Thoughts Upon The Demise Of A Poker Princess-Jessica Chastain’s “Molly’s Game” (2017)-A Film Review-Of Sorts

Thoughts Upon The Demise Of A Poker Princess-Jessica Chastain’s “Molly’s Game” (2017)-A Film Review-Of Sorts

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell, former film editor of American Left History and of the American Film Gazette now emeritus at the latter and a contributing reviewer at the former if anybody needs my credential, my professional CV if you like

Molly’s Game, starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner but he is only window dressing on this one because the former two carry this film, 2017

I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore. Yes, I know that these are famous words that Peter Finch uttered to a sullen world back in the 1970s as a newscaster in the definitive film Network. They fit the occasion however since whatever ailed Brother Finch in those times has got me is a serious snit. As I made sure that I mentioned after my by-line space, a by-line that I have labored in the vineyards of the film industry, book industry too, hell, the art industry when I needed fast money to pay back alimony or the parcel of kids, nice kids, that my three ex-wives and I raised needed college money and until recently, very recently that designation had not been challenged, had not been sullied by young upstarts trying to make a name for themselves now that I am no longer reviewing on a daily basis-praise be.   

      

If the kids want war, hell, I am more than willing to oblige since we seem to have gone down the slippery slope away from social cohesion and not just of account of the Bozo who is running the asylum in Washington at the moment. Over the past few weeks two young, up and coming journalists, reviewers I guess they would call themselves and from what I have read of their reviews they may in fact have promising futures-if they ever get their facts right and maybe stop hanging on my old friend Seth Garth’s every word like it had come down from the mountain-have flat out attempted to besmirch, yes, besmirch is the only word that comes readily to mind my reputation. Everyone knows, or should know, should be assumed to know, that this review business, film, books, music, culture is a tough racket, is as one of the youngsters wrote a “dog eat dog” environment and I will admit, admit freely that when I was young and hungry I was as apt to try to cut up my competitors, hell, my fellow writers wherever I landed as anybody else-as long as I got my facts right. Just ask Seth Garth who still carries the scars from our battles as I do his.         

What these two writers, hell, what Sarah Lemoyne and subsequently young Will Bradley have been running around erroneously trying to sell a distracted public is that back in the day, back after I got my coveted by-line I started “mailing it in,” started having stringers, mostly young fresh females from one of the Seven Sisters colleges that Allan loved to hire to give the place some swag and some eye candy when there were mostly older guys writing their brains out here write my reviews for me. Still worse have accused me of, when desperate, taking whatever press releases the studio public relations departments were putting out, clipping off the tops and sending the rest off as my review so that I could keep drinking and cavorting with women which I freely admit I liked, still like to do-with one woman anyway. Will picked up on these Sarah comments and extended it to his view that while I indeed was the master of the film noir genre in my time after my major definitive book on the subject came out, a book which one and all, even these pups continue to recognize as the “go to” book on film noir I didn’t have a blessed original idea. Had gone the college professor route (and me without even a college degree to my name) and lived off that one big idea through a fistful of conferences, lectures and speaking engagements.

That last comment was what pretty much broke the camel’s back, no, that and the snide insinuation by Will that the only reason that I still was being published on a regular basis and syndicated a few places was that I had been the key vote that ejected my old friend Allan Jackson from the site manager position at this publication and that new manager Greg Green “owed” his job to my decisive intervention. Needless to say with all of that in the basket I immediately went to Greg and asked for the next available review so that I could respond to these wild and wooly children. In the interest of fairness Greg agreed (and not as I am sure will become the “real” reason among certain youngsters that I had “bought” him) and so I got this freaking suck-ass review of Molly’s Game about some smarty-pants ex-jock, played by comely Jessica Chastain, who landed on her feet for a while running on the cuff poker games for rich and famous Alpha males until she got caught in the “feds” bind,” got caught holding the bag. Everybody knows my thing is film noir and other older stuff but I had to take this stinker, well, not stinker because the acting is good and the story line is kind of interesting but who could really care about the trials and tribulations of some over-the-hill jock who couldn’t make the cut, ice-skating, no, I think it was free-form skiing something like that.

