This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Maybe Not Fit For The Primetime Hallmark Channel- Gary Cooper’s “Peter Ibbetson” (1935)-A Short Film Review
DVD Review
By Sam Lowell
Peter Ibbetson, starring Ann Harding, Gary Cooper, 1935
Hasn’t the Hallmark Channel except this time of year add in some Christmas carols and a few decorated trees, etc. already done the plotline to this film, this 1935 film Peter Ibbetson, starring a mustachioed Gary Cooper in the title role and Ann Harding as his flame Mary. (He last seen in this publication in a review, a debunking expose of the legendary American Old West outlaw Link Jones who must have had a pretty press agent to beat the rap as a bad guy by self-proclaimed legend-slayer young Will Bradley). I know of whence I speak since Laura Perkins, yes, the Laura Perkins who writes here and my long-time companion is “addicted” to this channel’s television products this holiday time of year and some days I heard the plot-line as background when I am working or reading.
Let me outline, with Laura’s key input and approval, the plot and see if except the last almost surreal end minutes this couldn’t have been one of the long line of similar Hallmark presentations and saved the channel some money for screenwriters (although they probably only spent about six dollars on that expense from the dialogue and stories that I have overheard but please don’t tell Laura that). Some young professional woman returns home (for Christmas but any holiday would do) having either dumped or been dumped by some unworthy guy who didn’t see her positive qualities, or he didn’t have any as the case may be. During that home stay, and this is the important connector to the film under review, she runs into, one way or another “the boy next door,” some guy from her youth growing up in splendid small-town America. Either she had a crush on him or him her when they were young and that sets the “drama” for the rest of the production. Until that last clinching kiss after one or the other, or both have tried to avoid destiny call.
Fast forward, no, fast backward. Peter and Mary are the children of English ex-pats in the 19th century who live in some splendor in Paris-and are next door neighbors. And are fast friends despite their childhood predilections. Young Peter’s mother though dies of what probably was consumption then, tuberculous now and he is shipped back to England with some ne’er-do-well uncle. Before parting they swear undying devotion to each other. (Interestingly we see neither Peter or Mary’s father so maybe that ex-pat business had to do with their mothers as we called it in the old Acre working class section of North Adamsville where I grew up “going to see Aunt Emma,” leaving town or in this case country to have a child out of wedlock, to be pregnant, to bear illegitimate children no big deal now but very big then.)
That promise to reunite is what drives the second part of the film when Peter as an adult has taken up the profession of architect and Mary has landed on her feet very nicely by marrying an older man, an English Duke of the realm and loaded with dough and love of horses if not of Mary. And she him, the not in love part. The reunion, the dragged out reunion, between the pair gets resolved when up and coming architect Peter is commissioned by the Duke and Duchess to build a new stable for the horses, a job he will supervise for a couple of months without either him or Mary figuring out the basis of the growing attraction between them. Naturally the relationship between the two former neighbors grows putting everything in doubt once the Duke, who may have loved horses and not loved Mary, still was no fool and saw what was going on between them. Saw and had enough jealous rage to plot their murders. Except in the melee the Duke was killed by Peter. No good could come of that.
Frankly, Peter should have gotten himself a better lawyer because what was clearly a case of self-defense got him convicted of a murder rap in very protective of nobility England. Here is where things veer off from a Hallmark script. Essentially Peter and Mary are so much in love that they have a mystical bond between them which lasts for the rest of their lives despite being apart. Peter in some hell-hole Dickens Dartmoor dungeon and her in tortured splendor at her estate (she always seems to land on her feet unlike Peter who takes it on the chin always). I suspected they like Thomas de Quincy and Sam Coleridge were doing some very strong drugs but that is mere speculation. In any case when Mary dies Peter passes away as well although they will be united for eternity wherever they wind up. You know maybe I am wrong, maybe this one has too much drama, too much melodrama to pass muster on the Hallmark Channel. Laura agrees.
Sports And Social Issues DO Intersect-In Honor Of Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith And John Carlos-Colin Kaepernick-Same Struggle-Same Fight
By Frank Jackman
It is hard to believe not that many of the same social issues, the question of racial and sexual equality in particular, from 50 years ago still haunt the land but that the yahoo, yes, yahoo reaction is still the same. Today we are talking about the intersection of sports and social issues but it could have been anything from the #MeToo movement to voter suppression in Georgia and elsewhere. It has been a while since San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, ah, ex-quarterback “took the knee” to highlight in a personal way the charged subject of black inequality and police brutality toward the black community. But given the resurgent flack with the Nike contract it pays to mention that his work, his political work has a fairly long pedigree.
That pedigree without going back further in time got highlighted for me recently by two things I noticed when I was down in Washington, D.C. on another assignment and on fellow writer Seth Garth recommendation I stepped into the National Portrait Gallery’s year-long exhibition on that fateful year 1968 which we are now commemorating the 50th anniversary of many of the key and shocking events. I have mentioned elsewhere, as have a number of the old guard writers at this publication who also came of age in those times, my reaction to the events and so need not detain the reader on that score. A couple of photographs got me thinking about sports and society if you will. One was a clip of Muhammad Ali (former Cassius Clay) talking about his reasoning for refusing draft induction in the U.S. military during the height of the Vietnam War and the other was the perhaps more famous one of Olympic champion at the 200m Tommy Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos “taking the raised black fist” on the medal podium in Mexico City.
Both situation evoked hue and cry from rabid sports nuts, ravenous sports officials and their hangers-on in the media and of course the disturbed the boast corporate sponsors of all things sports. So Colin join the club. What seems weird some fifty years later when the sports industry, yes, industry cries foul when business as usual, which means the population consuming what ever sports package is presented is upended by political and social controversy like this area of life was in some kind of no entrance bubble. Now I admit I am not much of a sports fan, maybe a little college football because I have felt that this was one of the least consumer-driven areas although even that is suspect but whether I agree with whatever tactic is being used sports is “fair game” as a platform for talking about social injustices and the like. Hell, the other side, the yahoos, have been spouting their mores, morals, and bullshit forever. One example takes the thing in the right direction. At one time early in the 20th century professional baseball had blacks on major league teams. Then the owners got together and froze blacks out as a concession to racial animosities among whites. It took practically a civil war in itself, witness the Jackie Robinson story, to get blacks back in. Case closed.
