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
Monday, July 20, 2015
As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Comes To A Close... Some Remembrances
The events leading up to World War I (known as the Great War before the world got clogged up with expansive wars in need of other numbers and names and reflecting too in that period before World War II a certain sense of “pride” in having participated in such an adventure even if it did mow down the flower of European youth form all classes) from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources had all the earmarks of a bloodbath early on once the industrial-sized carnage set in with the stalemated fronts. Also clogged, or rather thrown in the nearest bin were the supposedly eternal pledges not honored by most of the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those imperialist capitalist powers and their hangers-on in their tracks in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20th century history. Other than isolated groups and individuals mostly in the weaker countries of Europe the blood lust got the better of most of the working class and its allies as young men rushed to the recruiting stations to “do their duty” and prove thir manhood.
Decisive as well as we head down the slope to the last month of the first year of war although shrouded in obscurity early in the war in exile was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a necessary nom de guerre in hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to send one and all to the Siberian frosts and that moniker business, that nom de guerre not a bad idea in today’s NSA-driven frenzy to know all, to peep at all), leader of the small Russian Bolshevik Party ( a Social-Democratic Party in name anyway adhering to the Second International under the sway of the powerful German party although not for long), architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many revolutionary experiences in Russia and Europe in the 19th century), and author of an important, important to the future communist world perspective, study on the monopolizing tendencies of world imperialism, the ending of the age of “progressive” capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the term progressive in a historical materialist sense that capitalism was progressive against feudalism and other older economic models which turned into its opposite at this dividing point in history), and the hard fact that it was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by the establishment of the socialist order. But that is the wave of the future as 1914 turns to 1915 in the sinkhole trenches of Europe that are already a death trap for the flower of the European youth.
The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20th century when the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine. The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war on the fronts (that is how the generals saw it mainly having won their promotions in those earlier wars and so held captive to the past). However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas.
The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can, hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.
A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht (who against the party majority bloc voting scheme finally voted against the Kaiser’s war budget, went to the streets to get rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in the Kaiser’sprisons) and Rosa Luxemburg ( the rose of the revolution also honorably prison bound) in Germany, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia (both exiled at the outbreak of war and just in time as being on “the planet without a passport” was then as now, dangerous to the lives of left-wing revolutionaries), some anti-war anarchists like Monette in France and here in America the Big Bill Haywood (who eventually would controversially flee to Russia to avoid jail for his opposition to American entry into war), many of his IWW (Industrial Workers Of the World) comrades and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, “club fed” for speaking the truth about American war aims in a famous Cleveland speech and, fittingly, ran for president in 1920 out of his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell), were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.
Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations centers, were being clamped down as well when the various imperialist governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11 when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to begin the anti-war fight another day.
So imagine in the hot summer of 1914 when every nationality in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses, including the beguiled working-classes bred on peace talk without substance, would not listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not too long or too late to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass mobilizations began in the countdown to war, began four years of bloody trenches and death.
Over the next period as we continue the long night of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles after it in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.
Click On Title To Link To Studs Terkel’s Web Page.
BOOK REVIEWS
American Dreams: Lost and Found, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004
As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War: an Oral History of World War II".
Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of American Dreams: Lost And Found serves a dual purpose.
First, to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008): the recent arrivals to these shores hungry to seek the “streets of gold”; those Native Americans, as exemplified in Vince DeLoria’s story, whose ancestors precede our own and who continue to bring up the rear; those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South and, in some cases, found more in common than in difference; and, others who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs’ preoccupations- the fate of his generation- ‘so-called “greatest generation”. Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Thus, there is no little irony in the title of this oral history.
One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.
Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958-The Search For The Great Working-Class
Love Song - With Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning, 1952 In
Mind –Take Two
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:
Several
years ago, maybe about eight years now that I think about it, I did a series of
sketches on guys, folk-singers, folk-rockers, rock-folkers or whatever you want
to call those who weened us away from the stale pablum rock in the early 1960s (Bobby
Vee, Rydell, Darin, et al, Sandra Dee, Brenda Lee, et al) after the gold rush
dried up in what is now called the classic age of rock and roll in the mid to
late 1950s when Elvis, Jerry Lee, Buddy, Chuck, Bo and their kindred made us
jump. (There were gals too like Wanda Jackson but mainly it was guys in those
days.) I am referring of course to the savior folk minute of the early 1960
when a lot of guys with acoustic guitars, some self-made lyrics, or stuff from
old Harry Smith Anthology times gave us a reprieve. The series titled Not
Bob Dylan centered on why those budding folkies like Tom Rush, Tom Paxton,
Phil Ochs, Jesse Winchester and the man under review Richard Thompson to name a
few did not make the leap to be the “king of folk” that had been ceded by the
media to Bob Dylan and whatever happened to them once the folk minute went
south after the combined assault of the British rock invasion (you know the
Beatles, Stones, Kinks, hell, even Herman’s Hermits got play for a while),and the rise of acid rock put folk in the
shade (you know the Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, The Doors, The Who, hell,
even the aforementioned Beatles and Stones got caught up in the fray although
not to their eternal musical playlist benefit). I also did a series on Not
Joan Baez, the “queen of the folk minute” asking that same question on the
female side but here dealing with one Richard Thompson the male side of the
question is what is of interest.
I did a
couple of sketches on Richard Thompson back then, or rather sketches based on
probably his most famous song, Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
which dove-tailed with some remembrances of my youth and my semi-outlaw front
to the world and the role that motorcycles played in that world. Additionally,
in light of the way that a number of people whom I knew back then, classmates
whom I reconnected on a class reunion website responded when I posed the
question of what they thought was the great working-class love song since North
Adamsville was definitely a working class town driven by that self-same ethos I
wrote some other sketches driving home my selection of Thompson’s song as my
choice.
The latter sketches
are what interest me here. See Thompson at various times packed it in, said he
had no more spirit or some such and gave up the road, the music and the
struggle to made that music, as least professionally. Took time to make a more
religious bent to his life and other such doings. Not unlike a number of other
performers from that period who tired of the road or got discourage with the
small crowds, or lost the folk spirit. Probably as many reasons as individuals
to give them. Then he, they had an epiphany or something, got the juices
flowing again and came back on the road. That fact is to the good for old time folk (and
rock) aficionados like me.
What that
fact of returning to the road by Thompson and a slew of others has meant is
that my friend and I, (okay, okay my sweetie who prefers that I call her my
soulmate but that is just between us so friend) now have many opportunities to
see acts like Thompson’s Trio, his current band configuration, to see if we
think they still “have it” (along with acts of those who never left the road like
Bob Dylan who apparently is on an endless tour whether we want him to do so or
not). That idea got started about a decade ago when we saw another come-back
kid, Geoff Muldaur of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, solo, who had taken something
twenty years off. He had it. So we started looking for whoever was left of the
old folks acts (rock and blues too) to check out that question-unfortunately
the actuarial tables took their toll before we could see some of them at least
one last time like Dave Von Ronk.
That brings
us to Richard Thompson. Recently we got a chance to see him in a cabaret
setting with tables and good views from every position, at least on in the
orchestra section, at the Wilbur Theater in Boston with his trio, a big brush
drummer and an all-around side guitar player (and other instruments like the
mando). Thompson broke the performance up into two parts, a solo set of six or
seven numbers high-lighted by Vincent Black Lightning, and Dimming Of
The Day which was fine. The second part based on a new album and a bunch of
his well-known rock standards left us shaking our heads. Maybe the room could
not handle that much sound, although David Bromberg’s five piece band handled
it well a couple of weeks before, or maybe it was the melodically sameness of
the songs and the same delivery voice and style but we were frankly
disappointed and not disappointed to leave at the encore.Most tunes didn’t resonant although a few in
all honesty did we walked out of the theater with our hands in our pockets. No
thumbs up or down flat based on that first old time set otherwise down.
However, damn it, Bob Dylan does not have to move over, now.Our only consolation that great working-class
love song, Vincent Black Lightning, still intact.
Which brings
us to one of those sketches I did based on Brother Thompson’s glorious Vincent
Black Lightning. When I got home I began to revise that piece which I have included
below. Now on to the next act in the great quest- a reunion of the three
remaining active members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim Maria Muldaur, and of
course Geoff at the Club Passim (which traces its genesis back to the folk
minute’s iconic Club 47 over on Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. We’ll
see if that gets the thumbs up.
