The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *Poet's Corner- Bob Dylan's "Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Bob Dylan Doing His Tribute To Woody Guthrie-"Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie"

Guest Commentary

LAST THOUGHTS ON WOODY GUTHRIE

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1973 Special Rider Music

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup
If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long
And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'
And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'
And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'
And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'
And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"
And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin' three queens
And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine

Bouncin' around a pinball machine
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin'
On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm talking
In this air I'm inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'
On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'
In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'
In the words that I'm thinkin'
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'
And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it's something special you're needin'
And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding


And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills

"Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it's funny
No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club

And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are sellin' you
And it ain't in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain't in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache«
And inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're foolin' you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of rnoney and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that

Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AINÕT REAL"

No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer race
You can't hear yer name, you can't see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in the Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

Down And Dirty In The Delta-With Bluesman Skip James In Mind CD Review

Down And Dirty In The Delta-With Bluesman Skip James In Mind 

CD Review

By Zack James

Skip James Unchained, Skip James Around Records, 1985 

“Hey, Josh, Sally Ann and I are headed to Newport this weekend for the folk festival, do you want to go?” asked Seth Garth plaintively knowing that Josh would give his right arm to be there that weekend, the weekend when the great old time country blues singers “discovered” by the young urban folk archivists and aficionados were going to “duel” it out for the “king of the hill” title. Of course Josh, stuck in a job as a research assistant in order to pay his way through college could not go since Professor Levin had some paper he was going to present to a conference out in California, out at Berkeley that needed last minute upgrading and footnoting, a fact of life in the profession, and so would be drudging around at least until Tuesday. 

Even if he had been able to sneak away for several hours to run down there some seventy miles away he knew that Seth and Sally Ann would be heading down courtesy of the Greyhound bus and so that was strictly out.

Seth, knowing of Josh’s plight thought that it had really been something for a couple of guys from the working poor Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville who were deeply into blues by guys from down in places like the Delta in Mississippi and the swamps of Alabama, places like that. City boys really and to the core, corner boys by inclination and so previously heavily attuned to nothing but bad boy rock and roll, you know, Elvis, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee, country boys too but guys who had hooked into some primal beat that moved them, spoke to them, hell, spoke for them, in a way that no sociologist could ever figure out in a hundred years. Strangely it had almost been an accidental occurrence since one night Seth had taken Annie Dubois from Olde Saco up in Maine to a blues concert in Cambridge where an old blues man from rural Texas, Mance Lipscomb was playing at the Café Algiers. He had been “found” by Alan Battles down in some Podunk town in Texas and came North via bus in tow with Alan. His Ella Speed and a couple of other tunes wowed him and he began studying up on Harry Smith’s anthology, Charles Seeger’s playlist and that of the Lomaxes, father and son. Watched too when unnamed aficionados were combing the South for country blues guys they had heard on old RCA records from the 1920s when that company sent out scouts to find talent for their “race records section.” Surprising some the guys, some of the best ones too, were still alive working in farm jobs or in small trades maybe playing the juke joints for drinks and pocket change.

Then in golden age 1963 (that golden age a true retrospective since many of the great bluesmen like Mississippi John Hurt, ditto Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sam Sloan, Bubba Ball, Bukka White would pass away within a few years of discovery so yes golden age) news came from Newport as they were announcing the festival program that Allan Battles had found Son House and Skip James to go with John Hurt. Now there was no publicity like today that would make the thing some kind of a shoot-out among the three for the title but Seth had a sneaking suspicion that that would happen. Would happen on the assumption that if you put three big gun bluesmen (or any three big guns in any musical genre) you were bound to have a shoot-out. That is what had animated all the conversations between Seth and Josh all spring on the assumption that Josh would be going along.  

In the event Seth had been right, at least in the end right. Each of the three men had their individual sets in a tent area set aside for them which actually was too small by the time serious folkies heard what was afoot. Seth and Sally Ann had gotten seat pretty close to the front because Seth although murder on any instrument he might play had a sense about who could play the guitar and who, beside him, could not. They all did a pretty good job, took a break and then came back together supposedly for one final collective song, John Hurt’s Beulah Land. Son House jumped out first but Seth detected that tell-tale glint he knew from his own drinking experiences that he had been at the bottle. John Hurt did well as would be expected on one of his signature covers. But then Skip James, not as good as a guitarist as the other two pulled down the hammer, came soaring out with that big falsetto voice and kept the field for himself.

And if you don’t believe Seth then check out this CD and then weep for your error.            

The Day The Son Of Man, Jesus, Saved A Wretch Like Me-I Once Was Lost But Now Am Found, Once Was Blind But Now I See- The Strange Saga Of One “Fallen” Allan Jackson

The Day The Son Of Man, Jesus, Saved A Wretch Like Me-I Once Was Lost But Now Am Found, Once Was Blind But Now I See- The Strange Saga Of One “Fallen” Allan Jackson     

By Bart Webber

This is a story that Allan Jackson, the benighted young subject of this short piece, would not tell anyone in a million years especially to those old tars who lived and died by the barnacled seas. (It was not by accident that among his first homeland the sea thoughts landed him smack dab in the middle of an old sailors’ home long out of use since the kind of tars that wound up there were from the “men of iron and ships of wood” age and his first death memories were formed via the old sailors’ graveyard located several hundred yards down the sea road from the Snug Harbor Elementary School where he nestled first with such thoughts.) The only reason I know about it, about th story not the other stuf which every guy knew from six years on is that I was actually there on the beach at Nollie’s Point when all the action occurred and although I was sworn to secrecy some sixty years later I am taking the statute of limitation claim to hell, taking the veil off.   

First you have to know, and regular readers presumably do know, that Allan Jackson former editor here for many years and now a senior contributing editor (which means he can write whatever he pleases whenever it pleases him from fifty words to five thousand and nobody, maybe not even God would cut one precious word without his okay) has gone on and on mercilessly about his love of the sea, the ocean, what he calls our homeland, the mother of us all. What any discerning reader would note though is that while he has had some ravishing descriptions of the furies of the seas when unleashed by whatever demon gods’ angers stir them, and fury abated when tepidly coming to shore as well that he has to my knowledge never actually described being on say a boat, at least not some small sailing craft and I don’t know about steamships, or having dunked himself in the surf on a hotter than hell day. And there is a reason for that going back those sixty years just mentioned.    

See all kidding aside, all fears aside as well Allan is deathly afraid of the seas, afraid for a very good reason although not a totally sane one. He almost drown at Nollie’s Point one fine day when he was eight (as I was). I can’t vouch for whether before this incident Allan was much of a swimmer, I would think not given the bone-headed way he dealt with the seas that day. But that hotter than hell sunny day was not a day for kings, or Allan. Somehow he got in his eight- year old mind that he would “ride the waves” on an old washed-up log as the tide was coming in to see how fast he could come ashore. I had seen the log and frankly to this day thought nothing of it, although I should have.  Should have realized that I would not have attempted such a feat and I was a pretty fair swimmer.

