The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *Blues Legends Without The Frills- The Blues Of Sonny Terry And Brownie McGhee

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest " performing the classic "Key To The Highway".

CD REVIEW

Back To New Orleans, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Fantasy Records, 1989

Recently I reviewed in this space a DVD of “Rainbow Quest”, a 1960’s television show hosted by Pete Seeger, one of the premier folk anthologists, singers, transmitters of the tradition and “keeper” of the folk flame. One of the segments of that particular documentary (there are five in this series) featured Pete interviewing, playing along with and listening to the well-regarded folk/blues duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Needless to say after watching that performance I went scurrying for my Sonny and Brownie CDs. Mainly the work that I have of theirs is in compilations with other artists like Big Joe Williams but the present CD is a total solo Terry and McGhee effort. It is something of a greatest hits compilation. In any case, it can serve as a decent primer of the work of the pair, especially for those unfamiliar with their long careers.

Pete Seeger’s relationship with Sonny and Brownie went back to the days of the Almanac Singers (that included Woody Guthrie) and New York City in the early 1940’s. That above-mentioned segment gives some details about various goings on of those times and the genesis of some of the songs that are sung in the set. I have read elsewhere that at some point in their joint careers Sonny and Brownie stopped talking to each other even as they continued their professional lives together. Here, at least, they appeared to be civil to each other as the combination of Brownie’s guitar and vocals, Sonny’s smokin’ harmonica and accompaniment by Pete on the banjo is a rare treat.

The CD is in the same highly professional mode as that of the television performance. It is only necessary to add a few comments about what to listen for here. To highlight Brownie’s vocals and guitar playing and Sonny’s harmonica the traditional blues classic about a man who went over the edge to please his lady and paid the price you can hardly do better than “Betty and Dupree’s Blues” (also has been done in other variations by other artists under different titles, but the story line is the same). Elizabeth Cotton’s super classic “Freight Train” is well-covered. A couple of novelty-type songs round out this selection, “Let Me Be Your Big Dog” and “Fox Hunt”. Whether they talked to each other or not Sonny and Brownie were a potent combo spreading the blues gospel.

"Double Trouble"

Yes I got double trouble
What am I gonna do now?
Wanna leave here

Well you had trouble, I've got troubles too
Got double trouble, what am I gonna do?
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
Well the woman I been lovin'
Don't love me no more

"Death of Blind Boy Fuller"

He's gone, Blind Boy Fuller's gone away
He's gone, Blind Boy Fuller's gone away
Well he heard a voice calling, and he knew he could not stay

Well he called me to his bedside one morning, and the clock was strikin' four
Called me to his bedside one morning, and the clock was strikin' four
Brownie take my guitar and carry my business on, I won't stay here no more

Blind Boy had a million friends, north, east, south and west
Blind Boy had a million friends, north, east, south and west
Well you know it's hard to tell, which place he was loved the best

Well all you women of Blind Boy's, how do you want your lovin' done?
All of you women of Blind Boy's, how do you want your lovin' done?
I'll do my best, I'll do my best, to carry Blind Boy's business on

Goodbye Blind Boy!


I was goin' down the street
Didn't have one dime
The woman I been lovin'
Didn't pay me no mind
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
Ah the woman I been lovin'
Drove me from her door

Play it for me boys!

My father told me
When I was only a kid
What you gonna do son
Things happen like this
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
Yeah the woman I been lovin'
Drove me from her door

Well must I had now
Your heart in my hand
I would teach you little woman
How to treat a man
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
I'm blamin' you woman
Drove me from your door

Play it for me boys! Yeah double trouble!

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- On Memphis Minnie's Birthday-*Once Again A “Blues Mama” For Our Times- The Blues Of Maria Muldaur

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Maria Muldaur Perfoming "One Hour Mama".

CD Review

Richland Woman, Maria Muldaur, Stony Plain Records, 2001

This review was originally posted as a review for Maria Muldaur’s “Sweet Lovin' Ol’ Soul”. The main points made there apply here as well.

I have often noted that when white women cover blues songs done by the old classic black singers like Memphis Minnie, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton and the like some undefined ingredient is missing. Call it "soul" or the "miseries" or whatever you like but somehow the depths of a song are generally not reached. Not so here, as Maria Muldaur presents the second of an anticipated three albums covering some great classics of old time barrel house blues. (The first album was "Richland Woman's Blues", taking the title from a song by Mississippi John Hurt so you know Maria is reaching for the blues roots, no question).

Bessie Smith's "Put It Right Here" sticks out here. Blind Willie Johnson’s classic religiously-tinged “Soul Of A Man” and Mississippi Fred McDowell’s "I’ve Got To Move” get their proper workout. The big highlight though (and a very necessary “re-discovery”) is the tribute to Memphis Minnie, “In My Girlish Days” (I wish Maria would cover “Bumble Bee”. Whoa). As Maria points out in her liner notes (to “Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul”) some of these songs here are ones that she wanted to do earlier in her career but was either talked out or could not do justice to then. But now Maria knows she has paid her dues, I know she has paid her dues, and you will too. Listen.

