The Trials and Tribulations Of The Generation Of ’68-The Summer of 1969-Frank Jackman Casts His Fate With The Poor Peoples Of The Earth-And Tweaking The U.S. Army To Boot-With Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” In Mind

The Trials and Tribulations Of The Generation Of ’68-The Summer of 1969-Frank Jackman Casts His Fate With The Poor Peoples Of The Earth-And Tweaking The U.S. Army To Boot-With Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” In Mind  

By Frank Jackman 

Maybe it is the nature of this publication, maybe it is the nature of historic memory or maybe it is the nature of this man, me, this Frank Jackman who has staked his life on what he remembered hearing a long time ago on a radio folk music show in the heat of the folk minute that swept the nation, the nation’s youth particularly in the early 1960s when he was growing up poor in the old Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville a bunch of miles south of Boston. He had been startled to hear one Pete Seeger, banjo man extraordinaire playing that instrument and singing alternately in Spanish and English the old Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti’s version of Guantanamera when he came upon a later verse translated as “I want to cast my fate with the poor people of this earth.”* The story I have to tell, a personal Frank Jackman story is how in the summer of 1969, fifty years ago, yes, I know a lot of 50^th anniversaries have been addressed in this publication over the past few years by members of the Class of `68 still standing, had been a key decision point in my own fervent desire to cast my fate with the poor people of the earth. And have not done a bad job of staying committed to that vision at a time when things could have gone either way in that hell-bent Vietnam War year.    

[*I was about to say that with this song this was the first time I had even heard of the name Pete Seeger, a name I would come to know as a fellow activist and later when I took up writing reviews of music that mattered in the American songbook I got to know him personally as a “hail fellow, well met” but that is not true. Not true although that Sunday evening WBZ (in Boston) Dick Summer’s folk show I rightly assumed I had not heard of the man or his voice before because of one   Lester Dannon (known in the local professional music world as Lester Dannon and his Cannons, a jazzy, pop music grouping favored among the older set, the generation that had gone through the Great Depression and slogged through World War II as he had, my parent’s generation for weddings and family outings).  Lester whom we kids called innocently then without any other thought that taking part in a youthful rhyming craze called Lester the Molester, which these days would call for all kinds of interventions and investigations, had force-fed the most popular work of Pete’s and a group that he was a member of The Weaver’s cover of Leadbelly’s Goodnight, Irene.

Lester may have not been a molester, but he had a plan to wean us away from our growing love of break-out rock and roll music which he hated by playing on the record player and having us sing folk tunes like Irene and pop tunes from his, our parent’s generation. We bucked and buckled under that horrible weight for three junior high school years but gave in to the inevitable when he threatened to play classic music and opera if we didn’t learn his clowny stuff. (Lester may have not been a molester of anything but our growing music taste buds although he was caught up unjustly in a scandal later when the junior high school male gym teacher was fired because he was sexually molesting young underage boys although not from the school or town but elsewhere part of the reason he was able to be a predator for as long as he had been. We had to bring a big campaign to clear Lester’s name once we heard about the false accusations against him but that did not cause him to not hate rock and roll until his dying days or us to forgive him from ramming music we really did hate then, a generational thing, down our throats.)  

Many of the older writers still standing at this publication, I will just mention the guys I grew with still standing, Sam Lowell, Seth Garth, Jack Callahan, Allan Jackson, Bart Webber have written extensively the past couple of years on key anniversaries, key 50^th anniversaries which none of us would have thought possible back in the 1960s when the motto, if unspoken mostly was “live fast, die young, and make a good corpse.” Noteworthy and cause for much internal friction between older and younger writers who could have given a fuck about events their parents had come of age through happened a couple of years ago when then site manager Allan Jackson went crazy giving 24/7/365 or so it seemed to commemorating the Summer of Love, 1967 and subsequently the riotous happenings of 1968 too numerous to mention now but the anniversaries which were fully covered last year.*

Now in the year of the 50^th anniversary of Woodstock, the eternally etched rock festival that defined one end of a generation, we are in for another burst of writing about what it all meant historically and personally. It is with that backdrop that I tell my story which is not about Woodstock Nation, not then anyway, but about that previously mentioned then vague and untested idea of casting my fate with the poor people of the earth, my people. Others from that cohort of older writers I grew up with have written about my epiphany, especially Seth Garth’s Frank Jackman’s Masters of War but just now if nothing else as a cautionary tale I want to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of my personal decision to refuse orders to Vietnam, which is just a short cut way of saying that I had cast my fate with the poor people of the earth-for good.         

(*Look to the Archives from late 2017 to early 2018 to get the inside story of what happened to cause Allan Jackson’s downfall and subsequent short “exile” before new and current site manager Greg Green brought him back as a contributing editor. A short summary was that the younger writers balked at having to do assignments they didn’t’ care about to the exclusion of stuff they did know, brought the matter to a vote of no confidence, won the vote and brought Greg Green and an Editorial Board in to oversee that such things as Summer of Love mania never happened again. Strangely some of the assignments Greg decided on when he took charge, seemingly in order to assert his authority were frankly bizarre like the Marvel/DC comics come to cinema series that nobody young or old wanted to touch with a ten- foot pole.)

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Every guy and it was all guys then who came of age in most parts of the 1960s, who were of draft age, from eighteen to late twenty something, maybe later, had to face one big choice no matter where they stood on the issues of the day, on the Vietnam War. What to do about military service. Everybody from POTUS (Twitter speak) Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump down to the guys in the Acre neighborhood of growing up poor North Adamsville. I have heard many stories about how guys wound up in the military or figured a way around military duty over the past fifty years and have concluded that I would be less judgmental about how each person made their decision, except those who essentially bought their ways out like Bush and Trump but this story is not about them. It is a wonder so many survived their experiments, like those who found a way around going into the service like taking all kinds of drugs just before the dreaded physical which everybody passed unless you had some serious deficiency, military deficiency like only one leg or blindness, the Army needed two-legged men and non-visually-impaired men (now men and women) to hump the boonies as the saying went-meaning nowhere else in the world but sweated jungle, delta, river Vietnam. Like guys loading up on salt to drive their blood pressures up. Like declaring themselves homosexuals which today might seem weird giving the changes in policy but then meant you were refused and if you did get in and were found out that you really were gay subject to discharge and not an honorable one either (assuming that you were serious about your homosexuality and not just using it to avoid service which hung over guys for a long time.) Like guys declaring themselves fervent members of a whole number of communist organizations or their fronts when the security clearance questions were asked. That, by the way, lasted only so long until the Selective Service (the draft’s official organizational name) figured, knowingly figured from their FBI friends who had infiltrated those organizations in the previous decades, that there was a scam going on. The vast majority though one way or another who refused induction didn’t use these ruses some very clever but by a flat-out refusal to be drafted-not later when actually in the military as in my case.

The reader, hell, on reflection fifty years later writing this piece, me, may wonder why I did not join that last grouping by refusing military service as a civilian which took its own level of commitment and decision-making outside the box that society expected of us. I certainly knew that there were plenty of young guys, men who were refusing, although as I recall I did not know any personally on campus or elsewhere. I did know since I was working my way through college driving a truck and servicing coffee machines I passed the Arlington Street Church in the Back Bay section of Boston which was a central sanctuary for draft-resisters. Go back though to that point I made about coming from the hard-core working class, working poor Acre section of North Adamsville and that will give a better idea of why I had not resisted military service as a civilian. 

