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
Come on now when you are thinking about the super-duper advanced mathematicians, computer whizzes or aerospace engineers who put men and women into space and to the moon you are thinking about short-haired crew-cut white guys in white shirts with those plastic sleeves in their shirt pockets filled with off-hand pens sitting in mission control at Houston calling the shots as part of a vanilla team of anonymous figures (except the head guy whose head was always being fitted for the platter with each early rocket failure back in the late 1950s and early 1960s after the red scare Cold War Russians put an object and then a man in space leaving the United States of America flat-footed and looking kind of foolish what with all the expertise and dough around).
Yeah, you are thinking in those days, somewhat still true now as well of guys who went to big time science schools like Cal Tech and MIT maybe an oddball from Stanford (although now you will see at least at MIT which I am most familiar many Asian guys and gals filling the classrooms with their computers at the ready but also with those plastic sleeves still holding their pens-the gals too.) What you would not be thinking about is three black women (complete with kids at home something you don’t associate with those white-shirted guys too busy figuring out the latest orbital trajectory) who did not go to Cal Tech, MIT or even an oddball at Stanford but in the case of one Podunk West Virginia and another having to attend night school at some previously all white high school to get up to speed in order to become an aerospace engineer. But that hard if long delayed acknowledgement is what drives the film under review Hidden Figures about those three black women who were pioneers in a man’s world (along with help from other black women from the “colored” pool of human computers from which they were selected). Hell there weren’t even that many white women come to think of it but this film is a black-etched story not a generic women’s story.
Here’s the way the plot-line played out and why we should admire the tenacity and their sense of patriotism of those women. As mentioned above the U.S. was caught flat-footed by the Russians in the late 1950s with Sputnik first of all and so NASA down in Virginia was pushed hard, pushed hard politically to show some results-to catch up and surpass the Ruskkies (with the object of winning the big prize-landing on the moon not in the distance future but as per Jack Kennedy by the end of the 1960s). So everybody needed to pull some weight-all those highly prized Cal Tech and MIT guys had to push the envelope. Aided of course by those human computers who if you can believe this in the age of the personal computer and an average eight year old’s ability to handle the damn thing with ease used adding machines and pocket calculators-maybe slide rulers too. They appear to have been mainly women-“colored” (hey that is the term of the time so let’s let that stand here as well) and white women working in separate areas of the complex at Langley.
That seemingly ancient situation which may seem weird in our so-called “post racial” society was however the social reality in early 1960s Virginia due to the Mister James Crow laws and their strict enforcement in that state despite whatever the courts had proclaimed in the 1950s (or for that matter the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution from the 1860s). This is the “race” part of the “race and space” title of this review. Those laws and “customs” extended right up to those highly educated white- shirted guys who in a very telling scene put a separate “colored” coffee pot in their break area (and in another scene it took almost a second civil war to get convenient restroom facilities against the previous distant “colored” women’s restroom- Jesus)
Why was all this breaking down of the social norms of post-bellum Virginia necessary beyond the national goals and pacing set in far-off Washington? Well one Katherine Johnson, played here by Taraji Henson, a natural and brilliant mathematician, was put on the team on her merits which would be fully tested as the white guys were behind the curve most of the time on the critical trajectory tight numbers needed to insure a safe reentry from orbit to “splash down.” One Dorothy Vaughn, played by Olivia Spencer, who was in charge of the “colored” human computers and for a long while not given her due with the actual rank of supervisor who brought her “girls” over after learning the Fortram computer language which was the wave of the future in the computation world. And one Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae, who at great effort would become the first African-American (not “colored”) aerospace engineer at NASA. Their neglected contributions to the space program and their having to facing with dignity the skewed racial ethos of the time made this an enjoyable and thoughtful two hours. Yeah, move over Cal Tech and MIT the sisters are in town.
I’m all alone in this world, she said, Ain’t got nobody to share my bed, Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand— The truth of the matter’s I ain’t got no man.
Big Boy opened his mouth and said, Trouble with you is You ain’t got no head! If you had a head and used your mind You could have me with you All the time.
She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed— And your money, too.
Langston Hughes
The whole world knew, or at least the important parts of that world, that summer of 2012 downtown Boston world (near the Common say from the Public Gardens to Newbury Street but also near birth place Columbus Avenue), knew that Larry Johnson was Ms. Loretta Lawrence’s every day man (and it goes without saying her every night man too). Make no mistake, girls, women, even though they didn’t hold hands in public or throw public kisses at each other, they were an an “item.” Loretta at five-ten and rail thin, fashion model day thin and what in the old days was called a very light “high yella,” mixed blood from some old South Mister’s wanting habits and some “passing for white” along the way but in any case very highly sought after just then for coffee table magazine shoots didn’t look like trouble, but anytime a a woman gave Larry a side glance look Loretta’s eyes said keep your hands off. And they did, those in the fashion industry, mostly her fellow models, and maybe a few longing sidewinder guy designers too. But somebody had Larry’s attention and Loretta was going to get to the bottom of it.
It had all started back in February when Larry asked her for a hundred dollars one night, out of the blue. Now Larry had been on a tough stretch ever since the financial collapse in 2008 (although it only bagged him in early 2010) when the markets went crazy and he got caught short, and since business was bad he eventually got that old dreaded pink slip from the big finance company that had hired him straight out of the Harvard Business School MBA program to diversify their employee mix. (Larry found out later that one manager, who had publicly said he was crazy to get him had told a friend of his that he hired Larry to add “color” to his staff). Nobody was hiring so he had just been kind of living off his old time bonuses, and a little of this and that.
Funny, funny now, Larry and Loretta had met at a bar down in the financial district where he had stopped off for a drink after passing his resume around for about the umpteenth time and she had just finished a shoot (for a cosmetic company as they were trying to expand their markets that had keyed on her for her ravishing looks, brown hair, brown eyes, very light brownish high cheek-boned skin which was a plus since whatever diversity there was in the fashion market the hard fact was there was a drop off when dark as Africa black women graced the covers of most magazines or other advertising venues) down near the water at International Place and her photographer had offered to buy her a drink. His eyes met hers, her eyes met his in return and before anyone really knew it he had moved in on her like something out of one of those old time thriller romance novels that you read and at the end can’t believe that you spent your good hard-earned rest reading and cannot believe either that the “she” of the story would be so stupid in the end to have gotten mixed-up with a wacko like that.
