For The Late Rosalie Sorrels *In Defense Of Whimsy, Part Two- The Music Of Priscilla Herdman

If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go-Round At 83

By Music Critic Bart Webber

Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, Josh Breslin, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square with the big names, some small too which one time I made the subject of a series, or rather two series entitled respectively Not Bob Dylan and Not Joan Baez about those who for whatever reason did not make the show over the long haul, passing through the Club 47 Mecca and later the Café Nana and Club Blue, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. Those are the places where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers, some who made it like Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell and others like Eric Saint Jean and Minnie Murphy who didn’t, like  who all sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger got their first taste of the fresh breeze of the folk minute, that expression courtesy of the late Markin, who was among the first around to sample the breeze.

(I should tell you here in parentheses so you will keep it to yourselves that the former three mentioned above never got over that folk minute since they will still tell a tale or two about the times, about how Dave Van Ronk came in all drunk one night at the Café Nana and still blew everybody away, about catching Paxton changing out of his Army uniform when he was stationed down at Fort Dix  right before a performance at the Gaslight, about walking down the street Cambridge with Tom Rush just after he put out No Regrets/Rockport Sunday, and about affairs with certain up and coming female folkies like the previously mentioned Minnie Murphy at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you dare go anywhere within ten miles of the subject with any of them -I will take my chances here because this notice, this passing of legendary Rosalie Sorrels a decade after her dear friend Utah Phillips is important.)

Those urban locales were certainly the high white note spots but there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some of the other upstate colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and a folkie character in her own right, where some of those names played previously mentioned but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about and rounded out his personality). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.

Yeah, came barreling like seven demons out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is a different proposition. The West I am talking about is where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. A tough life worthy of song and homage. Tough going too for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully and maybe more vicious than their in your face forbear). Struggles, fierce down at the bone struggles also worthy of song and homage. Tough too when your people landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes than lost loves and longings.  

Rosalie Sorrels could write those songs as well, as well as anybody but she was as interested in the social struggles of her time (one of the links that united her with Utah) and gave no quarter when she turned the screw on a lyric. The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at the majestic Saunders Theater at Harvard University out in Cambridge America at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. (That theater complex contained within the Memorial Hall dedicated to the memory of the gallants from the college who laid down their heads in that great civil war that sundered the country. The Harvards did themselves proud at collectively laying down their heads at seemingly every key battle that I am aware of when I look up at the names and places. A deep pride runs through me at those moments)

Rosalie Sorrels as one would expect on such an occasion was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job banging out the blues unto the heavens) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember the crystal clarity and irony of her cover of her classic Old Devil Time that night -yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain and thoughts of washing herself down to the sea whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 

CD Review

Star Dreamer, Priscilla Herdman, Alacazam Records, 1988

Every once in a while I run into a CD or DVD that, for lack of a better term, is just plain whimsical. This detour started a couple of years back with a review of film about Miss (Ms). Beatrix Potter and her artistic talent, especially of illustrations for children’s books. And, in that spirit, we will just let it go at that. The CD under review, "Star Dreamer", by singer/songwriter Priscilla Herdman, in any case fits that description. I have described her work previously in a review of her 1998 CD, “Moondreamer” and the sense of that review can fit here:

“Sometimes you find out about a singer straight up, through a record, on the radio, a concert, or…”YouTube." Sometimes the route is more circuitous. That is the case here with singer/songwriter Priscilla Herdman. I first hear her doing a duet with the old Wobblie, singer/storyteller/ folk historian Utah Phillips on his song “I Remember Loving You.” Of course, for this old folk devotee anyone that has Phillips’ imprimatur on him or her bears further investigation. That is part of the reason that I know about the work of Kate Wolf, for one.

So here we are. And what we have with this presentation are lullabies and other “soft” songs for adults and …children. Well, that is okay, too. Sometimes this is just the kind of “dreamy” music that fits those moments just before slumber time, for adults and kids alike.”

The best to do just that here are “Waltzing With Bears,” “Time To Sleep,” “The Moon,” and “The First Star Lullaby”. End of whimsy…for now.


*********

Waltzing With Bears lyrics and chords

Waltzing With Bears


I went to his room in the middle of the night

I crept to his side and I turned on the light

But to my surprise there was no one in sight

'Cause my Uncle Walter goes waltzing at night


G-CG/D- -G/G-CG/CGDG

chorus: / " /D-G-/ " /CGCG/CGDG


He goes wa-wa-wa-wa-wa waltzing with bears

Raggy bears, baggy bears, shaggy bears too

There's nothing on earth Uncle Walter won't do

So he can go waltzing wa-wa-wa waltzing

He can go waltzing, go waltzing with bears.