Start with the family, make that families since mine replicated the great majority of the families in the Irish-etched Roman Catholic Acre. Where would I have either learned or gained support from that milieu about not going into the military when my father had slogged through World War II in the Pacific War as a gung-ho Marine who faced all the island- hopping battles those Leathernecks were engaged in. Many other fathers and relatives had the same stories. (I was not close probably ever to my very distant father who had like many men from his generation had seen the ugly face of war and kept quiet about what they saw after their service did tell me one time that he, a son of the Hazard. Kentucky coalmines enlisted in the Marines on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, on the idea that he would rather take his chances against the Nips, a derogatory term for the Japanese then, than face life in the mines and what that meant and had never looked back. Maybe to his personal sorrows since he had nothing but a very tough life when he married my mother and landed in her hometown Acre neighborhood)    

Moreover even in my own Acre neighborhood generation, the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor corner boys as we called ourselves, which came of age not only under the sign of rock and roll but of the great Cold War ideologies and concepts which were held pretty firmly if not totally understood provided no cover for what I would do. My high school graduation class of 1964 for example had as I later found out when the males were asked for their military service if any almost all had some such record. Among Tonio corner boys as the war escalated every single guy with the exception of a couple who had disabilities which precluded military service wound up serving in Vietnam including the late Peter Markin who of all of us would had been the logical choice as a resister. (Markin whose life and fate still bring a tear to our eyes when we mention his name took his service harder than the others and would wind up falling down in the end to an early grave already extensively written about by everybody in our crowd including me, a bitter fate for a guy who was always ahead of the curve in our crowd about which way the social winds were blowing). Top that off with the deaths of two corner boys, Rick Rizzo and David White, whose names are forever etched on the Adamsville town memorial stone and down in black granite down in Washington, who laid down their heads in some bloody swamps in Vietnam and you get an idea of what the milieu was like and how likely the ideas of resistance were to come intellectually to me without some serious trial to confront me. (My family and many other families which I learned about second-hand after the dust had settled not only hated or did not understand what I did but supported the war efforts long after even guys like POTUS Richard M. Nixon had tried to get out from under anyway he could).   

No, no, now that I am on my high horse it is not good enough blame the social milieu as the defining reason for allowing myself to be inducted into the Army in January of 1969 against all good reason. No question a different milieu say in Shaker Heights and among the elite college brethren and intelligentsia would have provided more thought-provoking possibilities but that denies my, Frank Jackman’s, sense of himself and his desires and concerns. I believe I have written about it elsewhere in this publication and if not then I certainly have mentioned it in a million conversations the contradictions between that stated purpose of “casting my fate with the poor people of the earth” which has animated this whole piece and what I thought my life’s goals, destiny if you like, were to be can be summarized in what I was about in the fall of 1960 when I was just fourteen.

I had always been interested in politics, history, government, something I shared with the late Markin. Which did not preclude either of us from being extremely larcenous corner boys or totally bonkers about girls, cars and sex in whatever order you want to put those elemental categories like the other guys who lived and died exclusively on that plateau. Markin and I, although we had deeply imbibed the Cold War anti-communist ideologies that choked American society in the 1950s, had other ideas as well, centrally concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and a stirring concern about the emerging black civil rights struggle down the South. Ideas which we tended not to discuss with the fellow corner boys who would have either red-baited or race-baited us. In 1960 the blessed Quakers, and they were blessed and always will be as the reader will find out later when the deal when down in the summer of 1969 whatever religious or political differences we had then or now along with prominent liberals like Doctor Spock, the famous baby doctor whose words of wisdom many mothers although not Acre mothers lived and died by decided to have a nation-wide event to call for nuclear disarmament in October of that year.

Despite all kinds of advice, maybe some veiled threats, certainly scorn from fellow students and the civics teacher I argued for that cause in school and had decided to go to Boston, to the historic protest spots on Boston Common to take part in the nation-wide observance. Even, and maybe especially, our corner boy leader Frankie Riley argued against my going (we even made a corner boy famous bet about whether I would go or “chicken out”) since he feared for my life if I went there giving the times and given the reaction of what I would later call the rednecks. I went (winning that bet gladly since I could have money for a date with a certain girl I was then for a minute interested in) and met those forthright Quakers and a few others who braved the scorn of the crowds to protest the nuclear arms race. If one thinks today that politics and prejudices are ugly and headed to civil war if not stopped in their tracks then you get the idea back then right out on those mean streets, maybe more in your face if you can believe that.     

Contradiction. The fall of 1960 was also the time this country was knee deep in the upcoming presidential election between one Richard Milhous Nixon and our own Irish Jack Kennedy. “Our own” no wrong term for we were crazy in the Irish-strewn Acre to see Jack beat that bastard Nixon. I would all fall go door to door putting literature in doors touting Jack’s candidacy. For those who don’t remember or are too young a central component of Jack’s campaign was that there was a “missile gap,” with the Soviets overhauling us with ways to take advantage of their larger number of weapons, nuclear weapons. So in one short period I could, and did, express my sincere beliefs in nuclear disarmament in Boston and in tribal Jack of the gap. That would not be the first time or the last that such contradictions ruled my universe. In 1968, remember Bobby Kennedy with a tear, I went crazy around the East Coast trying to get him elected before he was felled breaking many dreams and my heart. More importantly to what will follow I let my somewhat vague, upon reflection, anti-war sentiments get overwhelmed by all the other considerations about why I should have refused induction, including a girlfriend whose brother was serving in Vietnam.

Forward though to January 1969. As previously pointed out there were little points of rebellion about going into the Army, but they did not dominate, no way and if the impression has been left that this was the case that is wrong. Probably the truest statement would be some kind of belief that either war would be over before I had to confront what every male of my generation had to confront whatever his personal beliefs might or that I expected somehow like at several times in my young life to skate by, not get called for some reason known only to me at the time. Given what was happening on the battlefields I think that the latter sentiment dominated. I got my “friends and neighbors at the draft board” notice in the early fall of 1968 to report for the inevitable almost forgone conclusion physical examination (that “friends and neighbors” the actual salutation on the letter). Naturally I passed it since at that time almost anybody with two arms and two legs passed unless they had some gimmick already to get them out but which even if I had known about it then would not have used still depending on luck I guess I would call it.

Then in December 1968, I think I got the notice to report to the Boston Army Base for induction (no longer there but now part of the up-scale Seaport District). While that certainly got my attention, I was still in some form of denial. Adding to that my girlfriend at the time (this after I had broken up with that girlfriend whose brother was in Vietnam for personal reasons) , Joyce, who had started graduate school at Boston University after having been through the “wars” out at the University of Wisconsin which along with Berkeley, Michigan and B.U. were among the most vociferous centers of anti-war opposition was pressuring me to refuse induction. Easy for her to say, although she would prove right and prove a stalwart as well during my imprisonments. Whatever idealistic views I had (via Robert Kennedy), some sloth and maybe my whole freaking youth in the Acre which could not and should not be discounted did not mesh-then. The only thing that might point to some future struggles on my part was that the day in January 1969 before I was to report for induction I had Joyce cut my longish hair (you could hardly be a young male in Boston without that longer hair to distinguish you from the rednecks) and giving the Army butcher-barbers the satisfaction of cutting my locks. Still I took the oath, accepted induction.

The expectation, gained from the Acre brethren who had already either served or were in the service in Vietnam like Sam Lowell, was that I would take basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey. What happened was that for reasons known only to the Army Dix was full or something so those inducted that day were sent first to Fort Jackson down in South Carolina and then transferred to Fort Gordon over in Augusta, Georgia (the site of the later to be revered by Sam Lowell Masters’ Golf Tournament) for basic. The former location is where I had my opening epiphany, where I first really knew I had made a mistake about accepting induction. And while it would still be premature to say I had decided to refuse to go the thought was getting etched into my psyche.

Stop. The previous pages represent a pretty good remembrance of my times before that fateful January day. In looking over what others like Sam Lowell, Seth Garth and Zack James (Alex from Carver’s younger brother who was too young to have been involved in all of this but who is a very good writer and hence has written, from outside the inner circle, a good piece on my travails). Rather than reinvent the wheel I think Sam should take over and tell once again his version of what I went through. Hell I have said enough let’s let site manager Greg Green publish his Introduction and Sam’s piece and if anybody has further questions they can comment and I will answer in return.    