I will get to the damn thing in my own good time and still I have probably already given you enough of the “skinny,” the theme if you don’t know what skinny is for you to judge right now whether you want to spend a couple of hours watching the drama unfold. My long-time companion Laura Perkins who writes here occasionally loved it, maybe because of the strong acting by Jessica somebody who played Molly Bloom (yeah, everybody who is anybody except maybe Will and Sarah will gladly steal whatever they can from James Joyce even names named) but I got drowsy about half way through. Like I said this is about setting the record straight about my now besmirched career as about reviewing this baffling film. In any case since Greg has again in the interest of fairness told me that I will have another review to tackle Will Bradley’s allegations I am on the scent of one Sarah Lemoyne today who claimed in her cherished review of the original Star Wars episode from 1977 that she had researched her allegations about my so-called “mailing it in” practices. (Jesus was Greg serious giving that old tattered episode and series to her-hell I rejected doing it out of hand back then when I worked for the legendary Cal Clark over at the Gazette as so much wasted soda and popcorn on Pa’s credit card.)        

       

I accuse, yeah, like Emil Zola in anti-Semite Dreyfus times who one can also fruitfully steal from in a pinch. From what I can gather, and she should be shame-faced but probably won’t be if it is true, Sarah’s source for her accusations was, is one Leslie Dumont who after years at Women Today where she had a big and deserved by-line came back here to do occasional writing in her retirement. Hell, I was the one, along with her then boyfriend Josh Breslin (who in the now obligatory interest of transparency also writes here now), who got her to apply for that Women Today job when Allan Jackson was only taking care of good old boys and she was wasting her time as a stringer. A stringer for me on occasion.

Here is what Sarah didn’t bother to ask about, didn’t even probably have a clue to ask about since they don’t teach this kind of thing in those vaunted Seven Sisters and journalism graduate schools she attended is that despite her boyfriend Josh Leslie was “making a play for me.” Truth, ask her, ask Josh. I admit I asked Leslie to write a few pieces, maybe half a dozen, not a million like Sarah implied before I realized that she was interested in me romantically. I will further admit that in those days I was in an alcoholic/drug daze half the time along with half the guys on the staff, not Josh though, not that I remember. But then I was going through the last phases of my first divorce, was playing around and had no desire to upset any more apple-carts. Sarah, anybody looking for truth check it out. I prided myself on my reviews, saw my by-line not as a privilege but an obligation to do the best I could even under those hazes.

As for the allegations that I would take studio public relations department press releases and sent them to Allan as Sam’s pure gold. Sure I did that for some, some turkeys like The Return Of Godzilla, Sandy Dee Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Benny’s Beach Blanket Bingo, stuff that should never have seen the light of day, stuff that any self-respecting journalist would take a flyer on. What Sarah forgot to ask Leslie, or Leslie “neglected” to mention was that everybody did it, everybody who saw a turkey and would rather face Satan himself in all his fire than have to write two words of original material on the damn thing. And that included Leslie when she went to Women Today. Ask her.  If that isn’t enough egg on your face for one day then come at me again. Yeah, this is a cutthroat business, always has been and always will be. Tell your boy Will I am coming for him next.          

Oh yeah, the film. Like I said not my cup of tea and maybe a little long-winded going through the legal process which Molly Bloom, the notorious poker princess, the notorious real-life poker princess according to the cover blurbs and the front end film introduction although I admit although I love games of chance, like the horse too I didn’t know who she was, had to face before a little rough justice. Not film noir rough justice with some avenging angel private detective clearing the way for her taking some slugs if necessary but a good and capable lawyer who gave as good and he got. Charlie Jaffey, played by Idris Elba. He measured up to Molly’s expectations of what she would have been like as a Harvard Law School lawyer if she hadn’t been waylaid by that whole mock skiing jock stuff which went bust before she could hop on the gravy train. Unemployed and unemployable since who wants snow bunnies who have given up the ghost of Olympic gold, have failed one way or another, to sell their skis and sneakers Molly heads to sunny LA to thaw out for a while.

She does a little of this and a little of that, cocktail waitress, the usual until she hits “pay-dirt” with a guy who has been running, implausibly given his dirt-bagging Molly, high stakes poker games with high profile entertainers and bankers with a taste for the wild side-and who can pay cash on the barrelhead for their table stakes losses. Things go along pretty well for a while and the bright and sharp Molly (she would have made a good lawyer no question one that most lawyers would not want to have to contest) learns the ins and out of the game. Too well for the grafter and he fired Molly but she lands on her feet starting her own LA operation which draws the old crowd in. Plus others recruited in various ways to keep a pool of players in stock, a smart move. Eventually Molly and her ringer top player known as Player X part ways and her operation sinks in LA. Some lessons learned, especially about keeping hands away from the pot, taking her cut which would have put her at legal risk.   