***An Encore Presentation -Out In The Be-Bop 1960s
Night- The Time Of Frankie’s Carnival Time-With Bruce Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" in Mind
By Lance Lawrence
An old man walked, walked
haltingly down a North Adamsville street, maybe Hancock Street, or maybe a
street just off of it, maybe a long street like West Main Street, he has
forgotten which exactly in the time between his walking and his telling me his
story. A street near the high school anyway, North Adamsville High School,
where he had graduated from back in the mist of time, the 1960s mist of time. A
time when he was known, far and wide, as the king, the king hell king, if the
truth be known, of the schoolboy be-bop night. And headquartered himself,
properly headquartered himself as generations of schoolboy king hell kings had
done previously, at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as was his due as the reigning
schoolboy king of the night. But that schoolboy corner boy king thing is an old
story, an old story strictly for cutting up old torches, according to the old
man, Frankie, yes, Francis Xavier Riley, as if back from the dead, and not fit,
not fit by a long shot for what he had to tell me about his recent “discovery,”
and its meaning.
Apparently as Frankie, let us
skip the formalities and just call him Frankie, walked down that nameless,
maybe unnamable street he was stricken by sight of a sign on a vagrant
telephone pole announcing that Jim Byrd’s Carnival and Traveling Show
was coming to town and setting up tent at the Veteran’s Stadium in the first
week in June, this past June, for the whole week. And seeing this sign, this
vagrant sign on this vagrant telephone pole, set off a stream of memories from
when the king hell king of the schoolboy corner boy night was so enthralled
with the idea of the “carny” life, of this very Jim Byrd’s Carnival and
Traveling Show carnival life, that he had plans, serious plans, to run away,
run away with it when it left town.
Under this condition, and of
course there was always a condition: if Ma Riley, or Pa Riley if it came to it,
although Pa was usually comfortably ensconced in the Dublin Pub over on Sagamore
Street and was not a big factor in Frankie’s life when it came time for him to
make his mark as king hell king, just bothered him one more time, bothered
about what was never specified at least to me. Of course they never did, or
Frankie never let on that they did, bother him enough to force the issue, and
therefore never forced him on the road. But by then he was into being the
corner boy king so that dream must have faded, like a lot of twelve year old
dreams.
In any case rather than
running away with the carnival Frankie served his high school corner boy term
as king hell king, went to college and then to law school, ran a successful
mid-sized law practice, raised plenty of kids and political hell and never
looked back. And not until he saw that old-time memory sign did he think of
regrets for not having done what he said that “he was born for.” And rather
than have the reader left with another in the endless line of cautionary tales,
or of two roads, one not taken tales, or any of that, Frankie, Frankie in his
own words, wants to expand on his carnival vision reincarnation and so we will
let him speak :
Who knows when a kid first
gets the carnival bug, maybe it was down in cradle times hearing the
firecrackers in the heated, muggy Fourth Of July night when in old, old time
North Adamsville a group of guys, a group of guys called the “Associates,”
mainly Dublin Pub guys, and at one time including my father, Joe Riley, Senior,
grabbed some money from around the neighborhood. And from the local merchants
like Doc over at Doc’s Drug Store, Mario over at Estrella’s Grocery Store, Mac,
owner of the Dublin Pub, and always, always, Tonio, owner of Salducci’s Pizza
Parlor. What they did with this money was to hire a small time, usually very
small time, carnival outfit, something with a name like Joe’s Carny, or the
like, maybe with a merry-go-round, some bumping cars, a whip thing, a few
one-trick ponies, and ten or twelve win-a-doll-for-your-lady tents. On the side
maybe a few fried dough, pizza, sausage and onions kind of eateries, with
cotton candy to top it off. And in a center tent acts, clown acts, trapeze acts
with pretty girls dangling every which way, jugglers, and the like. Nothing
fancy, no three-ring circus, or monster theme amusement park to flip a kid’s
head stuff. Like I say small time, but not small time enough to not enflame the
imagination of every kid, mainly every boy kid, but a few girls too if I
remember right, with visions of setting up their own show.
Or maybe it was when this
very same Jim Byrd, a dark-haired, dark-skinned (no, not black, not in 1950s
North Adamsville, christ no, but maybe a gypsy or half-gypsy, if that is
possible), a friendly guy, slightly wiry, a slightly side-of-his-mouth-talking
guy just like a lawyer, who actually showed me some interesting magic tricks
when I informed him, aged eight, that I wanted to go “on the road” with him
first brought his show to town. Brought it to Veteran’s Stadium then too.
That’s when I knew that that old time Associates thing, that frumpy Fourth of
July set-up-in-a-minute-thing-and-then-gone was strictly amateur stuff. See
Jim’s Carny had a Ferris wheel, Jim had a Mini-Roller Coaster, and he had about
twenty-five or thirty win-a-doll, cigarettes, teddy bears, or candy tents. But
also shooting galleries, gypsy fortune-telling ladies with daughters with black
hair and laughing eyes selling roses, or the idea of roses.
And looking very
foxy, the daughters that is, although I did not know what foxy was then. Oh
yah, sure Jim had the ubiquitous fried dough, sausage and onion, cardboard
pizza stuff too. Come on now this was a carnival, big time carnival, big time
to an eight-year old carnival. Of course he had that heartburn food. But what
set Jim’s operation off was that central tent. Sure, yawn, he had the clowns,
tramp clowns, Clarabelle clowns, what have you, and the jugglers, juggling
everything but mainly a lot of whatever it was they were juggling , and even
the acrobats, bouncing over each other like rubber balls. The big deal, the
eight- year old big deal though, was the animals, the real live tigers and
lions that performed in a cage in center stage with some blonde safari-weary
tamer doing the most incredible tricks with them. Like, well, like having them
jump through hoops, and flipping over each other and the trainer too. Wow.
But now that I think about it
seriously the real deal of the carny life was neither the Associates or Jim
Byrd’s, although after I tell you about this Jim’s would enter into my plans
because that was the carnival, the only carnival I knew, to run away with. See
what really got me going was down in Huntsville, a town on the hard ocean about
twenty miles from North Adamsville, there was what would now be called nothing
but an old-time amusement park, a park like you still might see if you went to
Seaside Heights down on the Jersey shore. This park, this Wild Willie’s
Amusement Park, was the aces although as you will see not a place to run away
to since everything stayed there, summer open or winter closed. I was maybe
nine or ten when I first went there but the story really hinges on when I was
just turning twelve, you know, just getting ready to make my mark on the world,
the world being girls. Yes, that kind of turning twelve.
But nine or twelve this Wild
Willie’s put even Jim Byrd’s show to shame. Huge roller-coasters (yes, the
plural is right, three altogether), a wild mouse, whips, dips, flips and very
other kind of ride, covered and uncovered, maybe fifteen or twenty, all based
on the idea of trying to make you scared, and want to go on again, and again
to“conquer” that scared thing. And countless win things (yah, cigarettes,
dolls, teddy bears, candy, and so on in case you might have forgotten). I won’t
even mention that hazardous to your health but merciful, fried dough, cardboard
pizza (in about twenty flavors), sausage and onions, cotton candy and salt
water taffy because, frankly I am tired of mentioning it and even a flea circus
or a flea market today would feel compelled to offer such treats so I will move
on.
