The Case That Turned A Once Famous California P.I Lew Archer Into A Has-Been-The Road Down To Skid Road Aint That Far-The Jameson Affair

The Case That Turned A Once Famous California P.I Lew Archer Into A Has-Been-The Road Down To Skid Road Aint That Far-The Jameson Affair  

By Seth Garth

You never know what is going to tweak a reader’s interests, especially when it becomes the plural “readers” looking for the same answers. That was the case recently in response to my piece on the late once famous California private detective, snoop, gumshoe, sleuth, keyhole peeper or whatever you call them in your neighborhood Lew Archer (1915-2019) who came out of U.S. Army Military Intelligence after World War II ready to take on Sam, Miles, Phillip, Nick, the legendary Phil Larkin whoever on and become the king of the hill in the profession. Had the early credentials too. I outlined most of that in my very distinct “not an obituary” of the man whom I held in some esteem even as late as the early 1970s when I interviewed him in San Francisco where he was working for P.I. Hall of Famer Sheila Sharp (the first female to make it Dame May Whitty’s attempt was a joke or taken that way by the nominating committee).

You can see all of that in that recent piece but what readers have been wondering about is the case that broke Lew’s streak, brought him low as a big time P.I who would thereafter work his way down to repo work and keyhole peeping and then when he flunked that as the office go-fer (courtesy of Sheila in all cases who never really gave up on him, had a soft spot for when he was in his prime and ripping up crime and criminals until she in exasperation had to let him go when he was dipping into the coffee and crullers petty cash). That was the Jameson case (I have seen it spelled Jamison and Jameston but I will go woth the way it was printed in the Bay Tribune), although Jameson himself was a marginal figure, was one of those poor little rich boys who pined away for some young women when she ditched him for the next best thing and he never got over it) who had, get this, hired Lew out of the telephone directory where he was first on the Greater L.A. P.I. list. The gaff was that this overweight high-roller bum who stilled lived at home with his father sucking up honey buns was hung up on some girl he had known all his life, had planned to marry and she had turned him down cold, or got that way after some sidewalk Lothario lit up her sky. (That young woman, Leila and her own complicated relationship with this new blue Lothario had a few twists and turns which however even a graduate of one of those “become a P.I. in ten easy lessons (plus plenty of dough) used to be featured on matchbook covers could have figured out before lunch).        

   

The reason this Jameson kid, Peter I think, wanted Lew’s services was that he thought this Lothario, hell let’s call him that since he operated under about five different names anyway was a fake, a phony, damaged goods, a bum of the month selection maybe linked up to some bad asses, some hoods from Vegas when that town was still the Wild West unlike today when the glitter is off, way off and grandmothers with slot-machine worthy arms rule the roost. Was either a bagman or muscle or chief skimmer for Lenny Graham when he was king of the hill before the boys from the East headed out to take over. Maybe that is where Lew made his first line of mistakes, working the criminal gangster element grift that every P.I., even though matchbook graduate works from when serious money is involved, a few people are getting stacked up murdered and there is no trace, especially that last part. But P.I. 101 tells you watch out for some misdirection, something out of left field.  

That’s the front, okay the excuse, Lew put up when I interviewed him in the early 1970s as to why he fucked up what looked like a straight up bad guy gangsters case with a few bucks, throw away money by Vegas standards in play which sent him off the rails. The reality was somewhat different when I checked with Detective Sergeant Ames from the Sunnyvale Police Department who had to save Lew’s bacon from being fried, from him being the late Lew Archer back then and from his ex-wife Martha. Actually Martha is the key since shortly before Lew took the Jameson case Martha threw him out of the house, sent him packing leaving him to fend for himself where he was to sleep. She did care whether it was some sleepy motel or under a bridge but not in her house. Martha had gotten tired, very tired of being the social equivalent of a golf widow and even more tired of Lew’s grabbing every piece of ass he could find on a case (an a few times when just standing around). And kind of flaunted that sexual prowess around to the boys in the precinct and at the annual P.I. conventions. Always had some bimbo on his shoulder without fail.

I am not shrink, psychiatrist or anything like that but the way Martha laid out her story part of Lew’s trysts were to prove he could play with the big boys, the legends like Sam who famously had some twist named Mary in the hay and then calm as you please sent her over when the bodies piled up and it looked like he would take the heat for the bundle after she bang-banged them. Guys like Marlowe who took on two wealthy if screwy sisters at the same time, grabbed some silver wig gangster’s wife and a few stray waitresses and female bookstore clerks, hell even a librarian all while putting said gangster to bang-bang heaven. Guys like Lance Lane who never took a case unless it was some frail in distress and he got a little something besides wages and expenses for his troubles. Or the legendary Phil Larkin who to this day is still going after the young lovelies on the Internet, and they are responding. Yeah, so you could say it was the ethos of the then brotherhood to grabbed what could be grabbed in the sex department.           