To the plot though. Allan rolled the log into the wash and hung on for a while until the log was heading across the point to a place where he would be over his head. That decision is the key because somehow during that period when he was over his head he decided that he would let go of the log, would try to swim to shore. Fatal, or almost fatal. Somehow the surf started coming up, the water got green and edgy meaning that it would be serious work to get to shore. Allan (as he told me later) went down once, then he yelled out to me, told me to get somebody because he was drowning, couldn’t make it to shore. Fortunately in the height of summer there was a lifeguard there. Not some muscle-bound college guy or slinky college girl with connections to get some summer dough but a young mother who had her daughter in tow. In any case after I screamed bloody murder she swam out to Allan (who said he went down twice and did not think he was coming up the third time. He did since she saved him.  

The minute he got to shore (I am not sure he needed to be pumped out I think not) he swore me to secrecy which I have kept until now. Here is a bit of irony, a bit of why I am spilling the beans, snitching as old as I am and as dedicated to the code of silence as anybody.  A few weeks ago I was at a class reunion and started talking to one of the fellow classmates whom I had not known in high school except she was a Squaw Rock girl and hence out of reach for Acre boys. I mentioned Allan Jackson’s name whom she remembered not for whatever publishing skills he possessed but because she had been on the beach that day when Allan almost drowned. Apparently Allan had given his name to the worthy young mother lifeguard in her hearing. She confessed to me that she had known all about Allan’s situation for as long as I had. See she was the little girl in tow while her mother did lifeguard duty on Nollie’s Point that day.  

***Daydream Visions Of Adamsville Beach, Circa 1964-In Honor Of Elsa Alva (nee Daley), Class Of 1964

***Daydream Visions Of Adamsville Beach, Circa 1964-In Honor Of  Elsa Alva (nee Daley), Class Of 1964

Alex James , North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

I have been dedicating some of my sketches to various people. When I first wrote this one in 2008 I had not one in particular in mind but when I recently rewrote it I did have Elsa in mind. I did not know her well at North Adamsville, and do not know her now much better now, but I felt her presence very strongly when I was rewriting this thing. So here it is.>
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Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, and the Adamsville Old Sailor’s Home (and cemetery about a quarter of a mile away, closed now but the final resting place for many a sea-faring man, known and unknown). Yes, those names and places from the old housing project down in South Adamsville where I came of age surely evoke imagines of the sea, of long ago sailing ships, and of desperate, high stakes battles fought off shrouded, mist-covered coasts by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And agile enough to keep it. Almost from my first wobbly, halting first baby steps down at “the projects” I have been physically drawn to the sea, a seductive, foam-flecked siren call that has never left me. Moreover, ever since this writer was a toddler his imagination has been driven by the sea as well. Not so much of pirates and prizes but of the power of nature, for good or evil.

Of course, anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville has to have an almost instinctual love of the sea; and a fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But enough of those imaginings. If being determines consciousness, and if you love the ocean, then it does not hurt to have been brought up in Adamsville with its ready access to the bay and water on three sides. That said, the focal point for any experience with the ocean in Adamsville centers, naturally, around its longest stretch of beach, aptly, if not ingeniously, named Adamsville Beach.

For those of us of a certain age, including this writer, one cannot discuss Adamsville Beach properly without reference to such spots such as Howard Johnson's famous landmark ice cream stand (now a woe-begotten clam shack of no repute). For those who are clueless as to what I speak of, or have only heard about it in mythological terms from older relatives, or worst, have written it off as just another ice cream joint I have provided a link to a Wikipedia entry for the establishment. That should impress you of the younger set, I am sure. Know this: many a hot, muggy, sultry, sweaty summer evening was spent in line impatiently, and perhaps, on occasion, beyond impatience, waiting for one of those 27 (or was it 28?) flavors to cool off with. In those days the prize went to cherry vanilla in a sugar cone (backup: frozen pudding). I will not bore the reader with superlative terms and the “they don’t make them like they use to” riff, especially for those who only know “HoJo’s” from the later, pale imitation franchise days out on some forsaken great American West-searching highway, but at that moment I was in very heaven.

Nor can one forget those stumbling, fumbling, fierce childish efforts, bare-footed against all motherly caution about the dreaded jellyfish, pail and shovel in hand, to dig for seemingly non-existent clams down toward the Merrymount end of the beach at the, in those days, just slightly oil-slicked, sulfuric low tide. Or the smell of charcoal-flavored hot dogs on those occasional family barbecues (when one in a series of old jalopies that my father drove worked well enough to get us there) at the then just recently constructed old barren old Treasure Island (now named after some fallen Marine, and fully-forested, such is time) that were some of the too few times when my family acted as a family. Or the memory of roasted, really burnt, sticky marshmallows sticking to the roof of my mouth. Ouch!

But those thoughts and smells are not the only ones that interest me today. No trip down memory lane would be complete without at least a passing reference to high school Adamsville Beach. The sea brings out many emotions: humankind's struggle against nature, some Zen notions of oneness with the universe, the calming effect of the thundering waves, thoughts of immortality, and so on. But it also brings out the primordial longings for companionship. And no one longs for companionship more than teenagers. So the draw of the ocean is not just in its cosmic appeal but hormonal, as well. Mind you, however, we are not discussing here the nighttime Adamsville Beach, the time of "parking" and the "submarine races." [For the heathens, or those from Kansas or some such place, going to watch the submarine races was a localism meaning going, via car, down to the beach at night, hopefully on a very dark night, with a, for a guy, girl and, well, start groping each other, and usually more, a lot more, if you were lucky and the girl was hot, while occasionally coming up for air and looking for that mythical submarine race. Many guys (and gals) had there first encounter with oral sex that way, if the Monday morning before school boys’ lav talk, and maybe girls’ lav talk too, was anything but hot air.] Our thoughts are now pure as the driven snow. We will save that discussion for another time when kids and grand-kids are not around. Here we will confine ourselves to the day-time beach.

Virtually from the day school we got out of school for summer vacation I headed for the beach. And not just any section of that beach but the section directly between the Squaw Rock and Adamsville Heights Yacht Clubs. Now was situating myself in that spot done so that I could watch all the fine boats at anchor? Or was this the best swimming location on the beach? Hell no, this is where we heard (and here I include my old running pal and classmate, Bill Bailey) all the "babes" were. We were, apparently, under the influence of Beach Blanket Bingo or some such early 1960s Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicillo (sic) teenage beach film. (For those who are again clueless this was a “boy meets girl” saga like Avatar, except on the beach...and on Earth.)

Well, for those who expected a movie-like happy ending to this piece, you know, where I meet a youthful "Ms. Right" to the strains of Sea of Love, forget it. (That is the original Sea of Love, by the way, not the one used in the movie of the same name sung by Tom Waits at the end, and an incredible cover that you should listen to on YouTube.) I will keep the gory details short, though. As fate would have it there may have been "babes" aplenty down there but not for this lad. I don't know about you but I was just too socially awkward (read: tongue-tied) to get up the nerve to talk to girls (female readers substitute boys here). And on reflection, if the truth were to be known, I would not have known what to do about it in any case. No job, no money and, most importantly, no car for a date to watch one of those legendary "submarine races" that we have all agreed that we will not discuss here. But we can hardly fault the sea for that, right?
*****
The above piece came about as a result of a response to some correspondence, via, a manically hard-working and determined North Adamsville High School class reunion committee member who shall remain nameless (except for gender, she) concerning old-time memories of Adamsville Beach which formed one of the backdrops to our high school experiences. In the wake of my commentary everybody and their brother (or sister) who ever came within fifty miles of smelling the sulfuric-flecked sea air at that beach has felt some kind of ‘civic duty’ to bring out his or her own salt-encrusted memories of the place. Below, mainly unedited (who could edit someone’s civic duty), is the traffic in response to the above piece. No one is required to wade through all the blather but to make a New York Times-like offical record seems appropriate under the circumstances.
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Betty Gilroy 1985 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 22 2008 11:00pm PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin 1964

I grew up close to Adamsville Beach...I used to ride my bike there, runaway there... was a great bike path, I loved it as a kid. I used to hang out with friends from school, had some great jelly fish fights there. Ahhh, my friend and her boy fell asleep on the beach divider {Markin: sea-wall]with his hand on her stomach. How was she going to explain that one to mom and dad? (And, no, you dirty old man, they were not having oral sex or anything like that, although I learned later from my own experience that this was a “hot” spot for such things being so secluded and all. She, maybe they, didn’t know anything about sex then according to her, although later she told me about a couple of things, nasty-sounding things then but nice now, to do with guys. I am blushing now, and getting a little funny-feeling too, when I think about it now but the sound of the ocean in the background was a great place to do those things, those so-called nasty things. I know it got me going.)