Larry had moved in on her too, literally, after a few weeks of downy billow talk and his argument (which she was okay with, she wasn’t saying she wasn’t) that two could live as cheaply as one (which isn’t true but close enough) and he could cut down on expenses during his rough patch. And it was nice, nice to have a man around, with man’s things, a man’s scent, and a man’s silly little vanities that she had not experienced since Phil (she would not use a last name because Phil was well known, too well-known) had left her a few years back. Every once in a while though she would notice a ten here or a twenty there missing from her pocketbook but figured that either she, spendthrift she, had spent it on some forgotten bobble or Larry had taken it for some household thing and didn’t report the fact (although she, they, had insisted on a collective counting of expenses). Then came the night of Larry’s official request. And she gave it to him, a loan, a loan was all it was. The first time.
After a few more requests for dough, and the granting of those requests, Loretta started to try to figure out what the heck he was doing with the dough (he said it was to help get a job, or he needed new shirts, or something, something different each time). Then she thought about Phil, not about the money part (Jesus, he had thrown his dough at her when he was strong for her, called her his little money-machine and laughed) but as he started losing interest in her he stopped showering the money because he was seeing another woman on the side and showering it on her (that “her” being a friend of hers, and not even beautiful, just smart). And so she started thinking that Larry, Larry the guy who was sharing her bed every night (every night so it had to be a daytime dalliance), was having another affair. She resolved that Larry would get no more money, no more loans, as he called them and if she found out that he was two-timing her that woman had better leave town because, two-timer or not, bum-of-the-mouth or not, he was her man and she had told one and all hands off. And she meant it.
Artist’s Corner-For Black History Month-J. M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship
Sometimes, to paraphrase the old saw about a picture telling more than one thousand words, a painting or film will tell more about what was going on in a society than a million books or speeches on the subject. Once can think a Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and the scene against the black and white film of the red coat of a little girl walking in what amounted to her death in the concentration camp and the later shot of that same red coat on a pile of clothes to tell more than a lot of speeches about the horrors inflicted there. Similarly the short scene in the film Amistad when dead and sick slaves going through the Middle Passage are slipped overboard as a matter of course to know the repugnance of slavery.
J.M.W. Turner, himself a slavery abolitionist, did the same thing with his masterpiece Slave Ship for an earlier generation to graphically show what that institution was all about. Amazingly his style was based on color schemes rather than defined bodies and other details like the fish and sea monsters circling in for a feast which makes the whole scene that much more compelling. Hopefully that painting, as Turner intended it, turned its viewers to action against that vile institution. It certainly affected me the first time I saw it in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston almost over a hundred and fifty years later. If you are in Boston go to the second floor of the old building where the artists of the Romantic period in European painting are exhibited and spent a few moments looking at the details of this one.
*In Honor Of The Late Kate McGarrigle- "Going Back To Harlan" With Sister Anna And Friends A "YouTube" film clip of the late Kate McGarrigle, his sister Anna, and assorted friends performing "Going Back To Harlan".
Markin comment;
Earlier I placed an entry with Kate and her son and daughter, Rufus and Martha Wainwright performing together on "Talk To Me Of Mendocino". It only seems fitting to include a song with her sister, Anna. "Going Back To Harlan" is the thing that links everything together, theirs and mine.
Emmylou Harris, Goin' Back To Harlan Lyrics
There where no cuckoos, no sycamores
We played about the forest floor
Underneath the silver maples, the balsams and the sky
We popped the heads off dandelions
Assuming roles from nursery rhymes
Rested on the riverbank
And grew up by and by, and grew up by and by
Frail my heart apart
And play me a little shady grove
Ring the bells of rhymney
Till they ring inside my head forever
Bounce the bow, rock the gallows
For the hangman's reel
And wake the devil from his dream
I'm going back to Harlan
I'm going back to Harlan
I'm going back to Harlan
And if you were Willie Moore
And I was Barbara Allen
Or Fair Ellen all sad at the cabin door
A-weepin' and a-pinin', for love
A-weepin' and a-pinin', for love
Click on title to link to "The Harry Smith Project" website. DVD Review
The Harry Smith Project: Concert Film, various artists covering material gleaned from “The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music”, Shout Factory, 2006
In a recent CD review of “Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music” I made the following comments that apply to this well-done concert (or rather concerts, done in 1999 and 2001) film documentary based on that anthology, some of Smith’s own other creative work and some Fugs, an off beat old time folk/rock group, material. I will comment on some individual performances from the concerts below. Here is the CD review:
“It is no secret that the reviewer in this space has been on something of a tear of late in working through a litany of items concerning American roots music, a music that he first ‘discovered’ in his youth with the folk revival of the early 1960s and with variations and additions over time has held in high regard for his whole adult life. Thus a review of musicologist (if that is what he though he was, it is not all that clear from his “career” path that this was so) Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music” is something of a no-brainer.
Since we live in a confessional age, however, here is the odd part. As familiar as I am with Harry Smith’s name and place in the folk pantheon, his seemingly tireless field work and a great number of the songs in his anthology this is actually the first time that I have heard the whole thing at one sitting and in one place. Oh sure, back in the days of my ill-spent youth listening to an old late Sunday folk show I would perk up every time the name Harry Smith came up as the “discoverer” of some gem of a song from the 1920s or 1930s but to actually listen to, or even attempt to find, the whole compilation then just didn’t happen.
In 1997 Smithsonian/Folkway, as least theoretically in my case, remedied that problem with the release of a high quality (given the masters) six CD set of old Harry’s 80 plus recordings. Not only that but, as is usual with Smithsonian, a very nicely done booklet with all kinds of good information from the likes of Greil Marcus and the late folklorist Eric Von Schmidt (of songs like “Light Rain” and "Joshua’s Gone Barbados”, among others, fame) accompanies this set. That booklet is worth the price of admission alone on this one. But here is the funny thing after running through the whole collection. I mentioned above that this was the first time that I heard the collection as a whole. Nevertheless, over time I have actually heard (and reviewed in this space), helter-skelter, most of the material in the collection, except a few of the more exotic gospel songs. So I guess that youth was not so ill-spent after all. If the "roots is toots" for you, get this thing.
Note: For a list of the all the tracks in the entire collection just Google “The Harry Smith Collection” and click onto Wikipedia’s entry for Harry Smith.”
