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
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band
Who knows how it happened, how the jug bug craze got started in the folk minute of the 1960s, maybe it happened just like in the 1920s and early 1930s when “jug” got a boost by the likes of the Memphis Jug Band, The Mississippi Sheiks, and about twelve other state-named Sheik groupings using home-made weapons, uh, instruments, picked up from here and there, a jug here, a triangle there, fashion a kazoo here, pluck a washtub there and come up with some pretty interesting sounds . Yeah, one you listen to the old stuff on YouTube these days you could see where that might have been the start of the big first wave. Maybe though back in the 1960s somebody, a few musicians, got together and figured here was something that folk-crazed kids, a very specific demographic not to be confused with all of the generation of ’68 post-war baby boomers coming of age rock and roll jail break-out but those who were sick unto death of the vanilla rock and roll that was being passed out about 1960 or so, get this, music that more than one mother, including my mother, thought was “nice” and that was the kiss of death to that kind of music after the death of classic Elvis/Chuck/Bo/Jerry Lee rock for a while before the Brits came over the pond and the acid-eaters headed east in the Second Coming so they started tinkering. Maybe, and remember the folk milieu perhaps more widely that the rock milieu was very literate, was very into knowing about roots and genesis and where things fit in (including where they fit in) somebody in the quickly forming and changing bands looked up some songs in the album archives at the library, or, more likely from what later anecdotal evidence had to say about the matter, found some gem in some record store, maybe a store like Sandy’s over between Harvard and Central Squares who had all kinds of eclectic stuff if you had the time and wherewithal to shuffle through the bins. Institutions that sustained many for hours back then in the cusp of the 1960s folk revival when there were record stores on almost every corner in places like Harvard Square and the Village in the East you could find some gems if you searched long enough and maybe found some old moth-eaten three volume set Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music and came up with The Memphis Jug Band and K.C. Moan or the Sheiks doing Rent Man Blues, maybe Furry Lewis on Kassie Jones (although sometimes the search was barren or, maybe worse, something by Miss Patti Page, Tennessee Ernie Ford, or good god, some country bumpkin George Jones thing stared you in the face). From there they found the Cannon’s Stompers, the Mississippi Sheiks or the Memphis Jug Band, could be the way to prosper by going back to those days if they kept the arrangements simple, and that was that.
See, everybody then was looking for roots, American music roots, old country roots, roots of some ancient thoughts of a democratic America before the robber barons and their progeny grabbed everything with every hand. Let’s make it simple, something that was not death-smeared we-are- going-to-die-tomorrow if the Ruskkies go over the top red scare bomb shelter Cold War night that we were trying to shake and take our chances, stake our lives that there was something better to do that wait for the forlorn end. And that search was no accident, at least from the oral history evidence having grown up with rock and roll and found in that minute that genre wanting. Some went reaching South to the homeland of much roots music, since those who were left behind or decided out of ennui or sloth to stay put kept up the old country British Isles Child ballad stuff (their own spin on the stuff not Child’s rarified collection stuff) and found some grizzled old geezers like Buell Kazee, Hobart Smith, Homer Jones, Reverend Jack Robinson and the like, who had made small names for themselves in the 1920s when labels like RCA and Paramount went out looking for talent in the hinterlands.
So there was history there, certainly for the individual members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim, Geoff Mulduar, Mel Lymon, Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond , the most famous and long-lasting of the 1960s jug groupings, all well-versed in many aspects of the American Songbook (hell, I would say so, say they were well-versed, even old tacky Tin Pan Alley Irving Berlin, smooth Cole Porter and the saucy Gershwin Brothers got a hearing), history there for the taking. All they needed was a jug, a good old boy homemade corn liquor jug giving the best sound but maybe some down in the cellar grandpa jug from the old days, a found washtub grandma used to use from the old garage, a washboard foundin that same location, a tringle from somewhere, a kazoo from the music store, some fiddle, a guitar, throw ina tambourine for Maria and so they were off, off to conquer places like Harvard Square, like the Village, like almost any place in the Bay area within sound of the bay.