I lived in Adamsville Central in the ‘70s to the early 80s and then moved to North Adamsville. I love the views, and the clam shack, the ice cream, all the clam diggers... the pond on the way from Marlboro Street, jumping the fence trying to catch the bull frogs going to the swamp cemetery swinging from the willow tree I think... I live in California and have a son that’s 7 (I hope he doesn't read what I wrote above, about that sex stuff I mean, but the ocean did turn me on, a lot) around the age that I would ride my bike the freedom, the safeness I had skate boarding around losing track of time, I haven't been back since my 10 year reunion I miss it, my friends, but then again I'm older with responsibilities maybe some day again I will take my son and show him Adamsville Beach and throw a few jelly fish his way??

Betty
North Adamsville High 85
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Memories Of Adamsville Beach

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Jul 26 2008 05:31am PST
In reply to Betty Gilroy, 1985

Betty- Thanks for the reply. The glint of silver off the Treasure Island Bridge when the sun hit it at a certain time. The early morning winter sun coming up over the horizon on the bay. The Boston skyline at dusk (pre-Marina Bay times when there was an unimpeded view). Well, we could go on and on with our memories but the one thing that caught my eye in your reply was the word “escape.” In one sense I was using Adamsville Beach as a metaphor for that idea in my story. I do not know about you and your family but, to be kind, I had a very rocky time growing up and certainly by the time I got to high school I was in desperate need of a sanctuary. It is no accident that I (and my old running mate, Bill Bailey) spent a fair amount of time there.

I went back to Adamsville last year (2007) while they were doing some reconstruction and cleaning the place up. I wrote about that in a sketch entitled Do You Know Adamsville Beach? that I posted here but then deleted. My original idea was to draw a comparison between the old hazy, happy memories of Adamsville in our youth and looking at it with today's older eyes. Somehow it just didn't fit right as a discussion item with the things I was trying to write then. If you would kindly reply to this message I will place it as a reply to some of what you have mentioned in your message about 'coming home.' By the way the jellyfish are still there in all their glory and please, take mother's advice, do not step on them, they might be poisonous.

Finally, I will not let you off the hook. I won’t comment on the "dirty old man" remark as I will take it as just a cute “fresh,” maybe flirty remark on your part. Yes, and I know as well as you that this is a family-friendly site but how did your friend explain away her 'sleeping' on the old wall to mom and dad? That bit about how she (they) didn’t know anything about sex, oral or otherwise, just doesn’t wash. Everybody “knew,” including parents who probably invented the spot, you only went to that particular spot with one thing in mind. You can send me a private e-mail with the real details if you like and then you can see if I am really a dirty old man or not. Regards, Peter Paul Markin

[Markin: Betty, by the way did send me an e-mail, several in fact, and I am still blushing, blushing profusely over some of her information old and ‘mature’ as I am. Let's put it this way my temperature was rising not a little. Frankly, some of the stuff (various sexual positions) she spoke of have to defy the laws of nature, but so be it. We were young and flexible (in more that one way) then. Forward.]
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Craig Wallace, North Adamsville High,1957 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 23 2008 10:34am PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin,1964

Peter Paul: I heard from a younger friend, a woman friend (of my ex-wife’s actually) who knew you back in the day Professor Joan Murphy from over at MIT, who used to call you P.P., and that you liked it. [Markin: Tolerated it from her only because she was Frankie Riley’s ever-loving girlfriend. You remember the Riley family, the one with all the great North Adamsville raider red football players, Frankie was my corner boy chieftain up in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor. And she was, well, let's leave it as Frankie's ever-loving girlfriend.]

I don't have an awful lot to say about the beach, since I lived in a few other places while growing up. I do remember walking along the old sea wall and jumping across the openings trying to grab the rail to avoid falling. I once caught the rail, but hit the edge of the concrete wall with my shin. It hurt, but I didn't think it was broken.

Once a friend ran into a guy at the beach, and for some reason began to "exchange words." They were about to go at each other, but the lifeguard told them to take their dispute elsewhere. They went across the street to the grass in front of a stand where clams and other goodies were sold. The friend proceeded to tear the other guy apart. It didn't last that long. The friend was 5'-7" tall and the other guy 6'-3". I heard that some years later they ran into each other again and had a big laugh about the whole thing. Kids do grow up.

When I visited Massachusetts with my wife and two kids in 1983, my brother took us through some of the "old haunts," and we roamed the beach a bit. They got a kick out of a pair of horseshoe crabs skittering along the edge of the low tide line. I also went back there in 2007 and took a few walks along the beach. I did miss the old candle pin bowling alley, which appears to have been replaced by condos as was the old Adamsville Grammar School where I went through 1st grade (Miss Gray) and most of 2nd grade (Miss Lindberg).

Oh, yeah. I believe the Adamsville East Elementary School on Huckins Avenue is still in operation. I read that there's a boundary somewhere in North Adamsville and that kids who live east of the line go to Adamsville East School and those west of that line go to Parker Elementary on Billings Road. What is now North Adamsville High School included grades 7 through 12 till 1958 or 1959. So, even though I lived in 3 or 4 places, I was able to attend all 6 years at the same school.

Overall, most memories of Adamsville Beach are pretty good.

Craig S. Warren, 1957
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Peter Paul Markin reply:
Craig

Nobody has to stay on the subject at hand, all information about the old times in North Adamsville is welcome, but did you ever go to the beach? From the way you described it I thought maybe you knew about it from some picture postcard, of any beach, anywhere. Were you one of those, and there were not a few if I recall, who "rode," hot-rod rode the Adamsville Shore Boulevard and never touched down on the sand, or caught a fresh sea breeze on a hot summer day. Just kept cruising, eyes forward or left honed in on the ice cream, bowling alley, clam shack side, looking for the be-bop night, girls, or something. Like old Adamsville was Kansas or some sod town.