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 some-things,
including their Janie, when the music and liquor (and in some “hip” or badass
locales the dreaded dope, marijuana or worse previously only hearsay of seen and
read in Nelson Algren be-bop Man With A Golden
Arm junkie sagas) got going and the wild boys all “dressed-up” in greasy denim,
tee-shirt, greasy or not, denim cut-off jacket, doo rag handkerchief for the head and whatever magic
number-word symbol represented their chapter existence, showed up to get it on
and a few girls, adventurous girls in those pre-pill sex times, got a little
wet thinking about that possibility and don’t kid yourself on that, to the everlasting
chagrin of Joe College who got nothing but some midnight kiss).
Of course parents didn’t count, count
for much anyway, when trends, moods, and what was cool got discussed in front
of night times 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-up 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 be 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 worse,
infinitely worse, 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
anguished 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 never ever use that comparison then, not if you don’t want to fight, fight
whip chains fight or cut-up 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, red-headed girl in a leather jacket 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.
ARTIST: Richard
Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords
Said Red Molly to James that's a fine
motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such
like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's
off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and
cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite
color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D
A /
/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - -
- /
Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring
for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a
dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was
seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent
machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the
love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride
Come down, come down, Red Molly, called
Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for
armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left
nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying
bedside
When she came to the hospital, there
wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was
running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to
ride
Says James, in my opinion, there's
nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed
girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses
won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent
52
He reached for her hand and he slipped
her the keys
On The 76th Anniversary Year
Of The Defeat Of The Spanish Revolution- The Lessons Learned
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
In July 1936 General Franco led a
military uprising against the legally elected Popular Front government in Spain
which set off three years of war, set off the Spanish Civil War, which proved
to be a prelude, a “dress rehearsal” for World War II. That uprising, the
initial massively popular fight against it by the leftist workers and peasants,
and the ultimate victory by Franco’s forces and a forty year “night of the long
knives” reign of terror in 1939 is filled with lessons for leftists today.
Therefore it seems fitting to me that while we are sadly commemorating the 75th
anniversary of the defeat I can pass on some lessons that others have drawn
from that experience both while the events were unfolding and later.
Leon Trotsky
The Tragedy of Spain
Written: 30 January 1939. Originally Published: Russian Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 74. Source:Socialist Appeal [New York], 19 February, 1939 Translated:Socialist Appeal. Transcription/HTML Markup: Martin Falgren & D Walters. Public Domain: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive 2008. This work is completely free to copy and distribute.
One of the most tragic chapters of modern history is now drawing to its conclusion in Spain. On Franco’s side there is neither a staunch army nor popular support. There is only the greed of proprietors ready to drown in blood three—fourths of the population if only to maintain their rule over the remaining one—fourth. However, this cannibalistic ferocity is not enough to win a victory over the heroic Spanish proletariat. Franco needed help from the opposite side of the battlefront. And he obtained this aid. His chief assistant was and still is Stalin, the gravedigger of the Bolshevik Party and the proletarian revolution. The fall of the great proletarian capital, Barcelona, comes as direct retribution for the massacre of the uprising of the Barcelona proletariat in May 1937.
