ANNOUNCING: On July 19, farmworkers return to NYC to demand, “How Much Longer, Wendy’s?”
To at
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Tuesday, July 03, 2018
ANNOUNCING: On July 19, farmworkers return to NYC to demand, “How Much Longer, Wendy’s?” Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Latest on Armistice Day plans for a military parade in DC
Latest on Armistice Day plans for a military parade in DC
Douglas — Remember Trump’s tank parade? His horrible idea for a giant military parade taking over the streets of our nation’s capital is only getting worse: He’s ordered the Pentagon to plan this authoritarian parade for Veterans Day.
That means that soldiers will be forced to march in Trump's parade instead of spending time resting or with loved ones. On Veterans Day.
Forcing active-duty servicemembers to spend many hours practicing to inflate Trump’s ego — and then making them give up their Veterans Day holiday weekend to march in a mandatory parade? That’s blatantly awful, even for Trump.
We’ve got to put a stop to this. On Saturday, Win Without War joined hundreds of thousands of activists marching against Trump’s militaristic, racist immigration agenda. This July 4th, let’s keep raising our voices to shut down Trump’s violence-first policies — not prop up his authoritarian agenda with forced parades.
Every dollar that goes to this parade is a dollar that could have been invested in true safety and peace. Trump is pilfering from veterans’ health care and Flint’s clean water to feed his ego with an autocratic march.
Win Without War spends a lot of time and energy fighting to jam up the gears of the Washington war machine. We go toe-to-toe with war hawks and defense industry lobbyists at every turn. But for once, the D.C. consensus and the American people’s common sense agree: This parade is a terrible idea.
Nobody wants this parade except Trump — not even the Pentagon. That means we have real leverage to stop this dangerous and disrespectful parade.
And right now, we have the perfect chance to act. This July 4th week, Congress is looking for ways to prove to their constituents they are standing up for democratic values.
So we need to let Congress know: The absolute least they can do this week is to prevent Trump from forcing servicemembers to march in an authoritarian parade on Veterans Day.
Thank you for working for peace,
Sunjeev, Stephen, Amy, and the Win Without War team
| Donate |  |  |
Win Without War is a project of the Center for International Policy.
2000 M Street NW, Suite 720, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 232-3317 | info@winwithoutwar.org
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2000 M Street NW, Suite 720, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 232-3317 | info@winwithoutwar.org
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The Star Wars Industry Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review
The Star Wars Industry
Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian
Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Will Bradley
Star Wars: The Last Jedi-VIII,
starring the Mark Hamill (the late) Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley,
and an ensemble cast backing up the main actors, directed by Rian Johnson, 2017
No question the Star Wars industry has spawned nothing
but gold, more than faux Vegas Canto Bight shown in a sequence in VIII could
ever dream of for creators, actors, directors and the thousands needed to keep
the operation churning. No question either that from my perspective this thing
had been played out, has lost plenty in the script department since this Last Of The Jedi has stuck pretty much
to the action-filled and story-thin formula that has driven everything after
the first trilogy. Frankly I don’t give a damn about IX although I know as sure
as I am now writing that we will be besieged by such a production if for no other
reason that to keep the gold coming in.
If all of this sounds a
bit cynical then you are right on the money. I did not ask for this assignment,
did not want it and hopefully have not dug myself into a hole by griping about my
fate publicly. Here’s how this one has played out. Seth Garth and Johnny
Callahan, the latter a serious financial angel for this publication, both desperately
wanted to tackle this film. Seth had done a few of the earlier episodes and
Johnny has actually done the review of the very first one for the hard copy
edition of this publication back in 1977. Meaning this: both men have been aficionados
since day one. Sensing that this golden operation was finally bringing this
monster to a close both wanted to pay homage to, well, let’s call a thing by
its right name-their youth. Greg Green, site manager and the guy who hands out the
assignments, decided to make a Solomonic decision and pass them both by and
look for somebody who was less involved emotionally and cinematically with this
saga. Thus I got the call having not even been born when the series started and
moreover as disinterested a party as could be about the whole business after falling
asleep when my parents rented a tape for the VCR from the local video store (showing my age at least against those who
know only DVDs or streaming).
Okay where to start. Darth
Vader, oops, Kylo Ren, really Benjy Solo, who turns out to be the late Mr.