Peter Paul Markin,1964
Posted: Jul 23 2008 12:51pm PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957 
This entry started as a short sketch in this space but I deleted it because it did not fit in with what I was trying to evoke in these pages then. Now the sketch does serve as a decent reply though for Betty Gilroy's,(1985) and Craig Wallace's (1957) comments above. I, moreover, actually am writing about the old-time beach here and not everything else under the sun like hot sex spots and Adamsville school locations. Christ. Peter Paul Markin

*****
Okay, in the sketch above(Daydream Visions Of Adamsville Beach, Circa 1964) this writer got all misty-eyed about the old days at Adamsville Beach. I went on and on about things like the various flavors of ice cream at HoJo's, the local king-of-the-hill ice cream stand, the vagaries of clam-digging in the oil-soaked flats and about the smell of charcoal- broiled hot dogs at Treasure Island. And I did not fail to mention the obligatory teenage longings for companionship and romantic adventure associated with the sea. But enough of magical realism. Today, as we are older and wiser, we will junk that memory lane business and take a look at old Adamsville in the clear bright light of day.

Last year, as part of the trip down the memory lane that I have been endlessly writing about in this space, I walked the length of Adamsville Beach from the Squaw Rock Causeway to the bridge at Adamsville Shore. At that time the beach area was in the last stages of some reconstruction work. You know, repave the road, redo the sidewalks, and put in some new streetlights. Fair enough-even the edges of Mother Nature can use a make-over once in a while. The long and short of this little trip though was to make me wonder why I was so enthralled by the lure of Adamsville Beach in my youth.

Oh sure, most of the natural landmarks are still there, as well as some of the structural ones. Those poor, weather-beaten yacht clubs that I spend many a summer gazing on in my fruitless search for teenage companionship (read: girls). And, of course, the tattered Beachcomber gin mill in much the same condition is still there as are the inevitable clam shacks with their cholesterol-laden goods. That is not what I mean-what I noticed were things like the odd smell of low-tide when the sea is calm, the tepidness of the water as it splashed, barely, to the shore-when a man craved the roar of the ocean-and the annoying gear-grinding noise caused by the constant vehicular traffic on the near-by boulevard. Things that I was, frankly, oblivious to back in the days.

There is thus something of a disconnect between the dreaminess and careless abandon of youthful Adamsville Beach and the Adamsville of purposeful old age-the different between eyes and ears observing when the world was young and there were things to conquer and now. The lesson to be learned- beware the perils of memory lane. But don't blame the sea for that, please.

.....and the tin can bended, and the story ended (title from the late folksinger/folk historian Dave Van Ronk's last album). That seems about right.
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On Our 'Code Of Honor'

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Jul 26 2008 05:42am PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957 
Craig- I am very interested in having you fill out this story about the fight between your friend and the other guy down at Adamsville Beach that you mentioned before (see above). I do not need to know the gory details nor what happened years later. What I am looking for is your take on what the whole incident meant at the time. This was hardly an unusual event at then(or now for that matter), right?

I am trying to put together an entry based on our working class “code of honor”- male version- at the time before women's liberation and other social phenomena helped us to expand our sense of the world and how we should act in it. Even “loner” types like me would not back down on certain 'turf' issues (girls, giving way while walking on the street, who you "hung" with, where your locker was, which “lav” you used, etc.) and took a beating rather than concede the point. Enough for now but give this some thought. 

Regards, Peter Paul
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Fight . . . ?

Craig Wallace,1957 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 28 2008 09:09am PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin,1964 
Peter Paul (I won’t call you P.P., okay). [Markin: Watch it old man. The days of the bogus 'code of honor' may be long gone but every working-class corner boy still has a slight edge on, even fifty years later, okay.]

The scuffle between a friend of mine and a much bigger guy at Adamsville Beach was not really "earth shaking." It started a couple days before when the friend and I were walking along one of the streets leading to the beach, Bayfield Road, perhaps. The "other guy" passed by in a car with some of his friends, including a couple girls. That guy yelled some insult at my friend in reference to his "eye-wear." He probably was trying to impress the girls by showing them he could insult anyone and all could get a good laugh out of it. Of course, my friend yelled something equally offensive at those in the passing car, which kept going. The "incident" appeared to have terminated.

A few days later the friend and I crossed the road to the beach near one of the yacht clubs and there was the guy who had yelled the insulting remarks. Apparently, he thought he could continue the verbal abuse without suffering the consequences, because he yelled something similar again. My friend went after the kid, but was informed by the lifeguard that they better take their "dispute" elsewhere. They went across the road to a grassy area and, encouraged by a small crowd that was gathering around them, proceeded to "get it on." My friend was usually a fairly pacific person, but when "pushed," he was like a cornered wolverine that would take on anybody or anything. The scuffle didn't last long, and the bigger kid got the worst of it. That time was the end of the dispute. Apparently nobody was seriously hurt, but maybe some had a bit more respect for the smaller kids after that. Some years later the two met, and remembering the incident, shared a good laugh over the whole thing.

Then, as now, I saw no esoteric meaning to the "battle." It didn't seem like the medieval days when one would "defend his honor" or that of a "damsel in distress." It was just an exchange of words that developed into a short round of what may be referred to these days as "ultimate fighting" where no rules are observed. I had a couple scuffles in elementary school and my son did in middle school, but we more-or-less outgrew such things. Sadly, nowadays those "scuffles" can become more deadly and end with somebody paying the "ultimate price." Are we reverting to the "Dark Ages." I hope not.

Anyway, enough said of a "juvenile incident."

Craig, 1957
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The "Code of Honor"

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 03 2008 11:31am PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957 
Craig, thanks for story. It gives me an angle for a story that I will write about on our youthful sense of “honor.” This story that you related, especially the part about impressing the girls, etc. really says something about that code.

Regards, Peter Paul
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Day and Night At Adamsville Beach

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 02 2008 06:21am PST
In reply to Betty Gilroy, 1985 
I mentioned in my original story that all of us would talk about daytime Adamsville Beach (although once the kids are out of sight-the nighttime is the right time- can come into play). I hope that at some point Betty Gilroy will expand on her comment about her girlfriend down at the day time beach and the incident alluded in her comment about her falling asleep. Ms. Gilroy is more than capable of telling her own version of the story. [Markin: She did via e-mail, private e-mail, and it would take a civil war to get the information out of me, or a few bucks. Let me put it this way. I was blushing for days, maybe now even, as I mentioned above]. The only point I want to make here is that some of these day time remembrances are as funny as what might have happened at night. Funny now, that is.

Regards, Peter Paul
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Anyone Remember Adamsville Beach?

Robina Moore, 1978 (view profile)
Posted: Aug 15 2008 04:35pm PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin, 1964 
Totally agree that growing up on Adamsville Beach was an experience. So natural at the time, but looking back I now see how fortunate I was. I don’t remember the HoJo’s but I do remember the 19 cent hotdogs sold on the beach that was a few blocks from my house. What a treat for the neighborhood kids to get together and go get a dog.

As far the beach was concerned as kids, we followed the tides. Some parent would parade a group us kids and watch over us. Generally for two hours before high tide, and two hours after, and they always had snacks and drinks in tow…just gotta love the moms for that! Swim, dig in the sand, play catch in the water and when finally tired, lay on a towel and listen to WRKO or WMEX on the transistor radio.

Once I hit teenage years, I choose not to venture near the beach. I think my parents knew about the cosmic and hormonal appeal as well as primordial longings going on there. I was taught at a young age, the beach is not a good place at night. I totally thank them for instilling this and letting Adamsville Beach be filled with wonderful childhood memories. With that said, I am thrilled at the revitalization, and hope this generation of children will have a chance to create memories that they can cherished forever.
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Back In The Days

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 18 2008 02:49pm PST
In reply to Robina Moore, 1978 
Robina-Very nicely told memories. That is the thing that I was trying to evoke in writing this particular commentary. A few points.