So far so good and Molly heads east to New York to start anew.

No question Molly is a beauty but already she had had  enough

sense to keep business and sex apart, didn’t get involved with the clientele which would do her no good. It is not clear since there is no romance in this thriller whether she cared about sex or was too consumed making the kale to give somebody a tumble. The clientele was probably driven more by beating high profile X, Y, or Z than sex so that could have been an angle. In New York she started to run her operation along the lines she set down in LA. But something changed, she made the biggest mistake of all in getting wrapped around a heavy drug regimen. Moreover her expansion plans went awry. Her judgement got clouded, for example, in New York City of all places, she let a guy named Boris, Yuli, Vladimir, or whatever show up with an off-hand Monet from off the wall if his “art gallery” in a plain brown wrapping paper as collateral and she lets him in.     

This is where she gets in way over her head-she is in the crossfire between the FBI, the federal courts in the city and every bad ass operation from the Russian mafia (you think maybe the Monet guy might have been “connected”) to the Italian who wanted in on the action-strong-arming the deadbeats who she was letting play on the cuff). The only good thing she did through this whole horror show of deceit, fraud, Ponzi schemes, and letting players ride on her credit line was to get Jaffey. Why? Well it is always best, just as when you are looking for a private investigator, when looking for a lawyer to get one who has worked the other side, been a prosecutor. She got off in the end although she didn’t make a very good play by turning down a deal to get her dough back for basically finking. That is to the good in the circles I grew up in. Still she is deep in debt, has a ton of back taxes and a felony rap on her sheet. In the end she really needed a corner boy to guide her through this craziness more than a lawyer but given the situation she at least had that good lawyer. Strong performances by Jessica and Idris but still not my kind of film-sorry     

When The Blues Was Dues-Dan Ackleroyd’s “Blues Brothers-2000” (1998 ) With “Blues Brothers” In Mind -A Film Review

When The Blues Was Dues-Dan Ackleroyd’s “Blues Brothers-2000” (1998  ) With “Blues Brothers” In Mind  -A Film Review

DVD Review

By Zack James

Blues

It is not often that I, or anybody else at this publication has to “fight” over an assignment from Greg Green but in the case of the film under review Blues Brothers-2000 we were begging to be picked. (Usually reviewers are “running away from assignments like when Greg had his big idea that to “expand” our audience, to reach out to the youth we should start running reviews of Marvel/DC Comics film productions of their cohort of super-heroes and most of the older writers bucked before some buckled under or when he thought it would be a good idea to write book reviews of Harlequin-type romance novels. You get my drift.) Starting with older writers like Seth Garth, Josh Breslin and Sam Lowell who cut their teeth on the blues, country and urban, back in the early 1960s when what is now called classic rock and roll ran out of steam for a while and they were looking for something that spoke to their teen angst and alienation, what now would be called in the age of identity politics their oppression. Not only had they cut their teeth on the blues but when former site manager, then called administrator, Allan Jackson, several years ago put together a huge reflection series on the roots of rock and roll and such they were lined up overtime to work the project. A project that new site manager Greg had the sense to do an encore presentation of having the banished Jackson do the new introductions.

Of course no one from the older set, the 1960s cut their teeth set, picked up the blues on their own but had been guided along that path, as usual by Peter Paul Markin, the mad monk of their corner boy crowd in growing up poor Acre section of North Adamsville and something in the sound spoke to them. (In the interest of transparency which seems to be the watchword these days in all kinds of situations where before your word was your bond Markin always called Scribe was a very close friend of my oldest brother Alex but I was just too young being ten years younger to really remember much less be influenced by him like Alex and his crowd were.) That was the present at the creation tribe, the tribe that looked elsewhere when their foundation rock music crumbled for a while. Moving along to guys like me, not many of them here at this publication  whatever reason Allan had to keep the older guys around him especially a couple of years ago when he went over the deep-end with 50^th anniversary commemorations of every odd-ball event of their youth we grabbed onto the blues in the early 1980s when rock took another hiatus and we were scrambling from outlaw country music to Cajun-Zydeco and Western Swing to have a sound that spoke to us. A final grouping would include gals like Leslie Dumont and Laura Perkins, maybe Minnie Moore when she worked here, who didn’t live or die by the blues but who came to appreciate the sound second hand from their respective associations, their companionships is I think the word they use, with Josh Breslin and Sam Lowell. I won the “prize” for the very simple fact that I had recently written a review of the Neville Brothers and how Cajun-Zydeco music has been an important, if temporary, waystation in my own teen alienation and angst moments.                    