We bought Uncle Walter a new suit to wear

But when he came in it was covered with hair

And lately I've noticed there are several new tears

I'm sure Uncle Walter's been waltzing with bears


Chorus


We told Uncle Walter that he should be good

And do all the things we said that he should

But I know that he'd rather be off in the woods

I'm afraid that we'll lose Uncle Walter for good


Chorus


We begged & we pleaded oh please won't you stay

And managed to keep him at home for a day

But the bears all barged in and they took him away

Now he's dancing with pandas and he can't understand us

And the bears all demand at least one waltz a day


Chorus

 https://nunesweekly.com/2018/01/11/bill-to-extend-bath-iron-works-tax-break-cuts-minimum-investment-requirement-and-expands-definition-of-qualified-expenses/

 

Bill to Extend Bath Iron Works Tax Break Cuts Minimum Investment Requirement and Expands Definition of Qualified Expenses

By Alex Nunes

When enacted into law in 1997, the original 20-year, $60-million tax break from the state of Maine to General Dynamics subsidiary Bath Iron Works was intended to subsidize the cost of a shipyard “modernization” the company said would position it to be a viable and competitive business for decades.

It required the company invest at least $200-million in its facility and allowed for a $3-million annual tax credit to defray the costs incurred from planning, design, engineering, construction, demolition, remodeling, repair, and other expenditures related to its infrastructure project.

But newly proposed legislation to extend the credit, made available online for the first time this week, requires the company to invest only half the amount mandated in the original act and expands the definition of a “qualified investment,” potentially allowing the company to claim reimbursement on employee training.

Other provisions appear unchanged or altered less substantially. Bath Iron Works, which is not named in the bill, would still be allowed to annually keep up to $3-million of employee income tax withholdings, or 3 percent of a minimum $100-million investment made after Jan. 1, 2018. Under the bill, tax benefits would be available to Bath Iron Works between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2039.

When asked by email about the rationale for the proposed changes, including the reduction in the minimum investment provision, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jennifer DeChant (D-Bath), said, “This bill is a starting point for the Taxation Committee to begin with. Starting point.”

DeChant said the language on employee training was added at the request of union officials, and the committee “may remove it as it has in similar bills.”

She added, “This bill will be changed and amended throughout the process. It is rare that an original bill introduced is exactly what comes out of the Committee process.”

Another General Dynamics subsidiary, nuclear submarine maker Electric Boat, is benefiting from millions of dollars in government funding set aside in recent years for workforce training in Rhode Island and Connecticut, where it operates shipyards.

Bruce Gagnon, an activist with Veterans For Peace who has led efforts to oppose the Maine legislation, admonished DeChant and other lawmakers when the bill became public.

“We have 43,000 children living in poverty in Maine,” Gagnon wrote in an email, “and we’ve got a string of elected officials who seem willing to ignore that terrible reality and in turn hand over $60 mil in corporate welfare to an entity that has shown massive profits and clearly has no need for support from an already financially strapped state.”

He added, “Many of these same legislators complained about Trump’s recent federal tax cut for the rich…but turn their heads and support a similar move in our state.”

If the legislation, officially titled “An Act To Encourage New Major Investments in Shipbuilding Facilities and the Preservation of Jobs,” is signed into law, any company benefiting from the break would be required to “maintain at least 5,000 employees.” However, the bill states, a shipbuilder “may employ fewer than 5,000 employees in 2 separate years within the 20-year period and still qualify for the credit, but at a prorated reduction.”

In its definitions section, the bill also states a so-called “exception year” after Jan. 1, 2023 “means a calendar year in which a certified applicant has employment of less than 4,000.”

To capitalize on the credit, Bath Iron Works must provide its  employees with a retirement program, health insurance benefits, and yearly salaries above Maine’s average annual per capita income, estimated at $44,053in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

 

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Easter I916 Irish Citizen Army Commandant James Connolly

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Easter 1916 leader, James Connolly

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Markin comment:

James Connolly's name is a familiar in this space and we honor his memory every year on the anniversary of the Easter, 1916 Irish uprising against in the British in the middle of their World War I slaughter. Our day will come.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Battle Rages- Jerry Lee or Elvis? - Jerry Lee Lewis’ “High School Confidential”

From The Pen Of The Late Peter Paul Markin



With A 2015 Introduction By Sam Lowell



If you did not know what happened to the late journalist Peter Paul Markin who used to write for some of the alternative newspaper and magazine publications that proliferated in the wake of the 1960s circus/war/bloodbath/all world together festival/new age aborning cloud puff dream, won a few awards too and was short-listed for the Globe Prize this is what is what. What is what before the ebb tide kind of knocked the wind out of everybody’s sails, everybody who was what I called at the time when I was more hopeful about, and more expectant to reap the benefit from, “seeking a newer world,” a line I stole from some English poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson I think if memory serves (Robert Kennedy, Jack’s brother, or his writer “cribbed” the line too for some pre-1968 vision book before he ran for President in 1968 so I am in good company.) I will tell you in a minute what expression “the Scribe,” a named coined by our leader, Frankie Riley, which is what we always called Markin around the corner we hung out in together in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor in our hometown of North Adamsville once Frankie laid that moniker on him, used to describe that change he had sensed coming in the early 1960s. Saw that train coming long before any of the rest of us did, or gave a rat’s ass about, our expression of the time meaning “don’t bother me with world stuff I have to suffer through this teen angst thing” in our serious pressing concerns of the moment, worries about girls (all of the existential problems angst including about bedding them, or rather getting them in back seats of cars mainly, or in a pinch behind the secluded seawall down at the far end of the beach), dough (ditto the girl existential thing to keep them interested in you and not run off with the next guy who had ten bucks to spend freely on them to your deuce, Jesus) and cars (double ditto since that whole “bedding” thing usually hinged on having a car, or having a corner boy with some non-family car to as we used to say, again courtesy of the Scribe via scat bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, “doing the do” in some forlorn back seat down some lonesome lovers’ land. The Scribe though wanted to give it, give what we were feeling, you know our existential angst moment although we did not call it that until later when the Scribe went off to college and tried to impress us with his new found facts, his two thousand new found facts about guys like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Like I said we could give a rat’s ass about all that-then.



