From The Marxist Archives- Under the Banner of the “Three L’s”(Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht)
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Monday, January 22, 2018
From The Marxist Archives- Under the Banner of the “Three L’s”(Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht)
From The Marxist Archives- Under the Banner of the “Three L’s”(Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht)
The Ghost Of Tom Joad…Dust-Bowl Broken-With The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts Exhibition On Families Conventional And Unconventional In Mind
The Ghost Of Tom Joad…Dust-Bowl
Broken-With The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts Exhibition On Families Conventional
And Unconventional In Mind
By Bart Webber
…the ghost of old Tom
Joad followed their every footstep, followed their every mile in that broken
old excuse for an automobile that sucked the life out of one of his progeny,
Prescott Ayers by name, a wheat farmer by trade, huh, by professional except
that goddam dust has eaten up that wheat turned it to dust too, turned it so
bad Prescott like the Joads before him (and his) from up the road had taken
that poor excuse for a car and hightailed it out of the barren Okie hills to
head for the promise land wherever that might be and if wasn’t to be then
he’d just not have been buried in that
fucking flatland anyhow. Yeah, Tom Joad who would have thought that the winds,
the wicked heaven-sent winds, oh lord what did I do to deserve this, would have
sent him on the road.
Got a West Coast guy, a
guy named Johns Steinbeck, a writer out in the docks of sardine-smacked Monterey
thinking about that dust, thinking about fleeing and how to get him the hell
out before the whole world turns ash-can grey. Got another guy, an Okie
brethren out of the reservation territories, out of the veil of tears, Woody
Guthrie, a wild boy no question, to signing and humming about that brother Joad
like he knew in his heart that going west was the best. Got another guy, a
movie director, an oater by trade, John Ford,
out in mountebank Hollywood, Hollywood before Ed Ruscha, another Okie
tramp, immortalized another setoff hill, thinking it might very well do to let
the Saturday afternoon at the Bijou movie crowd see what stuff Mister Joad was
made of, what Okie dust turned into out west. Unto the seventh generation, if
you don’t believe me, making a Jersey guy, a fucking Jersey guy, used to
singing about ’57 Chevy’s and the running kind walk the Highway 101 late at
night looking across the arroyo skies for a sign of that father he never knew
like something out of a Jack Kerouac novel. Jesus.
…and Prescott Ayers,
wheat farmer by professional and owner of a no excuse for a car except he (and
his) had to get the hell out before he exploded and wound up in McAlister
Prison himself all he got for his sullen efforts was a silly photograph poorly
cropped from some Eastern city dame with a high-tail camera by the name of
Dorothea Lange who gave his wife Matty a copy (one of the “and his” the others
being the boy Lonny, girl Ella, and the girl Martha Jane-Prescott, Junior laid
to rest before his second birthday eaten up by wind dust making Prescott damn
the day he let Matty conceive him and damning the day he had decided that he
wanted a large family to farm that wheat farm and pass on that land, that land
that make him cry alone his own veil of tears cry). Matty and that goddam copy
which she cherished all the way to Fresno and raisin pining away times as they
headed west, headed clunker west in that no excuse for a car. Cherished,
unknown to taciturn, no sentiment Prescott, and secretly passed on to Ella upon
her death bed long after Prescott laid
his head down in raisin valley soil, as long as she drew breathe and had a roof
over her head.
The photograph showing
Prescott’s Matty all angular and care-worn, slightly slouching, hair not seeing
washing or a beautician’s touch for many a mile (couldn’t that photo time since
the money all got eaten up buying a new tire when that fixed to perdition tire
he was eternally fixing finally gave its last breathe. Wondering, not some 16th
century Dutchman’s wondering (her people’s stock coming into New York Harbor, in
the days when all you needed to do was show up on the docks to get into the
freaking country and start looking for the streets paved with gold, not able to
breath, city breath they from out in edam cheese land and farmers by trade, no,
by profession, and heading west first to foreboding Kentucky coalmines and
hard-scrabble leavings then across the Mississippi and no turning back into God’s
country, Okie life), seeing what did that guy from Minneapolis, that F. Scott Fitzgerald
who knew the distinction between rich and poor, call it, yes, the fresh green
breast of land heading inland but where Lonny, Ella, Martha food was to be
found for that night’s hell-broth stew.
And that Lonny, Ella, Martha
showing that mother angularity, and that haggard look like even a hell-broth stew
would be a feast out in those broken down rutted roads not dreaming child dreams,
not dreaming about those left behind (even they, even kids, know enough not to
dream dust-bowl dreams) and just wishing that tire would hold up some miles and
they with fatty meat could get acquainted. No fresh green breast of land to
wound their dreams all to hell. Funny, Lonny destined to be an alienated youth
in the post-World War II world firing up big hot rod engines out in the deserted
desert roads, chicken run roads, east of Fresno and crashing his dreams in a
1949 Hudson all shiny and bright. Funny, star-struck, endlessly star-struck
Ella, driving mother Matty crazy would be serving them off the arm in Phil’s
Diner, turning part-time tricks for truckers to pull her own brood over the from
hunger hump. Funny, Martha a dreary housewife living with husband and two kids
in a ranch house (fake-Spanish design all the rage) on converted farm land
wondering why the hell the whole tribe had headed west.
….yeah, the ghost of Tom
Joad.
Honor The 3Ls-The Heritage of Lenin
Honor The 3Ls-The Heritage of Lenin
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The Heritage of Lenin
(Quote of the Week)
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Scenes From An Ordinary 1960s Be-Bop Life-Scene Twelve-Postscript- The Torch Is Passed?- February 2011
Scenes From An Ordinary 1960s Be-Bop Life-Scene Twelve-Postscript- The Torch Is Passed?- February 2011
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of the California night calling after too long an absence, the California be-bop late 1960s night, the eternal California be-bop night after years of Maine solitude, of Maine grey-blue-white washed, white-crested, white-capped, foam-flecked Atlantic ocean-flotsam and jetsam strewn waters. After all no all oceans are created the same, not all oceans speak to one in the same way, although they are all old Father Neptune’s thoughtful playgrounds. California’s, yes, white-washed, yes, white-crested, yes, white-capped, yes, foam-flecked speak to gentle, warm lapis lazuli blue wealth dreams of the quest, the long buried life long quest for the great blue-pink great American West night, blue-pinked skies of course. Yes maybe it was just that sheer hard fact that pushed me out of Eastern white, white to hate the sight of white, snowed-in doors, Eastern gale winds blowing a man against the sand-pebbled seas, and into the endless starless night. Yes, maybe just a change of color, or to color, from the white white whiteness of the sea walk white-etched night. Right down to the shoreline white.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of preparing, against the timetable of that Eastern white night, this and that for the winter California day, and night, the ocean California that set the thoughts of the be-bop night, and the quest for the blue-pink skies humming once again in the, admittedly, older-boned voyager, voyeur of dreamed once sultry, steamy nights. A different proposition, a different proposition, on most days, from preparing to face fierce Maine winter mornings, unaided by the graces and forms nature provides its hardier creations. No thoughts today of heavy woolen coats, double-stitched, double-plied, doubled-vested, old nor’ easter worthy, or heavy woolen pants, same chino pants of youth, same black chino pants, no cuffs, except winter weight, not the always summer weight on no knowledge youth, or heavy boots, heavy clunky rubberish boots mocking against the snow-felt, ocean-edged soft sand streets, or maybe, more in tune with aged-bone recipes heavy-soled, heavy-rubber soled (or was it rubber souled) running shoes (also known in the wide world of youth as sneakers, better Chuck’s). Of scarves, and caps, full-bodied caps, better seaman’s caps, heavy, wool, dark blue, built to stand against the ocean-stormed waves crashing and thrashing against ships hulls, and gloves, gloves to keep your hands from frosty immobility I need not speak. Or will not speak.
