a small heist of a home in the Mayfair swells part of North Adamsville whose owners were “summering” somewhere in the Caribbean. Markin had “cased” or thought he had cased the place fully except he didn’t factor in that the owners had a house sitter during that time. Markin startled her as he entered a side door, she screamed, Markin panicked, as she headed for the telephone to call the police and he fled out the door. But see Markin came running out that door toward me just when the cops were coming down the street where we met in their squad car directly toward us. They stopped us, told to get in the car and headed to that Mayfair house. As it turned out the house-sitter couldn’t identify either of us, couldn’t identify Markin and the cops had to let us go. No question Markin panicked and no question he made a serious mistake by heading my way knowing what he knew. I had, and have always had, the sneaking suspicion that he might have rolled me over as the B&E guy if it had been possible. I have a few other stories like that as well but that gives you a better insight into what Markin could turn into when cornered.

A couple of other incidents involved women, one my sister, the other an old flame or rather someone I wanted to be my flame. One of the reasons that I, unlike Markin who did serve in Vietnam which I think kind of turned him over the edge to the “dark side” once his dream about a “newer world” as he called it started to evaporate in the early 1970s, did not do military duty since I was the sole support, working almost full time after school during high school, of my mother and four very younger sisters after my father died of a massive heart attack in 1965. My oldest sister, Clara, was smitten by Markin from early on and I could see that he was willing to take advantage of her naiveté as well although I warned him off more than once since she was only thirteen when we were in high school. Now I could never prove it, and Clara would not say word one about it to me, but I believe he took her virginity from her. I do know during that period I found a carton of Trojans in her bureau drawer when I was looking for something I thought she had of mine and she was not around to ask. I didn’t confront him directly since among corner boys such things would have been “square” to discuss even about sisters but I continued to keep warning him off like I didn’t know anything had happened and before long I saw Clara had taken up with a boy her own age so I let it drop. The flame thing involved Laura Perkins who I was “hot” for from the ninth grade on and who I had several dates with in the tenth grade and it looked like things were going well when she threw me over for Markin. Now that situation has happened eight million times in life but corner boys were supposed to keep “hands off” of other corner boys’ girls although I was not naïve enough to not believe that was honored more in the breech than the observance having done a couple of end-around maneuvers myself but this Laura thing strained our relationship for a while. Here is the funny part though after a few weeks she threw Markin over for the captain of the football team (she was a cheerleader as well as bright student, school newspaper writer, on the dance committee and a bunch of other resume-building things) who we all hated. Funnier still at our fortieth reunion a few years back Laura and I got back together (after her two marriages and my two marriages had flamed out something we laughed about at the time) and we have been an “item” ever since. But you can see where I would, unlike say Bart, have a hard time not letting those things I just mentioned get in my way of writing something objective about that bastard saint.                   

So Bart wrote the piece himself, wrote the “dimmed” elegy (the “dimmed” being something I suggested as part of the title) and did a great job for a guy who said he couldn’t write. Frankly any other kind of elegy but dimmed would fail to truly honor that bastard saint madman who kept us going in that big night called the early 1960s and drove us mad at the same time with his larcenous schemes and over-the-top half-baked brain storm ideas and endless recital of the eight billion facts he kept in his twisted brain (estimates vary on the exact number but I am using the big bang number to cover my ass, as he would). I need not go into all of the particulars of that piece except to say that the consensus among the still surviving corner boys was that Bart was spot on, caught all of Markin’s terrible contradictions pretty well. Contradiction that led him from the bright but brittle star of the Jack Slack’s bowling alleys corner boy back then to a bad end, a mucho mal end murdered down in Sonora, Mexico in 1976 or 1977 when some drug deal (kilos of cocaine) he was brokering to help feed what Josh said was a serious “nose candy” habit went sour for reasons despite some investigation by Frankie Riley, myself and a private detective Frankie hired were never made clear. What was clear was that he was found face down on some dusty back road of that town with two slugs in his head and is buried in the town’s forlorn potter’s field in some unmarked grave. That is about all we know for sure about his fate and that is all that is needed to be mentioned here.