What it had that really got
me going, at first anyway, was about six pavilions worth of pinball machines,
all kinds of pinball machines just like today there are a zillion video games
at such places. But what these pinball machines had (beside alluring
come-hither and spend some slot machine dough on me pictures of busty young
women on the faces of the machines) were guys, over sixteen year old teenage
guys, mainly, some older, some a lot older at night, who could play those
machines like wizards, racking up free games until the cows came home. I was
impressed, impressed to high heaven. And watching them, watching them closely
were over sixteen- year old girls, some older, some a lot older at night, who I
wondered, wondered at when I was nine but not at twelve, might not be
interfering with their pinball magic. Little did I know then that the pinball
wizardry was for those sixteen year old, some older, some a lot older girls.
But see, if you didn’t
already know, nine or twelve-year old kids were not allowed to play those
machines. You had to be sixteen (although I cadged a few free games left on
machines as I got a little older, and I think the statute of limitations has
run out on this crime so I can say I was not sixteen years or older). So I
gravitated toward the skee ball games located in one of those pinball
pavilions, games that anybody six to sixty or more could play. You don’t know
skees. Hey where have you been? Skee, come on now. Go over to Seaside Heights
on the Jersey shore, or Old Orchard up on the Maine coast and you will have all
the skees you want, or need. And if you can’t waggle your way to those hallowed
spots then I will give a little run-down. It’s kind of like bowling, candle-pin
bowling (small bowling balls for you non-New Englanders) with a small ball and
it’s kind of like archery or darts because you have to get the balls, usually
ten or twelve to a game, into tilted holes.
The idea is to get as high a
score as possible, and in amusement park land after your game is over you get coupons
depending on how many points you totaled. And if you get enough points you can
win, well, a good luck rabbit’s foot, like I won for Karen stick-girl one time
(a stick girl was a girl who didn’t yet have a shape, a womanly shape, and
maybe that word still is used, okay), one turning twelve-year old time, who
thought I was the king of the night because I gave her one from my “winning,”
and maybe still does. Still does think I am king of the hill. But a guy, an old
corner boy guy that I knew back then, a kind of screwy guy who hung onto my
tail at Salducci’s like I was King Solomon, a guy named Markin who hung around
me from middle school on, already wrote that story once. Although he got one
part wrong, the part about how I didn’t know right from left about girls and
gave this Karen stick girl the air when, after showering her with that rabbit’s
foot, she wanted me to go with her and sit on the old seawall down at
Huntsville Beach and according to Markin I said no-go. I went, believe me I
went, and we both practically had lockjaw for two weeks after we got done. But
you know how stories get twisted when third parties who were not there, had no
hope of being there, and had questionable left from right girl knowledge
themselves start their slanderous campaigns on you. Yes, you know that scene, I
am sure.
So you see, Karen stick and
lockjaw aside, I had some skill at skees, and the way skees and the carny life
came together was when, well let me call her Gypsy Love, because like the name
of that North Adamsville vagrant telephone pole street where I saw the Byrd’s
carnival in town sign that I could not remember the name of I swear I can’t, or
won’t remember hers. All I remember is that jet-black long hair, shiny
dark-skinned glean (no, no again, she was not black, christ, no way, not in
1950s Wild Willie’s, what are you kidding me?), that thirteen-year old winsome
smile, half innocent, half-half I don’t know what, that fast-forming girlish
womanly shape and those laughing, Spanish gypsy black eyes that would haunt a
man’s sleep, or a boy’s. And that is all I need to remember, and you too if you
have any imagination. See Gypsy Love was the daughter of Madame La Rue, the
fortune-teller in Jim Byrd’s carnival. I met her in turning twelve time when
she tried to sell me a rose, a rose for my girlfriend, my non-existent just
then girlfriend. Needless to say I was immediately taken with her and told her
that although I had no girlfriend I would buy her a rose.
And
that, off and on, over the next year is where we bounced around in our “relationship.”
One day I was down at Wild Willie’s and I spotted her and asked her why she
wasn’t on the road with Jim Byrd’s show. Apparently Madame LaRue had had a
falling out with Jim, quit the traveling show and landed a spot at Wild Willie’s.
And naturally Gypsy Love followed mother, selling flowers to the rubes at Wild
Willie’s. So naturally, naturally to me, I told Gypsy Love to follow me over to
the skees and I would win her a proper prize. And I did, I went crazy that day.
A big old lamp for her room. And Gypsy Love asked me, asked me very nicely
thank you, if I wanted to go down by the seawall and sit for a while. And let’s
get this straight, no third party who wasn’t there, no wannbe there talk,
please, I followed her, followed her like a lemming to the sea. And we had the
lockjaw for a month afterward to prove it. And you say, you dare to say I was
not born for that life, that carnival life. Ha.
Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Lead Belly's "Bourgeois Blues"-A Song For Our Times-Build The Resistance
A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject from Leadbelly who may have sang the song seventy or eighty years ago but is not that far off now-except now it is more than just black people.
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. And those songs provide our movement with that combination entertainment/political message that is an art form that we use to draw the interested around us. Even though today those interested may be counted rather than countless and the class struggle to be whiled away is rather one-sidedly going against us at present. The bosses are using every means from firing to targeting union organizing to their paid propagandists complaining that the masses are not happy with having their plight groveled in their faces like they should be while the rich, well, while away in luxury and comfort.
But not all life is political, or rather not all music lends itself to some kind of explicit political meaning yet speaks to, let’s say, the poor sharecropper at the juke joint on Saturday listening to the country blues, unplugged, kids at the jukebox listening to high be-bop swing, other kids listening, maybe at that same jukebox now worn with play and coins listening to some guys from some Memphis record company rocking and rolling, or adults spending some dough to hear the latest from Tin Pan Alley or the Broadway musical. And so they too while away to the various aspects of the American songbook and that rich tradition is which in honored here.
This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up. These are the lyrics-take the "n" word part as you will but that is what he wrote.