No, today we think of great controversies of age, well, mini-controversies anyway, between hi-tech-derived aero-flow, toe-fitted, sheer meshed sneakers, or just old-fashioned, Velcro-snapped criss-cross leather sandals, toe-dangling in the sand streets ready. Or between jungle-fitted, twelve-pocketed (or so it seems), straight from the Ernest Hemingway African safari night ( so it seems, again) else, maybe, out of mad man gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson in full loathing regalia, or Reebok, Nike, Adidas, New Balance free-for-all athletic shorts. Or between hearty windbreakers, fit for eastern gales and western el ninos, versus light denim, light blue, tight fit, well, maybe tight fit, be young Marlon Brando or James Dean-worthy in some motorcycle hidden fantasy, jackets. All decisions, all timed but irrevocable once inside the airport terminal, and its maze, no beyond maze, beyond rate maze, of security and scrutiny.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of just that airport invasion, the hard fact of the post-9/11 travel world. The running the gauntlet of checkpoints, charts, human body scanning screens, magic forgery detecting pens, bells, whistles, and surly, or maybe better, indifferent, human scanners, human searchers, human checkers. The piles of thrown away, seemingly harmless, harmless to these eyes, water bottles, pure-springed water bottles (Evian, Poland Springs, Belmont Springs, home-filled reusable, filtered tap water L.L. Bean bottles, whatever) which now are deadly weapons, or could be, are a twisted metaphor for the scene. All in order to get from point A (east coast angry ocean waters) to point B (west coast, or hipper, at least used to be hipper, left coast gentle, spa-like, or faux spa waters) in less than six hours. No more of timeless trips, or at least of months long trips, aimless but aim-full in their purposeful search. No more of Boston to Angelica Steubenville to roots Prestonsburg to Lexington (Kentucky that is, not revolutionary battlefield Lexington, not that trip anyway). No more Moline meltdowns and Neola corn field nights and Aunt Betty lazy, crazy, hazy suppers or solidarity rides to the desert Native American ghost sky night, drums beating back to primal times, and then over the last mountains down into California blue-pink haze. No, six hours, no more, or else breakdown against those bone-aged facts, and bone-aged stiffness rebellions. Or worst surrender to the think better, or at least twice, of such a trip gods, Egad has it come to that.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of riding a rental car, a rental car, my god, a mid-sized, almost brand new, gadget-filled lights, horns, windshield wipers all controlled, whiplash computer-controlled, at the touch power steering. And I like a kid, a dumb, no California hot-rod head under the hood kid with car-ness in the very blood, but more of a youth spent no car, not dough for a car, miles walked, sneaker miles walked, kid, scratching my head to figure out what goes where and screaming onto that good night about how the hell have we come to such a complicated place where it requires seven degrees in astro-physics, at least, to get the damn thing started. No more of drowsy early morning truck stop diner pick-ups by benny-high, reds-low, mortgaged to the teeth zen truck-driving road masters carrying freights from here to there (I would say from point A to point B but that is used up already). No more of psychedelic- painted, further night, magical tour buses, old time yellow brick road school buses converted to living, breathing space on the endless hippie hitchhike 1960s road. No more even of old country hay wagons named, or misnamed, trucks picking up likely farm hands, penny-poor likely farm hands, to work for a few days before moving on. No more of that, indeed.
Maybe, and here we are reaching some home truths, it was the sheer, hard fact of seeing the azul ocean sea coming over the horizon at Laguna Hills or one of those endless, one-name-fits-all or should fit all Southern California beach towns filled with the mandatory fake, yes, fake Spanish décor. Of the ticky-tack rows (thanks Malvina Reynolds via Pete Seeger) of “Spanish” houses, oh, I mean, estates, where I see kids, kids no different than I was just waiting for the jail-break event of their generation, if it comes, and if they want long enough but not too long. Of the million and one surf shops for the youngsters to wax and wane on seeking of their own blue-pink nights (or days, more likely), the endless quest for the perfect wave. Of the strip mall rows of fast food eateries, fast clothes chanceries (swim suits a specialty), of sun-free indoor tanning against the rages of father sun. Of the quaint (nice word, right?), yes, quaint lobster dinner (lobster flown in from, from, ah, Maine), California fresh fish of the day, freshly caught, beach view restaurants or other finery, and of cruising (no, not that cruising) pedestrians of all sizes and shapes. Shapes including show-off lovely formed younger girls, ah, women, maybe a young Angelica waiting to splash her first splash in mother Pacific, peaceful mother pacific. And all races and languages and ethnicities trying to figure out the lure of the heathered (almost like Scotland, Scotland of no burr) coastal shore to the Okies, Arkies and Texies, who descended here a couple of generations ago, planted roots, their migratory roots, not Eastern forever and a day roots, and never left. But still the gnawing question, the question of questions-where to go west from here. Not back to the okie dust bowl, that is for sure, not for those now corn-fed, yellow-haired (maybe genetically yellow from that corn) beauties of both sexes who are tied to the sea, to the endless quest for the perfect wave sea, even though from the look of them if I posed the question that way, that perfect wave search way, I would shunted away screaming in that previously mentioned good night.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of walking ancient shoreline walks, soft sand kicking, shodless feet kicking, tracing new written configurations to ancient gods in the previously clean-slated sand surface, occasionally pebble-dotted, seashell-scattered, as the ocean screams for quiet from those walking in its space and pleads, like some latter day librarian, not to disturb others. Of thoughts of ancient sorrows, and ancient laughters.
Remembrances of Angelica first time ocean splashes, of riptide saves, of hero’s rewards for heroic saves, rewards better left to the imagination, ancient imagination. Of scaled seawalls that hold back tide, time and the brick-a-brack whims of fickle man, of humankind. Of squirrels, everlasting, ever-present seashore-loving burrowing squirrels filching, filching and begging, begging for human food against all good nature’s wisdom. And getting it. The food that is. Of ocean side night campfires to protect against the force of the ocean chill, of ocean shadows, and of ocean smokes, thinking back to the days when cigarette smokes filled many pubic spaces. But better smells now of mesquite wood smells, of charcoals broils smells, of sea-drug up woods smoothed from ocean pounds smells. Of high ganja smells, of pellets and pills to ward off the ocean calls to the endless sleep, of the return to the homeland, of the homeland seas. And of skies of daytime blue, blue, blue enough to make a pair of pants out of, cloudless in afternoon after fogged-down mornings. Ah, but you what’s coming, what the whole shore line walk means. Yes, the night, no, not the night night, the dark, starless night of the poet’s lament, of ancient times wonder, and of modern no night human-crafted light beams breaking the will of the dark night. No, not that night but rather the earlier part, the part after the sun goes on its business below the horizon and leaves as a reminder the blue-pink night hanging over the ocean, tourist taking pictures, taking camera, digital camera pictures today, instant, mainly, but, hell who need such tacky reminders when the mind’s eye reeks of blue-pink memory, ancient blue-pink memories.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of leaving, of returning east fast, faster as it turns out that heading west, west to the blue-pink night, to the be-bop night. I will not speak of that airport maze, rat-like or not, again it does not vary on the way back any more than going to. Now I speak of those haunts, those dreaded ancient haunts of having to return to eastern concerns, eastern worries, eastern woes, and a feeling, an old feeling an old Joyel-time feeling of having to go back to routines, not the regular routines that make life bearable but the routines of routines that drive one out on the midnight run to wherever, whenever. And to see, although see only in a flash, the contours of the American night, of the sense of the American landscape, of roads and rivers it took months for ancient pioneer Conestoga wagons to traverse, and weeks for ancient hitchhike roads to swallow.
All blaze past in a flash, all lighted strange patterns civilization.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of grabbing a midnight-like cab for the ride home, eastern home, eastern snow-drenched home that had not changed in sight but changed from still present blue-pink memories as always, from leaving but still necessary to face. On such cab rides, such youthfully scorned cab rides, and truth be known youthfully unaffordable rides, I now take when language is no barrier to asking for cabbie stories (although many times such is a problem as this is now a profession, a city profession, by recent immigrants, dominated, seemingly oxymoronic, since how would such fellows know the ancient trails of the east, at least in pre-techno- GPS days) in the hopes of finding some gem story to feed the literary lights, not blue-pink lights by any means, just fill-in road stories.