*The reason for the boxes in your entry [Markin:since deleted] is that when you transfer from a word processor to the message space here the apostrophes and quotation marks turn into some Serbo-Croatian dialect in the process. It happens to me all the time. You have to change them in this space to avoid that.

* Do you, or anyone else, know when HoJo's left the Adamsville Beach site?

* Did you mean 19 dollars for a hot dog? You put 19 cents but that can't be right. Nothing ever cost 19 cents.

• You realize, of course, that this is a generic North Adamsville site and therefore members of generations X, Y or Z may not be familiar with the term “transistor radio.” For their benefit, that was a little battery-powered gizmo that allowed you to listen to music, the 'devil's music,' rock 'n' roll, without your parents going nuts. And no, sorry, you could not download whatever you wanted. Yes, I know, the Stone Age.

Regards, Peter Paul Markin
*******
The Nighttime Is The Right Time....

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 21 2008 08:08am PST
In reply to Robina Moore, 1978 
...to be with the one you love. Yes, that classic Ray Charles tune (covered by many, including a steamy tribute version by The Rolling Stones in their 2005 Fenway Park concert) is a good lead in to what I want to mention here. Most of the comments on this entry have concerned day time Adamsville Beach but I have been thinking that it is time to open up to the night time episodes. Here are my reasons:

• Hey, it is entirely possible that some of our fellow alumni never went to Adamsville Beach during the day. They might have a legitimate grip against us for that. Remember we are using this cyberspace so that everyone has their "15 minutes of fame."

• The heck with protecting the kids and grandkids. They know this stuff already. Let's face it, as well, no self-respecting member of the hip-hop/iPod/Sidekick/texting generations (or younger) would dream of reading this far down into the entry. Ugh!

• Frankly, there is only so far we can go with the day-time Adamsville Beach. While there have been some nice comments there is only so far you can go with jellyfish, 19 cent hot dogs, teenage romantic longings and getting sand kicked in your face. We need to spice this up. In short, sex, or the hint of it, sells.

These are all good and sufficient reasons but, as usual, my real reason for arguing inclusion here is personal curiosity. I have been waiting some forty-four years to ask this simple question. Why, while we were driving down Adamsville Shore Boulevard on those cold October nights, let's say, were most of the cars all fogged up? What, were their defrosters not working? Come on, please, tell me.

From The Archives- “Strobe Light’s Beams Creates Dreams”-The Summer Of Love, 1967-The AARP’s Take

From The Archives- “Strobe Light’s Beams Creates Dreams”-The Summer Of Love, 1967-The AARP’s Take   

By Political Commentator Frank Jackman  

  

Early this year driven by my old corner boys, Alex James and Sam Lowell, I had begun to write some pieces in this space about things that happened in a key 1960s year, 1967. The genesis of this work is based on of all things a business trip that Alex took to San Francisco earlier this spring. While there he noted on one of the ubiquitous mass transit buses that crisscross the city an advertisement for an exhibition at the de Young Art Museum located in Golden Gate Park. That exhibition The Summer of Love, 1967 had him cutting short a meeting one afternoon in order to see what it was all about. What it was all about aside the nostalgia effect for members of the now ragtag Generation of ‘68 was an entire floor’s worth of concert poster art, hippy fashion, music and photographs of that noteworthy year in the lives of some of those who came of age in the turbulent 1960s. The reason for Alex playing hooky was that he had actually been out there that year and had imbibed deeply of the counter-culture for a couple of years out there after that.

Alex had not been the only one who had been smitten by the Summer of Love bug because when he returned to Riverdale outside of Boston where he now lives he gathered up all of the corner boys from growing up North Adamsville still standing to talk about, and do something about, commemorating the event. His first contact was with Sam Lowell the old film critic who also happened to have gone out there and spent I think about a year there, maybe a little more. As had most of the old corner boys for various lengths of time usually a few months. Except me. Alex’s idea when he gathered all of us together was to put together a small commemoration book in honor of the late Peter Paul Markin. See Markin, always known as “Scribe” after he was dubbed that by our leader Frankie Riley, was the first guy to go out there when he sensed that the winds of change he kept yakking about around the corner on desolate Friday and Saturday nights when we had no dough, no girls, no cars and no chance of getting any of those quickly were coming west to east.

Once everybody agreed to do the book Alex contacted his youngest brother Zack, the fairly well known writer, to edit and organize the project. I had agreed to help as well. The reason I had refused to go to San Francisco had been that I was in the throes of trying to put together a career as a political operative by attempting to get Robert Kennedy to run against that naked sneak thief of a sitting President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had us neck deep in the big muddy of Vietnam and had no truck with hippies, druggies or “music is the revolution” types like those who filled the desperate streets around Haight-Ashbury. Then.  Zack did a very good job and we are proud of tribute to the not forgotten still lamented late Scribe who really was a mad man character and maybe if he had not got caught up in the Army, in being drafted, in being sent to Vietnam which threw him off kilter when he got back he might still be around to tell us what the next big trend will be.              

The corner boys from the old Acre neighborhood in North Adamsville are, as the article below demonstrates, not the only ones who are thinking about the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love. AARP with a sure grip on the demographics of its brethren has tipped its hat as well. While I disagree somewhat with the author of the article about the connection between the Summer of Love participants and later social movements like women’s liberation, gay liberation and a serious interest in ecology no question 50 years later looking at the art, the posters, photographs and listening to the music makes me once again realize that in that time “to be young was very heaven.”    

Supplément à République ouvrière Août 2019 Internationalist Group : Déchet anglo-chauvin Crache sur l’indépendance, crache sur la LCI