Maybe I should dig down a little deeper to explain how a retro-review of this film came about. Somebody mentioned that they had decided to watch the now ancient Saturday Night Live in order to check out Alex Baldwin’s rabid impersonation of one Donald J. Trump, allegedly the President of the United States or POTUS in tweet speak. Discussing that sent-up around the office water cooler one morning brought up, I think by Bart Webber, the start of the show back in the early 1970s with such now iconic comedians as Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Dan Ackleroyd and of course the late, lamented John Belushi. And that of course led to a discussion of the original Blues Brothers film where under the guile of an off-the-wall comic script John and Dan paid homage to the blues influences that had formed parts of their respective personas. The madcap adventures of the pair and a supporting cast of such blues, rhythm and blues, and classic rock and roll greats as Cab Calloway, James, please, please, please Brown, the recently passed on Matt “Guitar” Murphy and show-stopper Aretha Franklin (who came to the genre via her deep gospel roots) drove most of the action. Since that film had already been reviewed (by Seth Garth) the sequel was up for grabs once somebody checked the archives and found that former site manager Allan Jackson had not assigned anybody to do the film.               

Now a sequel, especially of an iconic film like Blues Brothers is a tough nut to follow although Hollywood seldom misses a chance to cash in on a blockbuster, and the producers Dan and John Landis (who co-wrote and directed both productions and again in the interest of transparency the latter who I worked with in the old Boston days at places like The Real Paper and the Phoenix) don’t really try to expand on the original concept. Part of the problem being, as dramatically pointed out in the front-piece dedication, that given the eighteen year interval between productions John Belushi, Cab Calloway and John Candy had all passed away.

That problem aside a certain context has to be provided and some continuity so naturally Dan, Elwood Blues, had to take a beating once he got out of stir in front of the old witch nun who gave the brothers hell when they were growing up in her orphanage. And a runt tagalong whom Elwood was supposed to “mentor.” Jesus was she totally crazy by then.

As the film opens once Elwood got out of that big house, got out of stir for whatever scam he got caught red-handed at, he automatically thought about starting up the band again. That gathering of the old crowd will drive the action for a while as these guys have grown long in the tooth and have “settled” down. But Elwood is persuasive, or maybe he was preaching to an already willing choir. With the addition of an out of work bartender at a strip club owned by one of the former band members played by John Goodman things are on the move. Almost. We need a short, well maybe not so short, diversion to put up a “brother,” a long lost son of old long gone Cab Calloway from his youth before he chained himself to that fateful orphanage and played “father” to the those two reprobates. Problem is this son is total Illinois state cop, a commander, and has no known DNA from papa on the blues scene. But he got “religion” at an out of doors revival stocked with plenty of well-known gospel singers- and James please, please, please Brown so before the end we have four men in black, the order of the day “uniform” for blues guys from a certain period. Well maybe three and one half, with the runt on that number thing.

Getting back on top though in the music game no matter the genre is a tough game and Elwood and mob slogged through the usual backwoods stops before hitting some pay-dirt in a battle of the bands down in the swamps presided over by some voodoo mama. A truly scary woman to set the heart beating. This is really what the film is all about-the homage to then still standing blues greats. The competition, a motley crew called the Louisiana Gator Boys just happens to be made up of B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Taj Majal, Junior Wells, Bo Diddley, Charles Musselwhite, Gary “U.S” Bonds, and a number of other lesser blues lights all first come to light for this reviewer via that blues records collection of my brother Alex cobbled together by the Scribe’s intelligence. In short, the last serious aggregation of blues greats still standing-then. Needless to say, Elwood and crowd who have their own not inconsiderable list of known blues greats like the late Matt Murphy lose to the “pros.”

The sad part of viewing this film at this remove is that many of the players seen in this sequel have also subsequently passed on headlined by B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Koko Taylor, and James Brown. My question, one which I intent to ask Alex when next we meet, is who will continue the tradition once that small coterie of white, mainly British blues artists like Eric Clapton from his youth fade from the scene as well. See this one to see what it was like when women and men played the blues for keeps. For when the saying “the blues was dues” meant everything.          