Vader’s grandson showing how if not incestuous in the direct sense at least in
the storyline the whole thing was, is, played by Adam Driver, is up to his born
to be bad self continuing from the last episode wreaking havoc on a sullen
galaxy where he is acting as a discipline for the chief universal bad guy, a
blob named Smoke, no, Snork, no, Snoke. For the good guys, good guys and gals
as it turned out with a new generation of possible Jedi Knights coming from the
female side of the sexual divide with Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, we have the
same old same old leading the charge, leading the Resistance to the bad guys with
General Leia, played by the late Carrie Fisher in her last film, and a few
young bravos along side Rey and her friends Poe and Finn.
What no Luke Skywalker?
(Hans Solo, Benjy’s dad has passed beyond done in by Benjy’s hands as well
although his ever-faithful companion Chewie is still going at it strong helping
young Rey out of a couple of jams although he hasn’t improved his English much
in the subsequent forty or so years). Yes, Luke is around but he is sulking on
some desolate island having apparently given up the virtuous Jedi Knight job. The
sulk inherited from his reaction to his earlier
attempts to tame an unruly universe. Half this film is spent with wanna-be Jedi
Knight Rey trying might and main to get Luke back in the struggle, back into
the resistance against bad boy Benjy, okay Kylo, and his handler Snoke. The other
half is the usual fight to the death, yawn, between the good guys and the bad
with the bad guys who vastly outnumber the good but who apparently were ill-trained
by Snoke and his minions taking a pummeling before the end. Needless to say as
things wind up, wind up for this episode anyway, the Resistance, the rebels are
still holding on, still around in case the galaxy decides enough is enough with
new head bad guy Kylo, okay, Benji and bring down a hell and damnation on his
sorry butt.
News Flash: before the end
good old boy Luke does show up for one last hurrah holding off the bad guys to
let the good guys and gals escape. That done one Luke Skywalker who Seth Garth
and Johnny Callahan speak of in hushed tones cashed his check. What will happen
next without his magic wand to protect the universe.
Happy Birthday John Hurt- From Beulah Land- Mississippi John Hurt
Happy Birthday John Hurt- From Beulah Land- Mississippi John Hurt
CD REVIEW
Last Sessions, Mississippi John Hurt, Vanguard Records, 1972
If one were to ask virtually any fairly established folk music singer in, let’s say 1968, what country blues musician influenced them the most then the subject of this review would win hands down. The list would be long- Dave Van Ronk, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Phil Ochs, Chris Smithers, Joan Baez and on and on. Hell, Tom Paxton wrote a song about him-Did You Hear John Hurt? That song still gets airplay on the folk station around where I live.
So what gives? Why the praise? What gives is this- Mississippi John Hurt and his simple country blues were 'discovered' at a time when many young, mainly white urban musicians were looking for roots music. This search is not anything particularly new-John and Alan Lomax went on the hustings in the 1930’s and recorded many of the old country blues artists that were ‘discovered’ in the 1960’s. Hell, you can go back further to the 1920’s and the record companies themselves were sending out agents to scour the country looking for talent- they found the likes of the Carter Family and Blind Willie McTell along the way.
And what made John Hurt so special? Well, for one, very clean, very simple picking on the old guitar. For another that little raspy voice that you had to perk up your ear to if you wanted to hear him. But the big deal really is that he sang songs in a simple country way that reflected the hard life of the Mississippi delta, the hard work of picking cotton, the hard fact of being black in the Jim Crow South and the hard fact of needing some musical entertainment on a hot Saturday night after a hard week in the fields. The flow changed when the blues headed north to Chicago and got electrified but if you want to hear a master at work when the sound was simpler then hear John Hurt, hear him playing Creole Belle. And Joe Turner Blues, Spanish Fandango, Beulah Land and the rest.