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Introduction To Sam Lowell’s Frank Jackman’s Masters of War by Greg Green

Life is full of surprises as everybody over the age of about three knows firsthand even if that hard fact does not stand out and light a fire under you at every possible moment. Take my own situation. A couple of years ago I was working hard at the American Film Gazette managing the overall film review schedule and trying to outdo the legendary publisher Larry Lorton from Film Daily in the number of films we did reviews on. Then Pete Markin (aka Allan Jackson who used that moniker in honor of a fallen hometown friend who taught him and a few of the other writers here a thing or two about the profession although he eventually fell on his own sword which is a story many had detailed here over time and I need not go into) brought me over here to run the day to day operations while he readied himself for retirement or some other project. Jesus, then the Summer of Love, 1967, or rather the 50^th anniversary commemoration of the event hit this place like a whirling dervish. I was too young to know much about that time but had heard some pretty raw and scary stuff about drugs, unprotected sex, unlicensed or registered vehicles including some converted yellow school bus that became home for varying times by some of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor corner boys from the Acre  and other larcenies from writers here who had been there under Markin’s guidance, the real Markin not Allan. In any case Allan went crazy to make sure the damn event got almost as much coverage after 50 years as when the thing actually got off the ground and created what he and the others hatched up as a re-working of the antics of the Generation of ’68.

All well and good. Well not all well and good since the younger writers could in the words of Alden Riley one of the leaders of the Young Turks give a fuck about the fucking Summer of Love, 1967 or any other year in that decade. That led to a show-down and the demise of Allan Jackson, a founding member, and my elevation to site manager and the overall poohbah of this operation. According to what I hear around the water cooler things are calmer now that not everybody has to spent 24/7/365 neck-deep in the 1960s like that was the golden age, like that was the Garden as Lance Lawrence mockingly called it.

All this to say that some of the stuff from the 1960s, and the recently concluded The Roots is the Toots rock and roll series is one example that I was more than happy to give an encore presentation to (admittedly after a little nudge from Sam Lowell and others), is worth another inspection. That brings us to the real-life story below about what happened to Frank Jackman when he was of draft age, eighteen to who knows how long if things ever got really dicey, in the age when that meant something and meant some tough decisions for a whole generation of young men who didn’t know what the hell to do when their number got called. Yeah, maybe this tale is not the sexiest one on the block, on the lowdown of the 1960s when youth nation went overboard with sex, drugs and rock and roll but fifty years or so later it still reads like a good story that people should know about-and shout from the rooftops about as we enter another year of endless war in the endless wars of our times.

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Frank Jackman’s War from the pen of Sam Lowell

(I have changed up locales and people’s names but the story-line is as pure as I can make it for my friend Frank Jackman-S.L.)

Jack Callahan’s old friend from Sloan High School in Carver down in Southeastern Massachusetts Alex James (Alex short for Alex not as is the fashion today to just name a baby Alexander and be done with it) is an amateur writer and has been at it since he got out of high school. Found out that maybe by osmosis, something like that, the stuff Miss Enos taught him junior and senior years about literature and her favorite writers Hemingway, Edith Wharton and Dorothy Parker to name a few, with which she would entice the English class stuck with him with through college where although he majored in Political Science he was in thrall to the English literature courses that he snuck into to his schedule. Snuck in although Alex knew practically speaking he had a snowball’s chance in hell, an expression he had learned from Hemingway he thought, of making a career out of the literary life, would more likely wind up driving a cab through dangerous midnight sections of town occasionally getting mugged for his night’s work. That Political Science major winding up producing about the same practical results as the literary life though. Those literary designs stuck with him, savior stuck with him, through his tour of duty during the Vietnam War, and savior stayed with him through those tough years when he couldn’t quite get himself back to the “real” world after ‘Nam and let drugs and alcohol rule his life so that he wound up for some time as a “brother under the bridge” as Bruce Springsteen later put the situation in a song that he played continuously at times after he first heard the opening line “Saigon, long gone…."  Stuck with him after he recovered and started building up his sports supplies business, stuck with him through three happy/sad/savage/acrimonious “no go” marriages and a parcel of kids and child support.  And was still sticking with him now that he had time to stretch out and write longer pieces and beat away on the word processor a few million words on this and that.

Amateur writer meaning nothing more than that he liked to write, and that writing was not his profession, that he did not depend on the pen for his livelihood (or rather more correctly these days not the pen but the word processor). That livelihood business was taken up running a small sports apparel store in a mall not far from Lexington (the Lexington of American revolutionary battles to give the correct town and state) where he now lived. Although he was not a professional writer his interest was such that he liked these days with Jimmy Shore, the famous ex-runner running the day to day operations of the store, to perform some of his written work in public at various “open mic” writing (and poetry) jams that have sprouted up in his area.

This “open mic” business Alex had embarked on s was a familiar concept to Jack from the days back in the 1960s when he would go to such events in the coffeehouses around Harvard Square and Beacon Hill to hear amateur folk-singers perfect their acts and try to be recognized as the new voice of their generation, or something like that. For “no singing voice, no musical ear” Jack those were basically cheap date nights if the girl he was with was into folk music. The way most of the "open mics" worked, although they probably called them talent searches then, was each performer would sign up to do one, two, maybe three songs depending on how long the list of those wishing to perform happened to be (the places where each performer kicked in a couple of bucks in order to play usually had shorter lists). These singers usually performed in the period in front of the night’s feature who very well might have been somebody who a few weeks before had been noticed by the owner during a previous "open mic" and asked to do a set of six to sixteen songs depending on the night and the length of the list of players in front of him or her. The featured performer played, unlike the "open mic" people, for the “basket” (maybe a hat) passed around the crowd in the audience and that was the night’s “pay.” A tough racket for those starting out like all such endeavors. The attrition rate was pretty high after the folk minute died down with arrival of other genre like folk rock, heavy rock, and acid rock although you still see a few old folkies around the Square or playing the separate “open mic” folk circuit that also run through church coffeehouses just like these writing jams.

Jack was not surprised then when Alex told him he would like him to come to hear him perform one of his works at the monthly third Thursday “open mic” at the Congregational Church in Arlington the next town over from Lexington. Alex told Jack that that night he was going to perform something he had written and thought on about Frank Jackman, about what had happened to Frank when he was in the Army during Vietnam War times.

Jack knew almost automatically what Alex was going to do, he would somehow use Bob Dylan’s Masters of War lyrics as part of his presentation. Jack and Alex ( a Vietnam veteran who got “religion” on the anti-war issue while he in the Army and became a fervent anti-war guy after that experience despite his personal problems, including a couple of losing bout s with drugs and alcohol before getting twelve step sober) had met Frank in 1971 when they were doing some anti-war work among the soldiers at Fort Devens out in Ayer about forty miles west of Boston. Frank had gotten out of the Army several months before and since he was from Nashua in the southern part of New Hampshire not far from Devens and had heard about the G.I. coffeehouse, The Morning Report, where Jack and Alex were working as volunteers he had decided to volunteer to help out as well.

Now Frank was a quiet guy, quieter than Jack and Alex anyway, but one night he had told his Army story to a small group of volunteers gathered in the main room of the coffeehouse as they were planning to distribute Daniel Ellsberg’s sensational whistle-blower expose The Pentagon Papers to soldiers at various spots around the base (including as it turned out inside the fort itself with one copy landing on the commanding general’s desk for good measure). He wanted to tell this story since he wanted to explain why he would not be able to go with them if they went inside the gates at Fort Devens.

Jack knew Alex was going to tell Frank’s story so he told Frank he would be there since he had not heard the song or Frank’s story in a long while and had forgotten parts of it. Moreover, Alex wanted Jack there for moral support since this night other than the recitation of the lyrics he was going to speak off the cuff rather than his usual reading from some prepared paper. 