All I know is that ebb tide that caught Markin kind of flat-footed, kind of made him gravitate back toward his baser instincts honed by every breathe he took as a kid down in “the projects” where he learned the facts of life, the facts of fellaheen life which is what one of our junior high school teachers called us, called us peasants, called it right too although we were the urban versions of the downtrodden shanty peasants but they were kindred no doubt, is still with us. So maybe being, having been a “prophet, ” being a guy who worried about that social stuff while we were hung up on girls,  dough and cars (him too in his more sober moments especially around one Rosemond Gooden who would not give him the time of day since she was from up the road in the newly built ranch houses that were dream houses in the “golden age of the 1950s), wasn’t so good after all.



Maybe the late Markin was that kind of Catholic “martyr saint” that we all had drilled into us in those nasty nun run Sunday catechism classes, maybe he really was some doomed “n----r” to use a phrase he grabbed from some Black Panther guys he used to run around with when he (and Josh Breslin) lived in Oakland and the “shit was hitting the fan” from every law enforcement agency that could put two bullets in some greasy chamber to mow down anybody even remotely associated with the brothers and the ten point program (who am I kidding anybody who favored armed self-defense for black men and women that’s the part that had the coppers screaming for blood, and bullets).



Here is a quick run-down about the fate of our boyhood corner boy bastard saint and about why stuff that he wrote forty or fifty years ago now is seeing the light of day. I won’t bore you with the beginnings, the projects stuff because frankly I too came out of the projects, not the same one as he did but just as hopeless down in Carver where I grew up before heading to North Adamsville and Josh who was as close as anybody to Markin toward the end was raised in the Olde Saco projects up in Maine and we are both still here to tell the tale. The real start as far as what happened to unravel the Scribe happened after he, Markin, got out of the Army in late 1970 when he did two things that are important here. First, he continued, “re-connected” to use the word he used, on that journey that he had started before he was inducted in the Army in 1968 in search of what he called the Great Blue-Pink American West Night (he put the search in capitals when he wrote about the experiences so I will do so here), the search really for the promise that the “fresh breeze” he was always carping about was going to bring. That breeze which was going to get him out from under his baser instincts developed (in self-defense against the punks that were always bothering him something I too knew about and in self- defense against his mother who was truly a dinosaur tyrant unlike my mother who tended to roll with the punches and maybe that helped break my own fall from heading straight down that Markin fate ladder) in his grinding poverty childhood, get out from under the constant preoccupation with satisfying his “wanting habits” which would eventually do him in.



Markin had made a foolish decision when he decided to drop out of college (Boston University) after his sophomore year in 1967 in order to pursue his big cloud puff dream, a dream which by that time had him carrying us along with him on the hitchhike road west in the summer of love, 1967, and beyond. Foolish in retrospect although he when I and others asked about whether he would have done things differently if he had known what the hell-hole of Vietnam was all about was ambivalent about the matter.



Of course 1967, 1968, 1969 and other years as well were the “hot” years of the war in Vietnam and all Uncle Sam and his local draft boards wanted, including in North Adamsville, was warm bodies to kill commies, kill them for good. As he would say to us after he had been inducted and had served his tour in ‘Nam as he called it (he and the other military personnel who fought the war could use the short-hand expression but the term was off-bounds for civilians in shortened form)  and came back to the “real” world he did what he did, wished he had not done so, wished that he had not gone, and most of all wished that the American government which made nothing but animals out of him and his war buddies would come tumbling down for what it had done to its sons for no good reasons.



And so Markin continued his search, maybe a little wiser, continued as well to drag some of his old corner boys like me on that hitchhike road dream of his before the wheels fell off. I stayed with him longest I think before even I could see we had been defeated by the night-takers and I left the road to go to law school and “normalcy.” (The signposts: Malcolm X’s, Robert Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, hell maybe JFK’s set the who thing on a bad spiral which kind of took the political winds out of any idea that there would not be blow-back for messing with the guys in power at the time, the real guys not their front-men, the politicians; the rising tide of “drop out, drug out, live fast and die young” which took a lot of the best of our generation off giving up without a fight; the endless death spiral of Vietnam; the plotted killings of Black Panthers and any other radical or revolutionary of any color or sex who “bothered” them; and, the election of one master criminal, Richard Milhous Nixon, to be President of the United States which was not only a cruel joke but put paid to the notion that that great unwashed mass of Americans were on our side.)



Markin stuck it out longer until at some point in 1974, 1975 a while after I had lost touch with him when even he could see the dreams of the 1960s had turned to dust, turned to ashes in his mouth and he took a wrong turn, or maybe not a wrong turn the way the wheel of his life had been set up but a back to his baser instincts turn which had been held in check when we were in the high tide of 1960s possibilities. (Josh Breslin, another corner boy, although from Olde Saco, Maine who had met Markin out in San Francisco in the summer of love in 1967 and who had also left the road earlier just before me was in contact until pretty near the end, pretty close to the last time in early 1975 anybody heard from Markin this side of the border, this side of paradise as it turned out since Josh who lived out in California where Markin was living at the time confirmed that Markin was in pretty ragged mental and physical condition by then).           