Supplément à République ouvrière Août 2019 Internationalist Group : Déchet anglo-chauvin Crache sur l’indépendance, crache sur la LCI Une polémique mensongère et diffamatoire contre l’article de République ouvrière no 3 (hiver/printemps 2019) « À bas les attaques racistes contre les musulmans ! » a été publiée en juin dernier par l’Internationalist Group (IG) américain, une organisation ferrée en matière de calomnies contre la Ligue communiste internationale (LCI), dont nous sommes la section au Québec et au Canada. Écrit in English only pour un auditoire qui ne connait pas le Québec ou qui est carrément hostile à sa lutte de libération nationale, ce torchon titré « The ICL Against Asylum for Refugees in Quebec » (Internationalist, mai-juin 2019) nous accuse d’être des racistes qui soutiendraient les expulsions de réfugiés. C’est une accusation grotesque, un mensonge évident pour quiconque a lu l’article de RO qui affirmait : « À bas les expulsions ! Pleins droits de citoyenneté pour tous ceux qui sont ici ! ». Cette diffamation sert en fait à masquer (très mal) les positions libérales pro-Trudeau et anti-Québécois des IG, et cherche aussi à salir les vrais communistes au sein de la gauche et du mouvement ouvrier comme des racistes, visant à provoquer la censure et ultimement la violence contre nous. Les IG attaquent la déclaration suivante de l’article de RO : « Les mesures anti-immigrants de Legault, dont la récente annulation de 18 000 dossiers d’immigration, font partie intégrante des attaques racistes qu’il mène pour diviser les travailleurs : un poison qui doit être combattu dans la classe ouvrière. Reste que la lutte pour que le Québec ait son État indépendant ne peut être dissociée de la lutte pour contrôler ses frontières. Les revendications menées en ce moment par Legault pour rapatrier au Québec les compétences du fédéral sur l’immigration sont donc, de ce point de vue, légitimes. » D’après les IG, ceci veut dire que « la LCI appuie ouvertement le droit “légitime” d’un gouvernement bourgeois de renvoyer des réfugiés afin de contrôler les frontières d’un État indépendant qui, en plus, n’existe même pas ! » (en gras dans l’original ; notre traduction), ajoutant que cela nous « aligne avec les éléments les plus rétrogrades de la bourgeoisie, y compris des fascistes et des racistes », et nous mettant dans le même sac que « les Trump et Legault de ce monde ». Ce sont des calomnies dégoutantes ! Ce sont les IG, poussés par leur anglo-chauvinisme et leurs appétits « d’unité contre la droite », qui introduisent faussement cette équation entre la défense du droit du Québec de contrôler ses frontières et un appui à la politique d’immigration d’un gouvernement bourgeois. Le contrôle des frontières est un des attributs essentiels de la souveraineté ; donc si le Québec peut arracher au fédéral des concessions en ce sens, c’est effectivement légitime même si partiel et réversible. C’est bien ce qui enrage les IG : la position que nous avons prise découle de notre lutte pour la libération nationale du Québec, partie prenante de l’objectif des léninistes d’être le tribun de tous les opprimés dans leur lutte contre l’exploitation capitaliste en général. Pour leur part, les IG s’opposent à la libération du Québec, peu importe les déclarations contraires qu’ils font à l’occasion sur papier (en fait, leur odieuse polémique ne fait même pas mention du droit du Québec à l’autodétermination ; alors l’indépendance, n’y pensez même pas). Pour les IG toute défense conséquente des nations opprimées dans les États multinationaux revient à du « nationalisme bourgeois » ; c’est dans cette même optique qu’ils s’opposent aussi à l’indépendance de la Catalogne. En refusant au Québec le droit de contrôler ses frontières, même partiellement, les IG se rangent dans le camp de Trudeau et soutiennent le mensonge que les politiques d’immigration du « Canada uni » sont fondamentalement plus humanitaires et moins racistes. En fait foi, dans leur polémique, leurs félicitations à peine voilées envers Trudeau et ses prétentions à aider les réfugiés : ils le louent pratiquement pour avoir temporairement suspendu certaines déportations en Haïti et en Syrie, se plaignant seulement qu’il l’ait fait pour des raisons « diplomatiques » et sans mentionner ni condamner le fait qu’il avait déjà déporté des centaines d’Haïtiens, entre autres ! Les calomnies abjectes des IG font simplement écho à la bourgeoisie canadienne-anglaise qui cherche toujours à utiliser les minorités ethniques, qu’elle opprime horriblement, pour condamner toute expression de souveraineté du Québec sous couvert de « multiculturalisme ». En d’autres termes, ils colportent le mensonge éculé comme quoi les Québécois ne sont qu’une bande « tribale » de racistes arriérés que le fair-play impérialiste anglophone si « civilisé » (et couvert de sang) doit encadrer. Ces positions n’ont rien de fondamentalement nouveau pour les IG. Issu d’une défection de notre propre organisation dans les années 1990, et dans le contexte de la chute de l’Union soviétique, ce groupe est caractérisé principalement par le rejet de la lutte pour une avant-garde léniniste et par ses capitulations à l’impérialisme et différentes forces réformistes ou populistes. Sur la question nationale, les IG défendent des positions rétrogrades avec lesquelles nous avons nous-mêmes rompu—et pour lesquelles Jan Norden, aujourd’hui líder maximo des IG, était largement responsable (voir « La bataille contre l’Hydre chauvine », Spartacist édition française no 43, été 2017). Le véritable programme des IG, c’est l’assimilation forcée des petites nations et le soutien aux représentants « libéraux » de l’impérialisme—dont l’expression la plus mielleuse et la plus hypocrite est Trudeau, mais qui inclut aussi le Parti démocrate américain et les impérialistes de l’Union européenne (UE) comme Macron et Merkel. Les IG se plaisent à aviser ces impérialistes bourgeois et racistes sur une politique de migration plus « humaine », la logique de cela étant une position libérale pour « l’ouverture des frontières », un programme utopique et réactionnaire. Un exemple de cela est leur accusation, répétée dans leur article mensonger, que la LCI est indifférente au sort des réfugiés en Europe parce que nous n’appelons pas spécifiquement à abolir le règlement Dublin III (une entente sur le flux migratoire au sein de l’UE). En fait, la position des IG, en sélectionnant des règlements particuliers de l’UE auxquels s’opposer, propage le mythe impérialiste de l’UE comme un « super-État » qui transcende les frontières des pays membres. Dans le cadre réformiste d’une « Europe sociale », les IG donnent un appui tacite à l’UE, laissant entendre qu’il pourrait y avoir une répartition « plus équitable » des réfugiés sous le capitalisme et que l’UE d’avant Dublin III était moins oppressive ! Pour notre part, nous nous opposons à l’UE dans son ensemble et appelons à la lutte prolétarienne internationaliste pour faire éclater ce conglomérat oppressif dominé par les impérialistes allemands et, secondairement, français. De plus, les impérialistes n’ont pas de problème à « ouvrir les frontières » des pays qu’ils oppriment, pour mieux les exploiter. Les colonialistes britanniques, par exemple, se sont occupés de cela de l’Irlande à l’Inde, sans parler du Canada français. Pour leurs descendants dans la bourgeoisie canadienne, « ouvrir les frontières » du Québec a pour but depuis toujours de noyer les Québécois dans une marée d’immigrants anglophones (ou qui s’intégreront en anglais), d’où leur hystérie contre la loi 101, à laquelle les IG sont aussi opposés. Seule l’indépendance du Québec pourra véritablement résoudre la question linguistique, mais nous soutenons la loi 101 comme expression partielle de l’autodétermination et en tant que mesure défensive de la nation opprimée. Nous sommes en faveur du fait que les immigrants qui arrivent au Québec s’intègrent en apprenant le français, et nous demandons des programmes bilingues gratuits et de qualité en tant que méthode rationnelle pour aider les élèves immigrants à faire la transition entre leur langue maternelle et le français. Le point de départ des IG, c’est le chauvinisme de grande-puissance : tandis qu’ils s’opposent dans les faits aux droits nationaux, y compris linguistiques, de la nation québécoise opprimée, ils demandent l’imposition du français...en Algérie, au même titre que l’arabe et le tamazight (voir Internationalist, mai-juin 2019) ! La situation horrible des millions de réfugiés dans le monde découle précisément de l’oppression impérialiste des pays coloniaux et semi-coloniaux. De demander à ces mêmes bourgeoisies impérialistes d’être plus accueillantes envers les réfugiés désespérés ne fait que semer des illusions dans la possibilité de réformer le système impérialiste. Nous cherchons à construire un parti ouvrier, binational et multiethnique, qui se dédie à la révolution socialiste mondiale, et qui s’appuiera sur la puissance sociale de la classe ouvrière pour lutter contre les expulsions et pour les pleins droits de citoyenneté pour les immigrants. Comme nous l’avons expliqué dans un article publié par nos camarades de la Spartacist League/U.S. il y a plus de quarante ans, « La politique léniniste envers l’immigration et l’émigration » (Workers Vanguard no 36, 18 janvier 1974) : « Ce que les communistes ont à dire aux masses appauvries des pays arriérés, c’est que la réponse à leurs conditions sociales désespérées ne réside pas dans un ticket individuel pour les États-Unis ou l’Europe occidentale, mais plutôt dans une révolution socialiste internationale qui est la condition préalable nécessaire à la réorganisation économique de la société humaine, libérant les forces productives des entraves de la propriété privée ». Tant que l’État capitaliste existera, il contrôlera le flux migratoire selon les intérêts de la classe capitaliste. Semer des illusions sur cet état de fait comme le font les IG mine la compréhension que l’État capitaliste—flics, armées, tribunaux, gardiens de prisons et de frontières—est l’ennemi mortel du prolétariat et qu’il faut le renverser par la révolution ouvrière. Avec leurs calomnies mensongères qui défendent les oppresseurs impérialistes, les centristes de droite des IG sont un obstacle particulièrement répugnant à cette perspective.