And for a while they did, picking up other stuff chimes, more exotic kazoos, harmonicas, what the heck, even up-graded guitars and they made great music, great entertainment music, not heavy with social messages but just evoking those long lost spirits from the 1920s when jug music would sustain a crowd on a Saturday night. Made some stuff up as they went along, or better, made old stuff their own like Washington At Valley Forge, Bumble Bee, Sweet Sue from Paul Whitman and plenty of on the edge Jazz Age stuff that got people moving and forgetting their blues. And here is the beauty of it unlike most of the first wave stuff which was confined to records and radio listening you can see the Kweskin Jug Band back in the day on YouTube and see the kind of energy which they produced when they were in high form (music that they, Jim and Geoff anyway, still give high energy to when they occasionally appear together in places like Club Passim in Harvard Square these days. Yeah, in the beginning was the jug…
UKRAINE CRISIS:Origins of Conflict and Prospects for Peace
UKRAINE CRISIS: Origins of Conflict and Prospects for Peace
Growth of Ukraine as part of Russian Empire and as an independent country
UKRAINE CRISIS: Origins of Conflict and Prospects for Peace
Presentation by Paul Christensen, who has studied social movement politics in Russia and the Soviet Union. Professor Christensen has conducted research in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. A discussion will follow.
Present At The Creation Of Rock And
Roll-The Platters’ Only You (1955)
From The Pen Of Bart Webber
Deep in the dark red scare Cold War
night, still brewing then even after Uncle Joe fell down in his Red Square
drunken stupor one night and never came back, so yeah still brewing after he
kissed off in his vast red earth, still brewing as a child remembered in dark
back of school dreams about Soviet nightmares under Uncle Joe wondering how the
kids got through it, and still brewing too when Miss Winot in her pristine
glory told each and every one of her fourth grade charges, us, that come that
Russkie madness, come the Apocalypse, come the big bad ass mega-bombs (of
course being pristine and proper she did not dig down to such terms as “big bad
ass” but let’s face it that is what she meant) that each and every one of her
charges shall come that thundering god-awful air raid siren call duck, quickly
and quietly, under his or her desk and then place his or his hands, also
quickly and quietly, one over the other on the top of his or her head, a small
breeze was coming to the land.
Maybe nobody saw it coming although the
more I think about the matter somebody, some bodies knew something, not those
supposedly in the know about such times, those who are supposed to catch the
breezes before they move beyond their power to curtain them. Take guys like my
older brother Franklin and his friends, Benny and Jimmy, who were playing some be-bop
stuff up in his room. (Ma refused to let him play his songs on the family
record player down center stage in the living room or flip the dial on the
kitchen radio away from her tunes of the roaring 1940s, her and my father’s
coming of age time, so up his room like some mad monk doing who knows what
because I was busy worrying about riding bicycles or something). Here’s the
real tip-off though he and his boys would go out Friday nights to Jack Slack’s
bowling alleys not to bowl, although that was the cover story to questioning
mothers, but to hang around Freddie O’Toole’s car complete with turned on amped
up radio (station unknown then but later found to be WMEX) and dance, dance
with girls, get it, to stuff like Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 (a great song tribute to a great automobile which nobody
in our neighborhood could come close to affording so reduced to cheapjack Fords
and Plymouths), and guys who even today I don’t know the names of despite YouTube
archival vaults giving everybody with every kind of musical inclination a blast
to the past ticket. Or, how about the times we, the family would go up to
Boston for some Catholic thing in the South End at Holy Cross Cathedral and
smack across from the church was the later famous Red Hat Club where guys were blasting
away at pianos, on guitars and on big ass sexy saxes and it was not the big
band sound my folks listened to or cool, cool be-bop jazz either but music from
jump street, etched in the back of my brain because remember I’m still fussing
over bikes and stuff like that. Or how about every time we went down
Massachusetts Avenue in Boston as the sun went down, the “Negro” part before
Huntington Avenue (an area that Malcolm X knew well a decade before) and we
stopped at the ten billion lights and all you would hear is this bouncing beat
coming from taverns, from the old time townhouse apartments and black guys
dressed “to the nines,” all flash dancing on the streets with dressed “to the
nines” good-looking black girls. Memory bank.