Insignificant as Franco himself is, however miserable his clique of adventurists, without honor, without conscience, and without military talents, Franco’s great superiority lies in this, that he has a clear and definite program: to safeguard and stabilize capitalist property, the rule of the exploiters, and the domination of the church; and to restore the monarchy. The possessing classes of all capitalist countries—whether fascist or democratic—proved, in the nature of things, to be on Franco’s side. The Spanish bourgeoisie has gone completely over to Franco’s camp. At the head of the republican camp, there remained the cast—off “democratic” armor—bearers of the bourgeoisie. These gentlemen could not desert to the side of fascism, for the very sources of their influence and income spring from the institutions of bourgeois democracy, which require (or used to require!) for their normal functioning lawyers, deputies, journalists, in short, the democratic champions of capitalism. The program of Azaña and his associates is nostalgia for a day that has passed. This is altogether inadequate. The Popular Front resorted to demagogy and illusions in order to swing the masses behind itself. For a certain period, this proved successful. The masses who had assured all the previous successes of the revolution still continued to believe that the revolution would reach its logical conclusion, that is, achieve an overturn in property relations, give land to the peasants, and transfer the factories into the hands of the workers. The dynamic force of the revolution was lodged precisely in this hope of the masses for a better future. But the honorable republicans did everything in their power to trample, to besmirch, or simply to drown in blood the cherished hopes of the oppressed masses. As a result, we have witnessed during the last two years the growing distrust and hatred of the republican cliques on the part of the peasants and workers. Despair or dull indifference gradually replaced revolutionary enthusiasm and the spirit of self—sacrifice. The masses turned their backs on those who had deceived and trampled upon, them. That is the primary reason for the defeat of the republican troops. The inspirer of deceit and of the massacre of the revolutionary workers of Spain was Stalin. The defeat of the Spanish revolution falls as a new indelible blot upon the already bespattered Kremlin gang. The crushing of Barcelona deals a terrible blow to the world proletariat, but it also teaches a great lesson. The mechanics of the Spanish Popular Front as an organized system of deceit and treachery of the exploited masses have been completely exposed. The slogan of “defense of democracy” has once again revealed its reactionary essence, and at the same time, its hollowness. The bourgeoisie wants to perpetuate its rule of exploitation; the workers want to free themselves from exploitation. These are the real tasks of the fundamental classes in modern society. Miserable cliques of petty—bourgeois middlemen, having lost the confidence and the subsidies of the bourgeoisie, sought to salvage the past without giving any concessions to the future. Under the label of the Popular Front, they set up a joint stock company. Under the leadership of Stalin, they have assured the most terrible defeat when all the conditions for victory were at hand. The Spanish proletariat gave proof of extraordinary capacity for initiative and revolutionary heroism. The revolution was brought to ruin by petty, despicable, and utterly corrupted “leaders.” The downfall of Barcelona signifies above all the downfall of the Second and Third Internationals, as well as of anarchism, rotten to its core. Forward to a new road, workers! Forward to the road of the international socialist revolution!
The Hills And Hollas Of Home- In Honor Of The Late Hazel Dickens
Kenny Jackman heard the late Hazel Dickens (d. 2011) for the very first time on her CD album It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song some years back, maybe in 2005, when he was in thrall to mountain music after being hit hard by Reese Witherspoon’s role as June Carter in the film about her husband Johnny Cash, his addictions, his pursuit of her, and her settling him down a bit Walk The Line. At that time Kenny, like a lot of us who get the bug on some subject, got into all things Carter Family unto the nth generation. A friend, a Vermont mountain boy whom he had met many years before in the early 1970s on the road out in California and whom Kenny would go up and see up in the remnant of his communal cabin which he had shared with a revolving door mix of ex-hippies, wannabe hippies and the just misbegotten when he had a chance, had hipped him to Hazel during his frenzy and he picked up the CD second-hand in Harvard Square. (Really at Sandy’s located between Harvard and Central Squares, a folk institution around town where until recently Sandy had held forth since the early 1960s folk minute when everybody was desperately looking for roots music and that was the place around Boston to look first. Hazel’s You’ll Get No More Of Me, A Few Old Memories and the classic Hills of Home knocked Kenny out. The latter, moreover, seemed kind of familiar and later, a couple of months later, he finally figured out why. He had really first heard Hazel back in 1970 when as part of his then seemingly never-ending hitchhike road drama had headed back east through the Southern route since the weather was starting to get cold in the Rockies and was down in the those very hills and hollows that are a constant theme in her work, and that of the mountain mist winds music coming down the crevices. What was going on though? Was it 2005 when he first heard Hazel or that 1970 time? Let me go back and tell that 1970 story.
Kenny Jackman like many of his generation of ’68 was feeling foot loose and fancy free, especially after he had been mercifully declared 4-F by his friendly neighbors at the local draft board in old hometown North Adamsville (declared 4-F in those high draft days because he had a seriously abnormal foot problem which precluded walking very far, a skill that the army likes its soldiers to be able to do and a constant problem on the hitchhike road if he needed to walk any distance between rides). Kenny, every now and again, took to the hitchhike road, not like his (our) mad man friend the late Peter Paul Markin with some heavy cultural message a la Jack Kerouac and his beat brothers (and a few sisters) but just to see the country while he, and it, were still in one piece no pun intended Kenny told me since the country was in about fifteen pieces then).