Oh Mary Magdalene Don’t You Weep, Don’t You Moan Since Your Lover Man Left You Well-Provided For And I Understand Was The “Fixer Man” To Pave The Way To Your Sainthood

Oh Mary Magdalene Don’t You Weep, Don’t You Moan Since Your Lover Man Left You Well-Provided For And I Understand Was The “Fixer Man” To Pave The Way To Your Sainthood

By Sam Lowell

In the nuttier atmospherics of art world, the vast area mostly downtrodden by modern minds who only want fresh material and kinkier fare than medieval paintings, Renaissance noise and Dutch (and, yes, Flemish) turgidity (is there really such a word my spellcheck let it through). I won’t even bother going through all the bad humor produced by average art cellar dwellers who apparently not only have time for the latest novelty in the arts but to write long screeds as well. That bad air courtesy a couple of recent sketches I did trying to honor a guy named Rembrandt, no last name or forgettable in nay case, no last known address, one of those Dutchmen painters although certainly not turgid, well, not as much as some of his fellows on his 350^th birthday. I suppose if I left it at that it would have cut down the venomous cyber-ink and perhaps for the 400^th anniversary I will keep it simple.  

Here is where instinct, DNA, socialization, whatever comes into play. For a certain crowd, and I number myself among them, the mere mention of the name Rembrandt triggers memories of the great art heist of the age, the Isabella Stewart Gardner grab of some thirty years ago where the highlights of the caper were some of Master Artist Rembrandt’s works. Putting those two ideas, birthday kudos and heist, together which I assumed might appeal to the nuttier precincts of the art world, seemed rather on point. What brought on an avalanche of bad noise, bullshit and bent noses was my rationale for taking the two assignments since for the past several years I have only been around the

edges of that sulky art world, mostly as an adviser, mentor, muse to fellow writer and amateur art critic Laura Perkins.    

My so-called bad bad was that I stated, for the record and in public, that as against the sterile cuckoo of that medieval and early Renaissance religious art, you know, ten thousand scenes with Holy Mother Mary, Blessed Virgin Mary, Madonna for the highbrows, Mary, wife, perhaps common law wife in case there were bigamy laws back then, Joseph the cuckooed carpenter out of Bethlehem (or Bedlam maybe), Mary of the ten million sorrows at the end bouncing baby Jesus (or his brother it is not always clear from the artist’s depiction who is who but let’s say mostly Jesus and let the curators battle in out in the pages of Art Today). Better the galleries and chapels are clogged with a virtual travelogue of the ever-growing good-looking, bearded increasingly charismatic and sexy Jesus working the streets with his plainsong and drawing a pretty good response from those down in the mud, down at the base of society. The folks that even today can use a break from the unrelenting misery of everyday life. (It would only be later that the depraved rich Romans who threw the brother up on the cross with a couple of sad sack common criminals, in the beginning mainly mothers and daughters then bigwigs, emperors if I recall would join under the big tent). Less happily about twenty thousand scenes of the Messiah(he was working that scam and bringing in good dough at the end although it did him little good either with the Romans or the guys running the shtetl or whatever they called the Jewish quarters then under Roman authority) going through the last stages of his life from the big orgy Last Supper (“orgy” not my term but taken either from Peter or Paul who were there and there is no reason to question that description since they were running the carnival complete with dancing girls I heard), the road show to the crosses up on Calvary hill and all the doom and craziness that brought down. Finally, about five thousand scenes of the Christ rolling the rock up the hill, getting ready to rise, or rising including a famous scene from sacrilegious German artist, one of the youngers, with Mary Magdalene sharing some last minute affections with the Lord before he heads to see his father, his real father (all these names apply to the same guy, Jesus, okay).       

Okay stuff, scenes to paint during that what did we used to call them in the old days before the revisionists worked their magic, oh yeah, the Dark Ages , if you are stuck in some hick town like Messina wanting to break out to a place like say Rome or maybe Paris, Constantinople or Athens but strictly for the rubes otherwise. And I said so, straight up. What upset everybody’s applecart is when I mentioned the only good-looking woman in the crowd, the whore and tavern B-girl Mary Magdalene (hereafter Mary Mags) and had the nerve to call her Jesus’ woman which I believe Jesus and Mary would have taken as a compliment and sign of respect for their short-term but passionate love affair. Mentioned that Mary Mags when she was working the streets had a specialty, was known as a woman who would wash a guy’s feet (for a fee of course) and that was how she ran into Jesus when he was working Galilee I think and needed some immediate relief for some unknown foot disease (unknown to this day but some random DNA testing of the famous shroud claims psoriasis).        

Anybody with half a brain when you think about it knows that the thing was a natural combination. A young guy starting out in the prophet business with nothing but a few good ideas and maybe a couple of cute tricks like the fishes and loaves gag having a woman work the crowd (as against guys like Peter or Thomas who scared the bejesus out of me when I first ran into them in church as a kid). How could you beat the combination a red-headed, light complexioned woman all dressed in black working side by side with the thief of hearts to put a new religion on the board and grab some quick cash as well. Don’t be afraid to look at the really well-done paintings showing this pair in their heyday (to be discussed more fully in the next paragraph). Especially if you have spent the day at the Met, the MFA, the freaking Cloisters or half of Italy and France and the like and were ready to scream if you saw one more cutie selfie of Mary and baby Jesus being feted by angels, and puttee. If you are ever so weary of one more photo-op of Jesus breaking bread and fish for thousands (not an orgy like the Last Supper by the way although some people got rowdy when they were reduced to hard tack end slices and fishtails when the magic wore off). Or you cannot take one more version of the death agony of Jesus, no known last name, no known last address, hanging with a bunch of ruffians and ne’er-do-wells at the end.