When Marvel Comics Ruled The Comic Universe Bringing Super-Heros To Shake, Rattle And Roll Our Placid Lives-Chris Hemsworth’s “Thor: Ragnorak” (2017)-A Film Review

When Marvel Comics Ruled The Comic Universe Bringing Super-Heros To Shake, Rattle And Roll Our Placid Lives-Chris Hemsworth’s “Thor: Ragnorak” (2017)-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne  

Thor: Ragnorak, starring Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Anthony Hopkins, Jeff Goldblum and assorted other crazies who wanted to cash in on the comic book cum film gravy train playing a cast of characters well known in Marvel Comic Studios world, 2017

I promised Greg Green our well-thought of site manager that I would not linger on and on about how I got the assignment for this review of the third leg of this Marvel Comics Thor: Ragnorak saga since I had what he considered, and apparently what the Ed Board considered as well, my over-the-top discussion of how I was juked out of my original assignment to do a six-film Hammer Productions set of reviews of psychological thrillers from the 1950s done by that low-overhead operation at the behest of Columbia Picture. All set including having already had two parts published when one wizened senile old has-been Sam Lowell waylaid me with some desperate story to Greg about how in some previous time, and maybe another planet, he had done a film noir series put out by this cheapjack outfit working out of England back in the 1950s and in the interest of so-called completeness he should do the series-including a re-write of the two that I had already had published to create some controversy and add some spice to his viewpoint. Naturally since Sam, according to Will Bradley, I was not here at the time and there is something of a gag order around the subject, had been the decisive vote to oust the long-time previous manager and replace him with Greg he caved in. In my fury after further consultation with a knowledgeable fellow writer I confronted Greg and grabbed a nice assignment doing a younger person’s take on the Star War saga package with “first dibs” for the same reason on the Marvel/DC studios’ collective of film super-heroes as they came out. I grabbed this one since it seemed kind of interesting and Thor, Chris Hemsworth, is by any standard a hunk and kind of interesting in a low- ball kind of way. Since I have been told by sources close to Sam Lowell that he has some kind of feeble reply to my discussion of his raw tactics in that first Star Wars review in the works I need go no further and await his sullen words.

The beauty of this Thor series is that it is all about family, about who should be the head guy, the king or some other titled person when the old man, Odin, he of Viking lore fame and among the top dog gods if you think about where he stood in the firmament passes from the scene. Let’s face it though even gods, non-Christian gods who I think are considered eternal, have to leave the scene, have to pass on especially a crippled old man and who was a little senile too from what I could see goes beyond the pale-passes to Valhalla or wherever they go when time is no more. That succession is what they call it is what sets this whole saga afloat and although we already have been told in the previous episodes that Odin, for whatever perverse reasons, doesn’t think Thor is ready for prime time dull-witted Thor keeps thinking someday he will be the max daddy of Asgard.

Personally, I think Odin has Thor written off as just another hired gun (maybe hired hammer is better although I am right now loathed to use that word under any circumstances since I am still pissed off at that weasel Sam Lowell for dong me out of that prestigious Hammer Productions assignment), a set of strong biceps and all but a little weak in the smarts department, probably can’t hold the throne except by using that fucking mallet over the latest evil guy’s head. But Thor is blood and bloodlines in the real world and Valhalla count for a lot in monarchies which fortunately we in America dumped a couple of centuries ago-and good riddance. Then there is sullen Loki, an orphan as we finally find out who is actually smarter than Thor, as are about half the denizens of Asgard but who is so obsessed with beating Thor and being the head honcho that like a lot of guys, gals too these days, he lost his bearings, made some pretty bad decisions the worse being trying to go man a mano with brawny Thor whose pea-brain might not hold up come decision-making time but those 10,000 hours working out in the exercise yard carrying heavy rocks up hills really do give the dude a physical advantage. So that is the family part and if I don’t mention much about sex or love or stuff that young guys would usually be crazy to do something about especially with a fox like Natalie Portman around in previous episodes that is the nature of these pre-teen, teen, wannabe teen again male-centric plots. Now we have ham-handed Hela, played by Cate Blanchett who is also we find out from out of nowhere family, Thor’s bitch of a sister pardon my language, but is so power-crazed, such a junkie, no way can she take the throne or get within fifty miles of said room.  

The family part is key but there is no reason on this good green earth to even produce one Marvel/DC film if you don’t have good guys battling the forces of evil in America, on Earth, in the Galaxy, damn the universe if it comes right down to it. Thus we are led through this film, this endless film watching the final battle brew between Thor and his sullen allies and whoever has universe control on their minds- and will fight to the death over it. Which of course is what fills time. I still for the life of me cannot figure out why Thor and fellow super-hero (on his good days when he is off the drugs and doing his twelve-step program) were going mano a mano with each other except as action filler. Be that as it may we know two things from  a close watching of this film, actually of the closing credits, the bad guy, the Grandmaster, the evil genius here, but his name could have been legion in the bad guy book having messed with the gods is going down, going down hard and don’t feign shock when part four of this now weak-kneed saga hits the screen in the next couple of years.