So some guys knew, gals too don’t
forget after all they had to dig the beat, dig the guys who dug the beat, the
beat of out of some Africa breeze mixed
with forbidden sweated Southern lusts if the thing was going to work out. And
it wasn’t all dead-ass “white negro” hipsters either eulogized by Norman Mailer
(or maybe mocked you never knew with him but he sensed something was in the
breeze even if he was tied more closely to an earlier sensibility) or break-out
“beats” tired of the cool cold jazz that was turning in on itself, getting too
technical and losing the search for the high white note or lumpens of all
descriptions who whiled away the nights searching their radio dials for
something that they while away the nights searching their radio dials for
something that they could swing to while reefer high or codeine low. If you,
via hail YouTube, look at the Jacks and Jills dancing they mostly look like
very proper well-dressed middle class kids who are trying to break out of the
cookie-cutter existence they found themselves but they still lookedpretty well-fed and well-heeled so yeah,
some guys and gals and it wasn’t always who you might suspect that got hip, got
that back-beat and those piano riffs etched into their brains.
Maybe though the guys in the White
House were too busy worrying about what Uncle Joe’s progeny were doing out in
the missile silos of Minsk, maybe the professional television talkers on Meet The Press wanted to discuss the
latest turn in national and international politics for a candid world to hear
and missed what was happening out in the cookie-cutter neighborhoods, and maybe
the academic sociologists and professional criminologists were too wrapped up
in figuring out why Marlon Brando was sulking in his corner boy kingdom (and
wreaking havoc on a fearful small town world when he and the boys broke out),
whyJohnny Spain had that “shiv” ready
to do murder and mayhem to the next midnight passer-by, and why well-groomed
and fed James Dean was brooding in the “golden age” land of plenty but the breeze
was coming.
(And you could add in the same brother
Franklin who as I was worrying about bikes, the two pedal two kind getting
“from hunger” to get a Brando bike, a varoom bike, so this girl, Wendy, from
school, would take his bait, a girl that my mother fretted was from the wrong
side of town, her way of saying a tramp but she was smart as hell once I found
out about her a few years later after she, they had left town on some big ass
Norton but that is after the creation so I will let it go for now.)
And then it came, came to us in our
turn, came like some Kansas whirlwind, came like the ocean churning up the big
waves crashing to a defenseless shoreline, came if the truth be known like the
“second coming” long predicted and the brethren, us, were waiting, waiting like we had been waiting
all our short spell lives. Came in a funny form, or rather ironically funny
forms, as it turned out.
Came one time, came big as 1954 turned
to 1955 and a guy, get this, dressed not in sackcloth or hair-shirt but in a
sport’s jacket, a Robert Hall sport’s jacket from the off the rack look of it
when he and the boys were “from hunger,” playing for coffee and crullers before
on the low life circuit, a little on the heavy side with a little boy’s regular
curl in his hair and blasted the whole blessed world to smithereens. Blasted
every living breathing teenager, boy or girl, out of his or her lethargy, got
the blood flowing. The guy Bill Haley, goddam an old lounge lizard band guy who
decided to move the beat forward from cool ass be-bop jazz and sweet romance
popular music and make everybody, every kid jump, yeah Big Bill Haley and his
Comets, the song Rock Around The Clock.
Came a little more hep cat too, came
all duck walk and sex moves, feet moving faster than Robert Hall-clad Bill
could ever do, came out of Saint Loo, came out with a crazy beat. Came out in
suit and tie all swagger. Came out with a big baby girl guitar that twisted up
the chords something fierce and declared to the candid world, us, that
Maybelline was his woman. But get this, because what did we know of “color”
back then when we lived in an all-white Irish Catholic neighborhoods and since
we heard what we heard of rock and rock mostly on the radio we were shocked
when we found out the first time that he was a “Negro” to use the parlance of
the times, a black man making us go to “jump street.” And we bought into it,
bought into the beat, and joined him in saying Mister Beethoven you and your
brethren best move over.