Lord, in a bourgeois town It's a bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around
Home of the brave, land of the free I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie Lord, in a bourgeois town Uhm, the bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around
Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs We heard the white man say "I don't want no niggers up there" Lord, in a bourgeois town Uhm, bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around
Well, them white folks in Washington they know how To call a colored man a nigger just to see him bow Lord, it's a bourgeois town
When The King Of Rock And
Roll Held Forth In The Acre Section Of North Adamsville -And Made It Stick-In
Honor Of The Generation Of ’68-Or Those Who Graced The Wild Child Part Of Those
Times -Introduction
By Zack James
[Zack James has been on an
assignment covering the various 50th anniversary commemorations of
the year 1968 (and a few in 1967 and for the future 1969 which is to his mind
something of a watershed year) and therefore has not graced these pages for a
while. Going through his paces on those assignments Zack realized that he was
out of joint with his own generation, having been born in 1958 and therefore
too young to have been present at the creation of what is now called, at least
in the demographically-etched commercials, the classic age of rock and roll.
Too young too for any sense of what a jailbreak that time was and a shortly
later period which Seth Garth who was deep into the genre has called the ‘folk
minute breeze” that ran rampart through the land say in the early 1960s. Too
young as well to have been “washed clean,” not my term but Si Lannon’s since I
am also too young to have been aware of the import by the second wave of rock,
the acid rock period. Hell, this is enough of an introduction to re-introducing
the legendary writer here. Lets’ leave it as Zack is back and let him go
through his paces. Greg Green, site manager]
*********** Alex James was the king of
rock and roll. Of course he was not really the king, the king being Elvis and
no last name needed at least for the bulk of those who will read what I call a
“think piece,” a piece about what all the commemorations of events a million
years ago, or it seems like a million years ago even mentioning 50 or 60 year
anniversaries, mean. What Alex was though was the conduit for my own musical
experiences which have left me as a stepchild to three important musical
moments, the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, the quick prairie fire called
the “folk minute” of the early 1960s and the resurgence with a vengeance of
rock in the mid-1960s which for brevity’s sake call “acid” rockas the glue that bound what others who write
here, Sam Lowell, in particular calls the Generation of ’68- a seminal year in
many ways which I have been exploring for this and other publications. I am
well placed to do so since I was over a decade too young to have been washed
over by the movements directly . But that step-child still sticks and one Alex
James is the reason why.
This needs a short explanation.
As should be apparent Alex James is my brother, my oldest brother, born in 1946
which means a lot in the chronology of what follows. My oldest brother as well
in a family with seven children, five boys and two twin girls, me being the
youngest of all born in 1958. As importantly this clan grew up in the dirt-
poor working- class section of North Adamsville where my mother, under better
circumstances, grew up and remained after marrying her World War II Marine my
father from dirt poor Appalachia which will also become somewhat important
later. To say we lacked for many of the things that others in that now seen
“golden age” of American prosperity would be an understatement and forms the
backdrop of how Alex kept himself somewhat sane with music although we didn’t
even have a record player (the ancient although now retro-revival way to hear music then) and he was forced when
at home to “fight” for the family radio to get in touch with what was going on,
what the late Pete Markin his best friend in those days called “the great
jailbreak.”
A little about Alex’s trajectory is important
too. He was a charter member along with the late Markin, Si Lannon, Sam Lowell,
Seth Garth and Allan Jackson, the later four connected with this publication in
various ways since its hard copy start in the 1970s, of the Tonio Pizza Parlor
corner boys. These guys, and maybe it reflected their time and milieu, hung out
at Tonio’s for the simple reason they never had money, or not enough, and while
they were not above various acts of larceny and burglary mostly they hung
around there to listen to the music coming out of Tonio’s to die for jukebox.
That jukebox came alive in maybe 1955, 1956 when they first heard Elvis, and
maybe others as well but Alex always insisted that he was the first to
“discover” Elvis in his crowd. Maybe it was true although Seth always claimed that
he heard Big Joe Turner’s primo version of Shake,
Rattle and Rock earlier and thus first to “discover” the roots of rock and
Allan Jackson has claimed without proof that he saw Bill Haley and the Comets’
version in the Chalkboard Jungle and
put them all to shame. We will let old wounds fester and move on.
Quickly that experience formed
the backdrop of what Alex listened to for a few years until the genre spent a
few years sagging with vanilla songs and beats after the records companies and
what he called “the authorities” put a stop to serious rock and gave forth
singers , male and female, nay parent could love. That same Markin, who the
guys here have written about and I won’t since although he was Alex’s best friend
and was over the house a lot I never really knew except nothing good happened in
the world without his imprimatur to hear these guys still sing his praises, was
the guy who turned Alex on to folk music via his desperate trips to Harvard
Square up in Cambridge when he needed to get out of the hellish family household
he dwelled in. The third prong of the musical triad was also initiated by
Markin who made what everybody claims was a fatal mistake dropping out of
Boston University in his sophomore year in 1967 to follow his dream, to “find”
himself, to go west to San Francisco for what would be called the Summer of
Love where he learned about the emerging acid rock scene (“drugs, sex and rock
and roll” being one mantra). He dragged everybody, including Alex if you can
believe this since he would subsequently come back and go to law school and
become the staid successful lawyer he is today, out there with him for varying
periods of time. (The fateful mistake on the part of Markin stemming from him
dropping out at the wrong time, the escalation of the war in Vietnam subjecting
him shortly after to the draft and hell-hole Vietnam service which more than
the others unhinged him and his dreams.)
That’s Alex’s story-line.
My intersection with Alex’s musical trip was that one day after he had come
back from a hard night at law school (he lived at home, worked during the day
at some law firmas some kind of lacky, and went to law school nights
studying the rest of the time) he went to his room and began playing a whole
bunch of music starting I think with Bill Haley and the Comet’s Rock Around The Clock and kept playing
stuff for a long time. Loudly. Too loudly for me to get to sleep and I went and
knocked on his door to get him to quiet down. When he opened the door he had on
his record playerJerry Lee Lewis’s High School Confidential. I flipped out.
I know I must have heard Alex playing this stuff earlier, but it was kind of a
blank before. Background music just like Mother’s listening to 1940s stuff on
her precious ancient RCA radio in the kitchen.
What happened then, what
got me mesmerized as a twelve- year old was that this music “spoke” to me,
spoke to my own unformed and unarticulated alienation. I had not been
particularly interested in music, music mostly heard and sung in the obligatory
junior high school music class, but this was different, this got my hormonal
horrors in gear. I stayed in Alex’s room listening half the night as he told me
above when he had first heard such and such a song.
Although the age gap
between Alex and I was formidable, he was out the door originally even before I
knew him but since at that point we were the only two in the house all the
others in college or on their own he became something of a mentor to me on the
ins and out of rock and roll once I showed an interest. From that night on it
was not just a question of say, why Jailhouse
Rock should be in the big American Songbook but would tell me about who or
what had influenced rock and roll. He was the first to tell me about what had
happened in Memphis with a guy named Sam Phillips and his Sun Record label
which minted an extraordinary number of hits by guys like Elvis, Warren Smith,
Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee. When I became curious about how the sound got going,
why my hands got clammy when I heard the music and I would start tapping my
toes he went chapter and verse on me. Like some god-awful preacher quoting how
Ike Turner, under a different name, may really have been the granddaddy of rock
with his Rocket 88 and how obscure
guys like Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner and Willie Lomax and their big bop
rhythm and blues was one key element.