That said, this concert presentation (actually concerts) covers about twenty-something of the eighty-four songs in the Smith anthology. Here is my take. Folk music is meant to be passed on to future generations and those generations will place their own spin on the material. That is the case here. Some successfully like Elvis Costello’s cover of “Butcher Boy”, Geoff Muldaur’s “Poor Boy Blues” and “K.C. Moan”, Bob Neurwith’s (with Eliza Carthy playing a great fiddle on a version that can truly be declared better than the version on the anthology, much better) “I Wish I Were A Mole”, Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Sugar Baby”, Beth Orton’s “Frankie and Albert”, Lou Reed’s cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and Nick Cave’s “John The Revelator” (Son House and Blind Willie Johnson must have rolled over in their graves on that one). Other more jazzy or gospelly renditions did not fare so well. But here is the real secret. Not all the material that Harry Smith, back in the days, collected was unalloyed gold either. His tastes were, as pointed out here, eclectic. That collection, nevertheless, was a historic archive, good or bad. And this concert will share that same fate. Watch this though, several times.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Eric Andersen performing "Thirsty Boots".
CD Review
Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001
Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:
Disc Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”
Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”. I mentioned previously that Eric Von Schmidt was there to greet the folkie hordes coming into Cambridge in the old folk days. Eric Andersen was one of the hordes. He made some very personal lyrical songs in his time like “Violets Of Dawn” and his various female name songs (presumably to then current girlfriends, or some such). This one, however, is a "political” effort to honor the civil rights workers in the South. Nice touch. And, damn, they did deserve all honor. Kudos on this one, Eric.
Eric Andersen Thirsty Boots written by Eric Andersen
C C/B C/A C/G
You've long been on the open road
F C C/G
You've been sleepin in the rain
C C/B C/A C/G
From the dirty words and muddy cells
F G
Your clothes are soiled and stained.
C C/B C/A C/G
But the dirty words and muddy cells
F G
Will soon be hid in shame
C F C
So only stop to rest yourself
F G
Till you'll go off again.
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
C C/B C/A C/G
But tell me of the ones you saw
F C C/G
As far as you could see
C C/B C/A C/G
Across the plain from field to town
F G
A-marching to be free
C C/B C/A C/G
And of the rusted prison gates
F G
That tumbled by degree
C F C
Like laughing children one by one
F G
They looked like you and me
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
C C/B C/A C/G
I know you are no stranger down
F C C/G
The crooked rainbow trails
C C/B C/A C/G
From dancing cliff-edged shattered sills
F G
Of slender shackled jails
C C/B C/A C/G
But the voices drift up from below
F G
As the walls they're being scaled
C G C
All of this and more
F G
Your song shall not be failed.
C F
So take off your thirsty boots
C F
And stay for awhile
C C/B C/A
Your feet are hot and weary
Dm G
From a dusty mile
C F
And maybe I can make you laugh
C F
Maybe I can try
C C/B C/A
I'm just lookin' for the evening
Dm G C
And the morning in your eyes.
From Eric Andersen "Bout Changes & Things LP"
Vanguard Records 1966
copyright 1965 by United Artists Music.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Good Woman On Your Mind- With Howlin’ Wolf’s Little Red Rooster In Mind
Little Red Rooster
I am the little red rooster Too lazy to crow for day I am the little red rooster Too lazy to crow for day Keep everything in the farm yard upset in every way The dogs begin to bark and hounds begin to howl Dogs begin to bark and hounds begin to howl Watch out strange cat people Little red rooster's on the prowl If you see my little red rooster Please drive him home If you see my little red rooster Please drive him home Ain't had no peace in the farm yard Since my little red rooster's been gone
Johnny Prescott daydreamed his way through the music that he was listening to just then on the little transistor that Ma Prescott, Martha to adults, had given him for Christmas after he has taken a fit when she quite reasonable suggested that a new set of ties to go with his white long-sleeved shirts might be a better gift, a better Christmas gift and a bit more practical too when he played with his band at outings, for a sixteen-year old boy. No, he had screamed he wanted a radio, a transistor radio, batteries included, of his own so that he could listen to whatever he liked up in his room, or wherever he was, and didn’t have, understand, didn’t have to listen to some Vaughn Monroe singing about some unknown place over there, or Harry James’ Sentimental Journey or Tommy Dorsey or his brother Jimmy doing the inevitable Tangerine 1940s war drum thing. Or worse, the Inkspots, Jesus, he was tired of that spoken verse they include in every freaking song doing I’ll Get By or If I Didn’t Care which he had had to listen to on the huge immobile radio compliments of RCA Victor downstairs in the Prescott living room in the place of honor.
Hearing shades of that stuff all day every day when Ma Prescott got dreamy while dusting the furniture, doing the daily laundry, or washing the floors had finally gotten to him. Even more disturbing than that, if such a thing was possible, was passing through the downstairs from his room on Saturday night after dinner, maybe out for some elusive infrequent date with somebody’s lame sister, or maybe one of the easily picked up girls from the weekly sock hop dances held at various locations but mainly in the North Adamsville gym (easily picked up and escorted home but hard, hard as hell to get to first base with, or even a kiss after all was said and done), or just hanging with the guys in front of Doc’s Drugstore looking at the girls passing by or stepping inside every now and again to hear what one of those passing girls who stepped into his door was playing on Doc’s super-jack jukebox, and seeing his mother and father gearing up for a full night, seven until eleven of that stuff presented by Bill Marlowe on his Stagedoor Johnny show on WJDA. Strictly squaresville, cubed.
[Hey, for a minute I forgot who my audience might be. Sure those of you from the generation of ’68, those who for a minute in the 1960s thought along with me that we might turn the world upside down, might change things for little guys and gals for the better, turn things around so that they might look like something we might just want to pass on to the next generation know what a transistor radio was. Lived and died by that neat invention invented by some guy who knew what the hell he was doing, knew we who came of age in the cold war red scare 1950s needed our own way of getting privacy and created a radio that was small enough to conceal, put in our pockets if need be, and let us at the flick of a wrist listen to whatever radio station was providing that be-bop music that we craved. Those of you not from that generation of ’68 should know that this gizmo was like a primitive iPod or MP3 player except, well, except you could not download whatever songs you were interested in. Yeah, I know primitive now but a breath of fresh age back then when we needed to break-out from our parents’ music just like you and every generation needs to do.]