That ethos appeared to be okay with Lew until he got the Martha toss and then he lost it. What in the old literature was called a “lost of nerve” but which really was sexual impotency, sexual dysfunction anyway. Today even tough, hard guys would on the sly get some help, grab some pills, see a doctor at least but then that was out and so Lew fell down on his own hubris. Just start with the young woman, that Leila, who this clown Jameson hired Lew to drag, kicking and screaming if necessary, away from that half-baked Lothario who had good looks, some patter and some ready cash as well. Had designs on the young woman’s family fortune, which turned out to be non-existent since her philandering and gambling father had dried up the well. She made it clear when Lew interviewed her that a little romp in the hay could be in the cards if Lew laid off her honey. Lew turned her down cold.       

From there strangely enough it was all downhill as Lew got twisted up in some silly story that the Lothario was “connected” with the mob in Vegas, might have been some mobster’s son or protégé. As mentioned before Lew, who previously had thought out all the angles before moving in, leaped all over that and maybe I would have too except our boy was a bright bulb who had gone to college, several and had some pretty bright professors ready to move mountains to get him ahead. That Vegas diversion let Lew fall down a couple more times, especially with the young house-bound wife of some French literature scholar who practically took her clothes off in front of him. Started rubbing him in the groin area, was ready to take him to heaven since her professor had gone stone cold. No sale.

Of course along with the sexual miscues the bodies kept piling up to Lew’s confusion, that young woman’s mother who he for the life of him could not figure in the gangster scenario, the Lothario whom he thought had been the subject of a gangland “hit”, a couple of Vegas types, some mysterious doctor connected to all parties and a guy who paved the way for others, all because Lew was so enthralled with the academics, was so taken in by the bullshit that the big time French scholar put out about not grabbing every young fresh student he could find in his classes. Yeah, like demented professors couldn’t commit a series of murders to keep their lady friends. The coppers, I hate to say, got there just in time before that deranged intellectual was ready to bang-bang Lew, saved his bacon. Now you have as much skinny as a I can tell you about the long sad downhill skid row tale of one Lew Archer. Damn.     

On May Day, Any Day-Stop The Freaking Deportations -This Is An Immigrant Country

From The Archives-May Day 2019 -The International Workers Holiday And Remembrances Of The Haymarket Martyrs   

By Lance Lawrence

Sometimes you get an assignment by default and sometimes by your own ignorance, or inability to keep your big mouth shut. That latter is the case here when a few months ago I mentioned that I had seen something about a group called the Haymarket Martyrs, a bunch of freaking anarchists to some fellow writers around the water cooler (that “freaking” the term I used   since all I knew, know about live anarchists is the ones that guys like Seth Garth and Frank Jackman report on when they are doing pieces on protests and inevitably a cohort of young people, mostly young anyway, show up in black from head to toe but who generally act okay except when a street fight erupts). They laughed at my ignorance since they were almost all steeped in some left-wing political traditions where I was strictly from journalism school. I had needed a job after graduation and the editor here was looking for a non-left-wing political traditions writer, preferably apolitical. I won.   

Greg Green, the editor here told me that the group of mainly immigrant anarchists were framed up by the State of Illinois after a police riot, and more importantly when policemen were killed allegedly by some black hand anarchist groups out to waste cops and the capitalists who hire them. A bunch were executed after bogus trials (and the usual “nobody knows who fired the shots or if it was cross-fire or by other coppers” but that those dead coppers had to be vindicated  and so a bunch of immigrants took the fall) and later some were pardoned after the real story could not be suppressed any longer. Greg not only gave me the lowdown on who these guys were (most famously Albert Parsons whose black wife Lucy would go in to struggle mightily to vindicate her husband and do other great work) but for my own learning curve benefit mentioned that I should look into the origins of May Day which were directly  related to the Chicago events. That too helped by my big mouth reference to the fact that the only thing I knew about May Day was that it was day when as kids we were given little Papier Marche baskets of candy to celebrate some ancient spring rite, some joyous occasion in any case.             

I have hit the highlights of what I learned in that piece about the Martyrs and May Day except it became an important international workers holiday once the Second International, the Socialist International guided by the spirit of international solidarity adopted it as the day of workers’ remembrances, including those anarchists who under later circumstances the socialists would consider “loose cannons.” May Day, short course.        

Happy Birthday To You-In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-From The Archives- *The Nitty- Gritty Folk (Oops) Jazz Voice Of Dave Van Ronk- The Traditional Blues Tune “Cocaine Blues”

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   

Click on title to link to the late folk singer/historian Dave Van Ronk performing in his patented nitty-gritty manner the old World War I era “Cocaine Blues”. Dave insisted, right up until the end on both his last CD (…and the tin can bended, and the story ended) and DVD concert ("Dave Van Ronk At The Bottom Line In 2001”) that he was informed by jazz and considered himself a jazz vocalist. You be the judge, folk or jazz. This ain’t no opera singer though, right?

Cocaine Blues

Every time my baby and me we go uptown,
Police come in and knock me down.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Hey baby, better come here quick,
This old cocaine is ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Yonder come my baby, she's dressed in red,
She's got a shot-gun,
Says she's gonna kill me dead.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Hey baby, better come here quick,
This old cocaine ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.
(Instrumental Bridge #1)

You take Sally, an’ I’ll take Sue,
Ain't nah difference between the two.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Hey baby, you better come here quick,
This old cocaine ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.
(Instrumental Bridge #2)


Cocaine's for horses and it's not for men,
Doctor said it kill you, but he didn’t say when.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Hey baby, you better come here quick,
This old cocaine ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Hey baby, you better come here quick,
This old cocaine ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.