On one of these trips he found himself stranded just outside Norfolk, Virginia at a road-side campsite. Feeling kind of hungry one afternoon, and tired, tired unto death of camp-side gruel and stews he stopped at a diner, Billy Bob McGee’s, an old-time truck stop diner a few hundred yards up the road from his camp for some real food, maybe meatloaf or some pot roast like his Irish grandma used to make in a huge pot on the old iron stove in her kitchen or that was how it was advertised. When he entered the mid-afternoon half-empty diner he sat down at one of the single stool counter seats that always accompany the vinyl-covered side booths in such places. But all of this was so much descriptive noise that could describe a million, maybe more, such eateries. What really caught his attention though was a waitress serving them “off the arm” that he knew immediately he had to “hit” on (although that is not the word used in those days but “hit on” conveys what he was up to in the universal boy meets girl world). As it turned out she, sweetly named Fiona Fay, and, well let’s just call her fetching, Kenny weary-eyed fetching, was young, footloose and fancy free herself and had drawn a bead on him as he entered the place, and, …well this story is about Hazel, so let us just leave it as one thing led to another and let it go at that.
Well, not quite let’s let it go at that because when Kenny left Norfolk a few days later one ex-waitress Fiona Fay was standing by his side on the road south. And the road south was leading nowhere, nowhere at all except to Podunk, really Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and really, really a dink town named Pottsville, just down the road from big town Prestonsburg, down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, wind-swept green, green, mountain mist, time forgotten . And the reason two footloose and fancy free young people were heading to Podunk is that a close cousin of Fiona’s lived there with her husband and child and wanted Fiona to come visit (visit “for a spell” is how she put it but I will spare the reader the localisms). So they were on that hell-bend road but Kenny, Kenny was dreading this trip and only doing it because, well because Fiona was the kind of young woman, footloose and fancy free or not, that you followed, at least you followed if you were Kenny Jackson and hoped things would work out okay.
What Kenny dreaded that day was that he was afraid to confront his past. And that past just then entailed having to go to his father’s home territory just up the road in Hazard. See Kenny saw himself as strictly a Yankee, a hard “we fought to free the slaves and incidentally save the union” Yankee for one and all to see back in old North Adamsville. And denied, denied to the high heavens, that he had any connection with the south, especially the hillbilly south that everybody was making a fuse about trying to bring into the 20th century around that time. And here he was with a father with Hazard, Kentucky, the poorest of the poor hillbillies, right on his birth certificate although Kenny had never been there before. Yeah, Fiona had better be worth it.
Kenny had to admit, as they picked up one lonely truck driver ride after another (it did not hurt in those days to have a comely lass standing on the road with you in the back road South, or anywhere else, especially if you had longish hair and a wisp of a beard), that the country was beautiful. As they entered coal country though and the shacks got crummier and crummier he got caught up in that 1960s Michael Harrington Other America no running water, outhouse, open door, one window and a million kids and dogs running around half-naked, the kids that is vision. But they got to Pottsville okay and Fiona’s cousin and husband (Laura and Stu) turned out to be good hosts. So good that they made sure that Kenny and Fiona stayed in town long enough to attend the weekly dance at the old town barn (red of course, run down and in need of paint to keep red of course) that had seen such dances going back to the 1920s when the Carter Family had actually come through Pottsville on their way back to Clinch Mountain.
Kenny buckled at the thought, the mere thought, of going to some Podunk Saturday night “hoe-down” and tried to convince Fiona that they should leave before Saturday. Fiona would have none of it and so Kenny was stuck. Actually the dance started out pretty well, helped tremendously by some local “white lightning” that Stu provided and which he failed to mention should be sipped, sipped sparingly. Not only that but the several fiddles, mandolins, guitars, washboards and whatnot made pretty good music. Music like Anchored in Love and Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, stuff that he had heard in the folk clubs in Harvard Square when he used to hang out there in the early 1960s. And music that even Kenny, old two left-feet, one way out of whack, draft-free out of whack, Kenny, could dance to with Fiona.