So Johnny glad that he had won one battle although he knew he was behind, seriously behind in the war, that inevitable generational war (although he did not, and probably his parents did not either if they had forgotten their own battles against intransigent parents, know enough then to call the tussle of wills a battle) was primed to go nightly to his room to hear all those songs that he first heard on that Doc’s jukebox, or maybe got featured by the DJ Rockin’ Rich at the weekly dances since he was in tune with all the latest. But here was Johnny’s dilemma, here is what he could not make heads or tails out of at first. One night as he listened to this new drippy record Shangra-la by The Four Coins that just finished up a few seconds before and as this Banana Boat song by The Tarriers was starting its dreary trip through his ears was not sure that those ties his mother had suggested wouldn’t have been a better deal, and more practical too.
Yeah, this so-called rock station, WAPX out of North Adamsville, the closest station that Johnny could receive at night without some static in the air had sold out to, well, sold out to somebody, because except for late at night, midnight late at night, one could not hear the likes of Jerry Lee, Carl, Little Richard, Fats, and the new, now that Elvis was gone, killer rocker, Chuck Berry who proclaimed loud and clear that Mr. Beethoven had better move along, and said Mr. Beethoven best tell one and all of his confederates, including Mr. Tchaikovsky that rock ‘n’ roll was the new sheriff in town. As he turned the volume down a little lower (that tells the tale right there, friends) as Rainbow (where the hell do they get these creepy songs from he thought, rainbows for chrissakes) by Russ Hamilton he was ready to throw in the towel though.
Johnny could not quite figure how that magic that first got him moving, first got him swaying his hips, first got him feeling funny thoughts about girls and how they had changed one year from being kind of just plain nuisances (and they had been, no question in Johnny’s mind about that whatever subsequent charms they possessed) to kind of nice to have around changed and why. Changed from every guy around town (young guys anyway, the guys who counted) wearing long sideburns, wearing a built-in slightly suggestive sexy swagger, and wearing a sneer that they hoped some foxy girl, maybe any girl would wipe off their faces (and the girls, those not totally and fantastically addicted to the “king” himself, and forever, were hoping that they could wipe off). Changed from running home, yes, running home, after school each and every week day afternoon to watch on television for the latest dances and tunes on American Bandstand (and the latest foxy chicks too don’t forget that Johnny) ever since Bill Haley and the Comets rocked the joint, or beloved Eddie Cochran went summertime blues crazy. Changed from sexually-charged lyrics by Chuck Berry and what he would do, or not do, to his sweet little sixteen. Changed from the high energy explosion of Jerry Lee working off the back of some hokey flatbed truck, piano keys flailing away, hair bouncing with the beat, on High School Confidential in the movie by the same name when he put his name forward as the new king of the rock hill (although the movie itself was kind of dippy). Yeah, changed to soft soap, nicely dressed, nicely mannered, not a hair out of place and no sideburn guys like Fabian, Bobby Vee, and Neil Sedeka who you would not dream of hanging around with, would not allow on your corner boy corner but who all the girls, well, most all of the girls flipped out over. Worse, worse than anything else these guys and their music was stuff that parents actually went for, would get the Ma and Pa high recommendation of “wasn’t that a young man singing” just like Frank [Sinatra for those not in the bobby-soxer 1940s know] in the old days, saw too as innocent and nice. Jesus.
Desperate Johnny fingered the dial looking for some other station when he heard this crazy piano riff starting to breeze through the night air, the heated night air, and all of a sudden Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 which he had not heard for a long time blasted the airwaves. But funny it didn’t sound like the whinny Ike’s voice so he listened for a little longer, and as he later found out from the DJ (Be-Bop Benny by name) it was actually a James Cotton Blues Band cover. After that performance was finished fish-tailing right after that one was a huge harmonica intro and what as it turned out had was none other than mad-hatter Junior Wells doing When My Baby Left Me splashed through (that “none other” part learned later when he got deeper into the electric blues night). No need to turn the dial further then because what Johnny Prescott had found in the crazy night air, radio beams bouncing every which way, was direct from Chicago, and maybe right off those hard-hearted Maxwell streets was Be-Bop Benny’s Chicago Blues Radio Hour. Be-Bop Benny who started Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino on their careers, or helped.
Now Johnny, like every young high-schooler, every "with it" high school-er in the USA, had heard of this show, because even though everybody was crazy for rock and roll, just now the airwaves sounded like, well, sounded like music your parents would dance to, no, sit down to at a dance, some kids still craved high rock. So this show was known mainly through the teenage grapevine but Johnny had never heard it before because, no way, no way in hell was his punk little Radio Shack transistor radio with two dinky batteries going to ever have the strength to pick Be-Bop Benny’s live show out in Chicago. So Johnny, and maybe rightly so, took this turn of events for a sign. When he heard that distinctive tinkle of the Otis Spann piano warming up to Spann’s Stomp and right after with his Someday added in he was hooked. And you know he started to see what Billie, Billie Bradley from over in Adamsville, meant when at a school dance where he had been performing with his band, Billie and the Jets, he mentioned that if you wanted to get rock and roll back you had better listen to blues, and if you wanted to listen to blues, blues that rocked then you had very definitely had better get in touch with the Chicago blues as they came north from Mississippi and places like that.
And Johnny thought, Johnny who have never been too much south of Gloversville, or west of Albany, and didn’t know too many people who had been much further either, couldn’t understand at first why that beat, that da, da, da, Chicago beat sounded like something out of the womb in his head, sometime out of Mother Africa (although again what did he know of old African instruments and that sound, that beat that seemed like eternity beating on his brain). How on some bars he could hear that rock ‘n’ roll ready to explode if only they could speed it up a shade, how the beat in his head was now making the transition, maybe not smooth but making it. That beat just then turning his own very personal teen-age blues (some sociologists were making big money or at least making a splash by frightening every red scare cold war parent with the idea of their Jimmy or Susie being in the grip of teen angst and alienation and ready to try anything to get to the bottom of it) to something else for the duration of the song anyway. But when he heard Big Walter Horton wailing on that harmonica on Rockin’ My Boogie he knew those be-bop beats had to be in his genes.