And this night, this night when thoughts have been whirling for weeks about ancient things, ancient things described above, I find a kindred. Cabbie X, ancient cabbie X, fires back in full-bodied, “I don’t have any cabbie stories to tell, but I have some hitchhike stories.” Hell, hell on wheels, be still my heart, tell, brother, tell kindred tell all, and drive slow, stop at every traffic light slow, I have dough in my pocket and a hunger, an unspeakable, unquenchable just now hunger, to hear your tales, your ancient 1960s hitchhike road tales. Tales about his road from Missoula, Montana to New Haven, Connecticut. (Yes, avoid hitching on those Connecticut roads, and Arizona’s too. Agreed). Of Truckee truck stops. Of truck stop road side diners, and endless cups of coffee, and badgering truckers for long-haul rides. Of hard driving, get to the coast, benny-high truckers seeking to spill their guts to some lone stranger in order to keep awake and pass the hard highway mile. Of Pacific Coast highways brimming with converted magical mystery tour school buses, converted to living housing for the broken-hearted, the love-lorn, the be-bop nighters. Ah, memory. “Hey, you almost didn’t stop at that last traffic light, brother.”
More, more please. Of Nevada desert stops, waiting by lonely crossroads for hours, reading scrawled signs from ancient forbears, maybe those very Conestoga folk, warning that one may wait for a ride to perdition there. Of dope smoke, of friendships, many fleeting, but a feel for that good moment. And at the close of that cabbie night a thought , a cabbie thought- we made it, we were better for it, and we can survive in this old world because we made that venture. No need to speak of the blue-pink night to this brother, such words would be wasted. This is that now dwindling fraternity that sought, maybe still seeks that good night, and that is all that needs to be said. A revolutionary brotherhood handshake, a handshake too hard to describe here but fraught with meaning back in those days, at my door seals our night’s work. Yes, memory almost like a yesterday memory, finely-etched in our collective minds, recallable at an instant.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of carrying around , winter long, winter, snow-blasted long, a song/story in my head, a story recorded by Red Sovine and which I heard by way of the inscrutable Tom Waits, Big Joe and Phantom 309. A story of a fellow hitchhike roader caught out in one of those lonely crossroads to nowhere that every seeker knows about, although they are not always windswept and rain-drenched. Sometimes they are snow-frozen, sometimes, heat-drowned, sometimes, not enough times, just plain, ordinary sunny-dayed. Out of the mist comes the mythical trucker, Big Joe will serve as well any other name, although when I think trucker I always think Denver Slim as he was neither slim (far from it) nor from Denver, and that tells a tale right there. So they ride the night away telling lies and other stories until they come near a truck stop and Big Joe freaks, and the hitchhiker is left, after Big Joe pitches him a dime, to go in for a cup of coffee on Big Joe. Said hitchhiker goes in and tells his story of the ride and with whom and gets the lowdown from a waiter. See Big Joe died, truck-faithful, Phantom 309 faithful died, when he avoided a school bus filled with kids out on that lonely pick-up crossroad. But see Big Joe did another favor, a hitchhike brotherhood favor as the waiter says “have another cup of coffee and keep the dime, keep the dime as a souvenir of Big Joe and Phantom 309.” Great story and I have my own just like it, and Brother Cabbie X had his own, and every man and woman who ever hit the road, by force or desire, has that same story just mix it up a little.
Maybe it was just the sheer, hard fact of listening, listening attentively, listening eagerly on the rented car California roads to old road warrior, Wobblie, kindred of tramps, bums, and hoboes of an earlier age, an age which intersected with the hippie hitchhike road of the 1960s, the late folksinger/songwriter Bruce “Utah” Phillips and his definite Songbook. Listening to old songs of struggle from prairie days, of hobo jungles by the railroad tracks (not today’s high speed ones, no way), and train-jumpers (a different breed that we highway hitchhikers but still searchers. I never had much luck on the trains, and got tossed off a few by the railroad bulls, so I will leave that mode of transportation alone), skid row nights, sidewalk sneers, and destruction of the western hobo night by gentrification. Of paperless street benches, of paper-filled bus depot benches, of public bathroom stenches, of half-way house snores and hostels bland food that dotted the old transient landscape, and have seemingly faded from memory, except on twilight California streets as the homeless hoboes make way to the beach and night time sleeps, sleep it offs, mainly.
Ya, maybe it was all those sheer, hard facts, collectively or individually, that brought me back to memories of the ancient hitchhike road, especially that brother cabbie scene but, finally, here is the real reason. Let me go back to those California roads for a minute, no, not the Pacific Coast highway freedom road (Routes 1 and 101) but the high volume, hard-driving, eighty billion-laned (okay, I exaggerate) Interstate 5 that, one way or another, goes up and down the length of the state. Actually let me go back to the one of the entrances, one of the Oceanside entrances, where beyond belief I spy two youths, a male and female, two youthful Markins and Angelicas maybe, standing on the corner, waiting, waiting for a what. A hitchhike ride of course. In the second it took me to realize that this is what they were doing (they held out no thumb, nor had a sign indicating where they were heading, obviously “green” at this work) and slammed on the brakes I was beside them. “Where are you heading?” asks ancient seeker narrator of this tale. “L.A.,” they shoot back. “Get in.” And they do, the guy (Brandon) in the front and the gal (Lillian) in back. At least they have enough sense to make that configuration, that pair male –female configuration, like we did in the old days just in case things got weird. And I had no intention, no intention in hell, of going back to L.A. that day, except one million questions about their purpose, their reasons for being on the road, and ancient courtesies that dictated that I pick up hitchhikers, a rare, incredibly rare occurrence these days. I will let them tell their stories some other time because this after all is my story but their quest, in any case, involves nothing as grandiose as the search for the blue-pink night although it involved Generation X dreams, and that will have to do.
So the torch is passed, maybe…
Or maybe it is the sheer, hard fact of that knapsack, old Army surplus olive green knapsack, moth-eaten, maybe, moldy, well hitchhike-traveled, well-worn, a lasting memento to that 1969 Angelica-paired road trip sitting in some back closet, up in the attic, or worst, down in the forlorn cellar crying to get out, or maybe some old sea shell of infamous origin also back there calling me back, back to our homeland the road, and the eternal, now I know it is eternal, search for that blue-pink great American West night.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of the California night calling after too long an absence, the California be-bop late 1960s night, the eternal California be-bop night after years of Maine solitude, of Maine grey-blue-white washed, white-crested, white-capped, foam-flecked Atlantic ocean-flotsam and jetsam strewn waters. After all no all oceans are created the same, not all oceans speak to one in the same way, although they are all old Father Neptune’s thoughtful playgrounds. California’s, yes, white-washed, yes, white-crested, yes, white-capped, yes, foam-flecked speak to gentle, warm lapis lazuli blue wealth dreams of the quest, the long buried life long quest for the great blue-pink great American West night, blue-pinked skies of course. Yes maybe it was just that sheer hard fact that pushed me out of Eastern white, white to hate the sight of white, snowed-in doors, Eastern gale winds blowing a man against the sand-pebbled seas, and into the endless starless night. Yes, maybe just a change of color, or to color, from the white white whiteness of the sea walk white-etched night. Right down to the shoreline white.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of preparing, against the timetable of that Eastern white night, this and that for the winter California day, and night, the ocean California that set the thoughts of the be-bop night, and the quest for the blue-pink skies humming once again in the, admittedly, older-boned voyager, voyeur of dreamed once sultry, steamy nights. A different proposition, a different proposition, on most days, from preparing to face fierce Maine winter mornings, unaided by the graces and forms nature provides its hardier creations. No thoughts today of heavy woolen coats, double-stitched, double-plied, doubled-vested, old nor’ easter worthy, or heavy woolen pants, same chino pants of youth, same black chino pants, no cuffs, except winter weight, not the always summer weight on no knowledge youth, or heavy boots, heavy clunky rubberish boots mocking against the snow-felt, ocean-edged soft sand streets, or maybe, more in tune with aged-bone recipes heavy-soled, heavy-rubber soled (or was it rubber souled) running shoes (also known in the wide world of youth as sneakers, better Chuck’s). Of scarves, and caps, full-bodied caps, better seaman’s caps, heavy, wool, dark blue, built to stand against the ocean-stormed waves crashing and thrashing against ships hulls, and gloves, gloves to keep your hands from frosty immobility I need not speak. Or will not speak.