That foul end might have been the end of it, might have been the end of the small legend of Markin. Even he would in his candid moments accept that “small” designation. Yes, been the end of the legend except the moaning to high heaven still every time his name comes up. Except this too. Part of Bart’s elegy referenced the fact that in Markin’s sunnier days before the nose candy got the best of him, brought out those formerly under control outrageous “wanting habits,” in the early 1970s when he was still holding onto that “newer world” dream that he (and many others, including me and Bart for a varying periods) did a series of articles about the old days and his old corner boys in North Adamsville. Markin before we lost contact, or rather I lost contact with him since Josh Breslin his friend from Maine (and eventually our friend as well whom we consider an honorary Jack Slack’s corner boy) met out in San Francisco in the Summer of Love, 1967 knew his whereabouts outside of San Francisco in Daly City until about 1974 wrote some pretty good stuff, stuff up for awards, and short-listed for the Globe.

Pushed on by Bart’s desire to tell Markin’s story as best he could who must have been driven by some fierce ghost of Markin over his shoulder to do such yeoman’s work, he, Frankie (our corner boy leader back then who had Markin as his scribe and now is a big time lawyer in Boston), Josh, and I agreed that a few of the articles were worth publishing if only for ourselves and the small circle of people whom Markin wrote for and about. (Markin’s oldest friend from back in third grade, Allan Johnson, who would have had plenty to say about the early days had passed away  after a long-term losing fight with cancer before this plan was hatched, RIP, brother.) So that is exactly what we did. We had a commemorative small book of articles and any old time photographs we could gather put together and had it printed up in the print shop that Bart’s oldest son, Jeff, is now running for him since his retirement from the day to day operations last year.

Since not all of us had everything that Markin wrote, as Bart said, what the hell they were newspaper or magazine articles to be used to wrap up the fish in or something after we were done reading them, we decided to print what was available. Bart was able to find copies of a bunch of sketches up in the attic of his parents’ home which he was cleaning up for them when they were putting their house up for sale since they were in the process of downsizing. Josh, apparently not using his copies for wrapping fish purposes, had plenty of the later magazine pieces. I had a few things, later things from when we went on the quest for the blue-pink Great American West hitchhike road night as Markin called it. Unfortunately, we could not find any copies of the long defunct East Bay Eye and so could not include anything from the important Going To The Jungle series about some of his fellow Vietnam veterans who could not adjust to the “real” world coming back from ‘Nam and wound up in the arroyos, canyons, railroad sidings and under the bridges of Southern California. He was their voice on that one then, if silence now who those aging vets desperately a voice.  So Markin can speak to us still. Yeah, like Bart said, that’s about right for that sorry ass blessed bastard saint with his eight billion words.  

Below is the short introduction that I wrote for that book which we all agreed should be put in here trying to put what Markin was about in content from a guy who knew him about as well as anybody from the old neighborhood, knew his dark side then and when that came out later too:  

“The late Peter Paul Markin, also known as “the Scribe, ” so anointed by Frankie Riley the unchallenged self-designated king hell king of the schoolboy night among the corner boys who hung around the pizza parlors, pool halls, and bowling alleys of the town, in telling somebody else’s story in his own voice about life in the old days in the working class neighborhoods of North Adamsville where he grew up, or when others, threating murder and mayhem,  wanted him to tell their stories usually gave each and every one of that crew enough rope to hang themselves without additional comment. He would take down, just like he would do later with the hard-pressed Vietnam veterans trying to do the best they could out in the arroyos, crevices, railroad sidings and under the bridges when they couldn’t deal with the “real” world after Vietnam in the Going To The Jungle series that won a couple of awards and was short-listed for the Globe award, what they wanted the world to hear, spilled their guts out as he one time uncharitably termed their actions (not the veterans, not his fellows who had their troubles down in L.A. and needed to righteously get it out and he was the conduit, their voice, but the zanies from our old town), and then lightly, very lightly if the guy was bigger, stronger than him, or in the case of girls if they were foxy, and mainly just clean up the language for a candid world to read.