"IN MY GIRLISH DAYS"

Late hours at night, trying to play my hand
Through my window, out stepped a man
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

My mama cried, papa did, too
Oh, daughter, look what a shame on you
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

I flagged a train, didn't have a dime
Trying to run away from that home of mine
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

I hit the highway, caught me a truck
Nineteen and seventeen, when the winter was tough
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

(spoken: Lord, play it for me now)

All of my playmates is not surprised,
I had to travel 'fore I got wise
I found out better
And I still got my girlish ways

*From The Karl Marx- Friedrich Internet Archives- In Defense Of The Paris Commune And Defense Of Its Class-War Prisoners-Third Address

Click on the headline to link to the Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels Archive online copy of the material mentioned in the title on the defense of the Paris Commune and its class-war prisoners.

Markin comment:

Readers of this space are, by now, familiar with my interest in the defense of class-war prisoners and, perhaps, know that I express that interest through support to the efforts of the Partisan Defense Committee (PDC). One of the reasons for that support of the PDC is its commitment to the non-sectarian defense of all class-war prisoners, a tradition in which it follows the old Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) principle expressed in the slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” That principle also animated the early James P. Cannon-led work of the International Labor Defense, the legal defense arm of the American Communist Party and of the early legal defense work of the Trotskyist American Socialist Workers Party.

Perhaps not as well known, although it would seem axiomatic to their theories, is the even earlier class-war prisoner defense work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as an expression of their concept expressed in the slogan “workers of the world unite.” In no place was this work more ardently pursued that in their defense against all-comers of the Paris Commune during its short, historic existence and later, after it was crushed of its refugees, exiles, prisoners and their families. Much of this work was done early on through the Marx-created and led First International, and after its demise in the wake of that defeat through other Marx-influenced national organizations. I am posting some material here to provide some examples of their efforts.

The important point here is that, to my knowledge, there was, at most, only one proclaimed Marxist in the leadership of the Commune, and not much more adherence among the plebeians and artisans who heroically defended the Commune. So, mostly, those being defended by Marx and Engels were leftist political opponents, in some cases, severe political opponents. That approach is what has animated my own legal defense work and, hopefully, yours. Here, by the way, is another slogan to end this comment, fittingly I think-All Honor To The Paris Communards! Long Live The Memory Of The Paris Commune!

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-All About The “Clip”

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-All About The “Clip”     

By Sam Lowell

By now it has become something of a cliché as I have noted that out of the deep recesses of my mind I have dredged up some memories of my earliest corner boy experiences from down in the mud, down in the base of society where some Hobbesian all against all is at work even if the players are clueless about social dread of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, let’s not kid each other “the projects” which strikes fear in the timid and respectable now, as it did then. Those dredgings running rampant form the basics of yet another piece. Part of what has stirred up those memory jogs revolved around getting together with the still standing members of my high school corner boy gang from Tonio’s Pizza Parlor for drinks and a little food at Jimmy Jack’s Lounge a few towns over from where we grew up, came of age, came of age as the story below will tell much too young. That in turn got me thinking about genesis and the guys I hung with early on well before high school doing the “best we could,” legally or legally. Here is what I had to say in the prior piece, actually cobbled together from the three prior pieces still germane to fill in some background as to why I have decided to take the trip to way back when, back to “from hunger” days mercifully passed if still embedded in my psyche:      

“Of all the corner boys (read: juvenile delinquents in some quarters a big term, a big concern in 1950s sociologist, criminologist, school administration, court and cop circles; sullen schoolboys serious in feeding their “wanting” habits in an age when all around them was plenty so maybe not so much sullen as angry in some other quarters; and,  misunderstood youth in yet others the bailiwick of concerned teachers, social workers, and library personnel- all three probably true in some senses) who hung around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor while we were going to North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I am the only one still standing who started his corner boy career at Carter’s Variety Store across town in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (read: “the projects” and although I have already made the point a million times the unwanted fate of plenty down at the base of society, down in the mud where things and people are not pretty). That experience started when I was a student at the Snug Harbor Elementary School located just outside the projects.

“I mentioned that I am the only Carter’s boy still standing but I was not the only one who made the turn to Tonio’s (see * at end for explanation of how that happened). There was one other one Peter Paul Markin who at Tonio’s was always known as the Scribe and I will use that name here rather than that pretension-filled moniker his mother laid on him. Now much ink (and many tears, many tears still) has been spilled in this publication about his latter exploits and the craziness of the Scribe when he was in high dudgeon at Tonio’s and a little later but little has been noted about the early days, the early corner boy days in elementary school when most of the Tonio’s boys we knew were clueless about the value of desperately poor kids joining together, hanging out to do, well “to do the best they could.”             