No, today we think of great controversies of age, well, mini-controversies anyway, between hi-tech-derived aero-flow, toe-fitted, sheer meshed sneakers, or just old-fashioned, Velcro-snapped criss-cross leather sandals, toe-dangling in the sand streets ready. Or between jungle-fitted, twelve-pocketed (or so it seems), straight from the Ernest Hemingway African safari night ( so it seems, again) else, maybe, out of mad man gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson in full loathing regalia, or Reebok, Nike, Adidas, New Balance free-for-all athletic shorts. Or between hearty windbreakers, fit for eastern gales and western el ninos, versus light denim, light blue, tight fit, well, maybe tight fit, be young Marlon Brando or James Dean-worthy in some motorcycle hidden fantasy, jackets. All decisions, all timed but irrevocable once inside the airport terminal, and its maze, no beyond maze, beyond rate maze, of security and scrutiny.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of just that airport invasion, the hard fact of the post-9/11 travel world. The running the gauntlet of checkpoints, charts, human body scanning screens, magic forgery detecting pens, bells, whistles, and surly, or maybe better, indifferent, human scanners, human searchers, human checkers. The piles of thrown away, seemingly harmless, harmless to these eyes, water bottles, pure-springed water bottles (Evian, Poland Springs, Belmont Springs, home-filled reusable, filtered tap water L.L. Bean bottles, whatever) which now are deadly weapons, or could be, are a twisted metaphor for the scene. All in order to get from point A (east coast angry ocean waters) to point B (west coast, or hipper, at least used to be hipper, left coast gentle, spa-like, or faux spa waters) in less than six hours. No more of timeless trips, or at least of months long trips, aimless but aim-full in their purposeful search. No more of Boston to Angelica Steubenville to roots Prestonsburg to Lexington (Kentucky that is, not revolutionary battlefield Lexington, not that trip anyway). No more Moline meltdowns and Neola corn field nights and Aunt Betty lazy, crazy, hazy suppers or solidarity rides to the desert Native American ghost sky night, drums beating back to primal times, and then over the last mountains down into California blue-pink haze. No, six hours, no more, or else breakdown against those bone-aged facts, and bone-aged stiffness rebellions. Or worst surrender to the think better, or at least twice, of such a trip gods, Egad has it come to that.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of riding a rental car, a rental car, my god, a mid-sized, almost brand new, gadget-filled lights, horns, windshield wipers all controlled, whiplash computer-controlled, at the touch power steering. And I like a kid, a dumb, no California hot-rod head under the hood kid with car-ness in the very blood, but more of a youth spent no car, not dough for a car, miles walked, sneaker miles walked, kid, scratching my head to figure out what goes where and screaming onto that good night about how the hell have we come to such a complicated place where it requires seven degrees in astro-physics, at least, to get the damn thing started. No more of drowsy early morning truck stop diner pick-ups by benny-high, reds-low, mortgaged to the teeth zen truck-driving road masters carrying freights from here to there (I would say from point A to point B but that is used up already). No more of psychedelic- painted, further night, magical tour buses, old time yellow brick road school buses converted to living, breathing space on the endless hippie hitchhike 1960s road. No more even of old country hay wagons named, or misnamed, trucks picking up likely farm hands, penny-poor likely farm hands, to work for a few days before moving on. No more of that, indeed.
Maybe, and here we are reaching some home truths, it was the sheer, hard fact of seeing the azul ocean sea coming over the horizon at Laguna Hills or one of those endless, one-name-fits-all or should fit all Southern California beach towns filled with the mandatory fake, yes, fake Spanish décor. Of the ticky-tack rows (thanks Malvina Reynolds via Pete Seeger) of “Spanish” houses, oh, I mean, estates, where I see kids, kids no different than I was just waiting for the jail-break event of their generation, if it comes, and if they want long enough but not too long. Of the million and one surf shops for the youngsters to wax and wane on seeking of their own blue-pink nights (or days, more likely), the endless quest for the perfect wave. Of the strip mall rows of fast food eateries, fast clothes chanceries (swim suits a specialty), of sun-free indoor tanning against the rages of father sun. Of the quaint (nice word, right?), yes, quaint lobster dinner (lobster flown in from, from, ah, Maine), California fresh fish of the day, freshly caught, beach view restaurants or other finery, and of cruising (no, not that cruising) pedestrians of all sizes and shapes. Shapes including show-off lovely formed younger girls, ah, women, maybe a young Angelica waiting to splash her first splash in mother Pacific, peaceful mother pacific. And all races and languages and ethnicities trying to figure out the lure of the heathered (almost like Scotland, Scotland of no burr) coastal shore to the Okies, Arkies and Texies, who descended here a couple of generations ago, planted roots, their migratory roots, not Eastern forever and a day roots, and never left. But still the gnawing question, the question of questions-where to go west from here. Not back to the okie dust bowl, that is for sure, not for those now corn-fed, yellow-haired (maybe genetically yellow from that corn) beauties of both sexes who are tied to the sea, to the endless quest for the perfect wave sea, even though from the look of them if I posed the question that way, that perfect wave search way, I would shunted away screaming in that previously mentioned good night.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of walking ancient shoreline walks, soft sand kicking, shodless feet kicking, tracing new written configurations to ancient gods in the previously clean-slated sand surface, occasionally pebble-dotted, seashell-scattered, as the ocean screams for quiet from those walking in its space and pleads, like some latter day librarian, not to disturb others. Of thoughts of ancient sorrows, and ancient laughters.
Remembrances of Angelica first time ocean splashes, of riptide saves, of hero’s rewards for heroic saves, rewards better left to the imagination, ancient imagination. Of scaled seawalls that hold back tide, time and the brick-a-brack whims of fickle man, of humankind. Of squirrels, everlasting, ever-present seashore-loving burrowing squirrels filching, filching and begging, begging for human food against all good nature’s wisdom. And getting it. The food that is. Of ocean side night campfires to protect against the force of the ocean chill, of ocean shadows, and of ocean smokes, thinking back to the days when cigarette smokes filled many pubic spaces. But better smells now of mesquite wood smells, of charcoals broils smells, of sea-drug up woods smoothed from ocean pounds smells. Of high ganja smells, of pellets and pills to ward off the ocean calls to the endless sleep, of the return to the homeland, of the homeland seas. And of skies of daytime blue, blue, blue enough to make a pair of pants out of, cloudless in afternoon after fogged-down mornings. Ah, but you what’s coming, what the whole shore line walk means. Yes, the night, no, not the night night, the dark, starless night of the poet’s lament, of ancient times wonder, and of modern no night human-crafted light beams breaking the will of the dark night. No, not that night but rather the earlier part, the part after the sun goes on its business below the horizon and leaves as a reminder the blue-pink night hanging over the ocean, tourist taking pictures, taking camera, digital camera pictures today, instant, mainly, but, hell who need such tacky reminders when the mind’s eye reeks of blue-pink memory, ancient blue-pink memories.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of leaving, of returning east fast, faster as it turns out that heading west, west to the blue-pink night, to the be-bop night. I will not speak of that airport maze, rat-like or not, again it does not vary on the way back any more than going to. Now I speak of those haunts, those dreaded ancient haunts of having to return to eastern concerns, eastern worries, eastern woes, and a feeling, an old feeling an old Joyel-time feeling of having to go back to routines, not the regular routines that make life bearable but the routines of routines that drive one out on the midnight run to wherever, whenever. And to see, although see only in a flash, the contours of the American night, of the sense of the American landscape, of roads and rivers it took months for ancient pioneer Conestoga wagons to traverse, and weeks for ancient hitchhike roads to swallow.