That night Alex was already in the hall talking to the organizer, Eli Walsh, you may have heard of him since he has written some searing poems about his time in three tours Iraq. Jack felt right at home in this basement section of the church and he probably could have walked around blind-folded since the writing jams were on almost exactly the same model as the old folkie “open mics.” A table as you entered to pay your admission this night three dollars (although the tradition is that no one is turned away for lack of funds) with a kindly woman asking if you intended to perform and direct you to the sign-up sheet if so. Another smaller table with various cookies, snacks, soda, water and glasses for those who wished to have such goodies, and who were asked to leave a donation in the jar on that table if possible. The set-up in the hall this night included a small stage where the performers would present their material slightly above the audience. On the stage a lectern for those who wished to use that for physical support or to read their work from and the ubiquitous simple battery-powered sound system complete with microphone. For the audience a bevy of chairs, mostly mismatched, mostly having seen plenty of use, and mostly uncomfortable. After paying his admission fee he went over to Alex to let him know he was in the audience. Alex had told him he was number seven on the list so not to wander too far once the session had begun.

This is the way Alex told the story and why Jack knew there would be some reference to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War that night:

Hi everybody my name is Alex James and I am glad that you all came out this cold night to hear Preston Borden present his moving war poetry and the rest of us to reflect on the main subject of this month’s writing jam-the endless wars that the American government under whatever regime of late has dragged us into, us kicking and screaming to little avail.  I want to thank Eli as always for setting this event up every month and for his own thoughtful war poetry. [Some polite applause.] But enough for thanks and all that because tonight I want to recite a poem, well, not really a poem, but lyrics to a song, to a Bob Dylan song, Masters of War, so it might very well be considered a poem in some sense.   

You know sometimes, a lot of times, a song, lyrics, a poem for that matter bring back certain associations. You know some song you heard on the radio when you went on your first date, your first dance, your first kiss, stuff like that which is forever etched in your memory and evokes that moment every time you hear it thereafter. Now how this Dylan song came back to me recently is a story in itself.

You remember Eli back in October when we went up to Maine to help the Maine Veterans for Peace on their yearly peace walk that I ran into Susan Rich, the Quaker gal we met up in Freeport who walked with us that day to Portland. [Eli shouted out “yes.”] I had not seen Susan in about forty years before that day, hadn’t seen her since the times we had worked together building up support for anti-war G.I.s out at the Morning Report coffeehouse in Ayer outside Fort Devens up on Route 2 about thirty miles from here. That’s when we met Frank Jackman who is the real subject of my presentation tonight since he is the one who I think about when I think about that song, think about his story and how that song relates to it. 

Funny as many Dylan songs as I knew Masters of War, written by Dylan in 1963 I had never heard until 1971. Never heard the lyrics until I met Frank out at Fort Devens where after I was discharged from the Army that year I went to do some volunteer anti-war G.I. work at the coffeehouse outside the base in Army town Ayer. Frank too was a volunteer, had heard about the place somehow I forget how, who had grown up in Nashua up in southern New Hampshire and after he was discharged from the Army down at Fort Dix in New Jersey came to volunteer just like me and my old friend Jack Callahan who is sitting in the audience tonight. Now Frank was a quiet guy didn’t talk much about his military service, but he made the anti-war soldiers who hung out there at night and on weekends feel at ease. One night thought he felt some urge to tell his story, tell why he thought it was unwise for him to participate in an anti-war action we were planning around the base. We were going to pass out copies of Daniel Ellsberg’s explosive whistle-blower expose The Pentagon Papers to soldiers at various location around the fort and as it turned out on the base. The reason that Frank had balked at the prospect of going into the fort was that as part of his discharge paperwork was attached a statement that he was never to go on a military installation again. We all were startled by that remark, right Jack? [Jack nods agreement.]

And that night the heroic, our kind of heroic, Frank Jackman told us about the hows and whys of his Army experience. Frank had been drafted like a ton of guys back then, like me, and had allowed himself to be drafted in 1968 at the age of nineteen not being vociferously anti-war and not being aware then of the option of not taking the subsequent induction. After about three week down at Fort Dix, the main basic training facility for trainees coming from the Northeast then, he knew two things-he had made a serious mistake by allowing himself to be drafted and come hell or high water he was not going to fight against people he had no quarrel with in Vietnam. Of course the rigors of basic training and being away from home, away from anybody who could help him do he knew not what then kept him quiet and just waiting. Once Basic was over and he got his Advanced Infantry Training assignment also at Fort Dix which was to be an infantryman at a time when old Uncle Sam only wanted infantrymen in the rice paddles and jungles of Vietnam things came to a head.

After a few weeks in AIT he got a three day weekend pass which allowed him to go legally off the base and he used that time to come up to Boston, or really Cambridge because what he was looking for was help to file an conscientious objector application and he knew the Quakers were historically the ones who would know about going about that process. That is ironically where Susan Rich comes in again, although indirectly this time, since Frank went to the Meeting House on Brattle Street where they were doing draft and G.I. resistance counseling and Susan was a member of that Meeting although she had never met him at that time. He was advised by one of the Quaker counselors that he could submit a C.O. application in the military, which he had previously not been sure was possible since nobody told anybody anything about that in the military, when he got back to Fort Dix but just then, although they were better later, the odds were stacked against him since he had already accepted induction. So he went back, put in his application, took a lot of crap from the lifers and officers in his company after that and little support, mainly indifference, from his fellow trainees. He still had to go through the training, the infantry training though and although he had taken M-16 rifle training in basic he almost balked at continuing to fire weapons especially when it came to machine guns. He didn’t balk but in the end that was not a big deal since fairly shortly after that his C.O. application was rejected although almost all those who interviewed him in the process though he was “sincere” in his beliefs. That point becomes important later.

Frank, although he knew his chances of being discharged as a C.O. were slim since he had based his application on his Catholic upbringing and more general moral and ethical grounds. The Catholic Church which unlike Quakers and Mennonites and the like who were absolutely against war held to a just war theory, Vietnam being mainly a just war in the Catholic hierarchy’s opinion. But Frank was sincere, more importantly, he was determined to not go to war despite his hawkish family and his hometown friends,’ some who had already served, served in Vietnam too, scorn and lack of support. So he went back up to Cambridge on another three day pass to get some advice, which he actually didn’t take in the end or rather only partially took up  which had been to get a lawyer they would recommend and fight the C.O. denial in Federal court even though that was also still a long shot then.

Frank checked with the lawyer alright, Steve Brady, who had been radicalized by the war and was offering his services on a sliding scale basis to G.I.s since he also had the added virtue of having been in the JAG in the military and so knew some of the ropes of the military legal system, and legal action was taken but Frank was one of those old time avenging Jehovah types like John Brown or one of those guys and despite being a Catholic rather than a high holy Protestant which is the usual denomination for avenging angels decided to actively resist the military. And did it in fairly simple way when you think about it. One Monday morning when the whole of AIT was on the parade field for their weekly morning report ceremony Frank came out of his barracks with his civilian clothes on and carrying a handmade sign which read “Bring the Troops Home Now!”

That sign was simply but his life got a lot more complicated after that. In the immediate sense that meant he was pulled down on the ground by two lifer sergeants and brought to the Provost Marshal’s office since they were not sure that some dippy-hippie from near-by New York City might be pulling a stunt. When they found out that he was a soldier they threw him into solitary in the stockade.

For his offenses Frank was given a special court-martial which meant he faced six month maximum sentence which a panel of officers at his court-martial ultimately sentenced him to after a seven day trial which Steve Brady did his best to try to make into an anti-war platform but given the limitation of courts for such actions was only partially successful. After that six months was up minus some good time Frank was assigned to a special dead-beat unit waiting further action either by the military or in the federal district court in New Jersey. Still in high Jehovah form the next Monday morning after he was released he went out to that same parade field in civilian clothes carrying another homemade sign “Bring The Troops Home Now!” and he was again manhandled by another pair of lifer sergeants and this time thrown directly into solitary in the stockade since they knew who they were dealing with by then. And again he was given a special court-martial and duly sentenced by another panel of military officers to the six months maximum.