“I am not quite sure how the Carter corner boys started since it was already formed when I started hanging out along with the Scribe. Let’s leave it that this store was the only one in the whole projects area (and sadly still is) where residents without cars, including my family many times, or in need of some quick item could shop. The urban legend folk lore if you will was that from about day one of the project’s opening some group of young men, boys really, somewhere about ten or eleven years old started hanging around there, to hang around which was alright with Mister Carter as long as we were respectful (which we always were-there). (I would not find out until later through my own progressions that Carter’s was step one in the corner boy stages in that part of town the denizens going to Bert’s Market on Sea Street in junior high school and Dexter’s Ice Cream Parlor in Adamsville Square in high school like in the Acre in North Adamsville the stages were Larry’s Variety, Doc’s Drugstore and Tonio’s.)   

“I met the Scribe the first day of school in fourth grade after my family had moved to the projects from another project in Riverdale west of Boston when my father’s company moved to the area and he needed the work. That was in Miss Sullivan’s class, an old biddy who trucked no nonsense and who made it her profession to keep us after school for detention-even that first day which was supposed to be easy stuff. The Scribe was looking at some book, forgotten now, and I commented that it looked interesting to start a conversation. That was all the Scribe needed as he wowed me with the contents. And didn’t wow Miss Sullivan who kept us after school many nights for the continuous talking. After that after school detention business we went to Carter’s to see what was up once he told me fourth and fifth grade guys hung out there and it was okay.

“Later and elsewhere the Scribe, and to some extent me, would be the leaders of various corner boy combinations, would plan whatever needed to be planned, legal or illegal but then we were frankly naïve and really just foot soldiers. The deal was already set for leadership with Ronnie, George, Rodger, Lenny and a little later also the legendary Billy Bradley running the operations (all would later do various stretches of time in county and state prisons I think except Lenny who laid his head down in Vietnam during that war after having been given the “choice”-join the Army or do a nickel in some state jail). We had no problem with that since we were in thrall to the whole aura of the thing.”

In my first piece, important to set a certain tone for the bad karma fate of most corner boys and not just from my gang who wound up serving long jail time, or fell down to early deaths usually after some cop shoot-out, I mentioned how one pissed off Ronnie, Ronnie Mooney to give a last name since he is long dead from some failed armed robbery, gathered us together to seek revenge for some slight some teacher had given him, and he was going to burn down the school. Although the attempt, a very real attempt, failed we went along with his rage, with his plans since he was a fellow corner boy half-strange as that reason sounds today. (And as strange as I have mentioned previously how even today that does not seem irrational under the circumstances.)   


I have mentioned on a number of occasions and this is central to understanding Ronnie, later Billy and maybe even the Scribe in the end that they say, maybe they said is better, that juvenile delinquents are born not made. Have some genetic kink missing which throws everything off. That was true of Ronnie I believe for he had a really devious and sadistic bent but as a I noted in a subsequent piece about his musical abilities that was not all of what Ronnie was about then, if the bad side, the dark side came out more and more later. He, and we did too especially the Scribe and Billy Bradley, loved the emerging rock and roll that would define our generation’s main musical thrusts. Ronnie had a natural feel, a natural beat for the music and a very good voice. The same was true of Billy but more on him some other time when I want to develop the bond between the seemingly unbreakable bond between Scribe and Billy (which caused me a serious amount of anguish as the Scribe started describing Bill as his best friend). Ronnie lived to play the latest tunes for us by Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and what is important here the rise of doo-wop be-bop music.

I have already told the story of how Ronnie (and later with Billy) would in the summer after Carter’s closed and we were looking for something to do would gather us behind the school (that almost burned down school) and we would sing whatever he knew from rock and roll which was extensive and at one point when doo-wop surfaced that genre. At a critical point and maybe by the sheer force of his voice girls would come around, a couple at first then a whole bevy. In the distance at first but before long right up with us clapping and tapping to the new age beat.


Of course the doo-wop sessions led to boy-girl stuff but also led then ambitious Ronnie (and later Billy but the reader will have to wait for that) to realize that maybe he had enough talent to go big, become a rock and roll star. That certainly drove him for a while. Ronnie seemed to think that doo-wop would be his way out of the mud, the way away from that Hobbesian base although he would be clueless to that tern or philosophy, the way out of the rotten projects. And he, rightly I think, and probably said so to us then focused on that kind of future. Certainly he had the swoony girls swaying in the breezes part down. One night he won a school dance during intermission talent show doing Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven and netted a fifty- dollar savings bond as the prize. That set a course for him for a while.  

Although that might keep Ronnie’s eye on the prize for a while, he, and here he can stand in for every corner boy, every Carter’s corner boy always had a nagging sense that he was left out, had “wanting habits” that given his family’s standard of living meant that “no” was the answer when he asked either parent for anything beyond milk money for lunch (most of the times I never even got that). This where the wicked kink, the rotten DNA I guess came in whatever was happening. Ronnie won some of his leadership role by being smart, I would say now street smart, but also because he was both fearless in what he wanted to do and like the Scribe latter was always working up some plan, usually illegal or something like that. The “clip” was the thing that first got him a leadership role.  