Yeah Makin would bring out what they, we, couldn’t say, maybe didn’t want to say. That talent was what had made the stories he wrote about the now very old days in growing up in North Adamsville in the 1960s when “the rose was on the bloom” as my fellow lawyer Frankie Riley used to say when Markin was ready to spout his stuff so interesting. Ready to make us laugh, cringe, get red in the face or head toward him to slap him down if he got too righteous. Here is the funny part though. In all the stories he mainly gave his “boys” the best of it. Yes, Bart is still belly-aching about a few slights about his lack of social graces that old Markin threw his way, and maybe he was a little off on the reasons why I gave up the hitchhike highway blue-pink Great American West night quest that he was pursuing (what he called sneeringly my getting “off the bus” which even he admitted was not for everyone) but mainly that crazy maniac with the heart of gold, the heart of lead, the heart that should have had a stake placed in its center long ago, that, ah, that’s enough I have said enough except I like Bart still miss and mourn the bastard.”

Here is something I wrote after reading one of the articles that Markin wrote about the place of the Rolling Stones in rock history back in 1972, I think. That rock history was one of his serious interests, one that he wrote about like a lot of his work for the small circulation “idea” journals and off-beat magazines meaning no dough publications. He had written in that article about his youthful controversy with our corner boy leader, Frankie Riley (mentioned above), on those Friday no dough, no car, no date nights that plagued our youth concerning the better band, the Beatles or the Stones. I have just updated his basic argument with Frankie, who I also had the same controversy with (and still do as a recent meeting over drinks to rekindle the dispute for this piece demonstrated very clearly) to include my having seen a film documentary about the making of the album Exiles On Main Street.  This piece will also reflect on one of his experiences coming of age in North Adamsville which was very much like the rest of us had experienced as well when our world was fresh:  

In The Heat Of the Be-Bop 1960s Rock Night- Yah, We Were All Exiles On Main Street

 

I am sure that Mick and the boys will gladly take a back seat to Howlin' Wolf on this one.

 

In the old days, the old high school days when such things mattered, my best friend at North Adamsville High School (we actually went back to old North Adamsville Middle School days together), Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley to give his full moniker, spent endless hours arguing over the merits of the Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones as the primo rock band of the times. The times being the early 1960s, the time of the edge, just the wee edge of the beginning of the uprisings associated with our generation, the generation of ’68.

 

I will get into the specifics of that Frankie controversy a little later but for the purposes of argument a review of a film documentary about the making of the Stones’ 1972 album, Exile on Main Street, the real controversy is over whether this album was their best ever or not. At that point Frankie and I had lost contact so that I will just give as my opinion that for pure blues-ness, pure Stones’ foundational blue-ness, for country rooted-ness, and for musicianship it is hard to argue that any other Stones' album was better. And that opinion, now with the benefit of the documentary footage and current interviews with many of the personalities from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to the sidemen, hangers-on, gofers, and their manager during this period, Marshall Chess (son of the controversial legendary Chess Records blues label founder, Leonard Chess, who gave the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James and many other famous blues names a leg up in the Chicago night), about how it was produced, and what it all meant, still holds up.

 

I noted in the headline that in the 1960s we, at least those of us who were politically alienated from mainstream Western social norms or at wits end for some other more personal reasons, were all exiles on Main Street. Main Street being a convenient term of art for all that was square, not cool, up-tight, piggish, and a thousand other words we used to separate our youth culture out from the ticky-tack little white house with the picket fence dream that passed for social reality then (and, unfortunately, now, well kind of now). For the Stones this notion of exile, self-imposed exile, not glad-tiding self-imposed exile to hear the lads tell it, had another element. They had to flee England in order to escape from some terrible tax burdens that had accumulated and for which they did not have control over solving (or money to pay). So off to the south of France they go, to live and to produce the new album and in order to get some dough.

 

Of course, with such well-known edge city crazies as Mick and Keith this was not going to be a Sunday in the park. Along the way they picked up musicians, groupies, hangers-on, bag men, bad guys, dope dealers and everyone with a little cache who could get to France and be around the scene. And that scene included, surprise, surprise, dope of every kind- from pills to smack (heroin, then, as now, not a “cool” drug staple), booze by the buckets full, women, sex, and everything else under the sun. Let’s leave it that the scene was the epitome of the slogan “drug, sex and rock and roll” and along with the expression “live fast, die young and make a good corpse” will get you the flavor of what went on just about right.