[I think I will take a leaf out of Sam Lowell’s book and do a review of the first two sagas reviewed by Will Bradley purely in the interest of completeness.]  

The Ghost Of Lawrence Landon-A Si Landon Story-With Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart In Mind 

   

[The Pete Markin mentioned in the sketch below and in a previous one about Delores Landon, Lawrence Landon’s wife and Si’s mother, is the late Peter Paul Markin who despite a lot of serious work as a journalist back in the early 1970s fell off the edge of the world down south of the border and fell down shot dead with a couple of slugs in some desolate back alley in Sonora after a busted drug deal as far as anybody in America was able to find out (after being seriously warned off the case by the Federales and some guys who looked like they ate gorillas for breakfast). The Peter Markin who moderates this site is a pseudonym for a guy, Frank Jackman, who along with Si Landon, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, Josh Breslin and a bunch of other guys knew Markin in the old growing up days and has taken the pseudonym in honor of his fallen comrade who before his untimely end had taught him a lot about the world and its ways, quite a lot. “Peter Paul Markin”]         

Memory floods. Memory flows unstaunched down to the endless sea of time. Some people shut off that memory flow to preserve their sanity others, others like Si Landon from the old corner boy Acre neighborhood in North Adamsville make it their business, go a long way out of their way to make it their business to remember, to be known among their circle as great rememberers. Si Landon had recently had occasion to test that theory out in a sort of roundabout way. He had been driven to remember one set of memories and that exploded another set in his face almost by happenstance.    

The whole episode had started when due to irreconcilable differences with his third wife, Maria, he had been given “the boot,” had been given his walking papers by her after almost a decade together. We will not get bogged down with the particulars of the causes for the separation except to say that Maria’s complaints were centered on Si’s increased moodiness and distance (that was Maria’s polite way, as was her way, of putting the matter) as well as her own need to “find herself”. The long and short of the situation was that both had agreed that “rolling stone” Si would leave the house they had shared for the previous decade. He wound up for several months staying at various friends’ places and in a sublet from a friend’s daughter before he realized that he needed some rootedness, some familiar surroundings now that he was alone again with only his thoughts and memories.

One tough “exiled” day, that was the way Si described his various experiences since the breakup with Maria he had an epiphany which led to his decision to head back to the old neighborhood after an almost fifty year absence. After a certain amount of searching he was able to find a condo for rent (he was not ready to seek a permanent condo-type situation or quite sure that he was up for that experience since he had spent the previous forty or so years in single family housing so a rental was testing the waters). The condo was located a couple of blocks from his growing up family tumbled down shack of a house in a school which had been closed when the demographics in the area changed and converted to the condo complex. Although he had not gone to school there since his family had moved back into his mother’s old neighborhood when he was in junior high school from “the projects” school across town three of his four younger brothers (no sisters to his mother’s dismay) had gone there and that memory had helped determine his move to location.                     

He had strong recollections of his brothers’ time there and that was a source of some solace once he got settled in. Then a couple of days after that moving in he noticed in the front foyer that the developers of the place had kept some of the historic aspects of the place by keeping a series of graduating class photographs on one wall. On another was the 1925 announcement in the North Adamsville Gazette of the opening of the school. That hard fact triggered a sudden re-emergent long suppressed fear in Si once he realized that that 1925 date meant that his mother had also gone to school there something that he probably know way back when but had forgotten about. Sure enough looking at those old graduating class photos there was Delores Landon (nee Riley) sitting in the front row. All the battles from early childhood until just a few years before her death came rushing back into his head. [Their relationship as described in a previous sketch had consisted of longer and longer periods of withdrawal after recrimination until there was a point of no turning back reflected in the fact that Si had not even attended his mother’s funeral for a lot of reasons but that one primarily.-Markin] One late night when he could not get to sleep a couple of weeks after he had moved in Si thought he heard his mother’s voice calling out to him from the foyer that he would never amount to anything her favorite taunting mantra foe him whenever he got in trouble.  Si freaked out over the idea that he would have to re-fight all the old memory battles. Damn. (Si by the way turned out to have been a better than average lawyer so he put paid to that eternal standard Delores notion.)              