Another branch stuff from
guys like Hack Devine, Warren Smith and Lenny Larson who took the country
flavor and melted it down to its essence. Got rid of the shlock. Alex though
did surprise me with the thing he thought got our toes tapping-these guys, Elvis,
Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly and a whole slew of what I would later call good
old boys took their country roots not to the Grand Ole Opry stuff but the stuff
they played at the red barn dances down in the hills and hollows come Saturday
night and mixed it with some good old fashion religion stuff learned through
bare-foot Baptists or from the black churches and created their “jailbreak”
music. One night he startled me when he said “daddy’s music” meaning that our
father who had come from down in deep down in the mud Appalachia had put the
stuff in our genes. He didn’t call it DNA I don’t’ think he knew the term and I
certainly didn’t but that was the idea. I resisted the idea then, and for a
long time after but sisters and brothers look at the selections that accompany
this so-called think piece the whole thing is clear now. I, we are our father’s
sons after all. Alex knew that early on I only grabbed the idea lately-too late
since my father who got exhausted from life early has been gone a long time
now.
[Alex and I had our ups and
downs over the years and as befits a lawyer and journalist our paths seldom passed
except for occasional political things where we were on the same wavelength
like with the defense of Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley)
few years back when he was involved legally with the case and I was writing
copy for the publications. Indicative though of our closeness despite distance in
2017 when Alex had a full head of steam up about putting together a collective
corner boy memoir in honor of the late Markin after a business trip to San
Francisco where he went to a museum exhibition featuring the seminal Summer of
Love, 1967 he contacted me for the writing, editing and making sure of the
production values.]
All that early music was mostly
heard Alex told me at Tonio’s which I knew as a pizza place where the guys I
hung around with would go after school for a slice of pizza and sodas and which
then did not have a jukebox, had become more of a family place with no corner
boys hanging out once the place had changed hands after Tonio had passed away.
(They kept the name and it is still operating to this day after changing hands
again now run by some guy from Armenia last I heard.) The funniest story from
that Alex hang-out time was how they listened to the music in the jukebox for
free when they were short of money. No, not some kicking the machine stuff but
kind of romance stuff. You knew a girl part had to come with this since rock
and roll really was the jailbreak music not only for the beat but for the
social graces aspect of dealing with sex-the opposite sex, since you could
dance without having to kill a girl with your step on toes feet.
What Frankie Riley, the
acknowledged leader of the corner boys, and who today is also a successful
lawyer would do is con some girl into playing music that he, they wanted to
hear when they were sitting at a booth and not hanging out side. (By the way not
all the corner boys were successful take Markin’s fate getting killed down in
Mexico in some hazy drug deal gone awry and a couple of guys who wound up in
state prisons for armed robberies and such.) Frankie made this into an art
form. See the girls seemed to have money to play the jukebox, had change,
quarters since the play was three for a quarter. What Frankie who almost as
well as Markin knew the whole “intelligence” on who was “going steady with
whom” and the like would do is maybe go up to a girl who had just broken up
with her boyfriend and ask her to play something dreamy, something to play to
her angst or something. Then he went to work on the other two selections by
asking the girl if she had heard say Jerry Lee Lewis’ Breathless. Alex said it never failed to work. Cute if kind of a
hard sell if you think about it.
Alex as is his way kind of
mentored me around the various genre that had influenced him on his journey to
adulthood. (Funny how the music of your youth sticks through life with you
since he and I both agreed after a recent meeting where I was “grilling him,”
his term not mine, on the subject of this piece and how I got my influences
that we both still favor the music of our youth, still play it with a few
off-beat newer things thrown in.) He is the one who informed me about the
dearth, the death really of classic rock after Elvis went AWOL from life, Chuck
Berry went to jail, and Jerry lee got too cousin cozy and a bunch of record
companies caved into the moral authorities and parents and let only god-awful
music over the airwaves. Which drove him first to the nascent folk music scene
which Markin was instrumental in turning him on to and through exposure to
those rooted musics to a serious appreciation of the blues.
He spent many hours telling
me about his experiences in the period of the Summer of Love which he had just
barely escaped he said in order to go to law school. That music, the dope, the
women, and the craziness almost got to him under Markin’s direction. I’let that
stuff go for now maybe Alex can pick up the thread but I want you to listen to
the music more than run the gauntlet of what was what and why.
***Out In The Be-Bop 2010s Night -The Wise Guys Cometh
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
An
old geezer, heating himself up in some gentle hot tub provided courtesy of the
hotel that he was staying in down in late season Naples (Florida that is)
trying to loosen some ancient ankle injury that has recently plagued his
walking moments, sat within earshot of a conversation between two younger men,
not kids but also not some senior citizens of his recent experience on a
similar subject who could draw back on ancient memories of when men were men
and a man’s word was his bond and there was honor among thieves and not just in
the breech, well mainly not in the breech. The younger men, heavily tattooed as
is the fashion these days among certain hard guys, or hard guy want-to-bes,
woman too (long gone the simple Mother tattoo or some long forsaken woman who
name sits inside a rose or a snake mid-arm. Or when a woman had a simple flower
or butterfly on the back of her shoulder. Now full-length arms, shoulders and chests
to speak nothing of legs and other places tattoos must tell a story, a to be
continued story or be filled with cryptic symbolic designs to even be noticed.)