 

Oh yah, in case you forgot, it also included an incredible amount of work by Mick and Keith writing material, all members playing riffs until arms got sore, throats died and fingers began to bleed. Not a recipe that your mothers would suggest for making successful careers, of any kind. But just the right recipe to unleash the rock energy built up in one of the great rock bands that every existed, then and AARP and old age home-worthy now.

 

Take an hour out and look at some serious rock history. Then go up in the attic and dust off the album, or check it out in your CD collection, or download it to your iPod, or Google it on YouTube but listen to it. Especially the blues-ish stuff like Tumblin' Dice (that will get even grandpa out of his rocking chair); Sweet Virginia; Sweet Black Angel; and the rootsy (Robert Johnson rootsy) Stop Breaking Down.

 

Now back to serious Frankie business. The Frankie business of figuring out the real places of The Stones and the Beatles in the rock pantheon, for eternity. Back on those hot, steamy, endless summer nights standing (or sitting on the curb) beneath those North Adamsville street lights when that question mattered, mattered as a "universal" question. I am not sure exactly when I first hear a Stones song, although it was probably Satisfaction, and it was probably up in Frankie’s cluttered bedroom, a place that served as a refuge from my own storm-tossed house what with my mother’s tirades against, well, against anything that I might do, or might think of doing. You know that song, or have heard about it.

 

However, what really hooked me on The Stones was when they covered the old Willie Dixon blues classic, Little Red Rooster. If you will recall that song was banned, at first, from the radio stations of Boston. Later, I think, and someone can maybe help me out on this, WMEX broke the ban and played it. And no, the song was not about the doings of our barnyard friends. But beyond the implicit sexual theme was the fact that it was banned that made me, and perhaps you, if you are from the generation of ’68, want to hear it at any cost. That says as much about my personality then, and now, as any long-winded statement I could make. And that is what also set Frankie and me apart on this question.

 

See, Frankie was from nowhere on the blues. And I mean nowhere. Although Frankie reigned supreme as the king hell king of our corner boy high school scene and was cool in many things, he was pretty square in his music tastes.  (Headquartered early on in high school at the local pizza parlor, Salducci’s, owned by a mad-hatter of a zen pizza-maker, Tonio, who loved Frankie practically like a son for some reason never explained, at least that I could figure out but who by senior year had sold out to other parties and gone back to Italy. Those “other parties” did not want ill-bred, vagrant, larcenous corner boys hanging around their to be family-friendly “let Ma have a night off and have a pizza” place and that was how we wound up standing one foot against the wall in front of Jack Slack’s bowling alleys.) He never got over Elvis really, never got over how the local girls treated him like the “king” when he swiveled his hips at the school sock hops, went wild when he put forth his Elvis-like sneer to be wiped off by those adoring girls, and followed his ever depressing descend into Blue Hawaii-dom (or worst) avidly. Frankie really believed that Roy Orbison was a demon based on his song Running Scared (there is a story behind that belief which involved the machinations of his girlfriend, Joanne, which need not detain us here). Carl Perkins was another idol, and I need not speak of the fact that he almost cried when they started picking on Jerry Lee Lewis just because he married his cousin, or something. Thus far though we were not that far apart.

 

But get this. He, king of the be-bop night, no question, a guy whom I talked about universal things to and got a thoughtful talking back to on, took it in strife when guys like Fabian, Booby (oops) Bobby Vee, Conway Twitty (be serious), Bobby Darin, the Everly Brothers, and Rick Nelson, jesus, Rick Nelson led the musical counter-revolution in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Music that made me, on certain days, abandon the transistor radio that was central to my home life peace. (Yah, that Ma thing mentioned previously). So when the Beatles turned up he was kind of nonplussed by them, and I swear he actually said this one night and I will quote his words exactly just in case there are any legal ramifications over it- “They did a nice cover of Twist and Shout”-jesus christ. Even I saw them as a breath of fresh air then.