Sunday, July 01, 2018
The Days Of Old In The Old West- The “Black Cowboy” And His Songs Via Smithsonian/Folkways
The Days Of Old In The
Old West- The “Black Cowboy” And His Songs Via Smithsonian/Folkways
By Sarah Lemoyne
Recently in a film
review of Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden’s iconic and twisted Western cowboy
classic Johnny Guitar I noted that I
had heard on National Public Radio a piece about the work of a member of the
Carolina Chocolate Drops who I do know putting together a compilation of
recordings, originals and his own take, of the black cowboy song experience for
Smithsonian/Folkways. I mentioned and gave that film as a prime example of how
the black cowboy had been written out of everything from dime store novels to
“oaters.” That was not the case and the black cowboy in the post-Civil War,
post-hell Reconstruction period in its aftermath played an honorable role in
“taming the West.” Listen up.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/23/black-cowboys-music-dom-flemons
When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review
When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve
Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review
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DVD Review
By Laura Perkins
The Lady Says No, starring David Niven, Joan Caulfield, 1951
One of the most fortunate things in my life, my
professional career I should say which I am restarting here after a short
hiatus at another publication, has been having Sam Lowell’s pithy comments and
helpful hints along the way. (In the seemingly necessary to include interest of
full disclosure these days Sam and I have been long, very long time, companions
and he was the one who got me the lush long-time assignment at The Daily Literary Digest before luring
me back to this publication where I had been a free-lance stinger when I was
younger and when the publication was strictly hard-copy under Allan Jackson’s
editorship now ended.) Two that apply to this review of 1950s The Lady Says No since there does not
appear to be any other socially redeeming quality to recommend it is that, one,
when all else fails for a “hook,” the hook being what you hang your hat on when
reviewing films you can always use the old “slice of life” bit which I will
invoke here. The other that applies is based on Sam’s old habit when he used to
drink heavily and carouse with wicked women (before he met me and his match)
was to just take whatever the studio publicity department put out, rip off the
title and submit under your own by-line. And nobody complained. Of course today
for old time films you have to cheap sheet Wikipedia
and click and paste to do the same job. For the life of me I can’t figure out
this silly film and so I was sorely tempted to just do that but no, this lady
says no, I will trudge along trying to give the “skinny” as best I can.
Of course if we are talking today, talking in today’s
#MeToo whirlwind then something like the lady, or rather woman, says no that had
a whole different and less menacing connotation back when this film was made
for public consumption (although the overriding issues of male authority dominance
and expectation and female subordinate resigned acceptance or flagrant abuse were
I would argue not far from the surface then either). That is where blessed Sam’s
“slice of life” snapshot theory comes into full force. It is extremely hard to
see how a film like this, even a comedic film such as this would have any cache
at all today. Certainly, the results, the ending could bear no weight today.
Bill, a globe-trotting photographer, played by David
Niven, is on assignment to photograph and do a story on best-selling author
Dorinda Hatch, played by foxy Joan Caulfield who has created a whirlwind in the
eternal male-female, no, female-male battle of the sexes-so-called by calling
for her version of an unarmed insurrection against Neanderthal males and his
publication wants the scoop. As it turned out, as expected in the twelve
millionth rendition of the Hollywood boy meets girl story that has saved many a
studio (and incidentally got Sam on the road to taking credit for studio copy
once he realized that half the films in that cinematic land depended on this
beautiful little trope), there is some chemistry between them. Despite Bill’s
hunter-gatherer manner and Dorinda’s obvious Seven Sisters naivete rampant in
those day about what was what in the sexual wars for inexperienced young women-and
ask Sam men too. The whole theme hinges on whether Dorinda’s naïvete or Bill
worldliness will out in the end.
If it was just a matter of that battle royal this would
be a thin-and shorter-film but the thing gets rounded out when the two sides
start crusading for their respective positions among the GIs and their wives at
Fort Ord out in Big Sur-Carmel-Monterrey country in California. (A place where
Sam and I have gone many times especially when he gets into his Jack Kerouac
and the beats mood and insists we go back to Todo El Mundo south of Big Sur
where he hung out in the old days.) Dorinda starts her own little rebellion (with
some push-back) among the Army wives womenfolk in her fight. And here is really
where this is a 1950s time capsule (maybe before actually) as a film all the
while despite Dorinda’s feminist convictions she is inexplicitly attracted to
Bill, uses whatever wiles, female or otherwise to tamp that madness, those
hormones, down. You already know the ending, know it if you have been in anyone
of the twelve million girl meets boy efforts Hollywood has put out in its
existence. Not surprisingly despite the film’s origin in 1951 there is nothing
of the red scare Cold War night and atomic thunder coming hellishly down on the
world in this one. Nothing either that would pass muster with today’s audiences
except members of the lonely-hearts clubs. Nothing that would resolve the
eternal conundrum since Adam and Eve times, maybe before.