*The Nitty- Gritty Folk (Oops) Jazz Voice Of Dave Van Ronk- Bob Dylan’s “Buckets Of Rains”

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   

Click on title to link to the late folk singer/historian Dave Van Ronk performing in his patented nitty-gritty manner Bob Dylan’s classic FOLK song “Buckets Of Rain”. Dave insisted, right up until the end on both his last CD (…and the tin can bended, and the story ended) and DVD concert ("Dave Van Ronk At The Bottom Line In 2001”) that he was informed by jazz and considered himself a jazz vocalist. You be the judge, folk or jazz. This ain’t no opera singer though, right?


"Buckets Of Rain" Bob Dylan



Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears.
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand,
I got all the love, honey baby,
You can stand.

I been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke.
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear,
If you want me, honey baby,
I'll be here.

Like your smile
And your fingertips
Like the way that you move your lips.
I like the cool way you look at me,
Everything about you is bringing me
Misery.

Little red wagon
Little red bike
I ain't no monkey but I know what I like.
I like the way you love me strong and slow,
I'm takin' you with me, honey baby,
When I go.

Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must.
You do what you must do and ya do it well,
I'll do it for you, honey baby,
Can't you tell?

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- Out In The Kazoo-Driven 1920s Night- The Time Of The Cannon Jug Stompers- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Cannon Jug Stompers performing Big Railroad Blues to give a flavor of the old-time jug music.

Cannon’s Jug Stompers: The Complete Works: 1927-1930, The Cannon Jug Stompers, Yazoo Records, 1989

So Jim Kweskin took a few jugs, a few washboards, a few kazoos, a penny whistle, maybe a couple of fiddles, and a washtub with a string and pole, got some friends like Geoff Muldaur, and Maria Muldaur (nee something else like Donato) to play the damn stuff (and sing too) and created jug music from scratch in the 1960s folk minute night. No, one thousand times, no. The folk minute was about “discovering” roots music. You know stuff from the hills and hollows of Kentucky, or some old labor songs from the 1930s hard class struggle, or some sea island s congregation spirituals from god knows where in outer Georgia (the United States Georgia, okay). So like Bob Dylan, Eric Von Schmidt, hell even Dave Von Ronk, they all torn up the backwoods, or at least the dusty Greenwich Village old records stores, and went hunting for some sound that would satisfy their roots needs (and provide a little cash in the coffeehouse crazed night). And Cannon’s Jug Stompers along with the Memphis Jug Band (and, as it turned out, about seven different state Sheik bands, you know the Mississippi Sheiks, and so on) were must hears if you wanted to replicate any old time jug sound.

Of course the Cannon Jug Stompers didn’t work the Cambridge folk scene back in the day, way back in the day, or some cozy Village club and certainly not some North Beach blow-out be-bop joint but worked the carny shows, the juke joints and the back road houses of the south to very segregated audiences. So while some black guys (and a few women) were wilding the joint up in café society New York or New Orleans with the latest high white not jazz riffs these brothers were working cheap street. So be it. Listen up to Big Railroad Blues, Cairo Rag, Pretty Money Blues and a few others and you won’t worry so much why you don’t miss the jazz notes. And be glad, glad as hell, that Harry Smith, the great American Folk Music anthologist whose anthology all the old folkies (including the afore-mentioned Jim Kweskin Jug Band members) knew by heart including them in his work.

On The 80th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Fourth International-*The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- On The Anniversary Of His Death- Stalinism and Bolshevism (1937)

Click on the headline to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

The name Leon Trotsky hardly needs added comment from this writer. After Marx, Engels and Lenin, and in his case it is just slightly after, Trotsky is our heroic leader of the international communist movement. I would argue, and have in the past, that if one were looking for a model of what a human being would be like in our communist future Leon Trotsky, warts and all, is the closest approximation that the bourgeois age has produced. No bad, right?

Note: For this 70th anniversary memorial I have decided to post articles written by Trotsky in the 1930s, the period of great defeats for the international working class with the rise of fascism and the disorientations of Stalinism beating down on it. This was a time when political clarity, above all, was necessary. Trotsky, as a simple review of his biographical sketch will demonstrate, wore many hats in his forty years of conscious political life: political propagandist and theoretician; revolutionary working class parliamentary leader; razor-sharp journalist (I, for one, would not have wanted to cross swords with him. I would still be bleeding.); organizer of the great October Bolshevik revolution of 1917; organizer of the heroic and victorious Red Army in the civil war against the Whites in the aftermath of that revolution; seemingly tireless Soviet official; literary and culture critic: leader of the Russian Left Opposition in the 1920s; and, hounded and exiled leader of the International Left Opposition in the 1930s.