 

Now you get the idea of the musical gap that developed between us. That hearing of Little Red Rooster, moreover, began my long love affair with the blues, although somewhere deep in my psyche, my projects boy psyche, I had that beat in my head way before I could name it. I swear I grabbed every Muddy Waters, Big Joe Turner, Ike Turner, John Lee Hooker album that I could get my hands on. And then branched out to such esoteric stuff as the work of blues pioneers like Son House, Robert Johnson, and Bukka White (he did Panama Limited and Aberdeen Mississippi Woman on the sweat-dripping National Steel guitar and flipped me out, and still flips me out. Google those on YouTube) and other early country blues boys. Some of this also got mixed in at the time with my budding interest in the folk music scene, the folk protest music scene. And that is probably why, although the blues, particularly the Chicago blues, also influenced the Beatles, it is The Stones that I favor. Their cover on Rooster still holds up, by the way. Not as good, as I found out later, as the legendary Howlin' Wolf's version but good.

 

I have also thought about the Stones influence more recently as I have thought about the long ago past of my youth. Compare some works like John Lennon's earnest, plaintive Working Class Hero and The Stones' agitated Street Fighting Man (yes, I know these are later works, later than the be-bop corner boy schoolboy night, but they serve to make my point here) and I believe that something in the way The Stones from early on presented that angry, defiant sound appealed to my sense of working class alienation. Let’s leave it as they “spoke” to me and the Beatles didn’t. Frankie, always caught up with some “twist” although mainly the Joanne mentioned above moved to less defiant sounds. (That “twist” his term for girl, woman learned from seeing to many second run black and white 1930s gangster films and jaded Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe detective films at the Strand about six blocks from where we lived.) But he was the king hell king corner boy, and bailed me out of tough situations, tough girl situations and some other semi-legal things, more times than not so he draws a pass on his vanilla tastes here. Thanks, Frankie.

 

Afterthought: If we were really thinking about comparisons between rock groups as you move later into the heart of the 1960 after the counter-revolution got smashed the better one is actually not the Beatles vs. The Stones but Stones vs. The Doors. On any given night in the late 1960s when Jim Morrison, satanic, shamanic, mad man if you can be all three at once, or believe you can be all three as he probably did when he was in his drug-induced trance, leader of the band dug deeply into his psyche and bared his shamanistic soul (and dug, dug deeply, into his medicine bag as well) The Doors were the best rock band in the world. No question. Just listen to L.A. Woman, The End, Spanish Caravan and the like. But when you start to list the all-time classic Stones hits from Gimme Shelter to Tumblin’ Dice (like I say the one that will still get even grandpa up and about) and how they stand the test of time The Stones win hands down.

 

Street Fighting Man Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Rolling Stones
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

 

Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy

'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy

But what can a poor boy do

Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band

'Cause in sleepy London town

There's just no place for a street fighting man

No

Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution

'Cause where I live the game to play is compromise solution

Well, then what can a poor boy do

Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band

'Cause in sleepy London town

There's just no place for a street fighting man

No

Hey! Said my name is called disturbance

I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants

Well, what can a poor boy do

Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band

'Cause in sleepy London town

There's just no place for a street fighting man

No

 

"Working Class Hero" lyrics- John Lennon

As soon as your born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

 

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function you're so full of fear,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,

But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

 

There's room at the top they are telling you still,

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill,

A working class hero is something to be.

A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

 

The Red Rooster
Howling Wolf

 

I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day

I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day

 

Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way

Oh the dogs begin to bark,

and the hound begin to howl

Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl

Ooh watch out strange kind people,

Cause little red rooster is on the prowl

If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home

If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home

 

There ain't no peace in the barnyard,

Since the little red rooster been gone

Willie Dixon

 

Malvina Reynolds - On the Rim of the World

Tom Waits - Hold On

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958

Yes, 1958 was a good time to be a motorcycle boy, a de facto, de jure wild boy according to the chattering, clueless, disapproving parents of the time, especially the parents of impressionable teenage girls (and not just teenage girls either if they, the parents, had had a clue what was going on over at State U with the twenty somethings, including their Janie, when the music and liquor got going and the wild boys showed up to get it on). Of course parents didn’t count, count for much anyway, when trends, moods, and what was cool got discussed in front of night time mom and pop variety stores where corner boys of all descriptions and attitudes held forth. Or Doc’s Drugstore, after school, high school, of course, lesser grades need not bother to show up except maybe in early morning to get some candy bar or other sweet to get them through until growing time lunch, where all manner of school boy and girl went for a soda and snack but mainly to hear some latest tune, maybe some hot Jerry Lee wild boy mad man thing, seventeen times in Doc’s amped up super juke box. In those quarters motorcycle wild boys were cool, if maybe just a little dangerous.