Markin had a lot invested emotionally and psychological in the success of the 1960s “fresh breeze coming across the land” as he called it early on. Maybe it was that ebb tide, maybe it was the damage that military service in hell-hole Vietnam did to his psyche, maybe it was a whole bunch of bad karma things from his awful early childhood that he held in check when there were still sunnier days ahead but by the mid-1970s he had snapped. Got involved in using and dealing cocaine just starting to be a big time profitable drug of choice among rich gringos (and junkies ready to steal anything, anytime, anywhere in order to keep the habit going).



Somehow down in Mexico, Sonora, we don’t know all the details to this day a big deal Markin brokered (kilos from what we heard so big then before the cartels organized everything and before the demand got so great they were shipping freighters full of cold cousin cocaine for the hipsters and the tricksters and big for Markin who had worked his way up the drug trade food chain probably the way he worked his way into everything by some “learned” dissertation about how his savvy input could increase revenue, something along those lines) went awry, his old time term for something that went horribly wrong, and he wound up face down in a dusty back road with two slugs to the head and now resides in the town’s potter’s field in an unmarked grave. But know this; the bastard is still moaned over, moaned to high heaven.



The second thing Markin did, after he decided that going back to school after the shell-shock of Vietnam was out of the question, was to begin to write for many alternative publications (and I think if Josh is correct a couple of what he, Markin, called “bourgeois” publications for the dough). Wrote two kinds of stories, no three, first about his corner boy days with us at Salducci’s (and also some coming of age stories from his younger days growing up in the Adamsville Housing Authority “projects” with his best friend, Billie Bradley before he met us in junior high school). Second about that search for the Great Blue-Pink American Night which won him some prizes since he had a fair-sized audience who were either committed to the same vision, or who timidly wished they could have had that commitment (like a couple of our corner boys who could not make the leap to “drugs, sex, rock and roll,” and raising bloody hell on the streets fighting the ‘monster’ government” and did the normal get a job, get married, get kids, get a house which made the world go round then). And also an award-winning series of stories under the by-line Going To The Jungle for the East Bay Other (published out on the other side of the bay, San Francisco though) about his fellow Vietnam veterans who could not deal with the “real” world coming back and found themselves forming up in the arroyos, along the rivers, along the railroad tracks and under the bridges of Southern California around Los Angeles. Guys who needed their stories told and needed a voice to give life to those stories. Markin was their conduit.



Every once in a while somebody, in this case Bart Webber, from the old corner boy crowd of our youthful times, will see or hear something that will bring him thoughts about our long lost comrade who kept us going in high school times with his dreams and chatter (although Frankie Riley was our leader since he was an organizer-type whereas Markin could hardly organize his shoes, if that). Now with the speed and convenient of the Internet we can e-mail each other and get together at some convenient bar to talk over old times. And almost inevitably at some point in the evening the name of the Scribe will come up. Recently we decided, based on Bart’s idea, that we would, if only for ourselves, publish a collection of whatever we could find of old-time photographs and whatever stories Markin had written that were still sitting around somewhere to commemorate our old friend. We have done so with much help from Bart’s son Jeff who now runs the printing shop that Bart, now retired, started back in the 1960s.



This story is from that first category, the back in the day North Adamsville corner boy story, although this one is painted with a broader brush since it combines with his other great love to write about books, film and music. Always connected with the music was his awful hard time with women, girls as a kid, women, wives, two before the end, always touching the woman’s side which always both intrigued him and befuddled him since the distaff side (nice combination term that Markin would have appreciated especially that distaff thing for women who befuddled him, befuddled him straight up). It had been found in draft form up in Josh Breslin’s attic in Olde Saco, Maine where he had lived before meeting Markin in the great summer of love night in 1967 and where he had later off the road stored his loose hitchhike road stuff and his writerly notebooks and journals at his parents’ house which he had subsequently inherited on their respective passings. We have decided whatever we had to publish would be published as is, either published story or in draft form. Otherwise, moaning over our brother or not, Markin is liable to come after us from that forlorn unmarked grave in that Sonora potter’s field and give us hell for touching a single word of the eight billion sentences he  had had stored in his fallen head.     



Here is what he had to say:                        



Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Battle Rages- Jerry Lee or Elvis? - Jerry Lee Lewis’ “High School Confidential”



High School Confidential lyrics-Jerry Lee Lewis



You better open up honey it's your lover boy me that's a knockin'

You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'

Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse

Got everybody hoppin' everybody boppin'

Boppin' at the High School Hop

Boppin' at the High School Hop

Shakin' at the High School Hop



I've rollin' at the High School Hop

I've been movin' at the High School Hop

Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'

Boppin' at the High School Hop



Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight

Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight

Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and

Light

Boppin' at the High School Hop

Shakin' at the High School Hop

Rollin' at the High School Hop

Movin' at the High School Hop

Everybody’s hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'



Piano Solo!



Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news

Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues

My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues

Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop

Shakin' at the High School Hop

Rollin' at the High School Hop

Gettin' it at the High School Hop

Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'

Boppin' at the High School Hop

********

This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.



Billie (not Billy, not some billy goat billy, not if you didn’t want more trouble than you bargained for from the king hell king of our corner night, no questions asked)  and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of finding-out-about-girls worthiness.



Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations (somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

*********

“Who are you taking to the hop? Come on now, tell me, tell me, your old buddy Billie, who you asked? Was it Theresa? Was it Donna? Was it Karen?” That was the incessant bugging by my old elementary school boy compadre, Billie, William James Bradley if you didn’t know already, every time a school sock hop came up. But you know, or you should know, that was just a little way that he had to bait me about my shyness, or rather my awkwardness around girls. Around girls that he, king hell king of the late 1950s rock night “discarded” and left for the rest of us, especially for me.



And he knew, he knew damn well that I had not gotten up the nerve to ask any of those three ex-flames, or any girl, to the dance coming up in a few days. For one thing because, as king hell king of the rock night, and therefore king, crowned or uncrowned, of the sock hop he had all the configurations, combinations, set-ups, and, and, no-go bust-ups all computed out, no, not on some machine memory depot but in his head. For another because he didn’t know that I had decided just to go to the dance alone and maybe getting lucky there. Heck, I had done it before, a few times, although not with any great success but if there is any rhyme or reason to youth it is around the possibilities of getting lucky. Of course, old Billie had “selected” Laura as his escort, no awkwardness in Billie, although I had heard, heard from more than one budding teenage source that she “liked me,”(don’t ever tell him this though for I will deny it on seven stacked bibles). Or liked my seriousness, and my clowny, get in the way bookishness. So I am going “stag” on the hope, the hell or high water hope that Billie will let his old buddy, his old amigo, his, well you know, have a dance with his escort to see if I have some “magic.”



Now, and ever since I heard about her opinion of me, I have been wracking my brain to figure out this question. How could she “like me,” or not like me for that matter, I do not know because although I had looked over in her direction in class dreamily (yes, dreamily) more than somewhat I had never said word one to her, or her to me. Now this Laura, if you want a description is not drop-dead beautiful, at least by Billie-Markin defined drop-dead beautiful, twelve and thirteen year old girl beautiful, but she has something else that I would not (and Billie definitely would not) figure out how to say for many years, she was fetching. Definition: nice figure, meaning having a shape, if you really want to know, because when you think about it, boy or girl, twelve and thirteen year old boy or girl, any girl that had a shape (meaning had womanly contours, hips, breasts, nicely-formed legs) rather than a stock stick figure tomboy-like girl was bound to get ahead in that be-bop night, and probably now too.



But more than that, for me, if not for Billie, she didn’t giggle, silly giggle like the other girls when a boy said something stupid-funny (and the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe is more than somewhat filled with stupid-funny stuff done by eons of clueless guys, trying, trying just like me, and just like Billie if he could have ever been honest about it, to figure out the key to the girl-charm thing, yes, there is plenty of room in that universe even now for the stupid-funny) and, she carried herself in a way, sometimes with a certain thoughtful look, sometimes by a thing she did by putting her fingers to her lips, and maybe the most important, that she knew she was a girl and was content with that knowledge. She would lack for no dates or admirers, ever. Oh, yah she was also smart, not Billie street smart, not Markin two-thousand facts smart but asking and answering teacher smart, without being crazy smart about it that you also knew every boy, or almost every boy, in the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe did not like in girls then, and maybe now for all I know. It only gets sifted out later.



But enough of Laura, of Billie, christ of Markin as well, of pre-sock hop arrangements, derangements and dreamily kid in the night be-bop stuff let us get to the sock hop. Hey, wait a minute, you know what sock hops are, or you heard from your parents or grandparents what sock hops are, right? Back in the fifties, yes, the1950s (and a little bit into the 1960s but the term had kind of died out by then, at least for “non-squares”). If you don’t then I’ll fill you in quickly now, but you’ll see you really know about all of this because it is nothing but a “primitive,” maybe Stone Age when you hear it, version of any school dance scene since they started making teenagers a separate social category in the world, the whole wide world even. Okay the idea was to hem in this mad dash, this mad craze to dance, and dance guys with girls and vice versa, that kids have been into since the radio and jukebox came on the scene, maybe back in that Stone Age now that I think about it.

So dear mother and father, you name the generation, figured out if you can’t beat them join them, and the schools (and churches later) were in cahoots. So every once in a while to keep three eyes on this stuff (and to avoid the feared, seriously feared, basement or “family room”-launched “petting parties” if kids are left to their own devices), maybe a few times a month they would throw a sock hop (the sock part comes from the fact, the hard fact, that most girls, most twelve and thirteen year old girls, wore ankle socks. Yah, no nylons, etc. If you don’t believe me look it up on Wikipedia, or something). Now, most times, this was nothing but some parent or teacher acting as dee-jay and "spinning platters” (records) in some dank, well-lighted, too well-lighted school gym or church basement, christ more than once in the school cafeteria when the gym was being used for other purposes that night. Yes, the night, the night in those days being from seven to about ten in the evening so you would have to think pretty hard about not going, stag or dated up, to the dance if for no other reason than to be able to get out of the house, the cramped, nowhere project house (really apartment) for a few hours un-cramped freedom.



