From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-A Hobo’s Lament

Only A Hobo by Bob Dylan

Lyrics

As I was out walking on a corner one day

I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay

His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor

And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song

Leavin’ nobody to carry him home

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

A blanket of newspaper covered his head

As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed

One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come

And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song

Leavin’ nobody to carry him home

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down

To look up on the world from a hole in the ground

To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame

To lie in the gutter and die with no name?

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song

Leavin’ nobody to carry him home

Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music

*******

He woke with a start that dreary late October night, early morning really from the look of the lightened sky, last cold night or so, before drifting south then heading west to warmer climes for “winter camp.” Yes, he had the routine down pretty pat back then. Summering in the Cambridges and then wintering in the Keys, or in some Pancho Villa bandito arroyo in desert California, maybe Joshua Tree. But just that minute my summer was interrupted by a loud sound of snoring and short breathe coughing from some fellow resident who had parked himself about twenty feet from his exclusive turf.

Hell, he didn’t mean to tease you about his itinerary (although the gist of schedule was real enough, damn real), or about his mayfair swell digs. The fact was that back then he had been in kind of a bad streak and so sweet home Eliot Bridge right next to the Charles River, but not too next to Harvard Square had been his “home” of late then while he prepared for those sunnier climes just mentioned. Those last few previous months have been tough though, first losing that swell paying job “diving for pearls” at Elsie’s, then losing his apartment when the landlord decided, legally decided, that six months arrears was all that he could take, and then losing Janie over some spat, and getting so mad he “took” a couple of hundred dollars from her pocketbook as he went out the not-coming-back door that last time. So there he was at “home” waiting it out.

He had a pretty good set-up under the bridge, I thought. Far enough away from the Square so that the druggies and drunks wouldn’t dream of seeking shelter so far from their base. But close enough for him to try to panhandle a stake to head west with in rich folks Harvard Square (although apparently the rich those days preferred to tithe in other ways than to part with their spare change to, uh, itinerants). And, moreover, the bridge provided some protection against the chilly elements, and a stray nosey cop or two ready to run a stray itinerant in order to fill his or her quota on the run-in sheet.

All that precious planning had gone for naught though because some snoring be-draggled newspaper strewn hobo had enough courage to head a few hundred yards up river and disturb his home. There and then he decided he had better see what the guy looked like, see if he was dangerous, and see if he could get the hobo the hell out of there so he could get back to sleep for a couple more hours before the damn work-a-day world traffic made this spot too noisy to sleep in. Besides, as is the nature of such things on the down and out American road (and in other less exotic locales as well), the hobo might have other companions just ready to put down stakes here before he was ready to head west.

He unfolded his newspaper covering, folded up his extra shirt pillow and put it in his make-shift ruck-sack, and rolled (rolled for the umpteenth time) his ground covering and placed it next to his ruck-sack. No morning ablutions to brighten breath and face were necessary this early, not in this zip code. he was thus ready for guests. He ambled over to the newspaper pile where the snoring had come from and tapped the papers with a stick that he had picked up along the way (never, never use your hand or you might lose your life if the rustling newspaper causes an unseen knife-hand to cut you six ways to Sunday. Don’t laugh it almost happened to him once, and only once.).

The hobo stirred, stirred again, and then opened his eyes saying “Howdy, my name is Boulder Shorty, what’s yours?” (Shorty later told him that he had never been to Boulder, could not have picked it out on a map if he was given ten chances, and was six feet two inches tall so go figure on monikers. The way they got hanged on a guy was always good for a story in some desolate railroad fireside camp before he got wise enough to stay away from those sites, far away.) H told him his, his road moniker, “Be-Bop Benny.” Shorty laughed, muttering about beatniks and faux kid hobos in thrall of some Jack London or Jack Kerouac or something vision between short, violent coughs.

Funny about different tramps, hobos, and bums (and there are differences, recognized differences just like in regular society. He, Boulder Shorty and he, were hobos, the kings of the river, ravine, and railroad trestle.). Some start out gruff, tough and mean, street hard mean. Other like Shorty, kings, just go with the flow. And that go with the flow for a little while anyway (a little while being very long in hobo company) kept them together for a while, a few weeks while before that short violent cough caught up with old Shorty (you didn’t have to know medicine, or much else, to know that was the small echo of the death-rattle coming up).

In those few weeks Boulder Shorty taught him more about ‘bo-ing, more about natural things, more about how to take life one day at a time than anybody else, his father included. About staying away from bums and tramps, the guys who talked all day about this and that scan they pulled in about 1958 and hadn’t gotten over it yet. About guys who took your money, your clothes, hell, and your newspaper covering in the dead of night just to do it, especially to young hobo kings. And staying alone, staying away from the railroad, river, ravine camps that everybody talked about being the last refuge for the wayward but were just full of disease, drunks and dips. (He let Shorty talk on about that although that was one thing he was already hip to, a river camp was where he almost got his throat handed back to him by some quick knife tramp that he mentioned before about disturbing guys).