Support Courage To Resist-The Defenders Of Military Resisters, The Draft Resistance And Whistleblowers-Free Reality Leigh Winner
Support Courage To Resist-The Defenders Of Military Resisters, The Draft Resistance And Whistleblowers-Free Reality Leigh Winner
From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”
From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”
Workers Vanguard No. 1096 | 23 September 2016 |
From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”
We publish below excerpts from Friedrich Engels’ 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In explaining scientific socialism, Engels makes clear that only through the conquest of power by the working class and the expropriation of the capitalist class can the benefits of science, technology and education be available to all, laying the material basis for the full liberation of humanity. The excerpts below are taken from the Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers, 1976).
On The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"(1957)- "A Confederate General From Big Sur"-A Book Review
On The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"(1957)- "A Confederate General From Big Sur"-A Book Review
Book Review
A Confederate General From Big Sur, Richard Brautigan, Grove Press, 1964
Recently, in reviewing another more well-known book, “Trout Fishing In America”, by the 1960s counterculture writer, Richard Brautigan, I wrote the following paragraph that applies to the book under review here, “A Confederate General From Big Sur”, as well:
“I noted in a recent review of a film documentary about the literary exploits and influences of the “beat” generation of the 1950s on my generation, the “Generation of ‘68”, that we were a less literary generation. That was one of the things that drew me to the beat literary figures like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, among others. Our generation was driven more by the sound of music and fury. Although I believe that statement holds up over time it is not true that there were no literary figures who tried to express for us what the landscape of mainstream American was like, and why it desperately needed to be changed. Enter one Richard Brautigan and his exploration on that theme, “Trout Fishing In America”.”
As I also pointed out there I was drawn to “Trout Fishing” originally based on the photograph on the cover, of all things. Once inside, however, it was clear that Brautigan had the “gift”, the madman’s gift for telling some truths about mainstream American society that the “beat” writers also tried to make us “hip” to. And, as is my wont, once I have “discovered” a writer I tend to want read everything else of value that they have written. This brings us to “Confederate General”.
The plot here centers on one Lee Mellon who is searching, in this case literally, for a Confederate general form Big Sur who may be a forbear. Along the way he has a series of adventures trying to get to the truth of the matter and also finds that others are interested in seeking the truth surrounding this figure. The hard truth is that no real records exist for this general, although then, as now, that is hardly cause for disqualification. This one is quirkier than “Trout Fishing” and in the end less satisfying. Sometimes a writer “speaks” to me more than once with his work, and sometimes not. The latter applies here.
In Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60th
Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)
By Book Critic Zack James
To be honest I know about On The Road Jack Kerouac’s epic tale of his generation’s search for
something, maybe the truth, maybe just kicks, stuff, important stuff has
happened or some such happening strictly second-hand. His generation’s search
looking for a name, found what he, or someone associated with him, maybe the
bandit poet Gregory Corso, king of the mean New York streets, mean, very mean
indeed in a junkie-hang-out world around Times Square when that place was up to
its neck in flea-bit hotels, all night Joe and Nemo’s and the trail of the
“fixer” man on every corner, con men coming out your ass too, called the “beat”
generation. Beat, beat of the jazzed up drum
line backing some sax player searching for the high white note, what somebody
told me, maybe my older brother Alex thy called “blowing to the China seas” out
in West Coast jazz and blues circles, dead beat, run out on money, women, life,
leaving, and this is important no forwarding address for the desolate repo man
to hang onto, dread beat, nine to five, 24/7/365 that you will get caught back
up in the spire wind up like your freaking staid, stay at home parents, beaten
down, ground down like dust puffed away just for being, hell, let’s just call
it being, beatified beat like saintly and all high holy Catholic incense and a
story goes with it about a young man caught up in a dream, like there were not
ten thousand other religions in the world to feast on- you can take your pick
of the meanings, beat time meanings. Hell, join the club they all did, the
guys, and it was mostly guys who hung out on the mean streets of New York, Chi
town, North Beach in Frisco town cadging twenty-five cents a night flea-bag
sleeps, half stirred left on corner coffees and cigarette stubs when the Bull
Durham ran out).
I was too young to have had anything but a vague passing
reference to the thing, to that “beat” thing since I was probably just pulling
out of diapers then, maybe a shade bit older but not much. I got my fill, my
brim fill later through my oldest brother Alex. Alex, and his crowd, more about
that in a minute, but even he was only washed clean by the “beat” experiment at
a very low level, mostly through reading the book (need I say the book was On The Road) and having his mandatory
two years of living on the road around the time of the Summer of Love, 1967 an
event whose 50th anniversary is being commemorated this year as
well. So even Alex and his crowd were really too young to have been washed by
the beat wave that crashed the continent toward the end of the 1950s on the
wings of Allan Ginsburg’s Howl and
Jack’s travel book of a different kind. The kind that moves generations, or I
like to think the best parts of those cohorts. These were the creation
documents the latter which would drive Alex west before he finally settled down
to his career life (and to my sorrow and anger never looked back).