This night, this night that Billie kidded me about, this Billie and Laura night, though somehow, although I am vague on the details of how they were brought in, we are not reduced to cranky, scratchy records but a real live local band, a band that prided itself, I heard, on doing covers of the “hot” new singers and groups we knew from American Bandstand (an afternoon television show that had Philly kids, older Philly kids, dancing and swaying to whatever dee-jay Dick Clark, is he still around?, decided was wholesome and fit for the ears of America’s afternoon rock obsessed youth). So this is a time you definitely did not want to miss. And to truth to tell I went early, nervously early if you must know, to see what was up and watch the band set up.



Now this is not just any time in the 1950s, although the sock hop thing, the worried parent, worried about those “petting party” things(and more, much more, about sex things) and this wild and woolly rock obsessed thing their no understand what kids are into could have been anytime from about 1955 on, from the time that Elvis exploded onto the scene with those swiveling hips, that jumping girl guitar, that unkempt hair (yah, unkempt to them), and that permanent sneer came onto the scene.



No, this is 1958 when the Elvis thing had died down a little now that he was dead, or we thought he was dead, and for a fact he might have well have been dead in the constant teen chew-up of rock talent from the kind of music and movies he was into after giving us such great stuff like Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Heartbreak Hotel and One Night With You. Yah, the king was dead, long live the king, and let’s move on, okay. Billie and I talked about it, about how guys, rock guys that is, seen to have a short shelf-life, but as Billie knew, knew from his own bumpy rock “career,” that’s show biz. So this night we were wondering, wondering like crazy, how the band would work out and whose music they will cover.



Like I said I got there early and watched the band set up, including a piano besides the guitar and drums so I figure maybe they will do some Little Richard or Fats Domino stuff. Seven o’clock comes and here comes Billie with Laura. Wow, Billie has on a nice jacket, wide lapels like all the rock guys are wearing these days (I’ll tell you about how he got it sometime but you can figure that a projects boy didn’t get it as a birthday present from Ma and Pa). Really sharp. But double wow on Laura who has on a cashmere sweater, some wide skirt and, can you believe this, nylons, to show off her nice legs. Oh yah, and just a hint of smile on her face like she is here with the king of the rock night, crowned or uncrowned, and she has staked out the territory as queen, demure queen, but queen nevertheless.



Yes, fetching (although we will agree between ourselves that I don’t know that word, or how to use it in relationship to describing girls and their charms just yet, alright). But here is where the sweetest part comes in when Billie and Laura make their royal entrance and come over to where I am standing when Billie introduces me, formally introduces Laura to me, she gives me this, well, I don’t care if I do wear out the word, fetching smile and says “I’ve seen you in class but you never seem to pay any attention to me. I thought that report you gave on Greek democracy in class was very well done.” Be still my heart, she actually remembered the report… and me. And here I am wearing some bedraggled (always bedraggled, always) striped (stripes, jesus) white collared shirt, ratty black pants, and old Thom McAn Easter-bought brown shoes. Well, she remembered my report, that’s a start, and it actually was a pretty good report because I went to the Thomas Crane Public Library right up in Adamsville Square to look the stuff up.



But enough of reports, and "be still my hearts" because the music is going on. A few covers of Little Richard and Fats as I expected, with that piano and all, some Buddy Holly that sounded a little tinny, a few other non-memorable odd and ends, including some Elvis that sounded, and I again swear on seven bibles, like old time parents’ music, like Frank Sinatra, or those guys. Then suddenly, the leader of the band said that he had a special guest on the piano for the next number. We all wondered what the song would be while they were setting the piano up closer to the front. I heard somebody say it was going to be something by a new guy, Jerry Lee Lewis. Whoa! I have only heard him once or twice but I thought his piano was smoking so maybe this guest guy could do a good cover on it.



Billie, Billie king hell king of the rock night, must have known something was up, and why (always why) because he brought Laura over and asked me if wanted to dance the next dance with her. Me, two left feet, or two right feet, stag, coming to the dance stag just hoping that I would get lucky with “discarded” Theresa, Donna, or Karen dance with fetching Laura. No way. The she said “but I really want to dance with you, you being Billie friend, and he says you are a good dancer,” and then turns a very whimsical smile on me.



Well what are you going to do when a woman (alright girl, but a girl with a shape) wants to dance with you, and had something nice to say about your school report, and, oh yes had that smile, that come hinter smile that leaves a man (okay, boy) anywhere from twelve to twelve hundred weak at the knees. Well, the music is starting so I say yes, okay yes.



And what does our guest pianist do but a cover, a hot cover by the way, of Jerry Lee Lewis’ latest, High School Confidential, which I had heard about but had not heard. Great. Laura and I are dancing away and she is doing nothing but give me meaningful smiles and, maybe that rumor about her “liking me” was true. I am just dancing away like crazy and people are looking at me like where did he learn how to do that. After the dance I returned Laura to Billie, a little miffed Billie but I could have been wrong on that. And then Theresa came over and asked if I wanted to dance. A few dances, a few Laura-less dances later the call for last dance came, and not feeling like watching Laura with Billie just then I headed home.