Came sometimes in slo-mo, hey remember
this rock and roll was an ice-breaker with a beat you didn’t have to dance close to with your partner and
get all tied up in knots forgetting when to twirl, when to whirl, when to do a
split but kind of free form for the guys (or gals but mainly guys) with two
left feet like me could survive, maybe not survive the big one if the Russkies
decided to go over the top with the bomb, but that school dance and for your
free-form efforts maybe that she your eyeballs were getting sore over would
consent to the last chancelast dance
that you waited around for in case she was so impressed she might want to go
with you some place later. But before that “some place later” you had to
negotiate and the only way to do was to bust up a slow one, a dreamy one to get
her in the mood and hence people have been singing songs from time immemorial
to get people in the mood, this time Earth
Angel would do the trick. Do the trick as long as you navigated those toes
of hers, left her with two feet and standing. Dance slow, very slow brother.
Came sometimes in very slo-mo if you
could believe my older brother Franklin and the stories that he would tell us
younger guys, not in 1955 remember we were worried about two-wheel bikes then
but later when we came of age and were salaciously curious about the girl
scene, what made them tick, about how he scored with this or that girl, put the
moves on this way or that on some other one and some girl’s panties came
tumbling down as if by magic. Although I should have been a little suspicion of
Franklin’s big sky talk because when my time came the problem of garter belts
and girdles would make that quick panties coming down a little suspect, no,
very suspect when I had a hard enough and cumbersome enough time unhooking some
silly training bra. Jesus.
But here is the big truth, the skinny. See
Franklin was not, most guys were not including me, very honest about sex and
about sexual conquests when guys got together on the corners at Jack Slack’s or
Doc’s Drugstore or in the guy’s gym locker room or in the school’s boys’ lav
Monday morning. No guy wanted to seem to be “light on his feet” one of the
kinder expressions we used for gay guys in the days when “fag-baiting” was
something of a rite of passage so guys would lie like hell about this or that
score. Later when you would find yourself doing the very same thing you would
find that about sixty to seventy percent, maybe more, of what guys said about
conquests was b.s.
In any case one time Franklin was hot
after this girl, Betsy Sanders, who even when I wasn’t that into girls (before
I came of age, not that “light on my feet” if that is what you are thinking)
was “hot,” definitely pretty and smart and just plain nice. She had a
reputation, according to Franklin, of being an “ice queen,” no go, but he said
that only made him want to go after her more. One high school dance night,
maybe the Spring Frolic of 1955, Franklin went stag, although stag with six or
seven other guys, as did a lot of guys because that kind of dance was set up by
the school to have everybody mix and mingle unlike the prom let’s say which was
strictly couples or stay home and wait by the midnight phone for some lost
Janey or Jack. Of course Betsy was there, with a few of whatever they call a
cohort of single girls, looking at hot as hell, all flouncy full length dress
and some smell to drive a man wild, jasmine Franklin thought.
These school dance things like I said
were held occasionally by the school to keep an eye on what was happening to
their charges with this rock and roll craze beginning to stir up concerns (the
churches also held them for the same reason). Basically a “containment” policy
of “if you can’t fight them, keep two eyes on each and every one of them” copied
I presume from the Cold War foreign policy wonks like George Kennan who ran the
anti-Soviet establishment in Washington. So the thing was chaperoned unto
death, had some frilly crèche paper decorations to spice up the woe begotten gym
which didn’t really work, some refreshments to cool out the tranced dancers
periodically, and a lame DJ, a young goof teacher recruited because he could
“relate” to the kids who “spun” the platters (records for the unknowing) on a
dinky turntable with an equally woeful sound system. None of that meant a thing
because all that mattered was that there were boys and girls there, maybe
somebody for you and music, music to dance to. Yeah.
Now as Franklin weaved his story it
seems that the usually reserved Betsy was in high form (according to Franklin
she looked like maybe she had had a couple of drinks before the dance not
unheard of but usually that was guys but we will let that pass), dancing to
every fast dance with lots of guys, not hanging with any one in particular,
getting more and more into the dancing as the night went on. Franklin
approached her after intermission to dance Bill Haley’s latest big one, Rock Around The Clock, the one that
everybody went to the Strand Theater up the Square to see that really lame
movie about J.D.s, Blackboard Jungle, just
to see him and the Comets blast away and she accepted. Danced very
provocatively from what Franklin said, gave moves only the “fast” girls, the
known school tramps threw into the mix and that was that until the end of the
night when last chance last dance time came.