I have decided to concentrate on some of his writings from the 1930s for another reason as well. Why, with such a resume to choose from? Because, when the deal went down Leon Trotsky’s work in the 1930s, when he could have taken a political dive, I believe was the most important of his long career. He, virtually alone of the original Bolshevik leadership (at least of that part that still wanted to fight for international revolution), had the capacity to think and lead. He harnessed himself to the hard, uphill work of that period (step back, step way back, if you think we are “tilting at windmills” now). In that sense the vile Stalinist assassination in 1940, when Trotsky could still project years of political work ahead, is not among the least of Stalin’s crimes against the international working class. Had Trotsky lived another ten years or so, while he could not have “sucked” revolutions out of the ground, he could have stabilized a disoriented post-World War communist movement and we would probably have a far greater living communist movement today. Thanks for what you did do though, Comrade Trotsky.

*"Inside Dave Van Ronk"- In The Youth Of The Folksinger (Oops) Jazz Vocalist Dave Van Ronk

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Dave Van Ronk performing Green, Green Rocky Road".


CD Review


Inside Dave Van Ronk, Dave Van Ronk, Fantasy Records,1969



When I first heard folk music in my youth I felt unsure about whether I liked it or not. As least against my strong feelings about the Rolling Stones and my favorite blues artist such as Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James. Then on some late night radio folk show here in Boston I heard Dave Van Ronk doing "Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies" (which is included in this selection) and that was it. That old-time gravelly voice (even though I found out later that he was relatively young at that time) still commands my attention in the same way.

The last time I saw Dave Van Ronk perform, after not seeing him for a fairly long period of time, was not a particularly good night as he was pretty sick by that time. Moreover, his politics seemed to have crumbled over time from that of the hardened Trotskyist of his youth going out slay the benighted Stalinists for the soul of the working class. His dedication to leftist politics, as testified to by those who knew him well like Tom Paxton, was well known and passionate. A man who can write an intersting ditty about the notorious Moscow Lubyanka political prison is definitely a political man. Although no one asks a musical performer to wear politics on his or her sleeves as a litmus test, given his status as a prime historian/activist of the folk revival of the 1960's, this was disconcerting.

That folk scene, of which Dave was a central and guiding figure not fully recognized outside a small circle to this day, was not only defined by the search for root music and relevancy but by large political concerns such as civil rights, the struggle against war, and the need for social justice. Some of it obviously was motivated as well as simply a flat out need to make our own mark on the world. Dave was hardly the first person from this period to lose his political compass in the struggle against injustice. I say this with sadness in his case but I will always carry that memory of that late night radio experience in my head. That said, please listen to this man reach under a song. You will not forget it either.


Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies


Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court your men
They're like a star on a summer morning
They first appear and then they're gone

They'll tell to you some loving story
And they'll make you think that they love you well
And away they'll go and court some other
And leave you there in grief to dwell

I wish I was on some tall mountain
Where the ivy rocks were black as ink
I'd write a letter to my false true lover
Whose cheeks are like the morning pink

I wish I was a little sparrow
And I had wings to fly so high
I'd fly to the arms of my false true lover
And when he'd ask, I would deny

Oh love is handsome, love is charming
And love is pretty while it's new
But love grows cold as love grows older
And fades away like morning dew

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- ***Those Appalachian Hills Back Home- Alan Lomax Presents The Music Of The Eastern American Mountains

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of The Kingston Trio performing "Tom Dooley" (sanitized version).

DVD Review

Appalachian Journey, American Patchwork Series, narrated by Alan Lomax, PBS Home Video, 1990

Anyone who noted the narrator of this project, the late Alan Lomax, the musical history of the Appalachian Mountains, the music of my father and his forbears going back a long, long way, knows that that name alone stands for a deep understanding of the roots of the American songbook. He, and before and with him, his father, John, had probably recorded more roots music, and various types of roots music, than anyone that I know of, including the various Seegers. That said, this PBS production is a very good primer about the roots of the music that some people created, and carried over with them from the old countries of northern Europe, mainly the British Isles.

Brother Lomax takes us through the evolution of this music of the isolated mountain people (including a tip of the hat to Native Americans) from the 19th century migration to the West, a time of lonely nights and hard work that created a desperate need to have an outlet on that hard fought rest on festive Saturday nights. Lomax, moreover, goes in some detail about the origins, some rather saucy, of many songs that came out of local mountain experiences such as “Tom Dooley” and “John Henry” that were obligatory covers for any aspiring folk singer in the 1960s folk revival.

He also spends time and effort on making the important connections, necessary connections by the way, between the white mountain experience and the black slavery experience as those cultural gradients mixed in the 19th struggle to “tame” the wilderness, especially the trek of the railroads westward through those hard scrabble mountains. Finally, Lomax moves the story forward to the more modern, and I would argue, less primitive sound of bluegrass and modern country dancing. Included here are interviews with some good old mountain men and women. At one hour this is a very quick primer to drive your interest in this type of music forward. I might have long denied its influence on me but somewhere deep in the recesses of my genes that old mountain seems to be calling me back as I grow older.

“Tom Dooley”

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.
You left her by the roadside
Where you begged to be excused;
You left her by the roadside,
Then you hid her clothes and shoes.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

You took her on the hillside
For to make her your wife;
You took her on the hillside,
And ther you took her life.