The next morning, a Sunday morning, if I recall, Billie came over to the house and was fuming/hangdog as we talked, talked obviously about the sock hop doings. Fuming because I had switched up on him. How? Well, apparently, Laura, sweet fetching Laura, had spent more than the allotted time talking about me, rather than about Billie’s virtues and he had used the dance, the Jerry Lee Lewis manic rock number that he had found out the band was going to play to make me look silly (his word, although mine when I heard it was more of an expletive). Hangdog because he felt bad now that he had done his best friend wrong, wrong over a girl although, in Billie fashion, he tried to step back and argue that maybe he did me a favor getting me out on the dance floor. See, though what he didn’t know (and don’t tell him either, if you know his whereabouts) is that I had been taking lessons from his slightly older sister, Carol, on how to dance this latest faster dance stuff.



So that is the end of the story, or almost the end. A few days later Laura knocked at our apartment door in the afternoon after school. My mother answered the door and invited her in, although she, my mother that is, said Laura was coming in no matter what from the look on her face. Laura was fuming, although as it turns out good fuming, because she said she had been smiling at me like crazy when we were dancing to give me the “hint” to ask her for the last dance, the last close to her dance. Sorry, Laura. And then she blurted out her command, “You and I are going to the next sock hop together and you had better not say no.” Well, when a woman (girl, are you happy) "insists” on something, almost anything like that, and on top of that had that kind remark about that school report, and that shape, what is a boy, a boy of the twelve and thirteen year old universe to do but say yes. So at the next dance I won’t be dancing with Billie “discard” Theresa, Donna, or Karen although they are okay but with fetching Laura. So there Billie, we are even. And if anybody asks you, like they asked me once-Elvis or Jerry Lee? Jerry Lee, long live the king.

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

A link to a WBUR (NPR) "Morning Edition" report on the installation of Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros work of art after a long absence.     

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/01/10/mfa-siqueiros-painting

By Frank Jackman

We live in weird times. Not just the Age of Trump madness which is getting a bit tiresome although Donald J. represents the best possible “recruiting sergeant” of our side, for the left possible (hell maybe even for the middling muddle and rational right too). No today in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes committed by Hollywood power broker, Washington wizard fixer men fisting power, media stars tumbling to stuff twelve year olds would think twice about, and don’t forget a few guys next door who can take the fall too although it will not reach the 24/7/365 news cycle I want to mention, once again, the dilemma of trying to separate out, if that is even possible, the horrible actions and crimes of these creative types and their works.     

What got me going on this question was a recent revelation by actress Tippi Hendron who starred in one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classis suspense films The Birds that he relentlessly pursued her against her very strong wishes to the contrary. Worse he basically ruined her future promising career by using his authority as a great film director to bad-mouth her in the film industry when she wouldn’t respond to his brutish behavior. That brought the vexing question to a head. It still has not been fully answered as yet but for myself I have a diminished regard for Sir Alfred’s work when I have to think about reviewing anything of his as I did recently with a review of his classic The 39 Steps.

Now comes another version of that same question although it does not involve sexual harassment or crimes but the more serious one of political assassination. As the link above indicates the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is after a long absence displaying a major work by Mexican muralist and political activist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Fair enough as far as it goes. Although the MFA representative gusted forth about Siqueiros’ combination of artistic mastery and left-wing political activist she left out one little point. David Alfaro Siqueiros led a group of political thugs on the compound of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico and attempted, and failed, to murder that world-historic figure. Although not for trying it was only a miracle he was not murdered then.      

Now we all know of the checkered careers of all kinds of culturati-bandits from Villon to Bellini to modern day and we cherish some of their cultural achievements but even if we recognize, and we should at some level, the great artistry of Siqueiros can we really sweep his criminal political activity under the rug. Or ignore it as the MFA representative did. Shame on her.   

In Maine, a History of Bold Claims and Vague Commitments From General Dynamics

https://nunesweekly.com/2018/01/10/in-maine-a-history-of-bold-claims-and-vague-commitments-from-general-dynamics/

In Maine, a History of Bold Claims and Vague Commitments From General Dynamics

By Alex Nunes

When he gave his keynote address before the Chamber of Commerce of the Greater Portland Region in September 1997, then General Dynamics CEO Nicholas D. Chabraja had reason to celebrate.

It’d been two years since his company, annually among the nation’s largest defense contractors, had acquired local shipyard Bath Iron Works, and not long since it secured a $194-million megadeal with the state of Maine and the city of Bath to subsidize a massive infrastructure “modernization” at its newly acquired facility.

Chabraja decided to thank the more than 700 people gathered at the Holiday Inn By The Bay, as the Portland Press Herald reported, for the apparent role their community played in assuring the viability of a major Maine employer for decades to come.

“A great old shipyard that got its start in the 19th century will have all the support necessary to be a formidable shipbuilder well into the 21st century,” Chabraja, who stepped down as CEO in 2009, said, according to the paper. “In support of BIW, you’ve put your money on the people of Maine—and on a shipyard that will now be around for another hundred years.”

But, little more than 20 years on, officials at General Dynamics are no longer so sanguine. They’re back at the negotiating table, saying the company needs an extension of a key $60-million component of the 1997 tax deal in order to remain competitive with a rival shipbuilder in Mississippi.