All blaze past in a flash, all lighted strange patterns civilization.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of grabbing a midnight-like cab for the ride home, eastern home, eastern snow-drenched home that had not changed in sight but changed from still present blue-pink memories as always, from leaving but still necessary to face. On such cab rides, such youthfully scorned cab rides, and truth be known youthfully unaffordable rides, I now take when language is no barrier to asking for cabbie stories (although many times such is a problem as this is now a profession, a city profession, by recent immigrants, dominated, seemingly oxymoronic, since how would such fellows know the ancient trails of the east, at least in pre-techno- GPS days) in the hopes of finding some gem story to feed the literary lights, not blue-pink lights by any means, just fill-in road stories.
And this night, this night when thoughts have been whirling for weeks about ancient things, ancient things described above, I find a kindred. Cabbie X, ancient cabbie X, fires back in full-bodied, “I don’t have any cabbie stories to tell, but I have some hitchhike stories.” Hell, hell on wheels, be still my heart, tell, brother, tell kindred tell all, and drive slow, stop at every traffic light slow, I have dough in my pocket and a hunger, an unspeakable, unquenchable just now hunger, to hear your tales, your ancient 1960s hitchhike road tales. Tales about his road from Missoula, Montana to New Haven, Connecticut. (Yes, avoid hitching on those Connecticut roads, and Arizona’s too. Agreed). Of Truckee truck stops. Of truck stop road side diners, and endless cups of coffee, and badgering truckers for long-haul rides. Of hard driving, get to the coast, benny-high truckers seeking to spill their guts to some lone stranger in order to keep awake and pass the hard highway mile. Of Pacific Coast highways brimming with converted magical mystery tour school buses, converted to living housing for the broken-hearted, the love-lorn, the be-bop nighters. Ah, memory. “Hey, you almost didn’t stop at that last traffic light, brother.”
More, more please. Of Nevada desert stops, waiting by lonely crossroads for hours, reading scrawled signs from ancient forbears, maybe those very Conestoga folk, warning that one may wait for a ride to perdition there. Of dope smoke, of friendships, many fleeting, but a feel for that good moment. And at the close of that cabbie night a thought , a cabbie thought- we made it, we were better for it, and we can survive in this old world because we made that venture. No need to speak of the blue-pink night to this brother, such words would be wasted. This is that now dwindling fraternity that sought, maybe still seeks that good night, and that is all that needs to be said. A revolutionary brotherhood handshake, a handshake too hard to describe here but fraught with meaning back in those days, at my door seals our night’s work. Yes, memory almost like a yesterday memory, finely-etched in our collective minds, recallable at an instant.
Maybe it was the sheer, hard fact of carrying around , winter long, winter, snow-blasted long, a song/story in my head, a story recorded by Red Sovine and which I heard by way of the inscrutable Tom Waits, Big Joe and Phantom 309. A story of a fellow hitchhike roader caught out in one of those lonely crossroads to nowhere that every seeker knows about, although they are not always windswept and rain-drenched. Sometimes they are snow-frozen, sometimes, heat-drowned, sometimes, not enough times, just plain, ordinary sunny-dayed. Out of the mist comes the mythical trucker, Big Joe will serve as well any other name, although when I think trucker I always think Denver Slim as he was neither slim (far from it) nor from Denver, and that tells a tale right there. So they ride the night away telling lies and other stories until they come near a truck stop and Big Joe freaks, and the hitchhiker is left, after Big Joe pitches him a dime, to go in for a cup of coffee on Big Joe. Said hitchhiker goes in and tells his story of the ride and with whom and gets the lowdown from a waiter. See Big Joe died, truck-faithful, Phantom 309 faithful died, when he avoided a school bus filled with kids out on that lonely pick-up crossroad. But see Big Joe did another favor, a hitchhike brotherhood favor as the waiter says “have another cup of coffee and keep the dime, keep the dime as a souvenir of Big Joe and Phantom 309.” Great story and I have my own just like it, and Brother Cabbie X had his own, and every man and woman who ever hit the road, by force or desire, has that same story just mix it up a little.
Maybe it was just the sheer, hard fact of listening, listening attentively, listening eagerly on the rented car California roads to old road warrior, Wobblie, kindred of tramps, bums, and hoboes of an earlier age, an age which intersected with the hippie hitchhike road of the 1960s, the late folksinger/songwriter Bruce “Utah” Phillips and his definite Songbook. Listening to old songs of struggle from prairie days, of hobo jungles by the railroad tracks (not today’s high speed ones, no way), and train-jumpers (a different breed that we highway hitchhikers but still searchers. I never had much luck on the trains, and got tossed off a few by the railroad bulls, so I will leave that mode of transportation alone), skid row nights, sidewalk sneers, and destruction of the western hobo night by gentrification. Of paperless street benches, of paper-filled bus depot benches, of public bathroom stenches, of half-way house snores and hostels bland food that dotted the old transient landscape, and have seemingly faded from memory, except on twilight California streets as the homeless hoboes make way to the beach and night time sleeps, sleep it offs, mainly.
Ya, maybe it was all those sheer, hard facts, collectively or individually, that brought me back to memories of the ancient hitchhike road, especially that brother cabbie scene but, finally, here is the real reason. Let me go back to those California roads for a minute, no, not the Pacific Coast highway freedom road (Routes 1 and 101) but the high volume, hard-driving, eighty billion-laned (okay, I exaggerate) Interstate 5 that, one way or another, goes up and down the length of the state. Actually let me go back to the one of the entrances, one of the Oceanside entrances, where beyond belief I spy two youths, a male and female, two youthful Markins and Angelicas maybe, standing on the corner, waiting, waiting for a what. A hitchhike ride of course. In the second it took me to realize that this is what they were doing (they held out no thumb, nor had a sign indicating where they were heading, obviously “green” at this work) and slammed on the brakes I was beside them. “Where are you heading?” asks ancient seeker narrator of this tale. “L.A.,” they shoot back. “Get in.” And they do, the guy (Brandon) in the front and the gal (Lillian) in back. At least they have enough sense to make that configuration, that pair male –female configuration, like we did in the old days just in case things got weird. And I had no intention, no intention in hell, of going back to L.A. that day, except one million questions about their purpose, their reasons for being on the road, and ancient courtesies that dictated that I pick up hitchhikers, a rare, incredibly rare occurrence these days. I will let them tell their stories some other time because this after all is my story but their quest, in any case, involves nothing as grandiose as the search for the blue-pink night although it involved Generation X dreams, and that will have to do.
So the torch is passed, maybe…
Or maybe it is the sheer, hard fact of that knapsack, old Army surplus olive green knapsack, moth-eaten, maybe, moldy, well hitchhike-traveled, well-worn, a lasting memento to that 1969 Angelica-paired road trip sitting in some back closet, up in the attic, or worst, down in the forlorn cellar crying to get out, or maybe some old sea shell of infamous origin also back there calling me back, back to our homeland the road, and the eternal, now I know it is eternal, search for that blue-pink great American West night.