not noticing the older man, nor attempting to hide their old time appetites
freely discussed what hard knocks they had learned from the streets, the hard
mean streets of drug-dealing Boston, and so the old man perked up, perked up to
their tales of prior mischief. The gist of their stories were of young men gone
wrong, gone wrong and able to come back from the edge and therefore provide
some cautionary tale . One
man’s story, the one that was representative of the two tales and so will stand
for the completed conversation,call him Mike, maybe Mickey , but Mike fits
here, had come from good family, had had plenty of breaks, had plenty of
educational chances, summer vacations and such,but when it counted, when he
came of manhood age, had gotten involved with some hard- time corner boys, some
corner boys from the wrong side of the tracks, Summertown version (a town just
outside of Boston that the old man was very familiar from his own drug days a
generation or so before the younger men), and for those not in the know
Summertown was the headquarters for the famous corner boy Summer Hill gang that
wreaked havoc on Boston, its criminal justice system, its drug streets (you
name the drug, and name it in quantity), its heist streets, and maybe its art
treasures. Yes, guys, whether you honor thieves in the breech or the observance
or not, not to be messed with, not if you wanted to live to the old geezer’s
age. So
Mike worked his way up the food chain a little, enough to handle some
interesting things, things not necessary to describe here just in case the
statute of limitations has not run out , and besides the old geezer said “he
ain’t no snitch even indirectly,”worked the middle man drug trade, the trade
when the drug of choice was cocaine, sister, snow and the route from South
America was free and open to meet the high-end demand for quality coke from
yuppies and other discretionary-spending types. But the “life” is full of
pitfalls, full of guys who want to rise to the top (not knowing that top is
fixed, had been fixed since about 1898, and will not change, will not be
un-fixed, until, until doomsday maybe and that a wise move for an up and coming
soldier is to know that fact and accept whatever position he winds up with and
deal with easy street from that perch). Mike
fell down on the hardest pitfall of all though, he sampled the merchandise,
like what he sampled, and that started him on the slippery slope to many bad
judgments and many night, many nights of “walking with the king.” Until the
other shoe dropped. And that is where the other pitfall came in, the one where
the upwardly mobile guy stumbles, and about twelve guys are about to rat him
out, rat him out to the next guy up in the food chain, but more likely
to“uncle.”To “uncle” (used here generically but it could be the feds all the
way down to some podunk cop on the beat) in order to clear the path for
themselves, or to fix some uncle problem that they had to try to get out from
under. A snitch in plain English. And
so Mike fell, fell hard, did a nickel’s worth for his troubles. But he made two
smart moves during his stir time, one, he dried out (hard, very hard to do in
stir where there is probably more dope than outside per capita and that hard
time can be easier in some dope haze), dried out for good, and after he did his
time, after he took the fall he looked at his percentages to see which way the
winds blew for him. A guy getting older, a guy who was not moving up the food
chain (the slammer put a big dent in his value since he was on ice), a guy who
had to look over his shoulders and maybe start putting newspaper around his bed
so nobody snuck up on him was as likely to find himself being dragged out of
the Mystic River one find morning as to collect his Social Security check. So
he went straight, straight as an ex-con can. And so after he told his
companion, his brawny beefy companion, his story and the brawny guy responded
with his tale they both began to speak of family-friendly cars, of the virtues
of buying houses in Florida, with or without swimming pools, and where they
were headed that night with their families for a big beef-infested dinner. Main
Street stuff, future Social Security check stuff. The
old geezer thought about that story, thought about how he knew Mike’s story
line almost before he had finished his tale. See he had grown up, grown up hard
in North Adamsville, a town with its own Summer Hill-type gang moving
everything that could be moved in the way of illegal materials, and were hooked
into the Boston prostitution rackets as well (the Summer Hill gang out of some
Irish, or some Catholic, or some both thing would not traffic in women, at
least, that was their reputation, although that might have been honored in the
breech as well). He, when young, much younger than when Mike took his vows, had
been in the junior division of a corner boy gang much like the Summer Hill
cadre and he had many corner boy friends who would wind up face down in some
ditch, doing nickels and dimes in the slammer, or being uncle’s pet. He
had, around the age of twelve done a fair share of kid’s stuff “clips” (petty
theft at jewelry stores and department stores), a fair share of look-out work
for some older boys who were doing midnight shifts (breaking and entering in
the nighttime, burglary, armed robberies of gas stations), had been best friend
with the corner boy king, junior division, Billie Bradley, later, 1960s later,
manhood time later, found face down in a dusty Sonora, Mexico street after a
drug deal when south on him, and had for a minute that twelve- years old summer
beganto think about easy street. Then just as quickly he stopped, figured out what
the percentages were, or were not, and moved on. But for just one minute while
Mike was speaking he remembered what a thrill it was to go for easy street, go
for glory or broke, and maybe, just maybe, still have avoided Mike’s fate...
When Woody Allen Ruled The Social Satire (And Adult Angst) Night- “Annie Hall”
Annie Hall, starring Diane Keaton, Woody Allen, 1977 Hey, haven’t I already reviewed this movie. No, sorry that was Manhattan another in the line of very witty Woody Allen movies. But the point is this it is the same subject that Woody addressed there even though chronologically Annie Hall came first by a couple of years and received the lion’s share of kudos and awards. As virtually always Allen is intent upon commenting on New York life and its intellectual trends and the ups and downs of relationships, mainly with women. Here he adds a flourish by contrasting old New York (in the 1970’s) to up and coming California as the cultural mecca of the American empire. And, as should be the case, New York wins.
Add to that the perennial issue of Woody’s struggle with ‘interpersonal’ relationships and his angst-driven desire to understand the modern world and you have a very fine social commentary of the times. Needless to say Woody’s love interest Annie Hall (as played by his then paramour Diane Keaton) keeps him hopping. As does an ensemble cast that works well together as foils for his ironic and savage humor. The only surprise in revisiting this film recently is how well Keaton plays her role as an up and coming torch singer. Of course, I have always been a sucker for torch singers but that is another matter. Some of the humor may seem dated and very 1970’s New Yorkish. Some of Woody’s mannerism and use of sight gags may seem like old news. But this is a film to watch or re-watch if you have seen it before.
Yes, here is one more thing to blame on Woody Allen, as if he hasn’t had enough problems in his life. Earlier this year I watched and reviewed in this space the film Radio Days that Woody directed. Every since then in the deep recesses of my brain the tunes Paper Dolls and Sentimental Journey have been pounding away. Hey this is music made before I was born, although maybe I picked it up in the womb. Why is it in my head? I am still a child of my generation (the Generation of '68) and fought the anti-Vietnam War fight to the tunes of Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row and The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter but I think I can make a little room for this, if only to keep my brain from stopping that pounding. Directly below are a few comments from my Radio Day review that fit here and below that some specific comments on the CDs being reviewed.
"…I am a first generation child of the television age, although in recent years I have spent more time kicking and screaming about that fact than watching the damn thing. Nevertheless I can appreciate Director (and narrator) Woody Allen’s valentine to the radio days of his youth. I am just old enough, although about a half generation behind Allen, to remember the strains of songs like Paper Dolls and Autumn Leaves that he grew up with and that are nicely interspersed throughout his story as backdrop floating in the background of my own house.