You dug the grave four feet long
And you dug it three feet deep;
You rolled the cold clay over her
And tromped it with your feet.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"Trouble, oh it's trouble
A-rollin' through my breast;
As long as I'm a-livin', boys,
They ain't a-gonna let me rest.

I know they're gonna hang me,
Tomorrow I'll be dead,
Though I never even harmed a hair
On poor little Laurie's head."

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"In this world and one more
Then reckon where I'll be;
If is wasn't for Sheriff Grayson,
I'd be in Tennesee.

You can take down my old violin
And play it all you please.
For at this time tomorrow, boys,
Iit'll be of no use to me."

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"At this time tomorrow
Where do you reckon I'll be?
Away down yonder in the holler
Hangin' on a white oak tree.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"Big Bill Broonzy John Henry lyrics"



When John Henry was a little baby boy, sitting on his papa's knee
Well, he picked up his hammer and a little piece of steel, said
"Hammers gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
The
captain
said to John Henry, "I'm gonna bring that steam drill around
I'm gonna bring that steam drill out on the job
I'm gonna whip that steel on down, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)

John Henry told his captain, "Lord, a man ain't nothing but a man
But before I'd let your steam drill beat me down,
I'd die with a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
John Henry said to his shaker, "Shaker, why don't you sing?
Because I'm swinging thirty pounds from my hips on down,
just to listen to that cold steel ring, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
Now the captain said to John Henry, "I believe that mountain's caving in"

John Henry said right back to the captain,
"Ain't nothing but my hammer sucking wind, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
Now the man that invented the steam drill, he thought he was mighty fine
But John Henry drove fifteen feet,
the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord (repeat 4 times)
John Henry hammered in the mountains, his hammer was striking fire
But he worked so hard, it broke his poor, poor heart,
and he laid down his hammer and he died, Lord, Lord (repeat 4 times)

On The 60th Anniversary Defend The Gains Of The Cuban Revolution- -From The Archives On The 57th Anniversary of The Cuban Revolution- End The U.S. Blockade!

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.    

DVD REVIEW

Fidel: The Untold Story, Directed by Estela Bravo, 2002

This year marks the 56th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 42nd anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerrilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of '68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against American imperialism.

Thus, it is fitting to review a cinematic biographic sketch of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon. The choice of this documentary reflected my desire to review a recent post- Soviet biographic sketch (originally released in 2002). Usually one must accept by now that most Western biographic sketches have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution. The director here, Ms. Bravo, is apparently an exception. After viewing this sketch I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start. To get a more detailed analysis one, as always, then goes to the books to get a better sense of the subject.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban Revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this reviewer can honor the Cuban Revolution as a symbol of a fight all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

Ms. Bravo's rather more positive prospective obviously differs from mine. Nevertheless she has presented interesting footage focusing on the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs in 1961; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its devastating hardships; and, various other events up through the 1990’s.

All of this is complete with the inevitable ‘talking heads’ experts interspersed throughout the documentary giving their take on the meaning of various incidents. Of interest here is the take of the former CIA interest section head Smith, former American radical Angela Davis and the novelist and long time Castro friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships that he dealt with over the years he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds. As always though- Defend The Cuban Revolution- End The U.S. Blockade!.

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-When The Scribe Ruled The Known World From His “Office”

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-When The Scribe Ruled The Known World From His “Office”

By Sam Lowell

The constant reader already knows that I have been teasing the readers 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. A guy who off and on for the next twenty years before he fell down, went down hard in Mexico trying to “cure” his eternal wanting habits with a quick score was my best friend, and on good days would acknowledge that on his part, 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. 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).

Not so strangely the Scribe was a nerdish combination of mad hatter plans to get out from under the projects life which he was far more sensitive about than the rest of us (although I still feel marked heavily by those formative experiences) and bookish, serious bookish babble of ideas like some ill-regarded prophet related to nothing at all that was crushing our spirits in the projects. I learned that about him the very first day of school by my observing the Scribe the next row over reading a book on American revolutionary Samuel Adams which I said looked interesting. That set the frame rolling as we talked until battered down by old biddy Sullivan’s wrath. That cost us a first day, first day of school if you can believe it, after school detention, the first of many. The Scribe would blow that detention business off (and I would a little toward the end of the year) as some kind of overhead to finding interesting things to talk about in school since nothing like that existed in his household (nor mine either fore that matter. Over the years he would make many calculated decisions in the same holy goof manner (thanks Jack Kerouac) from which way the cultural winds were blowing to how to work the plan for the latest “midnight creep.”    

As unbelievable as I thought it was at the time because I was somewhat shy and a little socially backward that first day 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.

[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 was 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.    

He always had a million schemes going and always a mix between his good instincts like when he proposed to sent books to Alabama so some black children could read* and planning a “midnight creep” to rob some house of its worldly possessions, sell them and live on what he called, we called, easy street for a while.    