So Kenny was sipping, well more than sipping, and dancing and all until maybe about midnight when this woman, this local woman came out of nowhere and began to sing, sing like some quick, rushing wind sound coming down from the hills and hollas (hollows for Yankees, okay, please). Kenny began to toss and turn a little, not from the liquor but from some strange feeling, some strange womb-like feeling that this woman’s voice was a call from up on top of these deep green hills, now mist-filled awaiting day. And then she started into a long, mournful version of Hills of Home, and he sensed, sensed strongly if not anything he could articulate that he was home. Yes, Kenny Jackson, Yankee, city boy, corner boy-bred was “home,” hillbilly home. So Kenny did really hear Hazel Dickens for first time in 1970, see.
[As for Fiona Fay she stayed on the road with Kenny until they headed toward the Midwest where she veered off home to Valparaiso in Indiana, her hometown, back to the business school she was attending and had taken time off from to “find herself” just as Kenny and ten million other generational wanderers were trying like hell to do. Kenny headed west via Denver and the Utahs to California, to Big Sur and a different mountain ethos, splashed by the sea, splashed by the Japan seas, splashed by everything that in his everlasting life needed to be washed clean. They were supposed to meet out there a few months later after she finished up the semester and attended to some family business. They never did, a not so unusual occurrence of the time when people met and faded along the way, but Kenny thought about her, about that red barn dance night, about that lady of the mountains and that wind-swept mountain coming down the hollows night for a long time after that.]
This song is from YouTube performed by Thompson, although a stronger version is done on a cover by folk singer Greg Brown not there.
Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride
Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride
Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride
********* The search, the everlasting search as it turned out, for the great working class love song, was prompted by a question that Peter Paul Markin had been asked about a few years before from some old North Adamsville high school classmates who had contacted him to cut up old torches via a circuitous route, hell, a byzantine route, or byzantine –worthy, that he would describe some other time since to stop for it then would have snagged the question to death - what music were you listening to back in the day? Back in the early 1960s day when the music was exhausted and they were waiting, waiting impatiently, or he was, for some fresh breeze to come from somewhere after Elvis died (or might as well have died, died army died, died Follywood movie died, squaresville died, when he retired his hips, his snarl, and his nerve and let Tin Pan Alley rather than the back street juke joint down in black night Clarksville or some honkytown, good old boy honkytown bar in back alley Memphis turn his head) , Jerry Lee was busted up with some second cousin(and the hoped for mantle-passing faded after the blast promise of High School Confidentialon the back of a flatbed truck turned to ashes and a corny reefer-free B-film, a premature jailbreak minute turned to ashes in our collective youthful mouths not then used to such mortalities), Chuck was out of circulation for messing with Mister’s women (a more serious lesson but what did we, white kids all, all, to a person, know of such race things, race divides, race records, miscegenation, lust , all we knew was Roll Over Beethoven and approved) , and we were stuck with a batch of songs and singers who made us want to head back to mother womb 1940s music, some Inkspots, pre-doo-wopping, some Lena Horne stormy weather , or some such, that at least had good melodies.
Well, for him at that point at least that subject was totally exhausted. He no longer wanted to hear about how his dear AARP-enrolled classmates (distaff side , he presumed) fainted over Teen Angel (the saga of some dippy frail who was so off-center that she flipped out when she found out her boy’s class ring was back in some railroad track stalled car-and she went back, RIP angel), Johnny Angel (just some hormonal hyperbole about some side-burn corner boy with tight white tee-shirt, tight jeans, tight, but don’t tell her that), orEarth Angel (ditto on the tight, but girl tight, the only girl tight that counted, cashmere sweater, skirt tight). Christ there were more angels around then than could fit on the head of a needle or fought it out to the death in John Milton’s epic revolutionary poem from the seventeenth century , Paradise Lost. Moreover, he had enough of You're Gonna Be Sorry, I'm Sorry, and Who's Sorry Now. What was there to be sorry about, except maybe some minute hurt feelings, some teenage awkward didn’t know how to deal with some such situation or, in tune with the theme here, some mistake that reflected their working class-derived lacks, mainly lacks of enough time, energy and space to think things over without seven thousand parents and siblings breaking the stream. And a little discretionary dough would have helped(dough for Saturday night drive-ins, drive-in movies, hell, even Saturday night dance night down by the shore everything’s all right) to take some teen angel somewhere other than the damn walk to the seawall down Adamsville Beach.