Stand By Your Man-Marlene Dietrich And Tyrone Powers’ “Witness For The Prosecution” (1957) –A Film Review
DVD Review
By William Bradley
Witness For The Prosecution, starring Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Powers, Charles Laughton, based on a story by murder mystery writer Agatha Christie, directed by Billy Wilder, 1957
If you have noticed over the past few months that many of the reviews, film reviews in particular, have material added to them which is not directly, and in many cases not indirectly, related to the film itself that is not happenstance but by design. Not the design of any individual reviewer but by the preferences of new site manager Greg Green and the Editorial Board that was created in the wake of the internal struggle with the old regime and its seemingly increasingly autocratic site manager. The new regime’s idea is two- fold, one, to be more transparently democratic in assignment selection and, two, to demonstrate to the reader the inner workings of a social media site and its day to day workings. Whether one or either of those reasons is satisfied in any particular review is up to the reader to decide.
In any case I have been asked, I won’t say ordered, by Greg Green acting under authority of the Editorial Board, to explain how I got this assignment. (I might add here as well that I came on board this site after the internal struggle had died down so I know only what I have heard as rumor around the “water cooler” about the disputes and the process that led to the new regime.) A couple of months ago I had to go to Washington, D.C. on another assignment for another social media site and was asked by Greg to stop by the National Gallery of Art to take a look at the Vermeer and friends (my term since I forget what the official title was but that will do) exhibition that was being held there. I did a review on it which can be found in the December 2007 archives although I know nothing, or knew nothing about 16th and 17th century art, Dutch and Flemish art in its golden age, which Bart Webber who does know about the subject took me to task on.
That trip also started the ball rolling on how I came to be a Marlene Dietrich “expert” even though I know nothing about the old-time black and white films which she starred in or the first thing about her career. This is where the example of how assignments are divvied up here comes into play. During that Washington trip I had also gone for my own purposes to the National Portrait Gallery to meet somebody and noticed walking through the halls that they had a Marlene Dietrich exhibit, mostly photographs, complete with a several page brochure about the life and times of the woman. When I passed in the Vermeer assignment in for editing I mentioned to Greg, my mistake granted, I mentioned in passing something about the Dietrich exhibit. A few days later I was saddled not with an assignment about the exhibit but a film that Greg was hot to have reviewed a thing called Stage Fright starring Ms. Dietrich among others.
Like I said on Vermeer and friends I knew nothing about Ms. Dietrich’s career, her private life, or her aura in films except the photos I had seen and the brochure. I gave Greg what I thought was a pedestrian review which he, after serious editing, posted. A few weeks later now that I was a Dietrich “expert” he cornered me to do the film under review, Witness for the Prosecution, directed by legendary director Billy Wilder. By rights this assignment should have gone to Sam Lowell who is something of a Billy Wilder expert. Mr. Wilder was last seen in this space in a review by Sam of his classic Sunset Boulevard where Sam tried to figure out how Joe Average Hollywood screenwriter wound up dead, very dead in has-been silent film star Norma Desmond’s swimming pool. Greg brushed that objection and suggestion off telling me that I needed to “broaden my horizons,” a favorite expression of his it seems. So here goes.
Even I know that the minute you mention any storyline, film or book, involving Agatha Christie, that murder, murder most foul is in the air. Usually the murder of a high society or wealthy figure for money, dough ,moola for some off-hand expenses. That is the case here where Vole, the Tyrone Powers role, is picked up for the murder of a wealthy widow whom he had befriended for the prosecution’s contention that he did it for that big haul dough. Worse, worse for Vole anyway, was the hard fact that the old dame left him a bundle. The problem though is that if he doesn’t get out from under that murder rap he won’t get a chance to spent nickel one of the loot.
Enter two figures to the rescue. First Vole grabs the best barrister in town (the guy in the English justice system who gets to try the cases, murder cases anyway), the sickly Sir Wilfrid Robarts, the Charles Laughton role, who having some doubts about Vole’s innocence, really about whether he can get his man off and away from the big step-off gallows, nevertheless takes the case. Takes the case once Vole can give an airtight alibi-his wife. His German-born cool and demure wife Christine, the Dietrich role, whom he picked up in some German gin mill during his post-World War II British Occupation duty and brought back to London when he was discharged from the service. Christine would all assumed back up Vole’s story that he could not have been at the murder scene since he was home with his ever-loving wife, her, at the time.
An easy acquittal and all will be well. Whoa, hold on Christine as it turned out showed up at trial not to defend her husband but as a witness for the prosecution of the title. She contradicted Vole’s story to the dismay of the good barrister. Now there is a tradition in Anglo-American jurisprudence that says a wife cannot testify against her husband. Good idea except Christine was already married to a German national when she married Vole. Bigamy and no alibi and no exception so Vole’s goose is cooked although for what purposes who knows.
Those Christine purposes are what drives the latter part of the film and as the announcer at the end of the film tells the audience, tells me, don’t let on about the ending. Don’t tell whether Christine did what she did for love or money. Don’t tell why Vole desperately needed that withdrawn alibi. All I will tell you is Christine is cool, calm and collected during this whole process. The look that she had groomed over many years and many performances. I will say this one has many twists that will keep you guessing right until the end.
“Turn My Nightmares Into Dreams”-The Rolling Stones’ “Sister Morphine”-For The ‘Nam Brother Slade Jackson With The “Burns-Novick “Vietnam War” Documentary In Mind
By Bart Webber
(If you have tears now is the time to weep-RIP, Slade Jackson, RIP)
Slade Jackson always had a running nose these days, always sounded like a foghorn too. Yeah, you don’t even have to think another thought because you know without blinking an eye that the brother, the broken down from hard times in Vietnam brother, is up against a big fat jones and does not know how, does not care to know how to break the fucking habit. Funny in ‘Nam (only guys who have actually been there are entitled to use that shorthand for the hellhole as a few of his friends from the old days, from the old neighborhood, like Ben Bailey learned when they tried to emulate him on that sacred term and got nothing but icy stares for their efforts) Slade had been among the “alkies” and not the “dopers” in the division of the who did what to take away their pain, take away their constant fears, take away the dirt and grime too in the company out in the “boonies” of the Central Highlands of stinking ‘Nam.