(*The Scribe actually acted on that book proposal a little latter on the quiet since the white bread projects were a hotbed of racial animosity for the simple reason, no maybe not so simple reason, that no matter how bad things were in a place like the projects at least the denizens were white and the kids, us, imbibed that idea for the most part even if we did not understand it. Another situation where the Scribe committed me to silence although I have mentioned that episode many times over the years explaining the Scribe’s motions. Guys like Ronnie, Billy too would have crucified him if they had known probably about that project run him out of the projects.

The way the thing worked was that he actually put a small ad in the local newspaper asking for books (he also asked the local branch of the public library, but they turned him down cold). He got a response from a Jewish kid, also a no-no grouping in the projects life where anti-Semitism was more visceral than the black experience since a number of Jewish people lived in the new single-family houses up the road. That kid has some connections, so some books made their way south.)

At the same time, although I don’t remember if that was true with his working the books idea, he would be setting up a scheme to rob a house. Cool as a cucumber. This is where Adamsville Beach comes in again. The first time he proposed the idea to me (I was something like a sounding board for all he listened to me when he was hellbent on an idea) we were sitting at the seawall on the beach, what he called his office. It was in sixth grade, probably the spring, early summer when people would be away, would be away from those newly built single-family homes up the road.

This section, then anyway, was not well-policed (although the Scribe had the police patrol routine worked out) had some distance between houses ( a selling point for crammed in urban dwellers) and each as in all such developments in those days had similar set-ups, including bulkhead entry into the cellars and a breezeway between house and garage that was a joke to break into. The Scribe’s idea was to try the breezeway first, usually the easiest entry since as with many such quickly built structures the thing was flimsy (and probably no developer thought about corner boy midnight creep robbers. If that failed then the bulkhead was the target, an easy target since he had figured out a way to unlatch the doors with a device wedged between the doors, easy stuff really.               

Here it is best to give another contradiction of the Scribe. He was a nerd, was clueless about how to organize such a plan, the working parts. Once he presented the idea to Ronnie and Billy, and then the rest of the guys and suggested he would lead the first raid they balked, were ready to hang his ass in the grass. Christ, he could hardly keep his hands steady doing the “clip” (as I was so we both were lookouts in that juvenile caper). So Ronnie, and then when Ronnie grew away from the crowd Billy, later at Doc’s Harry Devine and at Tonio’s Frankie Riley would be the operational chiefs of such projects.

The one time the Scribe had the bright idea to do a creep on his own he almost got us all arrested when he both miscalculated the police patrol schedule and that the house selected was not empty but had somebody baby-sitting a child inside. Jesus, but when he was “on” his ideas were on point.  Hey, we never got caught for nothing he set up. Maybe it was that beach air that drove him on.     

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-When The Scribe Ruled The Known World From His “Office”

From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-When The Scribe Ruled The Known World From His “Office”  

  

By Sam Lowell

The constant reader already knows that I have been teasing the readers 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. A guy who off and on for the next twenty years before he fell down, went down hard in Mexico trying to “cure” his eternal wanting habits with a quick score was my best friend, and on good days would acknowledge that on his part, 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. 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).

Not so strangely the Scribe was a nerdish combination of mad hatter plans to get out from under the projects life which he was far more sensitive about than the rest of us (although I still feel marked heavily by those formative experiences) and bookish, serious bookish babble of ideas like some ill-regarded prophet related to nothing at all that was crushing our spirits in the projects. I learned that about him the very first day of school by my observing the Scribe the next row over reading a book on American revolutionary Samuel Adams which I said looked interesting. That set the frame rolling as we talked until battered down by old biddy Sullivan’s wrath. That cost us a first day, first day of school if you can believe it, after school detention, the first of many. The Scribe would blow that detention business off (and I would a little toward the end of the year) as some kind of overhead to finding interesting things to talk about in school since nothing like that existed in his household (nor mine either fore that matter. Over the years he would make many calculated decisions in the same holy goof manner (thanks Jack Kerouac) from which way the cultural winds were blowing to how to work the plan for the latest “midnight creep.”    

As unbelievable as I thought it was at the time because I was somewhat shy and a little socially backward that first day 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.

[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 was 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.    

He always had a million schemes going and always a mix between his good instincts like when he proposed to sent books to Alabama so some black children could read* and planning a “midnight creep” to rob some house of its worldly possessions, sell them and live on what he called, we called, easy street for a while.    

(*The Scribe actually acted on that book proposal a little latter on the quiet since the white bread projects were a hotbed of racial animosity for the simple reason, no maybe not so simple reason, that no matter how bad things were in a place like the projects at least the denizens were white and the kids, us, imbibed that idea for the most part even if we did not understand it. Another situation where the Scribe committed me to silence although I have mentioned that episode many times over the years explaining the Scribe’s motions. Guys like Ronnie, Billy too would have crucified him if they had known probably about that project run him out of the projects.

The way the thing worked was that he actually put a small ad in the local newspaper asking for books (he also asked the local branch of the public library, but they turned him down cold). He got a response from a Jewish kid, also a no-no grouping in the projects life where anti-Semitism was more visceral than the black experience since a number of Jewish people lived in the new single-family houses up the road. That kid has some connections, so some books made their way south.)