Enter “the clip.” The clip to grab some dough for whatever. I have talked to other corner boys both from the Acre and elsewhere and the minute I say the word “clip” that is all I need to say. All we do from there is compare notes and discuss techniques. This seems to be a rite of passage. There were many variations and different results but the main idea was to hit a jewelry store, department store, record shop, a supermarket only if we were starving and do what we called the five-fingered discount, stole stuff. (One of my high school corner boys was so well known for the clip that his moniker was “Five Fingers” Kelly.) Usually we worked in teams with one guy as lookout and the other snatching the goods (I was too clumsy to do the actually stealing so I was the lookout-later though I would excel at hot-wiring, stealing cars.) You did your business and then left. Usually bring the stuff to Ronnie who knew how to move the merchandise. He would have no trouble selling records to girls who always seemed to have plenty of dough for such stuff so getting it a lot cheaper kept a good revenue stream going. That action kept us in coffee and cakes for a long time although I know I never stopped having that unspoken wanting more habit picked up from Ronnie. Funny as long as we did the clip nobody was ever caught, not even close. Later other guys were not so lucky when they went to the bigs, took to armed robberies and other felonies.          

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-All About The “Clip”     

By Sam Lowell

By now it has become something of a cliché as I have noted that out of the deep recesses of my mind I have dredged up some memories of my earliest corner boy experiences from down in the mud, down in the base of society where some Hobbesian all against all is at work even if the players are clueless about social dread of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, let’s not kid each other “the projects” which strikes fear in the timid and respectable now, as it did then. Those dredgings running rampant form the basics of yet another piece. Part of what has stirred up those memory jogs revolved around getting together with the still standing members of my high school corner boy gang from Tonio’s Pizza Parlor for drinks and a little food at Jimmy Jack’s Lounge a few towns over from where we grew up, came of age, came of age as the story below will tell much too young. That in turn got me thinking about genesis and the guys I hung with early on well before high school doing the “best we could,” legally or legally. Here is what I had to say in the prior piece, actually cobbled together from the three prior pieces still germane to fill in some background as to why I have decided to take the trip to way back when, back to “from hunger” days mercifully passed if still embedded in my psyche:      

“Of all the corner boys (read: juvenile delinquents in some quarters a big term, a big concern in 1950s sociologist, criminologist, school administration, court and cop circles; sullen schoolboys serious in feeding their “wanting” habits in an age when all around them was plenty so maybe not so much sullen as angry in some other quarters; and,  misunderstood youth in yet others the bailiwick of concerned teachers, social workers, and library personnel- all three probably true in some senses) who hung around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor while we were going to North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I am the only one still standing who started his corner boy career at Carter’s Variety Store across town in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (read: “the projects” and although I have already made the point a million times the unwanted fate of plenty down at the base of society, down in the mud where things and people are not pretty). That experience started when I was a student at the Snug Harbor Elementary School located just outside the projects.

“I mentioned that I am the only Carter’s boy still standing but I was not the only one who made the turn to Tonio’s (see * at end for explanation of how that happened). There was one other one Peter Paul Markin who at Tonio’s was always known as the Scribe and I will use that name here rather than that pretension-filled moniker his mother laid on him. Now much ink (and many tears, many tears still) has been spilled in this publication about his latter exploits and the craziness of the Scribe when he was in high dudgeon at Tonio’s and a little later but little has been noted about the early days, the early corner boy days in elementary school when most of the Tonio’s boys we knew were clueless about the value of desperately poor kids joining together, hanging out to do, well “to do the best they could.”             

“I am not quite sure how the Carter corner boys started since it was already formed when I started hanging out along with the Scribe. Let’s leave it that this store was the only one in the whole projects area (and sadly still is) where residents without cars, including my family many times, or in need of some quick item could shop. The urban legend folk lore if you will was that from about day one of the project’s opening some group of young men, boys really, somewhere about ten or eleven years old started hanging around there, to hang around which was alright with Mister Carter as long as we were respectful (which we always were-there). (I would not find out until later through my own progressions that Carter’s was step one in the corner boy stages in that part of town the denizens going to Bert’s Market on Sea Street in junior high school and Dexter’s Ice Cream Parlor in Adamsville Square in high school like in the Acre in North Adamsville the stages were Larry’s Variety, Doc’s Drugstore and Tonio’s.)   

“I met the Scribe the first day of school in fourth grade after my family had moved to the projects from another project in Riverdale west of Boston when my father’s company moved to the area and he needed the work. That was in Miss Sullivan’s class, an old biddy who trucked no nonsense and who made it her profession to keep us after school for detention-even that first day which was supposed to be easy stuff. The Scribe was looking at some book, forgotten now, and I commented that it looked interesting to start a conversation. That was all the Scribe needed as he wowed me with the contents. And didn’t wow Miss Sullivan who kept us after school many nights for the continuous talking. After that after school detention business we went to Carter’s to see what was up once he told me fourth and fifth grade guys hung out there and it was okay.