And maybe just slightly illegal too as their parents’cops (as part of that parent-police-teacher-priest-politician-hell-maybe even mom and pop variety store owner authority continuum) frowned, no more than frowned, when some local detachment of the Devils’ Disciples’ roared through the Adamsville Beach boulevard night. The sight of flashing blue lights on the boulevard usually meant one thing. Some wild boy had his exhaust system too loud, or he wasn’t wearing a helmet, or he switched lanes without signaling, or maybe for just being ugly, cop’s eyes ugly, or some lame thing like that. Those small civic sins only added to the mystique though. Especially on sultry summer nights when the colors passed turning every guy’s eyes, even mine, to listen to that power and to set every girl, impressionable or not, to thinking, thinking Wild Boy Marlon Brando thinking about what was behind that power.

See before Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson put everybody straight about the seamy side of motorcycle life, life-style motorcycle life with its felonies and mayhem, Marlon and his wild boys (and maybe throw in James Dean and his “chicken run” cars although they were a little too tame to be as revered as the motorcycle boys were) had cleaned up the wild boy scene, made it okay to an easy rider, made it sexy. Not the weekend warrior flip turns and wheelies and then Monday morning back to the bank stuff but real alienated Johnnies just like you and me. Old Marlon had made alienated wild boys cool. Old sexy white tee-shirt, maybe a pack of Luckies rolled up one sleeve, a cap rakishly turn at an angle on his head, but mainly an attitude, an attitude of distain, hell, maybe hatred, toward that ever present authority that told every kid, every boy and girl that you had better take what you can when you can because it won’t be there long. And that slight snarl that accompanied every word. Yah, cool, cool daddy cool.

And the girls, wells, they were doing that wondering, wondering about what was behind that power thrust, as those leather jackets and engineer boots roared by. To the detriment of her date while sitting in the front seat of his father’s borrowed plain vanilla boxed tail fin car that he had had to almost declare a civil war to get for the evening and promise to mow some future lawn as compensation. Jesus. Or worst, infinitely worst, seeing that metal, chrome and fire pass by after her date, her car-less date, had just walked her over to the beach to sit on that cold stony seawall. Her eyes flamed red, as she almost flagged down some local easy rider as he passed by just to get some kicks, and maybe freedom.

It wasn’t always low-down grunges who occupied the flamed night either. Every town probably had it story, many more that one, of some wild boy motorcycle boy who ruled the roost, who took what he needed, or better, wanted and said the hell with civilization. Yah, a real outlaw, an outlaw way outside the system like North Adamsville wild boy James Preston, a guy they still talk about, although not when tender ears are around. Back in 1957, maybe 1958 that was all the talk, all the talk that counted among anguish and alienated teen like I said when Pretty James Preston got his chopper. Damn, I can still hear that explosion when he gunned that pedal even now.

See, Pretty James Preston (and nobody called him, as far as I know, anything else except that exact designation) had Elvis-like looks to go with his outlaw snarl. Dark hair combed back like Elvis (but don’t ever use that comparison, not if you don’t want to fight, fight whip chains fight or cut knives just so you know), black kind of Spanish eyes, long and tall, wiry some would say, but tough as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks could be. Nobody messed with Pretty James Preston (see, hell, even fifty years or more later I still call him that just in case, just in case his chain-wielding ghost is still around). So tough that he, around ordinary citizens, was almost civilized. He could afford to be and because it cost him nothing in his world calculus that was that.