At the same time, although I don’t remember if that was true with his working the books idea, he would be setting up a scheme to rob a house. Cool as a cucumber. This is where Adamsville Beach comes in again. The first time he proposed the idea to me (I was something like a sounding board for all he listened to me when he was hellbent on an idea) we were sitting at the seawall on the beach, what he called his office. It was in sixth grade, probably the spring, early summer when people would be away, would be away from those newly built single-family homes up the road.

This section, then anyway, was not well-policed (although the Scribe had the police patrol routine worked out) had some distance between houses ( a selling point for crammed in urban dwellers) and each as in all such developments in those days had similar set-ups, including bulkhead entry into the cellars and a breezeway between house and garage that was a joke to break into. The Scribe’s idea was to try the breezeway first, usually the easiest entry since as with many such quickly built structures the thing was flimsy (and probably no developer thought about corner boy midnight creep robbers. If that failed then the bulkhead was the target, an easy target since he had figured out a way to unlatch the doors with a device wedged between the doors, easy stuff really.               

Here it is best to give another contradiction of the Scribe. He was a nerd, was clueless about how to organize such a plan, the working parts. Once he presented the idea to Ronnie and Billy, and then the rest of the guys and suggested he would lead the first raid they balked, were ready to hang his ass in the grass. Christ, he could hardly keep his hands steady doing the “clip” (as I was so we both were lookouts in that juvenile caper). So Ronnie, and then when Ronnie grew away from the crowd Billy, later at Doc’s Harry Devine and at Tonio’s Frankie Riley would be the operational chiefs of such projects.

The one time the Scribe had the bright idea to do a creep on his own he almost got us all arrested when he both miscalculated the police patrol schedule and that the house selected was not empty but had somebody baby-sitting a child inside. Jesus, but when he was “on” his ideas were on point.  Hey, we never got caught for nothing he set up. Maybe it was that beach air that drove him on.     

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

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!

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- *"This Ain't Rock and Rock"- The Blues Of Mississippi Fred McDowell

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Mississippi Fred McDowell performing' Going Down The River".

CD REVIEW

Here is a another of an old time blues artists. Mississippi Fred, as indicated in the headline, that did not perform rock 'n' roll. Okay?

The Best Of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Fred McDowell, Arhoolie records, 2002

Over the past year I have been doing a review of all the major country blues artists that I can get material on. High on that list would be the performer on this CD, the legendary Mississippi Fred McDowell. Before discussing this CD, however, let me put this blues man in context. I first heard Brother McDowell and his magnificent slide guitar riffs as a backup to some of “Big Mama” Thornton’s early blues numbers like "Little School Girl" and "The Red Rooster". I have note elsewhere that McDowell performed a very important service to the continuation of the country blues tradition when he provided mentorship to the great modern folk/country/blues singer songwriter Bonnie Raitt.

Ms. Raitt has profusely acknowledges his influence and just a peep her own work betrays that influence. Furthermore there is another place where McDowell demonstrated his vast influence. That is on The Rolling Stones. Their main blues influence might have been another Delta product, Muddy Waters, but The Stones did a cover of McDowell’s "You Got To Move" (and gave him the royalties for his cancer treatment) on their Stick Fingers album that has withstood the test of time. All these anecdotes are presented for one purpose- to show, if anyone needed showing that McDowell rightly takes his place with the likes of Bukka White, Skip James, Son House and Mississippi John Hurt as the legends of country blues.

For those not in the know theme of the country blues is about rural life, about picking cotton in the Delta (or hard scrabble farming elsewhere) and, most importantly, about those Saturday night bouts with booze, women and worked up passions that could go any which way, including jail. McDowell follows that tradition although on a number of cuts here, those accompanied by his wife’s singing along, he will also pay homage to the deeply religious roots of black existence at the turn of the 20th century South. The most famous exemplars of that tradition are of course Blind Willie Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis but other, including McDowell have taken a turn at that end of the blues spectrum in order to sanctify “the devil’s music”. Needless to say you must listen to "You Got To Move", "61 Highway" and "Kokomo Blues" here.

Yeah, Put Out That Fire In Your Head-With Patti Griffin’s Song Of The Same Name In Mind

Yeah, Put Out That Fire In Your Head-With Patti Griffin’s Song Of The Same Name In Mind   

By Fritz Taylor 

Sam Lowell was a queer duck, an odd-ball kind of guy who couldn’t stop keeping his head from exploding with about seventeen ideas at once and the determination to do all seventeen come hell or high water. And not seventeen things like mowing the lawn or taking out the rubbish but what he called “projects” which in Sam’s case meant political projects and writings and other things along that line. Yeah, couldn’t put out “the fire in his head” the way he told it to his long-time companion, Laura Perkins, one night at supper after she had confronted him, and not for the first time, that he was getting more irritable, was more often short with her of late, had seemed distant, had seemed to be drifting into some bad place, a place where he was not at peace with himself. That not “at peace” with himself an expression that Laura had coined that night to express the way that she saw his current demeanor. That would be the expression he would use in his group therapy group to describe his condition when they met later that week. Would almost shout out the words in despair when the moderator-psychologist asked him pointedly whether he felt at peace with himself at that moment and he pointed responded immediately that he was not. Maybe it was at that point, more probably though that night when Laura confronted him with his own mirror-self that told Sam his was one troubled man.  