This last chance last dance as I know
from personal experience is a very dicey thing, especially if you have been
eying a girl all night and she says “no”-end of evening. See this was a slow
one so you could maybe make a last minute pitch or negotiate what was what
after the dance. Franklin said he went up to Betsy and asked her for that dance
when Mister Miles, that lame DJ I told you about already, announced that the
Moonglows’ Sincerely a song he really
liked. Here’s her answer-“Yes.” And
so they danced and while dancing she allegedly wondered out loud why he had not
asked her to dance other dances that night, she expected him to do since she
had heard through the super-reliable “grapevine” that he was interested in her.
Bingo. The rest of the dance consisted of negotiations about her getting her
cloak, about giving the guys and gals they respectively came with the heave-ho and
heading toward old Adamsville Beach in Franklin’s Hudson, really our father’s car
borrowed for the evening. Down there while he did not go into all the juicy
details about what they did, or didn’t do, she let him have his way with her
(that “panties came tumbling down” business). Of course that kind of stuff
happened all the time with good boys and girls, and bad but when Franklin asked
Betsy what stirred her up she said the music and dancing got her going, made
her all loose and everything she couldn’t explain it all but she got all warm.
Enough, okay.
Enough except what always bothered me
about what parents, the authorities, hell, even older guys on the street,
thought about rock and roll as the devil’s music came to mind. Some communist
plot to “brainwash” the youth of America and make them Kremlin stooges was hard
to figure when a girl like Betsy, an All-American girl if there ever was one,
who later in life ran for Congress, unsuccessfully, as a Republican, got all
warm when the drums started rolling the intro and the guitars built up that
back-beat. Hard to make sense of the idea that maybe the Moonglows should have
been brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the times or
something for singing a doo wop classic like Sincerely, a last chance last dance song. Yeah, that has always
bothered me.
Came in very, very slo-mo for some
guys, guys like me who even with big brothers to guide the way were after all
is said and done rather clumsy picking up the first few tips (well “half guide
the way” since a lot of what Franklin said about the ease of girl conquests was
so much hot air, same with other guys but worse, worse than the hot air was the
bad, plain wrong information about sex, sexual activity, which he, they had
learned like everybody else from the streets, certainly not out of up-tight
“asexual” parents who were not telling us anything, nor the churches and
definitely not at school although some teachers would allude to stuff but you
had to be pretty slick to pick it up. All this information, misinformation
really, was far more dangerous that just plain ignorance as Franklin, and I,
almost learned the hard way, very closely indeed).
Who knows when you get that first
inkling, you know the exact date, when those last year’s girls who were nothing
but sticks (that was our dividing line then, “sticks” and “shapes”) and
bothered you endlessly when you were just trying to ride your bike or something,
maybe reading a book in school turned into being well kind of interesting and
had something to say after all. It wasn’t necessarily coming of age time,
puberty, but close when all the confusion started, all the little social graces
began to count. So, yeah, in fifth grade, toward the end of the year, I was
smitten, smitten by Theresa Wallace, my first flamed out flame. So Theresa and
rock and roll kind of go hand in hand in my mind since around that time I also
started getting that rock beat in my head that Franklin kept telling me that
would come at some point.
Naturally with no social graces to
speak of the whole heart-throbbing thing with Theresa was a source of endless
confusion. Of course as probably is true of half the guys and gals in the world
I kept my feelings to myself, would moon, pine, twist, turn, and whatever else
a smitten person does without quite knowing what to do about the feelings.
Except to kind of be surly toward her in class, and, and, endlessly walk by her
house at all hours, all kid hours, in the hopes that I might see her and she
might wave, or something. Yeah, no social graces. Then one day the logjam
broke, she spoke to me, asked me if I wanted to go to her birthday party the
next week. Yes. Although the abruptness going from nowhere to being invited to her
house kind of startled me (later I had heard that Slim Jackson, a friend of
mine, whom I casually mentioned to that Theresa seemed nice told some girl that
fact and it eventually got through the super-speed teen grapevine that I
“liked” her).