“Later and elsewhere the Scribe, and to some extent me, would be the leaders of various corner boy combinations, would plan whatever needed to be planned, legal or illegal but then we were frankly naïve and really just foot soldiers. The deal was already set for leadership with Ronnie, George, Rodger, Lenny and a little later also the legendary Billy Bradley running the operations (all would later do various stretches of time in county and state prisons I think except Lenny who laid his head down in Vietnam during that war after having been given the “choice”-join the Army or do a nickel in some state jail). We had no problem with that since we were in thrall to the whole aura of the thing.”

In my first piece, important to set a certain tone for the bad karma fate of most corner boys and not just from my gang who wound up serving long jail time, or fell down to early deaths usually after some cop shoot-out, I mentioned how one pissed off Ronnie, Ronnie Mooney to give a last name since he is long dead from some failed armed robbery, gathered us together to seek revenge for some slight some teacher had given him, and he was going to burn down the school. Although the attempt, a very real attempt, failed we went along with his rage, with his plans since he was a fellow corner boy half-strange as that reason sounds today. (And as strange as I have mentioned previously how even today that does not seem irrational under the circumstances.)   


I have mentioned on a number of occasions and this is central to understanding Ronnie, later Billy and maybe even the Scribe in the end that they say, maybe they said is better, that juvenile delinquents are born not made. Have some genetic kink missing which throws everything off. That was true of Ronnie I believe for he had a really devious and sadistic bent but as a I noted in a subsequent piece about his musical abilities that was not all of what Ronnie was about then, if the bad side, the dark side came out more and more later. He, and we did too especially the Scribe and Billy Bradley, loved the emerging rock and roll that would define our generation’s main musical thrusts. Ronnie had a natural feel, a natural beat for the music and a very good voice. The same was true of Billy but more on him some other time when I want to develop the bond between the seemingly unbreakable bond between Scribe and Billy (which caused me a serious amount of anguish as the Scribe started describing Bill as his best friend). Ronnie lived to play the latest tunes for us by Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and what is important here the rise of doo-wop be-bop music.

I have already told the story of how Ronnie (and later with Billy) would in the summer after Carter’s closed and we were looking for something to do would gather us behind the school (that almost burned down school) and we would sing whatever he knew from rock and roll which was extensive and at one point when doo-wop surfaced that genre. At a critical point and maybe by the sheer force of his voice girls would come around, a couple at first then a whole bevy. In the distance at first but before long right up with us clapping and tapping to the new age beat.


Of course the doo-wop sessions led to boy-girl stuff but also led then ambitious Ronnie (and later Billy but the reader will have to wait for that) to realize that maybe he had enough talent to go big, become a rock and roll star. That certainly drove him for a while. Ronnie seemed to think that doo-wop would be his way out of the mud, the way away from that Hobbesian base although he would be clueless to that tern or philosophy, the way out of the rotten projects. And he, rightly I think, and probably said so to us then focused on that kind of future. Certainly he had the swoony girls swaying in the breezes part down. One night he won a school dance during intermission talent show doing Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven and netted a fifty- dollar savings bond as the prize. That set a course for him for a while.  

Although that might keep Ronnie’s eye on the prize for a while, he, and here he can stand in for every corner boy, every Carter’s corner boy always had a nagging sense that he was left out, had “wanting habits” that given his family’s standard of living meant that “no” was the answer when he asked either parent for anything beyond milk money for lunch (most of the times I never even got that). This where the wicked kink, the rotten DNA I guess came in whatever was happening. Ronnie won some of his leadership role by being smart, I would say now street smart, but also because he was both fearless in what he wanted to do and like the Scribe latter was always working up some plan, usually illegal or something like that. The “clip” was the thing that first got him a leadership role.  

Enter “the clip.” The clip to grab some dough for whatever. I have talked to other corner boys both from the Acre and elsewhere and the minute I say the word “clip” that is all I need to say. All we do from there is compare notes and discuss techniques. This seems to be a rite of passage. There were many variations and different results but the main idea was to hit a jewelry store, department store, record shop, a supermarket only if we were starving and do what we called the five-fingered discount, stole stuff. (One of my high school corner boys was so well known for the clip that his moniker was “Five Fingers” Kelly.) Usually we worked in teams with one guy as lookout and the other snatching the goods (I was too clumsy to do the actually stealing so I was the lookout-later though I would excel at hot-wiring, stealing cars.) You did your business and then left. Usually bring the stuff to Ronnie who knew how to move the merchandise. He would have no trouble selling records to girls who always seemed to have plenty of dough for such stuff so getting it a lot cheaper kept a good revenue stream going. That action kept us in coffee and cakes for a long time although I know I never stopped having that unspoken wanting more habit picked up from Ronnie. Funny as long as we did the clip nobody was ever caught, not even close. Later other guys were not so lucky when they went to the bigs, took to armed robberies and other felonies.    