Smokestack Lightning, Indeed- With Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf Coming Up The Mississippi From The Mister James Crow South And Blowing High White Notes In Mind
Smokestack Lightning, Indeed- With Bluesman
Howlin’ Wolf Coming Up The Mississippi From The Mister James Crow South And Blowing High White Notes In Mind
Sometimes a picture really can be worth
a thousand words, a thousand words and more as in the case Howlin’ Wolf doing
his Midnight creep in the photograph above taken from an album of his work but
nowadays with the advances in computer technology and someone’s desire to share
also to be seen on sites such as YouTube where you can get a real flavor of
what that mad man was about when he got his blues wanting habits on. In fact I
am a little hesitate to use a bunch of words describing Howlin’ Wolf in high
gear since maybe I would leave out that drop of perspiration dripping from his
overworked forehead and that salted drop might be the very thing that drove him
that night or describing his oneness with his harmonica because that might
cause some karmic funk. So, no, I am not really going to go on and on about his
midnight creep but when the big man got into high gear, when he went to a place
where he sweaty profusely, a little ragged in voice and eyes all shot to hell
he roared for his version of the high white note. Funny, a lot of people,
myself for a while included, used to think that the high white note business
was strictly a jazz thing, maybe somebody like the “Prez” Lester Young or
Duke’s Johnny Hodges after hours, after the paying customers had had their
fill, or what they thought was all those men had in them, shutting the doors
tight, putting up the tables leaving the chairs for whoever came by around
dawn, grabbing a few guys from around the town as they finished their gigs and
make the search, make a serious bid to blow the world to kingdom come.
Some
nights they were on fire at blew that big note out in to some heavy air and who
knows where it landed, most nights though it was just “nice try.” One night I
was out in Frisco when “Saps” McCoy blew a big sexy sax right out the door of
Chez Benny’s over in North Beach when North Beach was just turning away from
be-bop “beat” and that high white, I swear, blew out to the bay and who knows
maybe all the way to the Japan seas. But see if I had, or anybody had, thought
about it for a minute jazz and the blues are cousins, cousins no question so of
course Howlin’ Wolf blew out that high white note more than once, plenty
including a couple of shows I caught him at when he was not in his prime.
The photograph (and now video) that I
was thinking of is one where he is practically eating the harmonica as he performs
How Many More Years (and now like I say thanks to some thoughtful
archivist you can go on to YouTube and see him doing his devouring act in real
time and in motion, wow, and also berating father Son House for showing up
drunk). Yes, the Wolf could blast out the blues and on this one you get a real
appreciation for how serious he was as a performer and as blues representative
of the highest order.
Howlin’ Wolf like his near contemporary
and rival Muddy Waters, like a whole generation of black bluesmen who learned
their trade at the feet of old-time country blues masters like Charley Patton,
the aforementioned Son House who had his own personal fight with the devil,
Robert Johnson who allegedly sold his soul to the devil out on Highway 61 so he
could get his own version of that high white note, and the like down in
Mississippi or other southern places in the first half of the twentieth
century. They as part and parcel of that great black migration (even as
exceptional musicians they would do stints in the sweated Northern factories
before hitting Maxwell Street) took the road north, or rather the river north,
an amazing number from the Delta and an even more amazing number from around
Clarksville in Mississippi right by that Highway 61 and headed first maybe to
Memphis and then on to sweet home Chicago.
They went where the jobs were, went
where the ugliness of Mister James Crow telling them sit here not there, walk
here but not there, drink the water here not there, don’t look at our women
under any conditions and on and on did not haunt their every move (although
they would find not racial Garden of Eden in the North, last hired, first
fired, squeezed in cold water flats too many to a room, harassed, but they at
least has some breathing space, some room to create a little something they
could call their won and not Mister’s), went where the big black migration was
heading after World War I. Went also to explore a new way of presenting the
blues to an urban audience in need of a faster beat, in need of getting away
from the Saturday juke joint acoustic country sound with some old timey guys
ripping up three chord ditties to go with that jug of Jack Flash’s homemade
whiskey (or so he called it).
So they, guys like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy
Waters, Magic Slim, Johnny Shines, and James Cotton prospered by doing what
Elvis did for rock and rock and Bob Dylan did for folk and pulled the hammer
down on the old electric guitar and made big, big sounds that reached all the
way back of the room to the Red Hat and Tip Top clubs and made the max daddies
and max mamas jump, make some moves. And here is where all kinds of thing got
intersected, as part of all the trends in post-World War II music up to the
1960s anyway from R&B, rock and roll, electric blues and folk the edges of
the music hit all the way to then small white audiences too and they howled for
the blues, which spoke to some sense of their own alienation. Hell, the Beatles
and more particularly lived to hear Muddy and the Wolf. The Stones even went to
Mecca, to Chess Records to be at one with Muddy. And they also took lessons
from Howlin’ Wolf himself on the right way to play Little Red Rooster
which they had covered and made famous in the early 1960s (or infamous
depending on your point of view since many radio stations including some Boston
stations had banned it from the air originally).Yes, Howlin’ Wolf and that big
bad harmonica and that big bad voice that howled in the night did that for a
new generation, pretty good right.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-When Mister Warren Smith Fretted To Perdition Over His Rock ‘n Roll Ruby
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-When Mister Warren Smith Fretted
To Perdition Over His Rock ‘n Roll Ruby
Sketches
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
***********
He and She-With Warren
Smith’s Rock and Roll Ruby In
Mind
…he knew, knew deep in his bones, knew on the face of it
too that he could not keep her, keep her to himself, keep her settled down
and so he accepted that she would blow away like the wind on him sometime,
that same wind would take her away as the one on which they had proclaimed,
or maybe better he had proclaimed and she went along with, that their love
was written on, and it was just a matter of how long he could keep her. It
was not that he was perceptive about women and their needs, wants, desires, nothing
like that, not women in any case, girls really since he did not know anything
at all about women who were older than say twenty, twenty-one except relative
women, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and what was there to know about them to
help him, help him with a wild side woman they all placid and proper, or
about anything like that. And even on the girl thing he was filled with as
much mystery and awe as with any real knowledge, his knowledge like everybody
else, every guy, in town acquired on the street, in the boys’ sports locker
rooms, and on the corner when he hung out with guys, or did before she took
up his time but a lot of that was just flat-out wrong, half church-truth,
half-just getting it wrong, about what made them tick, and about how to hang
onto them.
And it was not like he could lay claim to as a
wet-behind-the ears high school kid trying to survive in the doldrums 1950s
some inside knowledge about what was going to happen when his generation, the
generation which would post-war born be called baby boomers and who would not
fall into the false security, or at least he did not think that then, that
their from hunger parents craved, broke out of the straitjacket but he just
knew that she was like the wind and would get caught up in everything that
was breezing across the land. He knew in his knotted stomach that what was
happening in the cold war red scare night could not be the end of things, the
end of the world and that when the time came for the break-out all hell would
break loose. She would imbibe, joyfully imbibe the “newer world” was the way
she put it to him one night when she wanted to go to a dance and he wanted to
just hold hands or something at the movies (they went to the dance and she
danced like Fred Astaire going up the walls in some movie they had seen),
everything that was coming whether about ways of getting high not just the
illicit liquor but some drugs that were beginning to make their way into the
neighborhoods among the hipped; ways of dressing, especially ways of dressing
sexy without old prudes scolding or guys leering; ways of dancing, dancing
free from the old forms; and ways of hearing the music that always seemed to
exist in her head just below the surface of what drove her personality.
Him, well, he was what she called when she was angry at
him when he would not dance, wanted to square parent hold hands, or got mad
when she did dance with other guys or he was smothering her with his forever
plans (her take, not his) a “square.” Jesus, a square and with his strict Jehovah
upbringing and his “get out of from hunger and get ahead dreams” maybe he
was. He knew that he would not be able to go with her when she broke out,
knew that for sure. Knew from that one time some guy at a dance at the Surf
Ballroom down by the beach gave them a couple of shots of rotgut Southern
Comfort which she dug and on which he just threw up, knew that other time in
downtown Boston when some college guy was giving her the once over and passed
them a “joint” (marijuana for the squares like him) and she got all high and
flirty (and he did too except he could not go with the flow of the thing);
knew when she started wearing her dresses shorter showing her well-turned
legs and challenging guys to look; knew when she got all esoteric in her
dancing like she was of the she with the seven veils; knew that when she
began to dig electric blues and some helter-skelter hipster jazz, that he
would not be able to go with her. No question.