And so the party was be held in the
family room down in the basement of her house (which in the specific case of
her house also served as the air raid shelter with signs, supplies, and defense
materials which made me realize that I would rather take my chances above
ground when I saw that included in the supplies were a record player and
records of Patti Page, Frank Sinatra, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller
and the crowd, yeah, I would definitely take my chances above ground with that
scenario) and was to be unchaperoned meaning no adults would be in the room
(although present, very present upstairs). I don’t know about now, about the
customs of the young in these matters now, but then these pre-teen parties were
called “petting parties” where somehow the first fresh bout of serious kisses were
to be bestowed, or at least the first few innocent kisses. I was scared, scared
two ways first that I would not be able to do the “deed” and secondly that if I
was close to a girl how my grooming fit in, how I smelled and looked, something
like that before we all got wise to mouthwash, deodorant and hair oil.
See it wasn’t only in sex matters that
my parents were deficient but grooming and health matters as well what with
five growing boys and nothing going my mother just didn’t give us the word. I
know one guy at school said I smelled funny one day. And I probably did
although I don’t know the why of it, maybe not washing under my underarms or
something. So one of the things that Franklin was straight on was hygiene which
he got from a friend of his when he was my age who had told him that he smelled
and hipped him to what guys had to do to keep from being rogues. He clued me in
on showering (really just an attached hose to the bathtub in our house), a
little deodorant (nobody told me I smelled after that), a little Listerine (although
the first time I used it I almost threw up since I used about half a bottle)
and Wild Root Crème Oil for my always cowlick-driven unruly hair. I was off,
thanks that one time Franklin (there would be other later times when I lent him
money, cars, and other stuff that I never got back when I would curse his name,
still do)
If you think that party of Theresa’s
was some big Mayfair swell debutante affair well you know right now you are
wrong but it was okay. About a dozen or fifteen kids, a couple more girls than
boys but that was alright then (maybe now too), all dressed up and clean
smelling presided over by Theresa who had a pretty dress on and who when she
greeted me (and everybody else so don’t make a big deal out of it) smelled like
I don’t know what, not perfume I don’t think but some exotic bath soap. Nice.
The party itself was the standard music, guys and girls dancing (sometimes two
girls dancing together but never guys remember that ‘light on your feet” jab),
a little nice food, party food, kid party food, finger food and of course the
cake, the birthday cake and Happy Birthday song. What was different, at least
for me were these two little remembrances as this. Every few records when
people were not dancing the lights would go out. That was the cue, although at
first I was clueless, for everybody to grab somebody of the opposite sex to
give a kiss to, an innocent kiss okay. Some girl, and I still am not sure who
but it was not Theresa of the exotic bath soap smells, gave me my first
official opposite sex boy-girl kiss. I bridled a little at first since I didn’t
realize that was what was going on but it was okay, yeah, okay. So that was one
thing. The other was toward the end of the party Theresa came up to me and a
little coquettishly (although I didn’t know such a word or what it meant then)
asked me to save the last dance for her. No problem. And the last dance, well
you know what it was if you have paid attention to the title of this piece The
Platters’ Only You. Only You and the
lights went out during the song and Theresa planted a long kiss on my chaste
lips, yeah, nice. We were an “item” for a while, maybe a month a long time as
such things went then and then a new guy came into town, some tow-headed kid
that all the girls went crazy over and I was reduced to sitting by the lonely
midnight phone waiting in vain for some call to come my way.
Despite all these great hits that came
our way that first big rock and roll year when it kind of came out from the
underground here is the funny thing, funny since we were present at the
creation, present in spite of every command uttered by Miss Winot against it,
declaring the music worse than that Russkie threat if you believed her (a few
kids, girls mainly, did whether to suck up to her since she would take their
entreaties although boys were strictly “no go” and I know having spent many a
missed sunny afternoon doing some silly “punishment” for her). We were just too
young to deeply imbibe the full measure of what we were hearing. See this
music, music we started calling rock and roll once somebody gave it a name
(super DJ impresario Alan Freed as we found out later after we had already
become “children of rock and roll”) was meant, was blessedly meant to be danced
to which meant in that boy-girl age we who didn’t even like the opposite sex as
things stood then were just hanging by our thumbs.