      

50th Years Gone Jack Gone And What Might Have Been- The Lonesome Hobo-In Honor Of Ti Jean Kerouac’s “Lonesome Traveler”

50^th Years Gone Jack Gone And What Might Have Been-  The Lonesome Hobo-In Honor Of Ti Jean Kerouac’s “Lonesome Traveler” 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Million-word pre-word processor so golf score pencil and Woolworth’s 5&10 cent store notebook fitted for flannel shirt pockets Jack (nee Jeanbon, nee Ti Jean, nee everyman, every man, and every woman with the fire in the belly to write) bellowed out in the good earth night, bellowed out in the night from the womb, bellowed about loneness, loneness in crowds, and sign of the age loneness. Not loneliness, not on the surface, not with Acre kidding corner boys crowding around (mostly French-Canadian boys who set the tone of the town, adieu this and that, but some Irish and Greek boys too, especially mad monk poet Sammy, hanging around Leclerc’s Variety Store), Jack-crowding, small-breasted F-C loves (oohing ,aah-ing in the dark- haired angel man thought ) swaying to Benny on the be-bop 1930s night and tossing and turning over Ti Jean words and clowning arounds (and secret Irishtown  girl love spoken of before and now done), Jack-crowding, Adonis full field, full football field heroics, crowds cheering against bread and roses fed arch –rivals, Jack-crowding, Village cafes, full, chock full of the hip, the want-to-be hip, the faux hip, waiting, waiting on some dark-haired golden boy to rescue them from the little box night, Jacking-crowding, ditto Frisco, ditto New Jack City redux, ditto Jack-crowding. 

So not loneliness he but lonesome cosmic wanderer from  youth as partner to the crowds, up in small, immensely small twelve- year old bedrooms playing full- fledged leagues of solo jack baseball, sitting solo in fugitive Lowell libraries reading up a storm from Plato to kinsman Voltaire (via Acadian Gaspe dreams), sitting solo in some sigma phi dorm room munching chocolate bars, vanilla puddings, great greasy sugared crullers after hearty beef meals, as companion pouring over tales of greek gods and Homer, sitting solo (hard to do, believe me ) astern ships on big wave oceans ready to devour man, beasts and ship whole, sitting solo in midnight slum New Haven rooms, small hot stove, coffee pot percolating, ditto later in Frisco town, ditto in big sur town, ditto in Tangiers town, ditto down in mere Florida town, ditto solo.

Ditto too solo adventures on west coast work ship piers, solo sweaty dusty south of the border Mexican nights adventures, solo brakeman of the world trackless night adventures, solo sea- sick sailor going to fugitive night adventures, solo weird New Jack City 1950s beat scene adventures, solo big rock candy mountain and the void adventures, solo stumble around Europe on a dollar a day adventures, and solo mad cap late night chronicler of the hobo jungle world vanishing adventures. And hence crowded solo lonesome karmic writings and big word blasts, and smiling, smiling, maybe Buddha-like, at the connected-ness of it, of the one-ness of it, of the god-like symmetry of it. And a Ti Jean kindred tip of the hat.             

In The Age Of A Cold Civil War-Immigrant Or Citizen- Know Your Rights From The ACLU-Short Course

In The Age Of A Cold Civil War-Immigrant Or Citizen- Know Your Rights From The ACLU-Short Course 

Comment

          In the age of Trump no matter how many generations you and yours have been here in America the beginning of wisdom is to know your rights such as they are and who to contact if they “come in the morning” for you and yours.

   

When Hunks Like Robert Mitchum Lighted Up The Film Noir Heavens- Faith Domergue’s “Where Danger Lives” (1950)-A Review

When Hunks Like Robert Mitchum Lighted Up The Film Noir Heavens- Faith Domergue’s “Where Danger Lives” (1950)-A Review

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

Where Danger Lives, starring Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Robert Mitchum, directed by legendary film noir director John Farrow, 1950

The reader may wonder, no, may be in shock that young Sarah Lemoyne, me, is reviewing a 1950s film noir minor classic Where Danger Lives starring Robert Mitchum one of the half dozen or so best- known male noir leads rather than the expected “expert” on the genre Sam Lowell or at least a well-known reviewer like my mentor Seth Garth. Thank site manager Greg Green for that although after all that is what he gets paid for. Paid for putting out what he has termed “the fire.” The “fire” in this case the nondescript “dispute” if it can be said to rise to that level between the now slightly wizened Sam Lowell (my concession to Sam via Greg after consistent and provable accusations by me that he, Sam, has become both mentally and physically a shell of what his old-time legend bought and paid for by the studios and book publishers had been, had become wizened and senile from his rantings against a harmless young woman like me trying to learn her craft) and me over my so-called allegations about who actually wrote his film reviews after his breakthrough tome on film noir which is still considered by some of the diminishing clot of  older writers on the subject the definitive volume but which I made the “mistake” of saying was dated and left me cold, left me out in the cold in trying to understand the genre. Frankly should have been revised by him, or somebody about twenty years ago when neo-noir films like L.A. Confidential and Mullholland Drive took the genre in another direction. Also should have included at least a tip of the hat to the idea that most of the guys, private detectives, crooks, criminals and skirt-chasers were deeply misogynous. But that would have thrown his precious main theory about “man’s fate” into the trash heap and his book into the remainder bins.      