It hadn’t started out that way, at least he did not see it
like that at the beginning, see that she was a wayward wind, see that she had
the desire to deeply imbibe the new
wave coming across the continent. That wind born of the wild reckless
feckless boys sunk knee-deep in alienation and angst, of outlaw motorcycle bikers
who played for real and played rough, of surf city guys searching for perfect
waves with golden-haired girls waiting patiently on shore for that event, of
hot rod Lincoln “chicken run” guys with boffo girls sitting high-breasted
wearing cashmere sweaters in that coveted passenger seat turning the radio
dial reaction against the staid Great Depression and World War II parents’
generation search for the security blanket in a hostile red scare Cold War
world where they, the parents, just wanted their Johnny coming home from the
war music, big Cadillac, two car garage with two cars and stardust memories.
You know what he meant, don’t you, the undefined but
vital mood change that started when Elvis and a bunch of other hungry guys
[and a few women like Wanda Jackson and Laverne Baker] ripped it up with a
new sound, a new not your parents’ tinny sound, but blessed, no, twice
blessed rock and roll. And then other guys, other be-bop guys who had been
around but were just then getting noticed called the beat, called the beat
down to rise up and play themselves true, no hassles man, no hassles. All
under the umbrella of dropping that dragged out, square, red scare cold war
night thing the ancients had everybody stirred up about. Yeah and all their
old has-been crowd. A little later, in Billy and Jenny time, the he and she
here to introduce them but they could have been any of ten thousand kids
hooked on the visual bible of the new religion American Bandstand, standing on corners looking be-bop beat, or
throwing nickels and dimes at some Doc’s Drugstore jukebox complete with soda
fountain to abate hungers in order to hear the latest about twenty times the
music changed up again, and square was nowhere to be. Billy sensed it, sensed
before Jenny even but he with ten thousand worries in his head blew it off,
called it at first a passing fad then got real scared when his Jenny got
testy with him more often.
They had met conventionally enough in
senior year at old North Adamsville High, although they had seen each other
around for ages as most of the kids in town had been at endless school
assemblies, rallies, dances together but what of that in teen life had, for
as such things go, they had not paid particular attention to kids they knew
for ages, or kids that were not in their clique.. Had moreover grown up
together on the wrong side of the tracks and wore a few scars to prove it
although mostly they just acknowledged the slights from the Brahmins, noticed
the no nods, the no look of approval, their slightly under-cool cheap Bargain
Center dressing against the latest hip thing from Filene’s or Macy’s and
didn’t talk about it thinking it was uncool to talk about roots, about
yesterday, about anything but the moment, and Billy all bunched up about the
future.
Something clicked though in that senior year as they both
had responded to each other’s furtive glances in Miss Williams’ study hall,
had furtively danced around each other at Doc’s Drugstore where all the kids
hung out after school to listen the latest music, their music juke box, and
had finally gone out on a double-date (he without a car at the time and so
they had doubled up with her girlfriend Terry in her beau’s car, a “boss”
Chevy since that beau was out of school and working as a welder down at the
shipyard) at the local drive-in theater where she, sitting in the back seat
with him, surprised him with her sexual advances.
Stuff that Billy wasn’t all that familiar with but which
he liked and which she knew that he liked. He, at least, was embarrassed when
Terry and Eddie kept telling them to quiet down a little while Jenny was
doing her thing on him. She on the other hand just to show how wild she could
be if provoked took that as a signal to make him go crazier. Terry later told Jenny there
would be no more double-dates after she told her that Eddie had asked her to
do what he called “doing the Jenny” on him before he left her off at her
house. Terry said she did not know how to do that mouth thing and refused him
flat when he said he would show her how. Jenny told Billy later after she had
taught Terry the technique and Eddie coaxed her into doing it one afternoon
after school she would chide Terry with a little “so did you do the Terry”
again Saturday night down at the beach when they compared notes on their
respective weekends before school on Monday morning. Somehow that “do the
Terry” got around school and when Terry dumped Eddie guys would try to coax
her into it. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. That is when Billy and Jenny would
go back to double-dating with whatever new beau with a car that Terry had.
Yeah, Billy liked it, liked it like any guy would,
especially since Jenny was one of the prettiest girls in class and had a
reputation for being kind of “unapproachable.” (Billy later found out it was not so much
the stuck-up thing as that she had been dating a college guy and at that time
was strictly under his sway after they had a few sexual experiences which had
kind of loosened her up. Joe College eventually took off with some girl from
some college in Michigan once he was done with Jenny.) Yeah, he liked it but
also thought to himself that night and the several other nights Jenny and he
found themselves in some secluded spot on the beach (the Squaw Rock end not
the Seal Rock end where parents and young kids hung out) when she did her
thing to him, those times when she got all loud and screamy when he touched
her where had she picked up that knowledge of what made a guy moan (and a
girl all screamy). When he asked her about it later, not any of the nights
when they were alone down the beach but a couple of weeks later, she just
said girls knew stuff like that and she had learned it from her first boyfriend
(that Joe College) who was older. Said that older guys, older guys who had
been out in the world, guys who knew how to turn a woman on, and who expected
to be turned on showed girls like her what was what. He let it pass. So they were an “item” that last year of
school and many a Monday morning before school when the other guys were
speaking of so-called weekend conquests by the billion he just smiled a
knowing silent smile.
Then, a couple, a few years out of high school, Billy
working taking a few classes at the local junior college at night, Jenny
working a couple or three nights a week as a high end restaurant waitress,
the music at Doc’s jukebox changed, got more charged, frankly, got more sassy
and sexual far different from their parents’ sappy sentimental stuff that
didn’t get anybody’s heart rate up. And Jenny changed, well maybe not so much
changed as got caught up in the new dispensation, the new moves. When they
went on dates then it wasn’t to the movies or to some restaurant but to Smiley’s
Bar & Grille on the outskirts of town where old Smiley had a hot new
cover band, the Rocking Rockets, playing all the latest big beat stuff from
guys like Warren Smith with his Rock
‘n’ Roll Ruby that she flipped out on. Not that she, like Warren said,
would dance on the tables and stuff like that but that she would dance with
lots of guys, would be flirty, tease flirty right before his eyes. When he
questioned her on it she just said “don’t be a square, daddy” and refused to
discuss it further. And then it began. Some nights when he called her mother
answered to say she was not home, had gone out with the girls, or something
like that. Yeah, he knew deep in his bones …
********
…he had changed, Billy had changed too much for her
tastes, changed into a “square” just like all the parents in town and all the
kids who didn’t want to have fun and just be like them, be like their parents
and worry like Billy’s parents’ Jehovah worried about the new devil’s music
coming on the scene to replace, square, square Pat Boone and those clowns.
Billy, Jesus, Billy worrying and just barely out of high school about some
house, kids, dogs and two cars. Funny though he never complained, not one
word, when she did her thing, her “doing the Jenny” thing they laughingly
called it when they were in that mood, with him down at the beach. Oh, he
asked, Jehovah hypocrite asked where she learned how to satisfy a man but he
never asked her to stop but just moaned like every other man. She had learned
all about sex from a college guy she had been dating before Billy when she
was a sophomore in high school but who had ditched her for some college girl
from Michigan. Had done a couple of sexy turn on one-night stands with some
other college guys before latching onto Billy who she suddenly became
attracted to senior year when they shared a study class together and she kept
taking furtive glances his way until they began talking to each other after
school at Doc’s Drugstore, the one place in town which had an up-to-date
jukebox and a soda fountain, and that was that.
He was fun at first, fun when she did her thing with him,
went down on him, and he got all soft and stuff and she could have gotten
anything she wanted from him. Then he started on his ten million plans for
them. So she knew, knew sooner or later she was not sure which, she would
have to drop him, drop him for somebody who was fun, who liked what she did
and didn’t act the hypocrite about it. Hell, in one of her fantasy moments
maybe drop him for the first guy who wanted to dance with her close and fast,
maybe had some reefer or Scotch and didn’t ask forever how she knew what she
knew about sex and just enjoy it (and enjoy her).
The problem was that in square old North Adamsville that
someone who was fun and the rest had not passed her door, but she had hopes.