Yea, it was that seventeen things in order and full steam ahead that got him in trouble on more than on occasion. The need to do so the real villain of the piece. See Sam had just turned seventy and so he should have been trying to slow down, slow down enough to not try to keep doing those seventeen things like he had when he was twenty or thirty but no he was not organically capable of doing so , at least until the other shoe dropped. Dropped hard.      

It was that “other shoe” dropping that made him take stock of his situation, although it had been too little too late. One afternoon a few days after that stormy group therapy session he laid down on his bed to just think through what was driving him to distraction, driving that fury inside him that would not let him be, as he tried to put on the fire in his head. That laying down itself might have been its own breakthrough since he had expected, had fiercely desired to finish up an article that he was writing on behalf a peace walk that was to take place shortly up in Maine, a walk that was dedicated to stopping the wars, mostly of the military-type but also of environmental degradation against Mother Nature. 

Sam, not normally introspective about his past, about the events growing up that had formed him, events that had as he had told Laura on more than one occasion almost destroyed him. So that was where he started, started to try to find out why he could not relax, had to be “doing and making” as Laura called it under happier circumstances, had to be fueling that fire in his head. Realized that afternoon that as kid in order to survive he had learned at a very young age that in order to placate (and avoid) his overweening mother he had to keep his own counsel, had to go deep inside his head to find solace from the storms around his house. For years he had thought the driving force was because he was a middle child and thus had to fend for himself while his parents (and grandparents) doted respectively his younger and older brothers. But no it had been deeper than that, had been driven by feelings of inadequacy before his mother’s onslaught against his fragile head.        

As Sam traced how at three score and ten he could point to various incidents that had driven him on, had almost made him organically incapable of having a no ever active brain, of going off to some dark places where the devils would not let him relax, that kept him going around and around he realized that he was not able to relax on his own, would need something greater than himself if he was to unwind. Laura had emphatically told him that he would have to take that journey on his own, would have to settle himself down if he was to gain any peace in his whole damn world. Sam suddenly noticed after Laura had expressed her opinion that she had always been the picture of calm, had been his rock when he was in his furies. Funny he had always underestimated, always undervalued that calmness, that solid rock. He, in frustration, at his own situation asked Laura how she had maintained the calm that seemed to follow her around her world.         

Laura, after stating that she too had her inner demons, had to struggle with the same kind of demons that Sam had faced as a child and that she still had difficulties maintaining an inner calm, told Sam that her daily Buddha-like meditations had carried her to a better place. Sam was shocked at her answer. He had always known that Laura was drawn to the spiritual trends around their milieu, the “New Age stuff” he called her interest since it seemed that she had taken tidbits from every new way to salvation outside of formal religion (although she had had bouts with that as well discarding her Methodist high heavens Jehovah you are on your own in this wicked old world upbringing for the communal comfort of the Universalist-Unitarian brethren). He had respected her various attempts to survive in the world the best way she could but those roads were not for him, smacked too much of some new religion, some new road that he could not travel on. But he was also desperate to be at peace, a mantra that he was increasing using to describe his plight.    

Then Laura suggested that they attend a de-stress program that was being held at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as part of what was billed as HUB-week, a week of medical, therapeutic, technological and social events and programs started by a number of well-known institutions in the Boston area like MGH, Harvard, MIT and others. Sam admitted to being clueless about what a de-stress program would be about and had never heard of a Doctor Benson who a million years before had written a best-selling book about the knot the West had put itself in trying to get ahead and offered mediation as a way out of the impasse. Sam was skeptical but agreed to go.

At the event which lasted about two hours various forms of meditative practice were offered including music and laughter yoga. Sam in his passed on those efforts. The one segment that drew his attention, the first segment headed by this Doctor Benson had been centered on a simple technique to reduce stress, to relax in fact was called the relax response. Best of all the Doctor had invited each member of the audience to sample his wares. Pick a word or short phrase to focus on, close your eyes, put your hands on your lap and consecrate, really try to concentrate, on that picked term for five minutes (the optimum is closer to ten plus minutes in an actual situation).          

Sam admitted candidly to Laura that while attempting fitfully focusing on one thing, in his case the phrase “at peace,” he had suffered many distractions but that he was very interested in pursuing the practice since he had actually felt that he was getting somewhere before time was called. Laura laughed at Sam’s response, so Sam-like expecting to master in five minutes a technique that she had spent years trying to pursue and had not been anywhere near totally focused yet. He asked her to help him to get started and they did until Sam felt he could do the procedure on his own.

We now have to get back to that “other shoe” dropping though. Although Sam had expressed his good intentions, had felt better after a while Laura had felt that he needed to go on his journey without her. She too now felt that she had to seek what she was looking for alone in this wicked world despite how long they had been together. So Laura called it quits, moved out of the house that she and Sam had lived in for years. Sam is alone on his journey now, committed to trying to find some peace inside despite his heartbreak over the loss of Laura. Every once in a while though in a non-meditative moment he curses that fire in his head. Yeah, he wished he could have put out that fire in his head long ago.