Frank admitted at that point he was in a little despair at the notion that he might have to keep doing the same action over and over again for eternity. Well he wound up serving almost all of that second six-month sentence but then he got a break. That is where listening to the Quakers a little to get legal advice did help. See what Steve Brady, like I said an ex-World War II Army JAG officer turned anti-war activist lawyer, did was take the rejection of his C.O. application to Federal District Court in New Jersey on a writ of habeas corpus arguing that since all Army interviewers agreed Frank was “sincere” that it had been arbitrary and capricious of the Army to turn down his application. And given that the United States Supreme Court and some lower court decisions had by then expanded who could be considered a C.O. beyond the historically recognized groupings and creeds the cranky judge in the lower court case agreed and granted that writ of habeas corpus. Frank was let out with an honorable discharge, ironically therefore entitled to all veterans’ benefits but with the stipulation that he never go onto a military base again under penalty of arrest and trial. Whether that could be enforced as a matter of course he said he did not want to test since he was hardily sick of military bases in any case. 

So where does Bob Dylan’s Masters of War come into the picture. Well as you know, or should know every prisoner, every convicted prisoner, has the right to make a statement in his or her defense during the trial or at the sentencing phase. Frank at both his court-martials rose up and recited Bob Dylan’s Masters of War for the record. So for all eternity, or a while anyway, in some secret recess of the Army archives (and of the federal courts too) there is that defiant statement of a real hero of the Vietnam War. Nice right? 

 Here is what had those bloated military officers on Frank’s court-martial boards seeing red and ready to swing him from the highest gallows, yeah, swing him high.

Masters Of War-Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

The “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” (Wild Fires These Days And Not Controlled Burns) Guy, Well Bear, Smokey Turns 75 This Year

The “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” (Wild Fires These Days And Not Controlled Burns) Guy, Well Bear, Smokey Turns 75 This Year

A link to an NPR Morning Edition segment giving the “skinny” on legendary forest fire fighter Smokey the Bear who turns 75 years old this year complete with the Smokey the Bear song sung by, I believe, Gene Autry.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/09/748836909/careful-with-those-birthday-candles-smokey-beloved-bear-turns-75

By Allan Jackson

    

Getting old mostly sucks, okay. But being able to recollect the now big number anniversaries of various events and people, to say you were present at the creation or close to it takes a small, very small sting out of that opening sentence. Especially when it involves some pleasant memories from a freaking downtrodden childhood.

Being able to give a cheer for one Smokey the Bear, king hell king of the forest fire fighters when they were not as driven by climate change and less out of control, mostly, is such a moment. I was all over Smokey whenever my family would have an outing in the woods and used a campfire set-up or open grill and made sure we had put out the fires with plenty of water.

The most vivid recollection though was, and I am not sure we had to pay for the item or not, was when I sent away to the National Forest Service for my very own Smokey the Bear belt buckle. I was in very heaven. I am not sure that I knew all the words to the Smokey the Bear song but it was good to hear it as the NPR segment fades out.     

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- The Answer Ain’t Blowing In The Wind- "Maria Muldaur: Live In Concert (2008)- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Maria Muldaur with Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band back in the days for a little nostagia treat.

Maria Muldaur: Live In Concert, Maria Muldaur and other artists, BCD, 2008

The name Maria Muldaur has been no stranger to this space over the past few years. I have spilled a fair amount of ink in reflecting on my youthful musical interests. Those interests included an appreciation of jug music, one of the folkloric forms in vogue in the early 1960s urban folk revival centered on such places as the Village, Harvard Square and Berkeley. And Maria, along with then husband Geoff Muldaur and band leader Jim Kweskin (both who have also come in for a fair amount of ink here for their later efforts as well) were the central driving forces of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band that reigned supreme in those days, especially in Harvard Square

For those not familiar with the jug band tradition it stems, mainly, from a more rural, more poor boy, earlier time in America when dough was scarce (or non-existent) out in the hinterlands and hollows. But Saturday night was still Saturday night and the eternal need for entertainment was in the air. So, good old boys (and gals, but less so) got together with what was at hand, a guitar, almost always a fiddle, and then whatever else could be gathered up: wash tub, wash board, wash tub and broom to make a bass instrument, whistles, kazoos (Geoff is a master kazooist, if that is the right term), harmonicas, hell, pot and pans if that’s what it took. Oh ya, and a jug.

And they made music for the folk. But then as America became more urbanized this stuff, this poor boy stuff, fell off the radar until roots music-crazed young people, mainly students, with some musical talent and a desire to break out of the Tin Pan Alley pabulum of the late 1950s ”discovered jug” along the way. Groups formed, and reformed, for a while digging up old Memphis Jug Band, Mississippi Sheiks, Arkansas Sheiks (and sheiks for other locales as well), country blues, and whatever else they could find. And guys, like this writer, could go to places like Harvard Square on any given weekend night with a date, stop at one of the eight zillion coffeehouses that dotted the landscape of the place and hear jug (or other forms of folk music: mountain, traditional ballads, some ethnic stuff, contemporary folk protest a la Dylan, Baez, Ochs, etc.) for the price of a cup of coffee and, maybe, dessert. Cheap dates for modern day poor boys, praise be. But that cheap date coffeehouse weekend scene too passed as fickle youth moved on to other musical forms, and other social concerns, for a while.

Maria (and Geoff and Jim, for that matter) , however, driven by that sound in every true musician's head kept up her musical career, mainly after the break-up of the Kweskin Band as a solo artist backed up by various bands, and other configurations. For the last decade or so she has immersed herself in a thorough going and deep revival of the music of old-time barrel house women blues singers. Names like Sippy Wallace, Bessie Smith, Ida Mack, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, and Victoria Spivey long lost are now resurrected through Maria’s voice in three CD compilations (whether more are coming I do not know). When the legacy of Maria Muldaur is mentioned this work may very well be her musical monument. And rightly so.

So now we come to a review of this Maria Muldaur: Live In Concert DVD, a concert done in the heart of the period of her blues revival work (2008) although it is mainly a concert in support of her CD featuring the love songs of Bob Dylan. And after all this build up about Maria’s musical roots, her place, righteous place, in blues history, and the rest this concert was an extremely uneven effort, particularly the first half. No question many people have covered Bob Dylan songs, including love songs, very well and have become standards on their own. One thinks of Ritchie Havens’ masterful version of Just Like A Women, for example. However the somber, jazzy, low-key renditions here, and their delivery were, well, ho-hum. Buckets of Love can serve as an example. Dave Van Ronk has, to my mind, done the best cover on this one with his grainy voice (I am being kind here) and wistfully bitter-sweet rendition. Frankly, until about a minute into the thing I did not know Maria was singing that song. And so it went for the first half.

But talent is talent and so it rose to the occasion in the second half with a great rendition of Cajun Moon and others, ending with a very nice version of Ride Me High, including Maria on fiddle. But Maria I hear Alberta Hunter calling. Bob has many people willing and able to cover his work but those old time blues singers need a voice, your voice.
.

The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States-American Trotskyist Leader James P. Cannon-"Where Is The Left-Wing Going?" (1929)

Click on the headline to link to a James P. Cannon Internet Archives online copy of Where Is The Left-Wing Going?

Markin comment on this series:

Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.

Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.