So naturally every high school girl, even women since at that time Pretty James Preston was about twenty-one, had some tough nights up in her lonely room thinking about that wild boy. Now maybe not everyone, okay, North Adamsville was not that small a town but let’s say any girl (or young woman) who thought she had a shot, or maybe half a shot, at his favors was having sweaty summer nights. Even Mimi Murphy, my girlfriend, my faithless girlfriend. Now Mimi was maybe not the dish of the town, with her flaming red hair and her slender, maybe skinny is better, body but she had a certain something, a certain, smile, a certain style about her that made some guys who you would never ever think would give her a second look (like I did to my delight) were intrigued by her. Including one Pretty James Preston.

So one summer night after I walked Mimi, yes, car-less walked, Mimi over to the seawall down at the Seal Rock end of old Adamsville Beach I (we) heard that roar, that roar that meant only one thing- Pretty James Preston was coming down the boulevard full throttle. I turned around and before I knew it there he was stopped in front of us as we sat on the seawall. I swear I don’t remember him saying word one to Mimi (or me). Maybe a nod, maybe they had some secret karmic thing, I don’t know. All I know is that the queen of Sacred Heart Church (Roman Catholic) for number of novenas said in the old days, some white veil aura always present, one of the smartest girl in our class and, also probably the closest thing we had to a quirky girl in our class walked over to Pretty James Preston and his strange and powerful Vincent Black Lighting and straddled her long legs on back saddle of the bike. And into the night they roared.

But see that strange bike, that British-made exotic Vincent Black Lightning (which later proved to have been stolen, not by Pretty James but someone else, and then ferreted over from England to take its place in North Adamsville lore) was the undoing of Pretty James Preston (although not to hold you in suspense not of Mimi Murphy, not officially). Pretty James was leading kind of a double life. Let me explain, or try to, the way I heard it from some sources that I trusted (not Mimi, for I never really saw her to speak to after that fateful roar off into the Pretty James night).

In order to keep up his bike, his chopper Pretty James Preston robbed, robbed persons, places and things if you like. Not around North Adamsville since he was too well known (although after it was all over a few people around town admitted that he had robbed them, robbed them at gun-point and they were too scared to say anything. Maybe true, maybe not.). But around, a gas station here, a mom and pop variety store there, a couple of department stores, a few wealthy homes over in Millsville, maybe jack-roll a drunk if things got desperate. Not much dough but steady.

Then one day we heard that Pretty James Preston had stepped up his act. Banks, or rather a bank, the Granite City National Bank branch over in Braintree. And that was his downfall. Somehow he bungled the job, or some alarm went off, or some rum brave cop got religion and before he could get out the door Pretty James was shot, shot six ways to Sunday. Dead, DOA, done. The only thing left to say is that somebody thought they saw a skinny, long haired, redheaded girl in a leather coat and dungarees standing across the street from the bank and when they turned around after looking away upon hearing the shots the girl were gone. They later found the Vincent Black Lightning over in the Adamsville projects kind of mashed up. The red-headed girl, my Mimi, was not seen around town again. (Rumors, small rumors swirled for a few months about her fate, some reported that she was in a convent up North, others that she was holed up doing tricks in some high –end whorehouse in Boston but I never got very far with the few leads I had and soon gave it up.) Yes, Pretty James Preston was an outlaw from his first to last breath. And you wonder why they still talk about him with hushed breath.

The music too befit the motorcycle wild boy time of end of time times, the times when it seemed every little mishap in some godforsaken corner of this wicked old world turned into a major crisis causing everybody at some invisible authority’s urging to head for the air raid shelters and keep their heads down. And their butts up. Jerry Lee wild man piano stuff, always ready to break out, jail break out ever since he popped the question in high school confidential, Chuck leering at sweet little sixteens and you know what I mean, Eddie Cochran giving us a summer time blues anthem to hang our hopes on, and all kinds of one hit wonders trying to put a dent in our angst, our special teen angst that was ready to boil over, to break out and be free. Free from that invisible hand authority.

No wonder the wild boys had a field day. Those impressionable girls, maybe Mimi too although we never talked about such things, jesus no, worried they would never get to “do it” but were fearful to “do it” nevertheless in that Pill-less world. And guys hoping that the girls were worrying about not “doing it” before the world exploded egged them on although not with as much concern as necessary about consequences. The wild boys, those easy riders, though said “take no prisoners” and that was attractive, that and that promise of power that had many a girl restless late at night.