Although I have proof positive that mainly stringers, usually female stringers romantically involved with him if you can believe that , or believe that this mountebank has actually been married three times and has a bunch of nice kids, or young women looking to get up the professional male-dominated food chain he has muddied the waters so much that it is hard to believe that he did not do the deeds as noted. Worse of all personally were his insinuations, hurtful insinuation to both Seth Garth, allegedly his old school boy friend, and my partner Clara that Seth and I were in the throes of some intergenerational romance. Thoughts of a dirty old man who under other circumstances should have been relieved of his duties, except he had already been relieved of them through what was supposed to be his retirement. That “hanging around like Father Death,” Seth’s take on the matter is what has brought Seth to my defense and assistance much to Clara and my appreciation (although it was touchy for a while when she thought I was in my “man” interest stage after having gone to dinner with him alone one night since I have always been a “B” in the LGBTQ firmament while she is exclusively “L”).

All that is over now though, all the mutual mudslinging is over courtesy of Greg who did what most editors do when their writers start to wrangle to the detriment of the work. Called us in to walk the plank, for me to walk the plank or so I thought given Sam’s vast seniority. But no Greg the fount of wisdom just told Sam that Sarah should do a film noir review, a review of one of the examples that Sam used in that long-ago book everybody went crazy over. Not a major example but a sturdy one as this Where Danger Lives is. In return Sam is too do a musical or was to do a musical because when Greg suggested that he balked. Sam balked and said he would go back into cubbyhole retirement and leave the field to the younger writers. Thanks Sam but I still wanted to do this review to show my stuff so I too can climb up that cutthroat food chain you have withdrawn from with seeming good grace. So here we are.

After perusing Seth’s copy of Sam’s The Life And Times Of Film Noir:1940-1960 I noticed at least in the femme fatale section proper that Sam has made quite a case for some “going along minding his own business man,” usually a a professional man, being “mantrapped” by some vampish woman with evil designs on his time and happiness. (By the way, btw in Internet speak, perusing Sam’s book is all anybody could reasonably be expected to do since at 900 hundred long drawn out pages not even the most devoted besotted, book-wormish aficionado could wallow through the whole thing except those who have no other life and time on their hands than to wade through such things. Even Seth has told me and he has said it was okay to use his remarks here that he has never read the whole thing, never would have been able to so even as nighttime before bed reading. Especially as bedtime reading. Seth always said that Sam was a great reviewer but when he went beyond that put out the lights. Of course, Seth had the advantage, if it was an advantage, of having been present at the creation as he says while Sam was lumbering along on the volume and so knows exactly where Sam’s head was when he wrote the thing.                            

I will give you an example of what I mean by the so-call mantrap defense of the guy coming under the spell of some wayward femme fatale who takes no prisoners. In discussing the high classic Out of the Past starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas a section that goes on for some one hundred pages alone longer than the plot outline Sam gives the most useful for our purposes case for his dog-eared theory. Kirk, a minor gangster working out of Reno who would have been devoured alive by the sharks in Vegas, hired Jeff, Mitchum’s role, to seek Kathy, played by Jane, his errant girlfriend who has run off with a fistful of his dough and what amounted to the “finger.” Jeff, a professional detective, went to Mexico her last known whereabouts to find her, bring her back and collect his fee as any professional detective would have done and be done with it. Simply. Except once Jeff got down south, got to waiting around some off-beat cantina for her to appear once she did and he got his looks at her all his resolve vanished. I admit Jane Greer was a looker, would be a looker today too with that “come hither” look that men have found attractive in me when I am into listening to them sweet talk me which has not been for a while now. (They could learn something from Seth by the way who when he took Clara and me out to dinner, a dinner after the dinner we had alone which had upset Clara no end and got her yelling habits on, to ruffle things out she said to clear the air that if he was interested in me romantically that he would not beat about the bush about it. Said that he would have, as Clara had, taken dead aim at me. That made me feel good and hopefully satisfied Clara). 

But Jeff was a pro, was supposed to do his business and forget it. Instead he got hung up on some vagrant jasmine   scent, something in the sultry air, something about the way she turned her head just so and bought into some evil plot she had hatched up to get him to od her bidding, to get her to forget to bring her back to Kirk. And who knows what madness since not only did she grab Kirk’s dough but winged him with a couple of slugs in her girlish gun-simple way. In the end he will be betrayed by her, will be left holding the bag for a killing of another detective, will be forced to duck out and hide his identity in some two-bit California town and in the end wind up in some un-mourned ditch bleeding like a sieve. I could say more but the reader gets the picture of a man who can’t get out of the spider-like clutches of a woman. We, Sam wants us to believe, should bleed for Jeff just because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants on a job. Couldn’t say no. Yeah, right.