As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts run a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- *In The Beginning Was...The Jug- The Music of Jim Kweskin And The Jug Band- An Encore

CD Review

“Garden Of Joy” (1967), “America”(1971), Jim Kweskin and various musicians, two CD set, Warner Brothers, 2006

There is something of a joke on the folk rock circuit that Bob Dylan is on a never-ending tour. (Probably fairly close to the truth these days.) Apparently, in my reviews of the folk figures of the 1960s, I too am on never-ending tour. So be it. Today I go back to the now familiar question of why various male folk artists didn’t rise to Dylan’s iconic status. Except here on the subject of this review, Jim Kweskin of Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band fame (that also included two performers, ex-marrieds Geoff and Maria Muldaur, that I have spilled plenty of ink on in this space as well), I will not belabor the point for he simply made a choice to stay with his day job.

Except now some forty plus years later one Jim Kweskin has been making something of a revival in the Boston area,sometimes along with the afore-mentioned Geoff Muldaur. I recently attended a performance by the pair at a locally famous folk club (aka coffee house, for the nostalgically-inclined). Do these guys still have it? Oh, yes. Jim is still finger-picking with the best of them. Geoff (off a recent CD done with the Texas Sheiks) still is in good voice. Plus, a big plus, they are working the dust off the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music in their sets. Wow! Thus, I felt duty-bound to pick up the two CD set under review.

The set includes one old Jug Band album, including the classic Clifford Hayes jug number, “Garden Of Joy”, a nice monologue by the late Jug Band member (and jug aficionado) Fritz Richmond, and Maria on Lead Belly’s “When I Was A Cowboy.” This, my friends, is history. The second CD is a little later after the original Jug Band members went their separate ways. Here we have covers of Mance Lipscomb’s classic “Sugar Babe”, The Memphis Jug Band’s “Stealin’”, and Merle Travis’ “Dark As A Dungeon” to feast on. The question still remains open though, one that I have posed before-Jim, Geoff and Maria are still performing, and performing well in their respective venues. Therefore…well, you know the question, right?

From The Poor People's Campaign Archives -2018

Defending Heroic Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner In Hard Times-President Trump Grant Her A Pardon r er

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

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-Except Swim The Damn Ocean

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-Except Swim The Damn Ocean  

  

By Sam Lowell

I know, I know I have been teasing the reader of this series with a promise to speak of one Billy Bradley who along with the now well-reported Ronnie Mooney led the Carter’s Variety Store corner boys for good or evil but I have to tell a few stories about the Scribe, about Peter Paul Markin, whom I met on the first day of class at Snug Harbor Elementary School in Miss Sullivan’s fourth grade class after we had moved to Adamsville from Riverdale. That school served the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, the projects for those who are not faint-hearted or timid as well as the new development of ranch-style houses up the road build in the 1950s. The Markin stories will help set up the link to Billy Bradley, in fact I would argue that you cannot understand Billy without knowing more about the Scribe (and the tangled three- way relationship between us not always good). They have interest of their own since those few of us veterans of the various stages of corner boy life from Carter’s to Doc’s Drugstore to Tonio’s Pizza Parlor still standing shed many a lost youth tear for a our fallen brother.         

That first day of school was something else once I made the cardinal sin, no, two cardinal sins on the very first day- talking without permission in the old biddy Sullivan’s class brought on by my observing the Scribe the next row over reading a book on Samuel Adams which I said looked interesting. That set the frame rolling as we talked until battered down by Sullivan’s wrath. That cost us a first day, first day of school can you believe it, after school detention, the first of many. Once we escaped with our lives the Scribe mentioned that he hung out with a bunch of guys, projects guys all, fourth and fifth grade guys, at Carter’s Variety Store which then (and if you can believe this now as well) was the only place in the whole area to shop for those without cars or who needed a quick item or two. Otherwise you had to go two, maybe three miles to Bert’s Market (the hangout for junior high guys later including me and the Scribe before his family moved cross-town to his grandmother’s house in the Acre section of North Adamsville). From all I could see Mr. Carter, a good guy who we didn’t rob or hassle, didn’t mind us hanging out as long as we behaved which we did, there.  

[My family had moved in a few weeks before school opened in September so I knew what Carter’s was, had been there getting milk and stuff my mother but I think I only saw the corner boys hanging out maybe once as I scurried home. They looked about my age but I knew from a roughed up experience with the 12^th Street corner boys in Riverdale when I tried to engage a couple of them that you do not talk to corner boys, do not join up on your own but need to be “sponsored” and so I kept my distance.]   


That first day of school was the day I met Ronnie Mooney who I have spilled ink about in five previous installments of this series and who was at the time becoming the recognized leader of the Carter corner boys. In some funny ways, the Scribe, and me a little less so, didn’t seem to fit the mold of these guys, thugs like Rodger the Dodger, Lenny who would later lay down his head in Vietnam, George, Tiny John and a revolving cast of guys for he was way too “intellectual” for what these guys were about or so I thought. The other side of the Scribe, the screwy gene side, the missing link side, was a truly larcenous heart. Using plenty of his “intellectual” energy to plan and plot, along with Ronnie, various capers, mostly small time but all illegal.

Even that first day the reason the Scribe was so hopped up to meet his corner boys was because he needed a look-out for a clip he was planning at Kaye’s Jewelry near Bert’s Market to grab some stuff and get it converted to cash (fencing it I guess we would call it today). Like I say small time stuff, small down at the base of society where there is never enough of anything and family-sized “no, we can’t afford it” coexist with some furious wanting habits.    

There will be plenty of time to develop Scribe stories but here is one to fill in the meaning of the headline of this piece. The Scribe loved the ocean (and I do as well), loved to sit down at a stone-etched dock along the channel to the seas and watch the ships go by, walk along Adamsville Beach when he was not corner boying it. Loved the ocean but like a lot of non-book stuff, or larcenous stuff when it came time to carry out operations he never learned to swim, could no swim a lick even though he took classes. Couldn’t keep afloat even with doggy paddling his ass around King Neptune’s estate.

In the hot, dry summer between fourth and fifth grade he decided he needed to get in the ocean, bay really, but salt-water in any case at all costs. I advised, having seen him practically go under a few feet from shore, him not to do it, to forget it. Somehow though when I went to get us some sodas at the ice cream truck which would be out there every afternoon he decided to go in, go in not under his own power but using a log that had been sighted by him floating a few feet from shore to get him out to sea. The tide was coming so he thought everything was fine, that the log would carry him along. That damn log was where he made his almost fatal error. Then he decided, this found out later, to forsake the log at a point when he was well over his head which was carrying him out to what he called the China seas and try to swim back to shore as best he could, doggy paddle I assume.

I could see him going under, see him yelling for help since he was in way over his head. I yelled to the life- guard, an older woman who had her daughter in tow but who leaped up, swan out and saved the silly bastard’s life. (As a different stroke of fate would have it I would meet that daughter fairly recently in connection with a 50^th anniversary reunion of our North Adamsville High class of 1964. She had lived across town although her mother had been assigned to Adamsville Beach. I did not know her in high school although I do remember thinking she was pretty when I saw her in the corridors. During that recent talk when we came to speak of our mutual love of the ocean I mentioned for some reason the episode with the Scribe when she mentioned her mother had been a lifeguard, the lifeguard who saved the Scribe’s ragged ass, at that beach during that period. Strange, indeed.)         

The Scribe thanked her although he generally was not the kind to thank anybody for anything even the kindness of saving his life as did I but here is where corner boy life rules. At this point we had known each other for almost a year, had become what I thought was best buddies and same pack corner boys which meant something then. He swore me to never tell anybody that he essentially panicked out there and was going down for the third time and not coming back. You have to understand that any outward sign of weakness was pounced upon by a guy like Ronnie, some of the others, a little less so Billy and being fearful for your life at twelve meant no quarter was given on being able to take it. And I never did until now.   

A recent view of the now desolate section of Adamsville described above.