I am also a child of Rock 'n' Roll but those above-mentioned tunes were the melodies that my mother and father came of age to and the stuff of their dreams during World War II and its aftermath. The rough and tumble of my parents raising a bunch of kids might have taken the edge off it but the dreams remained. In the end it is this musical backdrop that makes Radio Days most memorable to me……
….Allen’s youth, during the heart of World War II, was time when one needed to be able to dream a little. The realities of the world at that time seemingly only allowed for nightmares. My feeling is that this film touched a lot of sentimental nerves for the World War II generation (that so-called ‘greatest generation’) whether it was his Jewish families (as portrayed here) on the shores of New York’s Far Rockaway or my Irish families on the shores of Quincy, Massachusetts. Nice work, Woody."
Songs that Got Us Through WWII- Vol. 2, various artists, Rhino Records, 1994
The highlights here are Vaughan Monroe’s There I’ve Said It Again. This is the time of the male crooner and the big band orchestra and Monroe combines both here. Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters hit with Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby. Male crooner and three female harmonies was another trade mark of the times. Billie Holiday’s Lover Man. Let me keep this one simple- I could get through war, pestilence and the apocalypse as long as I had a Billie album with me.
Sentimental Journey- Vol. 1 (1942-1946) various artists, Rhino Records, 1993
The highlights here include, obviously, Les Brown and his band doing Sentimental Journey with a young Doris Day on vocals-nice. Dick Haymes doing You’ll Never Know is something like the crooner voice of World War II. Of course, Paper Dolls by the Mills Brothers done here with a little jump middle section is classic. A nice version of Cole Porter’s Night And Day by one Frank Sinatra. It will not replace Billie Holiday’s rendition but is very nice and with the trademark Sinatra phrasing. The top tune here though is Lena Horne doing an incredible version of Stormy Weather. I have heard this tune done by many vocalists- male and female- this is the first time I stopped what I was doing to make sure I gave it its proper due.
The 1940’s, Volume I- 16 Most Requested Songs, various artist, Columbia Records, 1989
Highlights here include the classic Sentimental Journey with Les Brown and his band. Harry James and his band doing a bang up job on You Made Me Love You. A startlingly beautiful version (I didn’t expect it to be in this kind of compilation) of Some Enchanted Evening from the Broadway musical South Pacific done by Ezio Pinza. Kudos here. The surprise is a very sensuous Latin- tropical version of Amor in Spanish done by Xavier Cugat and his band with an unknown (to me) Carmen Castillo on vocals. Wow.
16 Most Requested Songs, Rosemary Clooney, Columbia, 1989
Yes there was a musical world before 1956 and the Elvis explosion. That musical world, however, was the world of the parents, including mine, of the Generation of ’68. One of those voices was that of Rosemary Clooney. Then I thought she was square- you know with that smooth voice and ‘good girl’ image and all in a film like White Christmas with Bing Crosby. Then, several years ago, before she died I heard her in an interview on National Public Radio where she admitted to a drug problem and other little indiscretions. Of course, for this reviewer that meant that I might have to reevaluate her work now that I knew she was not really that ‘good girl’. Now a lot of her sound is still beyond the pale for me and her seeming addiction to bebop novelty songs like Mambo Italiano is off-putting but she certainly is more interesting as a singer to me now. I like the sound of Come On-A My House but what really is nice is Ms. Clooney's way with a ballad. Try Hey There and Tenderly on for size. Then work your way to Half As Much and then a nice little version of Blues In The Night and Too Young. It only took me 50 years to recognize it but Rosemary- you done good.
Out In Woody Allen’s Be-Bop New York City- “Manhattan”-A Film Review
DVD Review
Manhattan, Woody Allen, Mariel Hemingway, 1979 In his own off-hand, low-key way Woody Allen, the quintessential New Yorker, has created a nice spoof/send up/valentine to his beloved city. If one were to name the person who represented the essence of middle/high brow New York in the 1970’s and 80’s the name Woody Allen would top most lists. The theme, as usual in an Allen film, is about the endlessly tangled interpersonal relationships among and between the upwardly mobile, or at least wannabe upward mobile, intellectual set in 1970’s New York. An added twist, given later developments in Allen’s personal life, is his tangled romance with a teenaged Waspish type (played by Hemingway), a type that he is seemingly fatally attracted to. Some of the wit may seem dated as it relates to 1970’s New York; some of Allen’s physical mannerisms seem very familiar and for those who have seen his later work the theme has been done better but here is Allen in his city. This is one of the reasons why New York, and no other, is the cultural capital of America. Beat him if you can.
Casablanca Redux, Not – Woody Allen’s “Play It Again Sam”
Play It Again, Sam, Woody Allen, 1972 Here is another early Woody Allen social commentary heavily dependent on his long time love affair with film noir and its characters, in this case the legendary romantic figure Humphrey Bogart. Now this may be a film that seems dated compared to today’s new sensibilities around the “woman’ question.” It is not clear that it would be politically correct to ask advice of the legendary Bogart on the woman question today. Bogie, except in the case of Lauren Bacall, was rough on his lady friends (or for the politically incorrect “dames”). But not to worry Woody is the same old bungling ball of nerves and anxieties as he is in most of his films. The real surprise here is that such a cerebral actor/ comedian/ director uses so many sight gags in his repertoire. Does the woman question get resolved here for poor Woody? Well watch the film and find out. You will be glad you did.
Woody Allen has spent his career paying homage to various genres that have influenced him since childhood. Or he just plain liked. Here he tips his hat to the amateur sleuth murder mystery. The plot centers on the mysteriously doings of his apartment building neighbors. Spurred on by his wife (played by Diane Keaton) and pal (played by Alan Alda) he gets caught up the mystery more to save his marriage than anything else. This movie reminds me mostly of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous Rear Window from the 1950’s in its plot line but with a 1990’s sensibility. But as always not to worry there is plenty of social commentary/ humor of the well –know Allen type. Do you absolutely need to see this movie? No, you absolutely need to see Annie Hall or Manhattan films that he made in his prime. But this one is okay if you need a little funny sardonic entertainment.
When Radio Ruled The Waves-Woody Allen's "Radio Days" (1987)-A Film Review
DVD REVIEW
Radio Days, Directed by Woody Allen, 1987 I am a first generation child of the television age, although in recent years I have spent more time kicking and screaming about that fact than watching the damn thing. Nevertheless I can appreciate Director (and narrator) Woody Allen’s valentine to the radio days of his youth. I am just old enough, although about a half generation behind Allen, to remember the strains of songs like Paper Dolls and Autumn Leaves that he grew up with and that are nicely interspersed throughout his story as backdrop floating in the background of my own house.
I am also a child of Rock and Roll but those above-mentioned tunes were the melodies that my mother and father came of age to and the stuff of their dreams during World War II and its aftermath. The rough and tumble of my parents raising a bunch of kids might have taken the edge off it but the dreams remained. In the end it is this musical backdrop that makes Radio Days most memorable to me.