Slade had almost naturally been revolted by the mostly black brothers and Hispanic hermanos when they lit up their damn blunts and he would get the second-hand smoke in his face when they wanted to taunt the alkies. Otherwise he got along with the brothers and hermanos, he had to almost every one of them were better soldiers than he was and a couple wound up saving his young white ass when the deal went down. Had naturally been back in the old neighborhood around 1965 when it became time for the young bucks to come of age in the drinking world attached to whiskey and beer. And deeply imbibed the alkie culture that went alone with the booze. But enough of that because this story is about dope, dope pure and simple. Yeah, Slade and his corner boys had laughed about the stupid beatniks and their dope who had better not come around their neighborhood, or else. (On that beatniks thing the inner suburbs were well behind the time since what they were objecting to were the early hippies on Boston Common with their long hair, beards, guys, weird clothing like granny dresses for women, their vacant dope-tinged stares and their free love, free sleep out on the Common, pan-handling ethos, and not the beats who were by then with their cold ass jazz, berets, black attire and indecipherable words passe, ancient history, gonzo.)
But that was then and this was now, the last four years now he had descended to the pits of hell (his term in his more lucid moments less frequent now), had run to sweet cousin cocaine, the good girl, and an occasional jolt of horse, the bad boy, when the money was fresh, or when he could cadge some credit from the “fix-it” man (also less frequent now). The trail down had started simply enough after coming home, coming back to the “real” world after the hellhole of Vietnam (also a term reserved for those who had been there although Slade would not give the icy stare when those who had not been there said the word), after the few months in the hospital at Da Nang recovering from that bastard Charlie’s stray spray of bullets that caught him, purple heart caught him, in the left thigh and had left him with a lifetime limp and some pain on wet or humid days. He had come back expecting no hero’s welcome after all his years were 1969 to 1972 long after almost everybody but the weird generals had given up the ghost of war and heroes, had received none but almost from day one back he was anxious to get away, anxious not see family and the old neighborhood boys. Had moved on in his head, moved on in his pain. Needed to seek kindred, needed to have some fucking peace in his head if anybody was asking (when he went to the VA for some help he put the matter more elegantly although with results that made it clear it did not matter if he said “fucking” or “go fuck yourselves”).
So Slade had drifted away from hometown Riverdale a score or so of miles outside of Boston, had had one job after another until he hit the West Coast, the place where he had landed after having come back to the real world and had thought about when decided he needed a fresh start. Trouble was he couldn’t find any work, couldn’t find any unskilled work for which he was fit having dropped out of school in the eleventh grades except maybe bracero work in the fields which was below his dignity (he told somebody that he had had his fill of “spics” in the Army anyway and hoped he never saw one again although as soldiers they were fine, better than him anyway), couldn’t hold the few day labor jobs that came his way. Started drinking heavily, mostly cheap day labor wines (“What’s the word, Thunderbird, what’s the price, forty twice”), and hanging around parks with guys, some fellow vets from ‘Nam but mostly older guys who had been around the block one too many times. A loser only made worse by his thigh pain acting up more and only made worse by his deeper alienation from the real, real world.
One day he was in San Luis Obispo having hopped a series of local freight trains working his way down from Salinas (where he had done stoop labor with the “braceros” after all so you know where his head and soul were at just then) when he stopped in the “jungle,” the hobo, tramp, bum hang-out along the railroad siding when he met John Arrowhead (an appropriate moniker for a man who was one hundred percent Native American, indigenous person, an Indian), who had served in ‘Nam with the 101st Airborne who told him he was heading down to Westminster south of L.A. to join what he called the “brothers under the bridge.” At first Slade did not understand what John was speaking of, though the cheap wine he was drinking and cheaper marijuana he was smoking had fogged up his head. Then John explained that there were maybe one hundred, one hundred and fifty guys, all ‘Nam guys who could not face the real world coming back and had joined together under a railroad bridge and created their own world, their own commune if you wanted to put the situation that way. (John did not, could not express his thoughts that way but that was how Slade explained it to Ralph Morse, an old high school corner boy and fellow veteran, one night when he had come back to Riverdale because he had no other place to go to “die” as he said to Ralph when asked about why he had come back to town).
Slade decided that he would hobo his way down to Westminster with John to see what was up, to see if the brothers under the bridge could make him feel like a man, like a human being again. The night before Slade and John left John passed Slade his cheapjack joint and while in the past Slade had passed a million times when a joint or pipe had been passed around that night he was feeling so blue about his prospects that he did his first weed. Nothing to it but he slept soundly, or as soundly as anybody sleeping on the ground in a hobo camp could, for the first time in a long time.
A few days later arriving in Westminster after having flagged down three freight trains to get there and warding off a bunch of punk kids in El Segundo who wanted to “hassle the bums” Slade could not believe that these brothers under the bridge had created their own world outside of town. Had created a tent city but more importantly for the first time in a long time he felt at home. So when somebody passed him a joint, a “welcoming joint” the guy had called it (a guy from the notorious 23th Division in ‘Nam) he took a handful of tokes without a second thought. That, when somebody had asked him later when he made his first of about ten tries at “detox,” was when he charted the beginning of his slippery slope ride down to the gates of hell. There had been so much dope at the tent city (brought in by guys who had connections in Mexico and old connections to the Golden Triangle opium trade in Vietnam) that it became impossible for him to resist if he had wanted to resist when the dope train started.
Slade went along okay for a while, felt at home, felt he finally belonged somewhere, and fuck, finally found some relief for his physical pain that was acting up the longer he suffered under it. Got some relief for the pain in his head, something to put out the fire in his head (not his way of expressing the matter but Ralph’s shorthand way of putting it many years later when the subject of Slade Jackson came up among the surviving corner boys who had known Slade in sunnier days). He worked hard to help keep the place in shape, in as good shape as any band of brothers living out in the winds could do. Then one freaking night (Ralph’s expression, not Slade’s) the whole world collapsed, the cops from about seven different units local, county, state who knows maybe federal this before every law enforcement agency had the particular agency emblazoned on their slickers so it was hard to tell descended on the camp and ran everybody who could be run off the hell off, ripped down the tents and communal dining areas, everything. Arrested a few guys who had outstanding warrants against them and that was that. Gone.
A few days later Slade having lost contact with John Arrowhead found himself in El Cajon down south of San Diego in a rundown rooming house filled with stinking braceros and street winos who had enough dough for a flop for the night. He had been busted up some by a night stick-wielding cop with nothing but rage on his face so Slade was in some pain. He asked one guy, a dark Spanish-looking dude if he had any dope, weed, to clear his head. No weed. This was in the days when cocaine was just coming up the Mex pipeline in big bricks, kilos rather than ounces. That dude connected with somebody he knew and a few hours later he was back showing Slade how to cut the stuff, how to do blow by using a mirror and a razor blade to cut it up and taking a rolled dollar bill and snorting it up your nose. Slade’s first reaction was a jolt, a rapid beating of his heart like he was going to have an attack. That jolt did not last that long but after that first attack subsided he felt no pain in his thigh, felt no anger in his heart. He grabbed the razor blade and diced up another line. You know the story from there, or can guess it. Know the end too.