Of course anytime you talk about books and poetry and then add
my brother Alex’s name into the mix that automatically brings up memories of
another name, the name of the late Peter Paul Markin. Markin, for whom Alex and
the rest of the North Adamsville corner boys, Jack, Jimmy, Si, Josh, and a few
others still alive recently had me put together a tribute book for in
connection with that Summer of Love, 1967 just mentioned. Markin was the vanguard guy, the volunteer odd-ball
unkempt mad monk seeker who got several of them off their asses and out to the
West Coast to see what there was to see. To see some stuff that Markin had been
speaking of for a number of years before (and which nobody in the crowd paid
attention to, or dismissed out of hand what they called “could give a rat’s
ass” about in the local jargon which I also inherited in those cold, hungry bleak
1950s cultural days in America) and which can be indirectly attributed to the
activities of Jack, Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, that aforementioned bandit
poet who ran wild on the mean streets among the hustlers, conmen and whores of
the major towns of the continent, William Burroughs, the Harvard-trained junkie
and a bunch of other guys who took a
very different route for our parents who were of the same generation as them but
of a very different world.
But it was above all Jack’s book, Jack’s book which had
caused a big splash in 1957, and had ripple effects into the early 1960s (and
even now certain “hip” kids acknowledge the power of attraction that book had
for their own developments, especially that living simple, fast and hard part).
Made the young, some of them anyway have to spend some time thinking through
the path of life ahead by hitting the vagrant dusty sweaty road. Maybe not
hitchhiking, maybe not going high speed high through the ocean, plains,
mountain desert night but staying unsettled for a while anyway.
Like I said above Alex was out two years and other guys,
other corner boys for whatever else you wanted to call them that was their
niche back in those days and were recognized as such in the town not always to
their benefit, from a few months to a few years. Markin started first back in
the spring of 1967 but was interrupted by his fateful induction into the Army
and service, if you can call it that, in Vietnam and then several more years
upon his return before his untimely end. With maybe this difference from today’s
young who are seeking alternative roads away from what is frankly bourgeois
society and was when Jack wrote although nobody except commies and pinkos
called it that. Alex, Frankie Riley the acknowledged leader, Jack Callahan and
the rest, Markin included, were strictly from hunger working class kids who
when they hung around Tonio Pizza Parlor were as likely to be thinking up ways
to grab money fast any way they could or of getting into some hot chick’s pants as anything else. Down at
the base of society when you don’t have enough of life’s goods or have to
struggle too much to get even that little “from hunger” takes a big toll on
your life. I can testify to that part because Alex was not the only one in the
James family to go toe to toe with the law, it was a close thing for all us
boys as it had been with Jack when all is said and done. But back then dough
and sex after all was what was what for corner boys, maybe now too although you
don’t see many guys hanging on forlorn Friday night corners anymore.
What made this tribe different, the Tonio Pizza Parlor
corner boys, was mad monk Markin. Markin called by Frankie Riley the “Scribe” from
the time he came to North Adamsville from across town in junior high school and
that stuck all through high school. The name stuck because although Markin was
as larcenous and lovesick as the rest of them he was also crazy for books and
poetry. Christ according to Alex, Markin was the guy who planned most of the
“midnight creeps” they called then. Although nobody in their right minds would
have the inept Markin actually execute the plan that was for smooth as silk Frankie
to lead. That operational sense was why Frankie was the leader then (and maybe
why he was a locally famous lawyer later who you definitely did not want to be
on the other side against him). Markin was also the guy who all the girls for
some strange reason would confide in and thus was the source of intelligence
about who was who in the social pecking order, in other words, who was
available, sexually or otherwise. That sexually much more important than
otherwise. See Markin always had about ten billion facts running around his
head in case anybody, boy or girl, asked him about anything so he was ready to
do battle, for or against take your pick.