In the meantime she thought she would have to stick with old gloomy Gus as he
fretted his life away. As long as he
kept his mouth shut when she started
swaying when the juke-box played some hot, latest rock and roll tune or the
cover band at Smiley’s started her dancing to the beat on something like
Warren Smith’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby. Started
guys looking through Billy her way too, and licking their chops.
Funny, as she thought back to that time a little over a
year before when they had eyed each other in Miss Williams’ study hall that
she was then attracted to his easy manner, his sly boyish-ness which she
thought she could talk him out of with a little coaxing (he had made her
laugh when after they became an “item” he said that the eyeing had really
been furtive glances-he said funny things like that then). They had not
spoken a word until they had spent what seemed like a lifetime dancing around
each other at Doc’s Drugstore where he put in endless nickels and dimes in
the juke-box and then just sat there dreamy-eyed looking at her until she had
said enough and went over to him and stood right in front of him and dared
him to ignore her with her look. He had surrendered easily enough and they
became an “item” after a subsequent drive-in movie date where she had shown
him a few things in the back seat of her friend Terry’s boyfriend’s car. He
liked her doing that stuff and she knew he liked her doing that stuff
although he was a very shy boy for the first few times. So this was how they
had spent their last year of school together in some kind of bliss.
Things changed though, changed a couple of years later
when a new breeze came through the town, when Doc’s juke-box started to
almost jump off the walls what with the latest rock tunes coming one right
after another. But Billy did not catch on, wanted to stay mired in his
parents’ music and so the frets began-his about marriage and settling down,
hers about having fun rocking the night away. The worse times had been
when they went to Smiley’s, the
hot-spot bar on the outside of town where there was plenty of booze and bop
and guys who eyed her, maybe not
furtively shy like Billy had
but eyed her like they wanted to have a good time, wanted to have fun
rather mope around and be square. He would just sit there and be mopey while
she danced with a few guys, a couple of whom she had given her telephone
number to although they in the end had not worked out. She began telling her
mother sometimes that when Billy called to tell him she was out and to tell
him that she didn’t know when she would be back. Even when, like this night, she was just
sitting up in her room waiting for a new guy who had danced her off her feet
the night before who said he would definitely call and maybe, just maybe,
want to have fun …
***********
"Rock And Roll Ruby"
Well I took my Ruby jukin'
On the out-skirts of town She took her high heels off And rolled her stockings down She put a quarter in the jukebox To get a little beat Everybody started watchin' All the rhythm in her feet She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock And when she started rockin' She just couldn't stop She rocked on the tables And rolled on the floor And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul It was 'round about four I thought she would stop She looked at me and then She looked at the clock She said: "Wait a minute Daddy Now don't get sour All I want to do Is rock a little bit more" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul One night my Ruby left me all alone I tried to contact her on the telephone I finally found her about twelve o'clock She said: "Leave me alone Daddy 'cause your Ruby wants to rock" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul |
As We Honor The Three L’s –Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht-Honor An Historic Leader Of The American Abolitionist Movement-John Brown Late Of Harper's Ferry
As We Honor The Three L’s –Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht-Honor An Historic Leader Of The American Abolitionist Movement-John Brown Late Of Harper's Ferry
EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND, AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. DURING THE MONTH WE ALSO HONOR OTHER HISTORIC LEADERS AS WELL ON THIS SITE.
Chapter Thirteen
Toward Civil War
will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think:
vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed;
it might be done." - John Brown's last words
 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, November 19, 1859, Periodicals Collection | In the aftermath of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, many of his closest supporters sought to evade possible arrest. Frederick Douglass fled to Canada before sailing for England, and Samuel G. Howe and George L. Stearns stayed in Canada for several weeks. Frank Sanborn also went to Canada for a few days before returning to his home in Concord, Massachusetts. Gerrit Smith, suffering an apparently legitimate mental breakdown, was hospitalized in a mental institution. Of the “Secret Six,” only Thomas W. Higginson stayed in Massachusetts throughout the months that followed. He even gave assistance to raiders Frances Merriam and Charles Tidd on their way to Canada and plotted rescues of Brown and other raiders. Theodore Parker, dying in Europe, was far removed from the panic that afflicted other supporters. Conservative northerners held Union meetings denouncing John Brown’s actions at Harpers Ferry. Ardent abolitionists worked to depict Brown as a martyr to a noble cause, gathering in various towns on the day of his execution and ringing bells in honor of their fallen warrior. Among southerners, the terror that swept the South in the immediate aftermath of John Brown’s raid became a fierce determination to blot out any suspected disloyalty in the South to slavery, to create a united South ready to withstand any aggression from the North, and to fight more vigorously for federal protection of territorial slavery. |
| Meanwhile, agitation over the Harpers Ferry affair took hold in Congress, reinforcing the divisiveness over slavery that increasingly dominated the political discussion. For two months after convening in December 1859, the House of Representatives was unable to elect a Speaker of the House. John Sherman, the Republican candidate, was unacceptable to southern representatives because he had endorsed Hinton Helper’s anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis. Southerners denounced the book, the position of Republicans and northerners in general on slavery, and the reaction in the North to John Brown’s raid. One of the congressman who spoke on the subject was Alexander Boteler, who represented the district that included Harpers Ferry: “in my opinion, the leaders of the Abolition party, who are seeking to control the organization of this House, and to obtain possession of the Government, are as much the murderers of my friends at Harper’s Ferry as were old John Brown and his deluded followers; and I think that the committee engaged in the investigation in my State, and the investigation on the part of the Senate, will prove that the agitation of the slavery question by the great leaders of the Republican party has been the direct cause of the Harper’s Ferry invasion.” |  from Virginia. Source: Archives Collection |
  | While the House fought over the speakership, the Senate created a select committee chaired by James M. Mason of Virginia to investigate the raid. Wielding a questionable power to summon witnesses and compel them to testify, the committee heard the testimony of thirty-three men between January and May. The committee also summoned several others and issued arrest warrants for John Brown Jr., Thaddeus Hyatt, James Redpath, and Frank Sanborn when they failed to appear. Hyatt, the former head of the National Kansas Committee, was held in jail for four months while he refused to testify. When officials attempted to arrest Sanborn in April, they were met with the successful intervention of his family and neighbors. Federal marshals apparently could not find Redpath, while, fearing armed resistance, they did not try to arrest John Brown Jr. in Ohio. |  John Brown Jr. |
Primary Sources:
Letter, Lydia Maria Child to Mary Stearns, November 3, 1859Letter, A Martyr's Friend to Governor Wise, November 22, 1859
Message of Gov. Henry A. Wise to the General Assembly of Virginia, December 1859
Speech, J. M. L. Curry, on Anti-slaveryism, December 10, 1859
Speech, M. J. Crawford, on the Election of the Speaker, December 15, 1859
Letter, James M. Mason to Andrew Hunter, December 20, 1859
Speech, Benjamin F. Wade on Invasion of Harpers Ferry, December 24, 1859
Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Governor Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, 1860
Letter, Samuel May to Lydia Maria Child, January 13, 1860
Speech, Alexander R. Boteler on the Organization of the House, January 25, 1860
Report, Joint Committee of the Two Houses of the General Assembly of Virginia on the Harpers Ferry Outrages, January 26, 1860
Speech, Stephen A. Douglas on the Invasion, January 28, 1860
Clipping, Thaddeus Hyatt Summons, January 1860
Letter, George L. Stearns to S. G. Howe, February 27, 1860
Speeches, Charles Sumner on the Imprisonment of Thaddeus Hyatt, March 12 and June 15, 1860
Speech, Owen Lovejoy, on Slavery, April 5, 1860
Sanborn Arrest, New York Herald, April 7, 1860
Letter, Joseph P. Fessenden to William Pitt Fessenden, April 14, 1860
Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor French Revolutionary Louis-Antoine St. Just
lick on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Robespierre associate of Robespierre and member of the Committee of Public Safety at the high point of the French revolution.
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.
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.
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