Yeah, was meant to be danced to at
“petting parties” in dank family room basements by barely teenage boys and
girls. Was meant to be danced to at teenage dance clubs where everybody was
getting caught up on learning the newest dance moves and the latest “cool”
outfits to go along with that new freedom. Was meant to serve as a backdrop at
Doc’s Drugstore’s soda fountain where Doc had installed a jukebox complete with
all the latest tunes as boys and girls shared a Coke sipping slowly with two
straws hanging out in one frosted glass. Was meant to be listened to by corner
boys at Jack Slack’s bowling alley where Jack eventually had set up a small
dance floor so kids could dance while waiting for lanes to open (otherwise
everybody would be still dancing out in front of O’Toole’s “boss” car complete
with amped-up radio not to Jack’s profit). Was meant to be listened to as the
sun went down in the west at the local drive-in while the hamburgers and fries
were cooking and everybody was waiting for darkness to fall so the real night
could begin, the night of dancing in dark corner and exploring the mysteries of
the universe, or at least of Miss Sarah Brown. Was even meant to be listened to on fugitive
transistor radios in the that secluded off-limits to adults and little kids
(us) where teens, boys and girls, mixed and matched in the drive-in movie night
(and would stutter some nonsense to questioning parents who wanted to know the
plot of the movies, what movies, Ma).
Yeah, we were just a little too young
even if we can legitimately claim to have been present at the creation. But we
will catch up, catch up with a vengeance.
End Corporate Domination of Foreign/Military
Policy
Convert the Military Industrial Complex
Deal with climate
change and global poverty
List in formation
Bath
Iron Works, Maine (Oct 3) Vigil across from administration building on
Washington Street (Navy Aegis destroyers outfitted with “missile defense”
systems built at BIW) 11:30-12:30 amSmilin’ Trees Disarmament Farm (207) 763-4062
·Boryong,
South Korea (Oct 4)No to THAAD
‘missile defense’ system protest only for the sake of US and Japan destroying
peace and economy. Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
·Chongju,
South Korea (Oct 7)At Bus
terminal. No to THAAD ‘missile defense’
system protest only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and economy.
Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
USAF
Croughton, England (Oct 3) National March & Rally at U.S. satellite
communication and intelligence base. (Space communications, drones, bomber
guidance, missile defence and command & control functions.) 12.00 midday to 3:30 pm. Special guest Robb
Johnson. Evening peace concert after rally at Friends Meeting House in Oxford at
7:00 pm. Oxfordshire Peace Campaign, oxonpeace@yahoo.co.uk
·Daejeon,
South Korea (Oct 6)At Chungnam
university, Mokwon Univ, Daejeon Univ. No to THAAD ‘missile defense’ system protest
only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and economy. Organized by
SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
Janakpurdham, Nepal (Oct 5)
Introductory/ interaction meeting about Global Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space and my experience of Okinawa, Kyoto and Hiroshima
conferences. Social Development Path (SODEP) http://www.sodep.org.np/
·Jeonju,
South Korea (Oct 3)At Jeonbuk
University, Korean traditional village touring site.No to THAAD ‘missile defense’ system
protestonly for the sake of US and
Japan destroying peace and economy. Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
Kemijärvi, Finland (Oct 3) Peace
defenders will hold a street protest against drone testing and war training area
where NATO is feared to be preparing for war with Russia.kerstin.tuomala@pp.inet.fi
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (Oct 10)
Noon, Demonstration and kite flying in front of Lockheed Martin (L-M) at
intersection of Mall & Goddard Boulevards.L-M is making a killing in drone war and surveillance technology,
building the remote-controlled unmanned planes and satellites that direct the
drones and launch their deadly Hellfire missiles which L-M also builds. For more
info Brandywine Peace Community, (610) 544-1818 brandywine@juno.comor www.brandywinepeace.com
Kolkata, India (Oct 11) Public Meeting
at Kolkata organised by Mrs. Arundhoti Roy Chouddhury (arundhoti@gmail.com). Global Network board member J.