And no more of Tell Laura I Love Her, Oh Donna, and I Had A Girl Her Name Was Joanne, or whatever woman's name came to mind. Sweet woman, sweet mama. sweet outlaw mama, or just waiting to be an outlaw sweet mama in some forlorn midnight Edward Hooper coffee shop waiting for the next best thing to show up and get the hell out of Dudsville, USA (or universe) Red Molly, all dolled up in her black leather put them all to shame, yah, she put them all to shame. (and set off by her flaming red hair making every boy dream, dream restless night dreams, until James took over and then you had best not look, not if you wanted to keep your place in the sun, or breathe to find your own leather tight woman. Guys tried, guys tried and failed as guys will, so be forewarned. ) So it was time, boys and girls, to move on to other musical influences from more mature years, say from the post-traumatic stress high school years.
But why the search for the great working -class love song? Well, hello! The old town, old beloved North Adamsville, was (and is, as far as Peter Paul could tell from a recent trip back to the old place) a quintessential beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday working -class town (especially before the deindustrialization of America which for North Adamsville meant the closing of the shipyards that had left it as a basically low-end white collar service-oriented working -class town, dotted with ugly, faux-functional white collar office-style parks and malls to boot making a mockery of the granite origins of the place). The great majority of the tribe in those days came from working- class or working poor homes. Most songs, especially popular songs, then and now, reflected a kind of "one size fits all" lyric that could apply to anyone, anywhere. What he was looking for was songs that in some way reflected that working- class ethos that was still embedded in their bones, that caused their hunger even now, whether they recognized it or not.
Needless to say, since Peter Paul had had posed the question, he had his choice already prepared. As will become obvious, if the reader has read the lyrics above, this song reflected his take on the corner boy, live for today, be free for today, male angst in the age old love problem. However, any woman was more than free to choice songs that reflected her female angst angle (ouch, for that awkward formulation) on the working- class hit parade.
And a fellow North Adamsville female classmate did proposing Bruce Springsteen’s version of Jersey Girl and here was Peter Paul’s response to the interchange on this choice:
“Come on now, after reading these lyrics above is any mere verbal profession of undying love, any taking somebody on a ride at some two-bit carnival down on the Jersey shore going to make the cut. (Big deal, he was not going to hang with his corner boys, who he was heartily tired of anyway, or walk the streets looking for hookers to be with his honey. That was something for her to appreciate, she was better than some whore, Jesus.) I am thinking here of the working class song suggested to me by a female classmate , Bruce Springsteen's cover version of Tom Waits’ Jersey Girl where they go down to the Jersey seashore to some amusement park to while the night away in good working- class style, cotton candy, salt water taffy, win your lady a doll, ride the Ferris wheel, tunnel of love, hot dog, then sea breeze love , just like our Paragon Park nights, some buying of a one carat gold ring like every guy on the make is promising to do for his honey if she…, or some chintzy, faded flowers that melt away in the night, or with the morning dew going to mean anything? Hell, the guy here, the guy in Vincent Black Lightning 1952, bravo James, was giving her, his Red Molly, HIS bike, his bike, man. No Wild One, Easy Rider, no women need apply bike night. HIS bike. Case closed.”
The reader might think, well, big deal he gave her his bike as a dying declaration, taking such an action as so-so and just a guy trinket love thing, not the stuff of eternity. No way. He knew of at least one female, Donna, Donna of the tight cashmere sweater and tight, tight black skirt, of the raven black hair, noted above in the dedication, who might relate to this song. Who knew that her Johnny, Johnny Shine, when he came up and scooped her away from tough guy corner boy Red Radley one cloudy night and roared off into the world on his Indian that he would play the gallant for her, and when he fell he became a local legend. And she kept his bike as a shrine to his memory. Peter Paul also knew at least one male, who shall remain nameless, who snuck out the back door of old North Adamsville High with another classmate, a female classmate, to ride his bike, and a few others things, down by the secluded beach things, during school hours back in the day. It was in the air in those heroic days. So don't think Peter Paul had forgotten his medication, or something, when he called this a great working class love song. Romeo and Juliet by what’s his name, Shakespeare, was nothing but down in the ditch straight punk stuff compared to this. And as Peter Paul insisted on repeating for the slow learners here, the guy, his boy, his universal corner boy James, in the song gave her HIS bike, man. That is love, no question.