The books and the poetry is where Jack Kerouac and On The Road come into the corner boy
life of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor life. Markin was something like an antennae
for anything that seemed like it might help create a jailbreak, help them get
out from under. Later he would be the guy who introduced some of the guys to
folk music when that was a big thing. (Alex never bought into that genre, still
doesn’t, despite Markin’s desperate pleas for him to check it out. Hated whinny
Dylan above all else) Others too like Kerouac’s friend Allen Ginsburg and his
wooly homo poem Howl from 1956 which
Markin would read sections out loud from on lowdown dough-less, girl-less
Friday nights. And drive the strictly hetero guys crazy when he insisted that
they read the poem, read what he called a new breeze was coming down the road.
They could, using that term from the times again, have given a rat’s ass about
some fucking homo faggot poem from some whacko Jewish guy who belonged in a
mental hospital. (That is a direct quote from Frankie Riley at the time via my
brother Alex’s memory bank.)
Markin flipped out when he found out that Kerouac had grown
up in Lowell, a working class town very much like North Adamsville, and that he
had broken out of the mold that had been set for him and gave the world some
grand literature and something to spark the imagination of guys down at the
base of society like his crowd with little chance of grabbing the brass ring.
So Markin force-marched the crowd to read the book, especially putting pressure
on my brother who was his closest friend then. Alex read it, read it several
times and left the dog- eared copy around which I picked up one day when I was
having one of my high school summertime blues. Read it through without stopping
almost like he wrote the final version of the thing on a damn newspaper scroll.
So it was through Markin via Alex that I got the Kerouac bug. And now on the 60th
anniversary I am passing on the bug to you.
Book Review
A Confederate General From Big Sur, Richard Brautigan, Grove Press, 1964
Recently, in reviewing another more well-known book, “Trout Fishing In America”, by the 1960s counterculture writer, Richard Brautigan, I wrote the following paragraph that applies to the book under review here, “A Confederate General From Big Sur”, as well:
“I noted in a recent review of a film documentary about the literary exploits and influences of the “beat” generation of the 1950s on my generation, the “Generation of ‘68”, that we were a less literary generation. That was one of the things that drew me to the beat literary figures like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, among others. Our generation was driven more by the sound of music and fury. Although I believe that statement holds up over time it is not true that there were no literary figures who tried to express for us what the landscape of mainstream American was like, and why it desperately needed to be changed. Enter one Richard Brautigan and his exploration on that theme, “Trout Fishing In America”.”
As I also pointed out there I was drawn to “Trout Fishing” originally based on the photograph on the cover, of all things. Once inside, however, it was clear that Brautigan had the “gift”, the madman’s gift for telling some truths about mainstream American society that the “beat” writers also tried to make us “hip” to. And, as is my wont, once I have “discovered” a writer I tend to want read everything else of value that they have written. This brings us to “Confederate General”.
The plot here centers on one Lee Mellon who is searching, in this case literally, for a Confederate general form Big Sur who may be a forbear. Along the way he has a series of adventures trying to get to the truth of the matter and also finds that others are interested in seeking the truth surrounding this figure. The hard truth is that no real records exist for this general, although then, as now, that is hardly cause for disqualification. This one is quirkier than “Trout Fishing” and in the end less satisfying. Sometimes a writer “speaks” to me more than once with his work, and sometimes not. The latter applies here.
For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"The Children Of The Coal"-The Music Of Kathy Mattea
For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"The Children Of The Coal"-The Music Of Kathy Mattea
The Children Of The Coal- The Music Of Kathy Mattea
CD REVIEW
By Fritz Taylor
Coal, Kathy Mattea, Captain Potato Records, 2008
Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned in this space, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines.
All of this is by way of an introduction to this unusual tribute album. Of all the subjects that one could think of in the year 2008 fit for a full exposition the unsung life, trials and tribulations, and grit of those who, for generations, mined the coal (and other minerals) and passed unnoticed in the hollows and hills of Appalachia (and the West) does not readily come to mind. Even for this long time labor militant. But Ms. Mattea, who has her own roots to the coal, has done a great service here. Kudos are in order.
Now politically the coal story is today a very disturbing one. For one, the strip-mining of significant portions of places like Kentucky and West Virginia goes on unabated and essentially unchecked. For another, the number of miners has dwindled to a very few and are getting fewer. As a labor militant I have feasted on the heroics of the Harlan and Hazard miners, the exploits of Big Big Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners, and the class-war battles from any number of isolated locales where men (mainly) dug the coal and fought for some sense of dignity. The dignity and sense of social solidarity may still remain but the virtues of the lessons of the class struggle- picket lines mean don’t cross and class solidarity is essential- have clearly been eroded. That is the political part that cannot be separated from the musical part of this story. Why?