No question the dominant force in the Landon household, the five surly boys household, was one Delores Landon. That sad fact was no accident, or if it was accident it was so by virtue of the circumstances which befell Delores Riley and Si’s father, Lawrence Landon. Delores and Lawrence had met through the contingencies of World War II when Lawrence Landon had been stationed before being discharged from the Marines at the famous Riverdale Naval Depot, a place which had earned its fame then for producing something like one troop transport vessel per day on those manic twenty-four-even shifts throughout the war. Delores had worked in an office in the complex doing her bit for the war effort. They had met at a USO dance one Friday night and the rest was history for the next forty or so years until he passed away at 65. Part of that history was the production of a crop of five boys, five hungry boys as it turned out led by Si. The other part was that Lawrence had originally come from the south, had been born and raised in coal country, in Harlan County down in Kentucky in the heart of “white trash” poor Appalachia. Before the Marines broke the string he had been the latest in about five generations of Landons to work the coal mines.

Coming and staying in the Boston area with nothing but a tenth grade education and useless coalmining skills meant that Lawrence was always scrabbling for last hired, first fired work. It also meant that scrambling to do his best as a father to provide for his own that he was a very distant figure in the day to day Landon household which in practice meant that Si was from an early age the “surrogate” father a fate which almost destroyed him before he finally left the family house. It also meant that beyond the distant figure of his father he also knew next to nothing about him. Except, and this was a big except, Lawrence Landon never ever sided with Si against his mother whether she was right or wrong in whatever accusations she made against him. Tough work, tough work indeed although he never was as bitter against his father as he had been against Delores. (A lot of what Si would learn about his father would only come after Lawrence had passed on from his youngest brother Kenneth who made serious effort to try and understand what his father had gone through. So Kenneth had known, which will become important in a minute, that his father had been called “the Sheik” by his fellow Marines for his abilities with the women what with his soft Southern accent and black hair and eyes. Had known as well that beyond a young coal-miner’s skills he had some talent as a musician, as a better than average guitar player and singer who was locally known in the Saturday night “red barn” circuit throughout Appalachian Kentucky for his prowess in song and with the girls along with his band The Hills and Hollows Boys.)

That is perhaps why when Si was old enough and thoughtful enough to know better he recognized that Lawrence had done the best he could with what he had to offer. It had been a hard lesson to learn even with some leeway. So it was no accident that a few weeks after Si’s strange nocturnal “encounter” with his mother (being a man of science he had eventually dismissed, or half dismissed that “voice” as just some gusts of wind coming from outside his windows) he had an “encounter” with the ghost of his father. Si had for many years, going back to his college days been something of a folk music aficionado. Had breathed in the folk minute that passed through the world starting in the very early 1960s.

For some thirty years previously well after the folk minute had burst and the remnants were to be seen playing before small crowds in church basement monthly coffeehouses Si had dilly-dallied with playing the guitar and singing along some folk songs which he had picked up through a famous folk music book which had the imprimatur of the late folksinger extraordinaire Pete Seeger (and lately had picked up songs from another source-the Internet- which moreover provide d the chordal arrangements for many of the songs requested). His attention to the guitar and to practice had always been a hit or miss thing through three marriages and an assortment of children and lots of work to keep them in clover (and alimony and child support when those times came). Still Si never completely abandoned either singing or playing. (For lots of reasons but mainly to keep out of the family’s hair during the Maria marriage he had done his sporadic efforts on the third floor of their house far away from other distractions. But also to be able to say when serious folksingers, including Maria, asked about his abilities that he was a “third floor” folksinger, meaning third rate which seemed about right. That would draw a laugh from those, again including Maria, whom he considered “first floor” folksingers.)            

While he was in “exile” Si had had a fair amount of time on his hands not having to attend to family matters or the million and one other things that are required in a relationship. (Si had had to laugh, a  bitter laugh, one night when he was thinking about those million and one things that he had been about nine hundred thousand, maybe closer to a  million short on keeping the Maria relationship going.) He began one of the most consistent sustained efforts at playing and singing that he had ever done. He continued those efforts when he moved back to his hometown.

What he had begun to notice in exile was that the new material that he was picking up from the Internet or from song books were a lot of old time Hank Williams ballads. Now Si was a city boy, always made it clear that he hated country music, the music of the Grand Ole Opry being his standard for what passed for country music except for one very brief period in the early 1980s when he was attracted to the music of “outlaw” country singers and songwriters like Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt. But he always had had something of a soft spot for the anguished Williams. Had done so ever since not knowing that it was country music at the time he would pester Lawrence to play Williams’ Cold, Cold Heart for him when he was a kid. (Lawrence always had a guitar around the house and always like Si would sporadically play when he had a few minutes from the never-ending toil of providing for the five hungry boys and the one overwhelmed wife.)                       