   
   

From The World Cross-Country Championship Archives- The Day Boomer Cadger Caught The West-Bound Freight

From The World Cross-Country Championship Archives- The Day Boomer Cadger Caught The West-Bound Freight    

By Bart Webber

This, under penalty of death or destruction, at least figuratively is the last piece I will write on the legendary Boomer Cadger, a guy who back in the day, back in the early 1960s when running the roads was hazardous to the runner’s health ran like the wind. ( No “share the road” with a runner then as drivers would swerve and laugh, the girl pedestrians would throw rocks or swear like troopers.) And beat my ass so many times when our two track and cross-country teams met that I always have a little jealous resentment writing about his exploits even now. Funny how fifty some years late the effect lingers.

The reason, or reasons, for making this the last effort are simple. One Tiger McPhee, one Bees Devine and one Rolly Jenkins, respectively a football player, a basketball player and a baseball player who played for our high school, North Adamsville back in the 1960s. More importantly they were members of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor corner boys that I hung out with on lonesome weekend nights. One recent night in Jimmy Joe’s Lounge after I had published the second “Boomer” article while we were having a few drinks the subject of who was the “best you ever saw” in high school sports came up. Tiger mentioned our own legendary Thunder Thornton, a very fast bruiser of a fullback who would carry guys down the field to make a few extra yards and who had led the Warriors to a state championship almost single-handedly. The others mentioned now faded stars and I of course mentioned Boomer. We ended the night on a good note after a few more drinks and that was that.

Well almost “that was that.” Part of my idea about writing about Boomer was to see if he was still around, was alive and kicking and maybe through some social network media have heard what I was doing. What happened though was that his friend from North Quincy High John Franklin got in touch with me and filled me in on some of Boomer’s history shortly after high school and I published that information. Again with the idea of trying to draw Boomer out as the arc expanded. I also when the still standing members of Tonio’s corner boys met for drinks and conversation            

At Jimmy Jack’s would mention the latest happenings on the Boomer story. The other night though the rubber met the road on that idea.

The minute I was ready to tell the guys the latest on Boomer Tiger McPhee exploded. Said and this is pretty close to verbatim that Thunder Thornton would have had Boomer for lunch and had time for a nap. That nobody’s gave a rat’s ass about some “fag” in his underwear bothering automobile drivers by clogging up the roads. That the guy probably only did those runs to expose himself to young girls to get “his jollies off” (implying that too might have been my motive for running even though Tiger knew how hard my home life was, and his too). That nobody gave a rat’s ass about cross-country and track when the real sports were football, basketball and baseball. That maybe instead of “bugging” them with “bullshit on a stick” about some has-been (unlike Thunder who made the state high school Hall of Fame and played for a while in the pros before some Achilles tendon problems shortened his career) that I should leave Boomer conversation at the door. The others chimed in with similar if less robust sentiments. The look Tiger gave after his spiel told me from past experience that I should keep my lips sealed with seven seals.

I am not sure whether before Tiger gave his “don’t tread on me” warning I would have continued to talk about Boomer if for no other reason that nervousness about why after all these years I have been pursuing this story. What I did know was that I was privy to information from John Franklin about Boomer’s later fate, about what was happening to him as of about ten years ago. I have already mentioned that “jock” Boomer was not smart enough to go to college in the days when track scholarships were not plentiful, and some standards existed between academics and sports. He joined the Navy with the idea of seeing the world, the world wound up be stuck on some scow as a cook down in South Carolina. In the Navy he got into drugs and alcohol, had a few drying out periods later, started his own diner, that failed, had a few marriages, those failed and wound up finally, sober, running a paint contracting business with some success. You already know and if you don’t I will mention it again John said I would not recognize Boomer since he had ballooned up to well over 230 pounds (his running weight was probably about 130). Farewell youth. So long Boomer, you ran like the wind and that is the image I will keep in my quiet head.           

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up-Once Again On The War Of Words About The Man-And The Legend-With “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969)-A Film Review

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up-Once Again On The War Of Words About The Man-And The Legend-With “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Seth Garth

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring Diana Riggs, Telly Savalas, George Lazenby, based on the novel by Ian Fleming, 1969

Young up and coming young writer Will Bradley, folded like an accordion, folded int one of those origami constructions when divine site manager Greg Green asked him to once again do “dueling” reviews with me on the world historic question of who the real James Bond, you know Bond, James Bond, was, is since they are still cranking the bastards out and are even talking about bringing in a black Bond to reflect the times and despite Brexit the changing demographics of the British Empire, or whatever they call the remnant of an empire upon which the sun never. Of course that world historic question finally resolved itself around my championing the original cinematic James Bond, ruggedly handsome and every young women’s wet dream at the time Sean Connery who could probably still pull his weight in the role and young wet behind the ears and clueless Bradley plucking pretty boy and prissy Pierce Brosnan out of his slumber. Needless to say I beat poor young Will like a gong every time he even tried to put these two in the same paragraph. Made him look silly and naïve to think that somehow a guy like Pierce’s Bond who admittedly was nothing but a technie wonk and had no inner resources to get him through the hard parts could cut the mustard. So when the question came up about reviewing this post-Sean venture, On His, No Her Majesty’s Secret Service drawn from an Ian Fleming book he pleaded illness or something. Seeing that non-descript mercifully one-off George Lazenby was to do the Bond role that might have been the beginning of wisdom for the lad, for him to learn his craft a bit by bowing out. (Christ would anybody, even Will, want to champion a Bond named George against guys with names like Sean and even Pierce.)           

It is probably just as well Will bowed out since although I am feeling mellow these days while I am working with my protégé Sarah Lemoyne trying to get her up the vicious film reviewer food chain I am nevertheless ready for some verbal fisticuffs. I have stayed on the sidelines while Sarah learns the ropes, learns how to take on all-comers including the legendary Sam Lowell on his own turf, his film noir expertise. (In the inevitable need these days for transparency I have to admit that Sam and I have known each other forever, grew up together, which however does not preclude me from being miffed at him for hanging around too long and not letting the younger set go through their paces and so I was, am happy to help sweet young Sarah out and she appreciates me giving her the real deal lowdown.)

Even Sam recently admitted that she had talent despite his salacious remarks that there was “something going on between us,” between Sarah and I which has gotten her in trouble with her companion Clara. For the record, and both Sarah and Clara know this since I spoke about it one night when I took them both on to dinner, if I wanted to have a romance with Sarah I would not be shy about taking dead aim at her (and made Clara laugh that night when I mentioned just as she had done in her turn with Sarah). But I am not doing so for a couple of very good reasons which should end the gossip-I still am shell-shocked by my three unsuccessful marriages with its attendant brood of college worthy kids whom I am still paying off college tuitions on and for crying out loud I am no Johnny Silver with his young Penn State graduate student for I am old enough to be Sarah’s grandfather, have kids older than her. Done.       

To the film which is what I get paid to do. Whatever short-comings I found in Pierce Brosnan’s Bond by comparison with this Lazenby guy he seems like a ruggedly handsome virile, energetic character not afraid to speak more than one sentence at a time. Where the fuck they got this guy and why after Sean left is beyond me. Maybe he reflected the serious decline of the Empire or whatever the configuration, Commonwealth I guess they call the neo-colonial set-up and the inability as in Sean’s time to single-handedly save the Queen’s bacon. Lazenby could only save the queens, you, know the guys that in the old days we called light on their feet, prissy, silly which is a polite way to say not manly enough for the job. The plotline such as it reflects that since if you can believe this Lazenby’s Bond has only one lady-love, fetching Diana Riggs as a countess. No love them and leave them for dear George. Sickening.     