Let’s be clear- there something very different between the medium of the radio and the medium of the television. As Allen’s film poignantly points out the radio allowed for an expansion of the imagination (and of fantasy) that the increasingly harsh realities of what is portrayed on television do not allow one to get away with. There is, for example, the funny sketch here involving the ‘scare’ caused by Orson Welles narration of War of the Worlds. Today the space wanderers would have to be literally in one’s face before one accepted such a tale.
Allen’s youth, during the heart of World War II, was time when one needed to be able to dream a little. The realities of the world at that time seemingly only allowed for nightmares. My feeling is that this film touched a lot of sentimental nerves for the World War II generation (that so-called ‘greatest generation’) whether it was his Jewish families (as portrayed here) on the shores of New York’s Far Rockaway or my Irish families on the shores of North Adamsville, Massachusetts. Nice work, Woody.
Thoroughly Modern Millie-And Then Some-Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works” (2009)-A Film Review Of Sorts
DVD Review
By Frank Jackman
I know exactly why I drew this assignment from current site manager and the guy who hands out the film assignments Greg Green (after having done that task at American Film Gazette for a million years, if you can believe this I worked as a stringer for him there when I was just starting out some thirty or so years ago). The problem with on-line sites is that everything can be easily archived and so Greg just looked up a few pieces I did a few years ago about a growing up hometown friend, Phil Larkin, who also occasionally writes here as well, and his travails with intergenerational sex with some Penn State graduate student whom he “met” on the Internet. Since a theme, a sub-theme as it turns out, of this so-so Woody Allen written and directed Whatever Works is the budding relationship between a twenty-something Southern (Mississippi) “baton twirler” (the main character’s characterization of her on his nice days) and a jaded neurotic older New York guy who has soured on the world after his fair shares of ups and downs that is the main play here.
(According to the blip on this effort it is not autobiographical according to Woody whose own intergeneration sexual encounter with his step-daughter whom he eventually married got him plenty of bad press in the early 1990s. I will take his word that this vehicle was intended for Zero Mostel who died shortly after he had written it and thereafter the script was shelved. Moreover autobiographical or not does not impinge on this whole subject of intergenerational sex which has certain taboos associated with it that I was trying to write about in the Phil Larkin pieces.)
I don’t want to discuss the cinematic technique that Woody used here to present the main character jaded, neurotic Boris, played by Larry David who is talking to the audience during parts of his monologue/soliloquy to the disbelieve of all his contacts but the interplay, the as it turns out wide range of sexual play only high-lighted by Boris and his baton twirler Melody, played by Evan Rachel Wood. True to New York Jewish intellectual form Woody has Boris world wary and weary in such a way that it had all the zing of very early such Woody productions based in New York settings and made me think that in the earlier 1970s sense the thing would have been played by Woody himself casting away on Annie Hall, Manhattan, and the like.
What makes the whole shebang workable to steal from the idea that generated the writing is the total improbability of the two main characters having the slightest thing in common. Boris already described in a few words which makes the nut takes in essentially a runaway, Melody, the baton-twirler from the South who baffles Boris no end as he tries to get rid of her-for a while- and then she becomes something like a case study in the redneck ethos and non-Jewish, non-intellectual, non-New York world that Boris is clueless about. Except he had his very definite opinions about that outer world. And she, well, she sparkly and bright, bears his malice and bile. Then opposites attract. Wedding bells. Boom
Attract for a while because intergenerational interplay (ah, sex) winds up being only one of the many ways that human beings can interact. That comes on display when Melody’s horrified mother comes up looking for what she assumed was her runaway daughter. Mother winds up having some cultural talent and she winds up with two lovers-at the same time. Father comes looking for Melody too (after a fling which broke up the marriage). Turns out he was a closet homosexual and if anyplace would be a place to cast your fate looking for a gay partner it was post-Stonewall New York. Bang, gay couple. To complicate matters Mother pulls a dipsy-doodle on Boris and Melody pulling a younger man in her path and Melody falls for him. Poor shmuck Boris-a loser. No. In desperation over losing Melody he decides to commit suicide. But in his weird world he fails hurting somebody whom he landed on who turns out to be his next wife. Heterosexual love. Bang. Makes me wonder if Woody was working his magic these days on this whatever works theme whether the talking-impaired cleaning lady and creature in The Shape of Water would merit a cameo appearance. Funny in spots if you like old-time Woody monologue/dialogue.
A YouTube's film clip of The Rolling Stones performing "Fool To Cry" from their "Black And Blue" album.
CD Review
Black and Blue, The Rolling Stones, 1976
Hey, in 2009 no one, including this reviewer, NEEDS to comment on the fact that The Rolling Stones, pound for pound, have over forty plus years earned their place as the number one band in the rock `n' roll pantheon. Still, it is interesting to listen once again to the guys when they were at the height of their musical powers (and as high, most of the time, as Georgia pines). This album from the tail end of their most creative period , moreover, unlike let us say Bob Dylan who has produced more creative work for longer, is the `golden era" of the Stone Age. The album, however, is a little uneven in spots reflecting, I think, a certain exhaustion of material that they could call their totally their own unless the time when they owned a big chunk of rock 'n'roll in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The age of a more sedate music (at least technically) was approaching and I think there was some confusion about whether to embrace it or “spoof” it. Still “Cry Mama” and “Memory Motel” the stick outs in this CD along with “Fool To Cry” make any Stones “greatest hits” list. Right?
"Fool to Cry"
When I come home baby And Ive been working all night long I put my daughter on my knee, and she say Daddy whats wrong? I put my head on her shoulder She whispers in my ear so sweet You know what she says? Daddy youre a fool to cry Youre a fool to cry And it makes me wonder why.
You know, I got a woman And she lives in the poor part of town And I go see her sometimes And we make love, so fine I put my head on her shoulder She says, tell me all your troubles. You know what she says? she says Daddy youre a fool to cry Youre a fool to cry And it makes me wonder why.
Daddy youre a fool to cry Oh, I love you so much baby Daddy youre a fool to cry Daddy youre a fool to cry, yeah She says, daddy youre a fool to cry Youre a fool to cry And it makes me wonder why.
She says, daddy youre a fool to cry Daddy youre a fool to cry Daddy youre a fool to cry Daddy youre a fool to cry
Even my friends say to me sometimes And make out like I dont understand them You know what they say They say, daddy youre a fool to cry Youre a fool to cry Youre a fool to cry And it makes me wonder why.
Im a fool baby Im a fool baby Im a certified fool, now I want to tell ya Gotta tell ya, baby Im a fool baby Im a fool baby Certified fool for ya, mama, come on Im a fool Im a fool Im a fool