Narayana Rao to speak.
Kyoto, Japan (Oct 3) Kyoto Coalition
against the U.S. X-band Radar Base in Ukawa village will hold indoor rally and
march.
Maine Walk for Peace: Pentagon’s Impact on
the Oceans (Oct 9-24) Join us in shedding light on the Militarization of the
Seas as the US Navy (outfitted with missile defense and space-directed missiles)
ramps up their global operations to encircle Russia & China. We will explore
environment impacts of Navy on the oceans.Walk from Ellsworth to Portsmouth.See flyer at www.vfpmaine.org
Nagpur, India (Oct 3) Mass Rally at
Motibalgh jointly by S.E.C. Rly Pensioners Assn and Pragatisjheel Railway Mahila
Samaj. Coordinator J. Saraswati.jnrao193636@gmail.com
·Nagpur, India (Oct 3) Program
on the dangers of weaponization of space at 11 AM to be held at the Women's
College.jnrao193636@gmail.com
·Nagpur, India (Oct 3) Program
on the dangers of weaponization of space at 2:00 with the students at the
National Social Work College.jnrao193636@gmail.com
·Nagpur, India (Oct 4) Bernie
Mayer (American Gandhi) will address a women's rally at 4:00 pm on how
the masses can be attracted to struggle against space weaponisation through
Gandhian technique.jnrao193636@gmail.com
·Nonsan,
South Korea (Oct 5)No to THAAD
‘missile defense’ system protest only for the sake of US and Japan destroying
peace and economy. Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
·Pyongtaek,
South Korea (Oct 8) At Railroad station. No to THAAD ‘missile defense’ system protest
only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and economy. Organized by
SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
·Seongnam,
South Korea Oct 9(At traditional
market) No to THAAD ‘missile defense’ systemprotest only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and economy.
Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
·Seoul, South Korea (Oct 23) No to THAAD
only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and economy protest rally
when Security Meeting of US and S. Korea is being held. Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
·Suwon, South
Korea Oct 10No to THAAD ‘missile
defense’ system protest only for the sake of US and Japan destroying peace and
economy. Organized by SPARK spark946@hanmail.net
Tucson, Arizona (Oct 6)Vigil at Raytheon Missile Systems.
Join the Raytheon Peacemakers as we demonstrate against war and those who profit
from it.Survival demands better ideas,
not better weapons.Hermans Road
entrance. (3rd traffic light south of Valencia on Nogales Highway, the extension
of South 6th Avenue). Park off Nogales Highway, between railroad tracks and
highway.Signs provided, or bring your
own!More info: 520-323-8697.
·Vandenberg
AFB, California (Oct 7) Vigil in solidarity with "Keep Space for Peace Week"
at the main gate of space warfare base from 3:45pm to 4:45pm. For info, contact
Dennis Apel at (805) 878-2614.
-Keep Space for Peace Week is
co-sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace &
Freedom
6th Annual International Day of Peace 2-4:00pm; 4-4:30 optional walk to the Peace Garden Boston Common (near Park Street T stop, in front of the State House) —— A note from the planning committee: Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on September 21. The United Nations General Assembly has declared that this day be devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. We celebrate the International Day of Peace on the Boston Common because we believe that peace is still alive, it is love and it conquers all. We do this because there is too much violence in the world. Our hope is that this event will put peace on many minds for many days to come. We aim to also highlight the complexities of violence that need addressing in our own community. We hope to spread peace through sharing, by example, and by performing random acts of kindness. In Peace, International Day of Peace, Boston Organizing Committee ——– The sixth annual Boston celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace features music, song, dance, poetry, and people working for peace in the city, around the US, and internationally. In addition to the performances, facepainting and interactive art projects will provide activities for all ages. Come as a family, come as an entire community– all faiths, including none, are welcome. Bring a banner or sign! https://www.facebook.com/events/985747088156567/