I suggest that Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon turning over the faithless Bridget and her stuff of dreams when she tried to have him take her place in the big step-off and Phil Marlowe in The Big Sleep when he foiled Carmen’s “come hither” advances and took gangster Eddie Mars down for the count had the better professional attitude when the deal went down. So much for Sam’s silly idea that the guy is just victim, just a patsy for whatever any stray good-looking woman has in store for him. That whole bogus sentiment will come into play when I set up the plotline and theory behind the film under review.

There is always one moment of no turning back in each film noir I have seen but except for what book reviewer Josh Breslin calls “holy goofs,” guys a la Jack Kerouac’s characterization who could not talk and chew gum at the same time, a moment when the guy makes the wrong turn. Except that wrong turn is not without volition on the part of the male and is not some Calvinistic predestination gambit where free choice either doesn’t matter or can’t be bought for love or money since he is not one of the elect and a doomed soul. Take the good doctor here Jeff, Mitchum’s role, funny Jeff was also the name of the wayward private detective in Out of the Past who wound up with a couple of slugs in him via a gun-simple femme in a graven ditch out in nowhere. He had a promising career in front of him, good bedside manner, a good if not outstanding resume and a girlfriend nurse who if not startingly beautiful like sultry Margo, Faith’s role, at least would be a good life partner and bedmate. He could have had it all and had no complains.       

Enter exotic flower mysterious Margo via a suicide attempt into the emergency room while Jeff was on duty. Margo, admittedly the clinging type set off something in him beyond his desire to make sure she did not attempt another end to her life especially when she “did the dixie,” a term via Seth via Sam, on him and set him on a search for her. Right there he should have, could have dropped the whole thing. No, this good doctor actually made a house call for crying out loud. What doctor this side of Nick Adams’ father in the Hemingway series of the same name made house calls once the AMA pulled the brakes on that practice citing too much wasted time and too few billable hours.         

           

Okay, sometimes a guy, a gal too I know I did with a couple of partners before Clara, will get infatuated and then sober up. Will let the thing die on the vine because things don’t add up. This is where Sam is all wrong in his wrong-headed theory. One night at some gin mill rendezvous dear sweet Margo tried to brush Jeff off claiming her father, her rich as Midas but demanding father, needed her to go on a vacation with him. False flag, red flag for any sane guy. What does the big broad-shouldered, jut-jawed lug do. Run out to her house to confront her father, to give him the real deal that he wanted to marry his daughter. Except that her “father” was really her husband and this was a non-incestuous relationship because she lied to Jeff, admitted she lied to Jeff right in front of hubby and her fall guy. Jeff could have walked, sort of did walk, except a sudden scream from Margo from inside the house sent him back in. Yeah, yeah, Sam like she forced him back. He wanted to on his hands and knees and with a smile- for his own desires.    

That walk back through those un-pearly gates led to his demise, led to his willing demise, his big step off when after fighting hubby, a much older man, who fell down after beating Jeff about his witless head. It turned out that he had killed the old man-and was at the same time subject to the trauma of a concussion in his medical self-examination world. Groggy, he accepted responsibility for the killing despite the old man still breathing while he was injured. He wanted to report the accident after all that was what it to the cops but against all good sense, against his still substantial ability to make decisions despite his head injury Margo talked him out of it. From there it is nothing but a run south to the border and freedom for the pair. Naturally to juice up the plot they run into plenty of hassles before they get to that precious Mexican border and the good life, the free life. All the while Margo was acting very weird, acting like she has something to hide. Which she did. I hope I offend nobody in the mentally-challenged community but she was a very disturbed woman who moreover had actually killed her hubby with a pillow which Jeff was clueless about. Clueless about until he stopped being of use to her as his head injury condition made him less useful for the final fateful getaway.

It was not until dear Margo gave him her patented old pillow treatment that he finally wised up, finally knew she had a screw loose. Confronting her with his so-called newfound wisdom right at the border and freedom fence she did the Kathy on him, fed him a couple of slugs for his efforts. Another gun-simple woman. Not so strange the coppers who have been hounding the pair from out in the desert somewhere to the border threw some slugs into her. She did do something Kathy never would have done, a gesture for love as Rick of Rick’s Café Americain would have said, twisted love maybe, and gave a deathbed confession absolving Jeff. Jeff, undeservedly lived to doctor on, lived to go back to that ordinary sweetie nurse and to avoid another walk on the wild side.        

Sam Lowell may not like it but his she-devil noise about the women, the femme fatales is all smoke and mirrors, all is now pricked like some kid’s balloon. Even Seth, as devoted if not as well known a film noir aficionado as Sam, paid me the compliment of saying that I had put a searchlight on something that had bothered him for a long time about Sam’s silly theory. That helpless male victim part by grown men of the world. He still is not totally convinced of my take on the matter but he respects it and if I give some more proofs he, unlike Sam, is willing to jump ship. Welcome aboard, mate.