The songs selected for inclusion here spell out the condition of life for the miners, in short, as the English political theorist Thomas Hobbes put it centuries ago- life is "short, nasty and brutish" in the mines and the mining communities. The songs like You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive and the choice of material by well-known mountain music songwriters Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler, and Hazel Dickens reflect that. Theses simple mountain tunes, as performed by Ms. Mattea and her fellow musicians, spell out the story with soft guitar, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments that create the proper mood. Probably it is very hard for those not familiar with the coal, the isolated communities, and the sorrow of the mountains to listen to this compilation in one sitting. For that it probably takes the children of the coal. For the rest please bear with it and learn about an important part of American history and music.
“You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive”
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive
Oh, my granddad's dad walked down
Katahrins Mountain
And he asked Tillie Helton to be his bride
Said, won't you walk with me out of the mouth
Of this holler
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away
No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
'Til a man from the Northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills he said I'll pay ya for your minerals
But he never left Harlan alive
Granny sold out cheap and they moved out west
Of Pineville
To a farm where big Richland River winds
I bet they danced them a jig, laughed and sang a new song
Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive
But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to granny
But he never left Harlan alive
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive
"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"
When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."
[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore
I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow
[Chorus]
I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more
[Chorus]
Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor
[Chorus]
Labels: Big Bill Haywood, COALMINERS, HarLan County, Hazel Dickens, IWW, mountain music, United Mine Workers, UTAH PHILLIPS
The Children Of The Coal- The Music Of Kathy Mattea
CD REVIEW
By Fritz Taylor
Coal, Kathy Mattea, Captain Potato Records, 2008
Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned in this space, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines.
All of this is by way of an introduction to this unusual tribute album. Of all the subjects that one could think of in the year 2008 fit for a full exposition the unsung life, trials and tribulations, and grit of those who, for generations, mined the coal (and other minerals) and passed unnoticed in the hollows and hills of Appalachia (and the West) does not readily come to mind. Even for this long time labor militant. But Ms. Mattea, who has her own roots to the coal, has done a great service here. Kudos are in order.
Now politically the coal story is today a very disturbing one. For one, the strip-mining of significant portions of places like Kentucky and West Virginia goes on unabated and essentially unchecked. For another, the number of miners has dwindled to a very few and are getting fewer. As a labor militant I have feasted on the heroics of the Harlan and Hazard miners, the exploits of Big Big Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners, and the class-war battles from any number of isolated locales where men (mainly) dug the coal and fought for some sense of dignity. The dignity and sense of social solidarity may still remain but the virtues of the lessons of the class struggle- picket lines mean don’t cross and class solidarity is essential- have clearly been eroded. That is the political part that cannot be separated from the musical part of this story. Why?
The songs selected for inclusion here spell out the condition of life for the miners, in short, as the English political theorist Thomas Hobbes put it centuries ago- life is "short, nasty and brutish" in the mines and the mining communities. The songs like You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive and the choice of material by well-known mountain music songwriters Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler, and Hazel Dickens reflect that. Theses simple mountain tunes, as performed by Ms. Mattea and her fellow musicians, spell out the story with soft guitar, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments that create the proper mood. Probably it is very hard for those not familiar with the coal, the isolated communities, and the sorrow of the mountains to listen to this compilation in one sitting. For that it probably takes the children of the coal. For the rest please bear with it and learn about an important part of American history and music.
“You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive”
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive
Oh, my granddad's dad walked down
Katahrins Mountain
And he asked Tillie Helton to be his bride
Said, won't you walk with me out of the mouth
Of this holler
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away
No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
'Til a man from the Northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills he said I'll pay ya for your minerals
But he never left Harlan alive
Granny sold out cheap and they moved out west
Of Pineville
To a farm where big Richland River winds
I bet they danced them a jig, laughed and sang a new song
Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive
But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to granny
But he never left Harlan alive
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away
Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive
"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"
When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."
[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore
I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow
[Chorus]
I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more
[Chorus]
Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor
[Chorus]
Labels: Big Bill Haywood, COALMINERS, HarLan County, Hazel Dickens, IWW, mountain music, United Mine Workers, UTAH PHILLIPS
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