One night in his condo in North Adamsville he began to practice on the guitar when he suddenly thought about his father’s playing of that Williams’ song. He went on the Internet to get the lyrics and chords and began to play. As he played a few times he got a very strong feeling that something was pushing him to play that song far better than he played most songs. On a final attempt Si felt that he had played the song almost like he had heard his father cover the classic. That night he began to realize that the ghosts of his youth weren’t always going to haunt his dreams. That present in that old neighborhood former schoolhouse were lots of things that would surface. Mostly though that night he shed a tear as he finished up knowing that he had cursed his father more than he should have he once again called out “Pa, you did the best you could, you really did.”      

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Pete Seeger's "Oh, Had I A Golden Thread"

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Pete Seeger's "Oh, Had I  A Golden Thread"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Pete Seeger (with Judy Collins) performing "Oh, Had I A Golden Thread."


In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

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Oh, Had I A Golden Thread(Pete Seeger)


Oh, had I a golden thread
And needle so fine
I'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design

Far over the water
I'd weave my magic strand
To every city
Through every single land
Through every land

And in it I would weave the bravery
Of women giving birth
In it I would weave the innocence
Of children over all the earth
Children of all earth

Show my brothers and my sisters
My rainbow design
And bind up this sorry world
With hand and heart and mind
Hand and heart and mind

O had I a golden thread
And needle so fine
I'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design

From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance

From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance  

Workers Vanguard No. 1104 27 January 2017 TROTSKY LENIN No to Unity with Class Enemy! (Quote of the Week) Today, the reformist left calls for “unity” to fight against Trump. This boils down to uniting behind the Democratic Party, political representatives of the class enemy. Writing in 1918, as the German Revolution was unfolding, revolutionary leader Karl Liebknecht warned against the dangers of unity with those defending the capitalist order. Liebknecht, along with Rosa Luxemburg, belatedly split with the socialist conciliators who wanted to unite with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had betrayed the working class by supporting German imperialism during World War I. In January 1919, shortly after founding the German Communist Party, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered by right-wing paramilitary forces at the behest of the SPD government and the revolution was defeated. Unity! Who could yearn and strive for it more than we? Unity, which gives the proletariat the strength to carry out its historic mission. But not all “unity” breeds strength. Unity between fire and water extinguishes the fire and turns the water to steam. Unity between wolf and lamb makes the lamb a meal for the wolf. Unity between the proletariat and the ruling classes sacrifices the proletariat. Unity with traitors means defeat. Only forces pulling in the same direction are made stronger through unity. When forces pull against each other, chaining them together cripples them both. We strive to combine forces that pull in the same direction. The current apostles of unity, like the unity preachers during the war, strive to unite opposing forces in order to obstruct and deflect the radical forces of the revolution. Politics is action. Working together in action presupposes unity on means and ends. Whoever agrees with us on means and ends is for us a welcome comrade in battle. Unity in thought and attitude, in aspiration and action, that is the only real unity. Unity in words is an illusion, ​self-​deception, or a fraud. The revolution has hardly begun, and the apostles of unity already want to liquidate it. They want to steer the movement onto “peaceful paths” to save capitalist society. They want to hypnotize the proletariat with the catchword of unity in order to wrench power from its hands by reestablishing the class state and preserving economic class rule. They lash out at us because we frustrate these plans, because we are truly serious about the liberation of the working class and the world socialist revolution. Can we unify with those who are nothing more than substitutes for the capitalist exploiter, dressed as socialists? Can we, may we join with them without becoming accomplices in their conspiracies? Unity with them would mean ruin for the proletariat. It would mean renouncing socialism and the International. They are not fit for a fraternal handshake. They should be met not with unity, but with battle. The toiling masses are the prime movers of social revolution. Clear class consciousness, clear recognition of their historic tasks, a clear will to achieve them, and unerring effectiveness—these are the attributes without which they will not be able to complete their work. Today more than ever the task is to clear away the unity smokescreen, expose half measures and halfheartedness, and unmask all false friends of the working class. Clarity can arise only out of pitiless criticism, unity only out of clarity, and the strength to create the new socialist world only out of unity in spirit, goals, and purpose. —Karl Liebknecht, “The New ‘Civil Peace’” (19 November 1918), printed in The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power (Pathfinder Press, 1986)