Compare all that claptrap with Tintoretto’s so-called Penitent Mags looking all hot and dreamy ready to wash those Jesus wayward dirty feet and get under some silky sheets with the guy. (By the way and remember this was serious counter-reformation time that “penitent” gag was to escape having this masterpiece burned at the stake by some clown cardinals who wanted the world, the Christian world anyway, to see that she had given up her whoring ways and was like Holy Mother Mary just another miraculous virgin girl). How about that Veronese painting where Jesus works his so-called magic, does some kind of exotic exorcism and wipes away Mags sins while a bunch of guys, some apostles I assume are leering in the background. (Some say Peter, a known woman-chaser and whoremaster before he got religion, had eyed her first, had had his feet washed and expected that she would be his girl except the boss had other plans). More than one theologian, I am thinking of John Paul Lawrence and Lemuel Savage, have projected that baffling scene as the first step in their becoming lovers. Interesting. Better, better for my case for the passionate romance is van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross where Mags is almost prostrate with grief that her man had gone beyond the pale, has left her to the maybe not so tender mercies of the remaining apostles. If those are not real tears of intimate distress I will eat my hat, okay. Finally, and here I am saving the best for last since even total dweebs who hate every last religious painting without fail how about Raphael’s The Deposition where Mary Mags obviously having come up in the world working alongside Jesus who liked to see his women in their best finery is clutching the lost boy’s hand hoping against hope that some of that pillow talk he mentioned after having a few tankards of strong red wine about his resurrection was more than hot air. That he would not forsake her. I rest my case.     

[*There is a very rich history, plenty of data and plenty of theory too around the notion that Jesus and his crew, the Apostles so-called were not lascivious, lecherous, wine-drinking sots chasing after everything in a skirt or whatever was the women’s fashionable grab of the day but a close-knit (meaning closeted) band of what today are called gays but back then sodomites and calamites. Of course, such a theory would blow the top off of my Jesus and Mary Mags torrid if short love affair. Since this piece is about Mary Mags I decided to put this scenario in the brackets as everybody in the West anyway knows that Jesus has gotten all kinds of ink, including now cyber-ink around his heart-rendering story.        

The main proponent, modern proponent anyway, for the homosexual cabal theory is the great if cowardly when the deal went down in Merry Olde England in 1939 English poet W.H. Auden. I believe from his early college years maybe when he was at public school he compiled lists of those in history that he could categorize as being like him, being gay. Later when Auden drew close to guys who were also leftists, usually communists, he described the closely held listings as detailing membership in the “Homintern,” a take-off on Joe Stalin’s Comintern. No question Auden did a great if covert service to help explaining today that gayness did not just start with Stonewall in 1969 but goes back to the earliest times when let’s say shepherds were out on those lonely stretches tending to their respective flocks or Greek intellectuals were tired of their wives and wanted beautiful young men hanging around them in the agora.          

            

Auden, for example, was the one who figured out that Richard II was not sleeping with his wife (a wife in name only to cover his real interests, a tactic used many times in history and not only among the rich and able by even working class and middle class guys who couldn’t take the gaff of singlehood and covered their asses with a brood and a mother hen), that Pope Gregory VI (don’t quote me on the correctness of the roman numerals) had Cardinal Mazzi as his live-in boyfriend (who in turn had a friar named Jonathan as his live-in boyfriend which must have been the subject of plenty of nasty banter among the cardinals and their mistresses, that King James I of English, that first Stuart king of England out of heathen Scotland filled with sheep was more than playing footsie with the pretty boy Duke of  Buckingham. Moving forward W.H. had the goods on Peter the Great, Leonardo, Raphael, the poet James Devine, the novelist John Richardson and many more. Probably the greatest service he did, because he did it well before some guy wrote a whole book on it a few years ago was to have Abe Lincoln’s number, have him down as brethren for his youthful romance, for his sharing his bed with Jack Tilden (and after seeing the real dagger Mary Todd no wonder he kept his options open even in the White House during wartime. Another coup to finish up on his unusually sturdy credentials was dotting the i’s on that decadent Bloomsbury crowd, especially Lytton Strachey.               

Auden, no question, comes with plenty of “street cred” as we used to say in the old neighborhood when he put a circle around the name Jesus and the boyos as certified members of the “Homintern.” But here his usually sharp nose and analysis played him false, especially in light of the new information out of Nazareth that a “diary” allegedly kept by Mary Mags had been found detailing so pretty hot stuff about her and her man Jesus, including a shocking revelation about a son begat by Jesus shortly before all hell broke loose in his case and he wound up sucking air on Calvary. Now this “evidence” is still in the speculation/verification/ DNA testing stage but it rather puts paid to something that has bothered me about Auden’s reasoning for a while.    

The core of Auden’s argument for a closeted gay cohort led by Jesus and adhered to by his manly apostles (not big- time big case Apostles like now when you have to suck up to the memory of one of them at least to get anything done in the Vatican along with fistfuls of cash to get anything done) always centered on two key pieces of information. The first was that the guys Jesus recruited were fisherman, soldiers, college students (although they would not have called them that back then but maybe priests or temple acolytes) and what we today in the post-1960s would call free and easy hippies but then more like master-less men. From those professions and an intimate knowledge of what really went on when guys were out at sea for several days, or confined to barracks, or were so-called vestal virgins, or rogues, almost exclusively men.

Auden concluded from that data that this was clear evidence that Jesus was looking for more than converts to his new wave ideas, you know washing the sins of the world clean, getting everybody’s ass back to the Garden, bringing single father love into play, chasing bad ass moneylenders out of temples and feeding tons of people on simple fare. Especially after a hard day’s work hustling for dough and converts around the various marketplaces where he preached his message. Everybody knows that fisherman, actually seamen in general, out on the open seas are well-known to bundle up together, same with soldiers out on the tramp with skimpy canvas to cover themselves up. College students, or what we call them today at exclusively men’s boarding schools ditto as well as tramps, bums, vagabonds and hoboes under the principle any port in a storm. But see once they get off work, school or the road they are as liable to be chasing wenches like Mary Mags, maybe her younger sister too who was starting to work the streets after Mary hooked up with Jesus and his salvation army crowd and didn’t need to do the street hustle and that ugly washing of feet work she really hated. Soldiers, and this is nothing in their favor, were as likely to rape women and pillage as anything else. Everybody knows, or should know, that drunken college students are as likely to hit Joe’s Tavern down by the river to get at the B-girls as hang around the dorms looking for guys to go the distance with. We won’t even speak of what cleaned up tramps, hoboes, vagabonds and bums are capable of when they have their wine casks full.  

More alarming is Auden’s second premise based on the Gospel according to a guy named Edgar whose main claim to fame is to have “discovered” some passed down accounts by Peter and Paul that the night before they nailed Christ to the cross (I am not sure if that “Christ” alias was the moniker he went by then) there was a totally out of control orgy. From there Auden swings us back to Leonardo’s famous if bogus painting of the Last Supper (remember Auden was the first to “out” Leonardo) where it is all guys getting worked up about a possible snitch in their crowd rather than getting sky high on the latest from the local vineyards. Yeah, Leonardo had it down right for public consumption, for the public of his time who were desperate that Jesus was presiding over what looked to all the world like some kind of facility conference (complete with dinky water glasses and variety store snacks). But all guys looking like they are getting ready to pair off to their respective hovels and hence his erroneous deduction. According to the Gospel according to John which Edgar I think correctly credits after all the noise about some fink in their operation had died down there had been a troupe of dancing girls, “seven veil” dancing girls if you know what I mean brought in for “entertainment.” Girls brought in to serve the wine and cut the bread if you know what I mean by that as well.        

So I will stick with my Jesus-Mary Mags sweetie story for another day. Intriguing, very intriguing is the work still to be done on that Mary Mags manuscript find in Galilee. Imagine the Son of Man begetting a son of man. All the theologians will go crazy. Me, I will just amp up my respect for Jesus’ taste in women.