“This is a problem,” Philip Mattera, research director at the Washington, D.C.-based policy resource center Good Jobs First, said in a recent phone interview. “Companies get hooked on these kinds of financial assistance, and they can always come up with another rationale for it.”

Mattera added, “If public officials believe them, they’re going to come up with more money.”

Bath Iron Works says it has “never operated in a more competitive environment” for new shipbuilding projects than it does right now, according to a news release quoted in the Bangor Daily News. The company has pointed to state subsidies to Ingalls Shipbuilding of Pascagoula, Miss., which competes with the Bath shipyard on Navy contracts, as justification for an extended tax break.

However, the extent to which Bath Iron Works is feeling the pinch, or will in the future, is open to debate.

Records available at usaspending.gov show the company scored more in federal contract dollars during the government’s last fiscal year than in any other single year since 2011. At more than $2-billion in contract awards for 2017, Bath Iron Works received nearly double what it got from the Defense Department in 2016, and more than double what it received in 2015 and 2014, respectively.

The U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding budget could also expand substantially in the coming years as some key lawmakers and naval officials call for a major expansion of the country’s naval fleet.

Bath Iron Works, and Ingalls Shipbuilding are the sole builders of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 77 of which have been procured since 1985, according to the Congressional Research Service. Last month, the Navy announced it plans to issue a request for proposal to construct 10 Arleigh Burke-class ships between fiscal years 2018 and 2022.

In April 2017, the financial news website InvestorPlace named General Dynamics one of “3 Defense Stocks to Buy Now As Tensions Escalate.” In explaining the recommendation, author Aaron Levitt pointed to the long history Bath Iron Works, and submarine maker Electric Boat, another General Dynamics subsidiary, have building ships for the U.S. Navy.

“That’s wonderful for GD, considering President Trump wants to expand the number of ships from 275 to 355,” Levitt wrote.

The Maine bill proposing a new tax break to Bath Iron Works is being introduced by state Rep. Jennifer DeChant (D-Bath). When asked by email about the company’s recent success in landing Navy contracts and its previous stance that a shipyard renovation would position it to be a “formidable” company for decades, DeChant said, “These aspects will be asked and addressed during the Committee process as it reviews, evaluates and works this bill.”

“BIW is the largest employer in my District,” she said. “The bill I submitted keeps the employment level as high as possible.”

But critics in the state say they have good reason to be suspicious of the company’s motives, rationale, and any future promises.

In 1997, employment at Bath Iron Works stood at roughly 7,400, according to the Press Herald, and company officials suggested “jobs might not survive without [an] expansion” subsidized by taxpayers. News reports have placed more recent worker ranks between 5,500 and 6,000, depending on the company’s workload.

Mattera, of Good Jobs First, said Bath Iron Works’ track record of job losses under General Dynamics calls into question the very rationale of the initial deal.

“Really the only justification for giving subsidies to companies is for job creation,” he said. “It really is not a good situation for taxpayer money to be used to help a company downsize.”

The original tax deal, as outlined by Good Jobs First, allowed Bath Iron Works to be incrementally rebated $81-million from the city of Bath, and provided for an additional $113-million in state-approved tax breaks, including a $60-million provision that permitted the company to annually keep a share of worker income tax withholdings, a benefit set to expire this year that the company says it still needs.

Mattera said tax break programs like the one that allows General Dynamics to benefit from worker withholdings have been used in numerous states. He added it can be a sign companies are already paying relatively small amounts in corporate income tax.

“The reason why a lot of states have resorted to that approach is because companies did not have that much of a corporate tax liability,” he said. “In a sense the corporate tax incentives weren’t appealing enough. What it tells you is that companies are already getting away with a lot.”

Mattera said, “It’s one thing to say that companies should get a break on their own taxes. But once you start giving them access to the tax revenues coming from other parties, including their employees, you’re really giving away the store.”

According to a 1997 article in the Press Herald, before it was acquired by General Dynamics, Bath Iron Works paid the state of Maine $400,000 annually in corporate income tax. Citing Chabraja as its source, the newspaper reported, “Under General Dynamics’ ownership, BIW will pay $6 million to $8 million a year.”

When reached by email, David Heidrich, director of communications for the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said he could not disclose the amount Bath Iron Works pays in corporate income tax because of taxpayer confidentiality rules.

Good Jobs First, which advocates for more equitable economic development practices, encourages states and municipalities to examine multiple factors before awarding subsidies to a corporation, including its pay scale, treatment of workers, and any fines or violations alleged against the business.

Since 1997, Bath Iron Works has drawn repeat scrutiny from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has alleged multiple and serious worker health and safety violations by the company. Allegations include the use of unsafe scaffolds and ladders, blocked exits and fire extinguishers, defective industrial trucks, non-waterproof electrical boxes, unmarked electrical disconnects, and inadequate or missing guardrails, according to news reports.

The Press Herald reported that OSHA termed some of the alleged violations “repeat, willful and serious” and said “many of the violations could have led to serious physical harm or death.”

“Job quality doesn’t only mean pay; it also means safety,” Mattera said. “If a company has a bad record on safety, that should be as disqualifying as a bad record on wage levels.”