But no you don’t know. Don’t know how sweet cousin made his days go by faster, made the ‘Nam nightmares that had plagued him, had robbed him of his sleep, had made the night sweats go away for a while (even he admitted before he got to be a too far gone daddy in the days when he at least accepted the idea of “de-tox” that it was only for a while, only until the effect subsided). Then reality hit, the reality that to keep an even keel he needed more dope and more dope meant more money, and there was not enough money in the world to curb his hurts. He hustled first cons, then himself. Became a sneak thief and stole everything that was not nailed down. Finally winding up as usually happened with a guy with a big habit acting a stupid “mule” for Ronnie Romero, the big connection guy in El Cajon.
One night he had been out at a park after bringing a load of goods over the border when a middle-aged guy, a be-bop kind of guy, what in the old days in places like New York City and Frisco town they called a hipster, hipster meaning cool back then sized him up and asked him if he wanted to “get well.” Get back on top. Slade, now so deep into the drug scene that he was game for anything said sure. That max daddy hipster put the first, although not the last needle in Slade’s arm. He had a rush ten times greater than any cocaine boost had ever given him. Somehow he knew for a while that he had better not go to the mat with horse, with boy. And for a couple of years he would do a hit on occasion while working for that hipster around town selling his wares. But in the end he forgot the first rule-the seller does not test the merchandise. And so there was a direct correlation between his increased horse use and the lessening of his cousin.
No one knew Slade was dying when he came back to Riverdale after many years absence, after shedding a pants full of weight, after failing his last chance “de-tox” at Smiley VA Hospital in Frisco. But Slade knew before the end because he told Ralph one night that he had heard the “noise of wings,” a phrase he remembered from a childhood hymn, Angel Band, that had always impressed him because previously he had believed that those angel wings were silent. One night they found one Slade Jackson, purple heart Vietnam War veteran in a back alley humped up in a pile. The cause of death-heart failure. The real cause-Slade Jackson could never get enough dope in his system to turn his nightmares into dreams.
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the heroic revolutionary abolitionist, John Brown.
This is a repost of an earlier entry in order to honor the 150th Anniversary of John Brown's band of freedom fighters at Harpers Ferry
February is Black History Month. The name of the fiery revolutionary abolitionist John Brown is forever associated with that history.
Book Review
Reclaiming John Brown for the Left
JOHN BROWN, ABOLITIONIST, DAVID S. REYNOLDS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK, 2005
From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harper’s Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic- had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown and that Union soldiers marched to that song as they bravely headed south. I was then, however, neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown’s (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas ‘proxy’ wars against the expansion of slavery. Later study filled in some of those gaps and has only strengthened my strong bond with his memory. Know this, as I reach the age at which John Brown was executed I still retain my youthful admiration for him. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in America. Almost 150 years after his death this writer is proud to stand in the tradition of John Brown.
That said, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I can recommend Mr. Reynolds’s book detailing the life, times and exploits of John Brown, warts and all. Published in 2005, this is an important source (including helpful end notes) for updating various controversies surrounding the John Brown saga. While I may disagree with some of Mr. Reynolds’s conclusions concerning the impact of John Brown’s exploits on later black liberation struggles and to a lesser extent his position on Brown’s impact on his contemporaries, particularly the Transcendentalists, nevertheless on the key point of the central place of John Brown in American revolutionary history there is no dispute. Furthermore, Mr. Reynolds has taken pains to provide substantial detail about the ups and downs of John Brown’s posthumous reputation. Most importantly, he defends the memory of John Brown against all-comers-that is partisan history on behalf of the ‘losers’ of history at its best. He has reclaimed John Brown as an icon for the left against the erroneous and outrageous efforts of modern day religious and secular terrorists to lay any claim to his memory or his work. Below I make a few comments on some of controversies surrounding John Brown developed in Mr. Reynolds’s study.
If one understands the ongoing nature, from his early youth, of John Brown’s commitment to the active struggle against slavery, the scourge of the American Republic in the first half of the 19th century, one can only conclude that he was indeed a man on a mission. As Mr. Reynolds’s points out Brown took every opportunity to fight against slavery including early service as an agent of the Underground Railroad spiriting escaped slaves northward, participation as an extreme radical in all the key anti-slavery propaganda battles of the time as well as challenging other anti-slavery elements to be more militant and in the 1850’s, arms in hand, fighting in the ‘proxy’ wars in Kansas and, of course, the culmination of his life's work- the raid on Harper’s Ferry. Those exploits alone render absurd a very convenient myth by those who supported slavery or turned a blind eye to it and their latter-day apologists for it about his so-called ‘madness’. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one.
For those who like their political heroes ‘pure’, frankly, it is better to look elsewhere than the life of John Brown. His personal and family life as a failed rural capitalist would hardly lead one to think that this man was to become a key historical figure in any struggle, much less the great struggle against slavery. Some of his actions in Kansas (concerning the murder of some pro-slavery elements under his direction) also cloud his image. However, when the deal went down in the late 1850’s and it was apparent for all to see that there was no other way to end slavery than a fight to the death-John Brown rose to the occasion. And did not cry about it. And did not expect others to cry about it. Call him a ‘monomaniac’ if you like but even a slight acquaintance with great historical figures shows that they all have this ‘disease’- that is why they make the history books. No, the ‘madness’ argument will not do.
Whether or not John Brown knew that his military strategy for the Harper’s Ferry raid would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s plan, however, was essentially a combination of slave revolt modeled after the maroon experiences in Haiti, Nat Turner’s earlier Virginia slave rebellion and rural guerrilla warfare of the ‘third world’ type that we have become more familiar with since that time. 150 years later this strategy does not look so foolhardy in an America of the 1850’s that had no real standing army, fairly weak lines of communications, virtually uninhabited mountains to flee to and the North at their backs.