So no wonder too some young thing in the Jody Reynolds’ song “Endless Sleep” , maybe worried about getting pregnant after she let lover boy go further than she (and he) expected decided to go down to that sunless beach and let old Neptune have his way with her. And he, lover boy, maybe with a wild boy sensibility on the surface but more the weekend warrior when the deal went down, went looking for the dizzy dame, his dizzy dame and left old Neptune in the lurch. And many years later, maybe in some dream remembrance, they would throw the old records on the turntable, amp up the teen angst, the teen alienation, then sit back and listen to maybe the last minute in the 1950s when free-wheeling rock and roll blasted the night away. And the motorcycle boys held forth in the thundering night.

Taking The “A” Train-With Jazzman Duke Ellington

Taking The “A” Train-With Jazzman Duke Ellington

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

There was King Oliver, there was Count (Basie), there was Earl (“Fatah” Hines), there was Marquis Dubois and, of course, there was the Duke, Duke Ellington. The old time jazz guys, the guys who came of jazz age out of the blues mostly, were fond of playing the royalty game (and within jazz if not out in Mister James Crow’s Southern world where a lot of them hailed from, as did their blues brothers, they were royalty, worthy royalty and more royalty worthy than those to the manor born. But the Duke is a special case, a special case of the old time jazz guys since he laid down some very, very sweet high notes in a long career (help lyrically by Billy Strayhorn especially), brought a ton of guys (Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges to name just two) along to wail the night away. If he was not the father of be-bop for that would be a little off-key then he had been the step-father of those cool post-World War II 1950s guys who blew so cool, so Charley, so Dizzy, so Monkish, searching for their own high white notes blowing out into some foggy bay, some sultry Harlem River drift night, some Frisco blow it out to the Japan seas. And so you could see the progression when the “beat” brothers (and they were mostly brethren) put their words to paper, put their words to sound they floated out on that dank Harlem River and Frisco bay Japan seas in their own high white note fashion. Listen to Allen howl, Gregory Corso machine gun his verse, Gary Snyder Zen away, Lawrence Ferlingetti screed along and see if you don’t hear echoes of Duke’s tone poems to stand your hair on edge.                         

Yeah, sure, the guy who hipped me to jazz way back when, back in Harvard Square coffeehouse days like he did with a few other corner boys like Jack Dawson, Sam Lowell said that I had come late to an appreciation of jazz, had got my dander up messing around with the great rock and roll jail break-out and subsequently the long gone daddy folk minute and so those be-bop cats that animated his young interests didn’t hit me until much later. Later when a max daddy like the Duke was already blowing big fluffy notes in the great beyond. But when I did “dig” Duke like with a lot of things that I get the flame over I grab whatever I can. Early, late, good, bad, indifference since not every creative artist run the “A” train all the time. So  I know that the Duke was crazy great when he had Ben and Johnny and the boys blowing stuff , maybe Ivy Anderson singing a low sway in the early 1940s when everybody needed a little something to get them through, a little sublime music to go with the rough slogging through sloppy roads. Needed too to blast off with some jitter-buggery on the dance floor when the liberty ships came in or the boys were on weekend passes. That is classic Duke.

I want to step back a minute though and go back to the beginning, Duke’s beginnings in the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age uptown Harlem Saturday night at the Cotton Club.  And as the album cover says (see above) playing “jungle music” for the Mayfair swells. Jungle music meaning not the great American indigenous music that jazz contributed to the world songbook but another variation of Mister’s taking his pleasures wherever he wanted, when he wanted and so Duke got clowned, there is no other way to put it. But all those Mayfair swells turned to sawdust before long and to clay whereas the Duke (and the boys, I know, I know) played the universe clean-out. Proof, laughing proof, listen to that famous “come-back” album composed of Duke standards that brought the house down, had the usually staid 1954 Newport Jazz Festival crowd up and dancing, and murmuring, no, moaning  for more. Yeah, that’s the high white note, brother, that is…. the hippety-hop hh…high white note.