Here’s the play. Bond is still hot as hell in attempting for many reasons to nail this bastard Blofeld who has been nothing but a nemesis for a long time. Looking for leads he runs across the Countess whose father is a king hell king leader of a mob, a well-connected mob. The price for the Blofeld info-from Papa charm daring apple of his eye, or rather spit in his eye daughter. And Jimmy buys in. In any case the leads from Pa get him to Switzerland and Blofeld’s latest front-a research lab for ravenous young women. Real deal-they are the latter day “angels of death” evocative of the old Nazi crowd who are brainwashed into ruining the world’s food supply via various toxics which is really what dear Mr. B, played by hard-ass television star Telly Savalas and his private army of thugs and hangers-on are about. Naturally with a world-wide apparatus of deadly agents B makes his big play-pay or die world. And the world crumbles including sweet boy M (who never got over being roasted alive by Kim Philby and the Cambridge boys) of MI5-Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

But not Jimmy, not the Countess and more importantly not Papa who has his own ax to grind with blowhard B. Together they take down or think they have taken down B and his nefarious plans. Figuring B was toast Jimmy got all swoony over the Countess and they got married and  all lovey-dovey. Except remember this is loner Bond, love them and leave them Bond, and we have to think of the next film and whoever will do the Bond role since George rightfully bowed out -Blofeld didn’t die and came back to machine gun the poor Countess down leaving Jimmy bereft. WTF even Will would have to back off on this one.           

On The Great White Way-Broadway-The Indie Film “Opening Night”(2016)-A Film Review

On The Great White Way-Broadway-The Indie Film “Opening Night”(2016)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Associate Film Critic Alden Riley

    

Opening Night, starring Topher Grace, Alona Tal, 2016

I am totally fed up with and refuse to, except on an infrequent assignment, to watch any comedic offerings on commercial television, traditional or cable. Moreover most, certainly not all by any means but most, current comedic efforts on the big screen leave me cold. Then along comes an indie film, an indie comic film, Opening Night, centered on the trials and tribulations of opening night on the Great White Way, Broadway and for the ninety minutes of the production I witnessed what a good ensemble cast and a strong idea can do to restore my faith in the genre.     

The beauty of the film is simplicity itself. Go backstage live on the opening night of a Broadway musical comedy and work it out from there. Work it out through following, sometimes at high and reckless speed, what a production manager has to go through to get everything in order for the patrons out front who have paid too much money to get tickets and be amused. Nick, played by Topher Grace, a failed singer trying to hold his life together by being busy around the set plays the production manager and his estranged love, Chloe, played by Alona Tal, an understudy for the main female role who by chance gets to go before the bright lights are the central story around which all the antics and secondary stories are built. (Okay, okay I know the “real” plot in another version of the boy meets girl trope that has been hung on half the movies ever made but I will give that a pass this time)          

Along the way Nick not only has to deal with his suppressed feelings for Chloe and his disappointment that he is not among the working cast but fend off every imaginable “drama” from a touchy male lead to an “over the hill” female lead and a screwball producer who is desperate for a hit. All of this to present a musical comedy about the plight of one-hit wonders and their fates in the record industry (providing some very funny songs on that subject on stage). Naturally as is the seeming the trend these days every “intersected” gender, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation and class element has to have a play. For the most part all to the good effect. See this one.       

From The Veterans For Peace Archives-Slugging It Out Against The War Economy Monster In Good Times And Bad OUt Against

Veterans For Peace Grand Peace Army Of The Republic National Encampment For The Poor People's Campaign -Boston Common- 2018-Arrest Veterans On Memorial Day If You Dare

By Josh Breslin

I have already mentioned that sometimes in this profession you get assignments that you are clueless about or don’t care about. That is not the case here as I asked, no begged editor Greg Green for the assignment after I had already attended a few meetings of the National Committee that was putting together a 50^th anniversary edition of the Poor Peoples Campaign which was either stillborn or destroyed in 1968 after Doctor King, the originator of the ideas and program had been killed. Sadly, poverty, poverty among blacks and poor whites is still with us and a national disgrace in such a well-fixed country and so those 50 years ago ideas still had some echo power in 2018.  

I should say that it was not by happenstance that I had attended the first National meetings down in Washington. I had been tipped off that a movement was aborning by my friends from Veterans Peace Action Sam and Ralph who had been delegated by their National organization to represent that group in the preliminary meetings to see what actions if any VPA would take in support of the efforts. As a result of those first meetings and wondering about the first PPC’s fate I had done a far among of research about 1968 and why the terms “stillborn” and “destroyed” were the only ones I had been able to find to describe what had happened back then. Although I had heard about some of the stuff, mainly the constant rainy weather that swamped the camps and made life miserable for the refugees there I had been in California with others living off the glow of the Summer of Love, 1967 on Captain Crunch’s converted yellow school bus zooming up and down the Pacific Coast Highway under a very different sign-drug, sex and rock and roll.

The 2018 PPC set its sights at a higher level at least on paper with the understanding that this was a long-term hard ass project with plenty of chances to succeed-and fail. The main thing though was to get some major coverage of the six weeks of actions planned for the May-June period. That is what Sam and Ralph tried to hammer home to VPA and other organizations like Code Pink who had bought into the idea, bought into the first stage of the campaign. Once people were committed to organizing around specific issues related to poverty and why then the planned events made sense, made sense to me as well standing on the sidelines. I wish things had gone as easily as the ease with which the plan was set up with that finale in Washington bring home “the bacon.”        

Ralph and Sam and other cadre from Veterans Peace Action and Veterans for Peace had been assigned to coordinate week three of the themed actions-the war economy and by extension its harmful and neglectful effects on the struggle against poverty. Taking a ton of material and social resources away to be pissed away on wasteful military junk. Both VPA and VFP had already signed onto a long-term project on the MIC led by Code Pink among others beyond the PPC goals so this was right from the get go. Since by design the actions were to take place in major cities over Memorial Day weekend extending into the following Tuesday by state capital actions from gathering petitions to acts of civil disobedience the natural event that came to mind almost automatically was an encampment, encampments.

Encampments had been a way of life for many political movements involving veterans from the old day national encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic which fought and bled to keep the Republic and abolish slavery to boot to the Bonus marchers in the early Great Depression days of the 1930s suppressed by General “Dug-Out Doug” MacArthur to the various veteran actions against the madness of the Vietnam War which almost ripped the country apart. Ralph and Sam, some of the cadre had cut their teeth on such events. Although this cohort was charged with coordinating the national actions they personally were to set up camp on Boston Common on Memorial Day along with whoever else wanted to go tenting. Such events on the historic Common require a permit and one of the lawyers arranged to get the permission to stage the event from noon until about 6PM.

What the lawyers, what nobody knew except the group around Sam and Ralph and those who had volunteered to stay was that they planned to stay overnight in order to both make their war economy message points and to be ready to “storm” the State House just up the road with petitions calling on the Massachusetts government to break with the MIC, particularly locally based Raytheon. Needless to say, staying in a major public space in downtown Boston overnight was a no-no. What Ralph in particular wanted was a “confrontation” over the issue on Memorial Day pitting veterans, many of them having seen the face of war, and the city officials although in reality the police. And they almost got their wish as some lower police commander had ordered paddy wagons and extra cops to take the encampment down like they had done several years previously at Occupy over on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Swish, that commander was gone and cooler heads prevailed by a decision to ignore the transgression as long as there was nothing disorderly to have to do something about. But it was a close thing, very close indeed.      
Ralph was pissed off a little since he saw the publicity value in the exercise. Still the next day he got his action, arrested for civil disobedience for “overstaying” the visit to the State House when the police wanted to close the doors.





For those in the know, maybe the clueless, no, non-observant, this war economy and its tentacles is a massive monster many years in the making. Groups like VFP and VPA are batting their heads against some very strong and entrenched interests like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed just to name the big guns. You battle as best you can on any front that makes sense from politely asking Congresspeople to stop voting for the endless war budgets to standing out in some desolate rain-swept corner drawing attention to what is happening inside some defense plant to acts of civil disobedience to make a point either at some State House or as the brethren up in Bath Maine have been doing blocking entrances on the increasing number of days when new ultra-weapon laden destroyers are christened.

All the way arguing for the conversion of those facilities into some more environmentally, socially and economically useful purposes to keep those workers more gainfully employed.