The execution of the plan is another matter. Brown seemingly made about every mistake in the book in that regard. However, this is missing the essential political point that militant action not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists had become necessary. A few more fighting abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and better propaganda work among freedman with connections to the plantations would not have hurt the chances for success at Harper’s Ferry.
What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist "avenging angel" in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years. It is possible that if Brown did not have this, by 19th century standards as well as our own, old-fashioned Calvinist determination that he would not been capable of militant action. Certainly other anti-slavery elements never came close to his militancy, including the key Transcendentalist movement led by Emerson and Thoreau and the Concord ‘crowd’ who supported him and kept his memory alive in hard times. In their eyes he had the heroic manner of the Old Testament prophet. Now this animating spirit is not one that animates modern revolutionaries and so it is hard to understand the depths of his religious convictions on his actions but they were understood, if not fully appreciated, by others in those days. It is better today to look at Brown more politically through his hero (and mine, as well) Oliver Cromwell-a combination of Calvinist avenger and militant warrior. Yes, I can get behind that picture of him.
By all accounts Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the German Revolution in the 1920’s. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown’s actions should be measured by history.
Militarily defeated at Harper's Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a ‘madman’ still cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and others have also misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy that led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming American military superiority. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political implications.
From a modern prospective Brown’s strategy for black liberation, even if the abolitionist goal he aspired to was immediately successful reached the outer limits within the confines of capitalism. Brown’s actions were meant to make black people free. Beyond that goal he had no program except the Chatham Charter which seems to have replicated the American constitution but with racial and gender equality as a cornerstone. Unfortunately the Civil War did not provide fundamental economic and political freedom. That is still our fight. Moreover, the Civil War, the defeat of Radical Reconstruction, the reign of "Jim Crow" and the subsequent waves of black migration to the cities changed the character of black oppression in the U.S. from Brown’s time. Black people are now a part of "free labor," and the key to their liberation is in the integrated fight of labor against the current seemingly one-sided class war and establishing a government of workers and their allies. Nevertheless, we can stand proudly in the revolutionary tradition of John Brown (and of his friend Frederick Douglass). We need to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the Civil War, not by emulating Brown’s exemplary actions but to moving the multi-racial American working class to power. Finish the Civil War.
Yeah, No Question War Is
Hell-With Peter Weir’s “Gallipoli” (1981) In Mind
By Film Critic Emeritus
Sam Lowell
As the readers of this
site may know I recently have retired, maybe semi-retired is a better way to
put it, from the day to day, week to week grind of reviewing film old and young
as I just hit my sixty-fifth year. That stepping aside to let Sandy Salmon take
his paces on a regular basis did not mean that I would be going completely
silent as I intended to, and told the current site administrator Greg Green who
I knew slightly from the film festival circuit, mainly Sundance and Augusta
when he worked at American Film Gazette,
as much, to do an occasional film review and general commentary. This is one of
those general commentary times. What has me exercised is Sandy’s recent review
of Australian director Peter Weir’s World War I classic Gallipoli starring Mark Lee and Mel Gibson. I take no issue with
Sandy since he did a fine job. What caught my attention was Sandy’s comment
about Archie’s, the role played by Mark Lee, fervent desire to join his fellow
Aussies on Gallipoli peninsula as a patriotic duty and a manly adventure. When
I did my own review of the film back in 1981 when the film first came out I
make a number of comments about my own military experiences and those of some
of the guys I hung around with in high school who had to make some decisions
about what to do about the war of our generation, the Vietnam War of the decade
of the 1960s.
While the action of the Australian
young men itching to get into the “action” of World War I (which by the way we have
just finished commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armistice
that end it 2018) preceded us by fifty years a lot of the same ideas were
hanging our old-time working- class neighborhood in Vietnam War times. More
than a few guys like Jim Leary and Freddie Lewis were like Archie ready,
willing and able to go fight the “red menace,” tip the dominoes our way, do
their patriotic duty take your pick of reasons. Maybe in Freddie’s case to get
out of the hostile household that he grew up in and maybe Jim like Archie a
little for the adventure, to prove something about the questions he had about
his manhood. I did not pick those two names out accidently for those names now
are permanently etched on that hallowed black granite wall down in Washington
that brings tears to my eyes old as I am every time I go there.
Then there were guys
like me and Jack Callahan, Pete Markin who didn’t want to go into the military,
didn’t want to enlist like Jim and Freddie but who having no real reason not to
go when our local draft boards sent “the letter” requesting our services did go
and survived. The main reason that we did not want to go, at least at the time,
not later when he got a serious idea of what war was about, was it kind of
cramped our style, would put a crimp in our drinking, doping, and grabbing
every girl who was not nailed down. Later Pete and I got religion, realized
that the other options like draft refusal which might have meant jail or
fleeing to Canada were probably better options. But we were like Archie and
Frank in Gallipoli working class kids
even though we had all been college students as well. When in our past was
there even a notion of not going when the military called, of abandoning the
old life in America for who knows what in Canada. We did what we did with what
made sense to us at the time even if we were dead-ass wrong.
And then of course there
is a story like Frank Jackman’s who grew up in a neighborhood even down lower
on the social scale than ours, grew up in “the projects,” the notorious
projects which our parents would threaten us with if we didn’t stop being a
serious drain on the family’s resources. Frank somehow was a college guy too
and like us “accepted” induction although he had more qualms about what the
heck was going on in Vietnam and about being a soldier. But like us he also
accepted induction because he could see no other road out. This is where the
story changes up though. Frank almost immediately upon getting to basic
training knew that he had made a mistake-had no business in a uniform. And by
hook or by crook he did something about it, especially once he got orders for
Vietnam. The “hook” part was that through a serious of actions which I don’t
need to detail here he wound up doing a little over a year in an Army stockade
for refusing to go to Vietnam. Brave man.The “crook” part was also through a series of actions which need not detain
us now, mostly through the civilian courts, he was discharged, discharged from
the stockade, honorably discharged as a conscientious objector.
Archie, Frank and their
Aussie comrades only started to get an idea, a real idea about the horrors of
war when they were in the trenches in front of the Turks also entrenched on
Gallipoli peninsula and being mowed down like so many blades of grass. Archie
and most of the crew that joined up with him were among those blades of grass.
It was at the point where Archie was steeling himself to go over the top of the
trenches after two previous waved had been mowed down and then himself being cut down by the Turkish machine-gun
firing that I realized how brave Frank Jackman’s actions were in retrospect.