Yes, Boulder Shorty had some street smart wisdom for a guy who couldn’t have been past forty, at least that’s what figured from the times he gave in his stories. (Don’t try to judge a guy on the road’s age because between the drugs or booze, the bad food, the weather-beaten road, and about six other miseries most guys looked, and acted, like they were about twenty years older. Even he, before a shower to take a few days dirt off and maybe hadn’t eaten for a while, looked older than his thirty years then.) But most of all it was the little tricks of the road that Shorty taught and showed him that held him to the man.

Like how his approach, my poor boy hat in hand approach, was all wrong in working the Harvard Square panhandle. You had to get in their faces, shout stuff at them, and block their passage so that the couple of bucks they practically threw at you were far easier to do than have you in their faces. Christ, he collected about twenty bucks in an hour one day, one day when he was coughing pretty badly. And a ton of cigarette, good cigarettes too, that he asked for when some guys (and a few gals) pled no dough. It was art, true art that day.

Or about how a hobo king need never go hungry in any city once he had the Sallies, U/U good and kindly neighbor feeding schedule down. No so much those places, any bum or tramp could figure that out, and wait in line, but to “volunteer” and get to know the people running the thing and get invited to their houses as sturdy yeoman “reclamation” projects. A vacation, see. Best of all was him showing how to work the social service agencies for ten here, and twenty there, as long as you could hold the line of patter straight and not oversell your misery. Tramps and bums need not apply for this kind of hustle, go back and jiggle your coffee cup in front of some subway station, and good luck.

[Shorty also taught him the ins and outs of jack-rolling, what you would call mugging, if things got really bad. Jack-rolling guys, bigger and smaller than you but he said he ‘d rather keep that knowledge to himself.]

Funny they never talked about women, although he tried once to talk to Shorty about Janie. Shorty cut him short, not out of disrespect he didn’t think, but he said they were all Janie in the end. He said talking about women was too tough for guys on the road with nothing but drifter, grifter, midnight sifter guys to stare at. Or looking too close at women when on the bum was bad for those longings for home things when you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Although he did let on once that he was partial to truck stop road side diner waitresses serving them off the arm when he was in the clover (had dough) and was washed up enough to present himself at some stop along the road. Especially the ones who piled the potatoes extra high or double scooped the bread pudding as acts of kindred kindness. One night near the end, maybe a week before, time is hard to remember on the meshed together bum, he started muttering about some Phoebe Snow, some gal all dressed in white, and he kind of smiled, and then the coughing started again.

He tried to get Boulder Shorty moving south with him (and had delayed his own departure to stick with him for as long as he figured he could get south before the snows hit) but Shorty knew, knew deep in his bones, that his time was short, that he wanted to finish up in Boston (not for any special reason, he was from Albany, but just because he was tired of moving) and was glad of young hobo company.

It was funny about how he found out about Shorty’s Albany roots. One night, a couple of nights before the end, coughing like crazy, he seemingly had to prove to that he was from Albany. He had mentioned that he was mad for William Kennedy’s novels, Ironweed and the like, that had just come out a couple of years before. Shorty went on and on about the Phelans this and that. Jesus he knew the books better than he did. He say that is what made hobos the intelligentsia of the road. Some old Wobblie folksinger told him that once when they heading west riding the rails on the Denver & Rio Grande. When holed up in some godforsaken library to get out of the weather hobos read rather than just curled up on some stuffed chair. Yes, Boulder Shorty was a piece of work. He was always saying stuff like that.

Then one morning, one too cold Eliot Bridge morning, he tried to shake his newspaper kingdom and got no response. Old Shorty had taken his last ride, his last train smoke and dreams ride he called it. He left him there like Shorty wanted him to and like was necessary on the hobo road. He made a forlorn anonymous call to the Cambridge cops on his way out of town. But on those few occasion when Peter Paul passes some potter’s field he tips his fingers to his head in Shorty’s memory, his one less hobo king memory.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-The Streets Are Not For Dreaming- Detour Redux

Sweating, endless summer sweatings, overheated, brain-addled over heated against the next fix, and the next fix. And the next fix. Wondering around the red-tide beach, a beach filled, filled to the brim if you asked him, with fetid smells, nice word, fetid, fetid clamshell-seeking mud flat smell, and rightly named, and maybe mephitic gases too, gases of some same 1950s childhood seaside marshes some thirty years back, and other schemed wonderings. Always wonderings, eternal wonderings against the brain-heated reality. Wondering this day for the high tide time that signified that he could prepare himself for a new fix, another sure thing to take the pain away, and to scrabble his fired-up brain further.

So he ambled, walked briskly really, these were not the times, and this was not the place to amble (he thought later when the brain had cooled down) away from ocean-flecked (or charred) beaches, ocean logs rolled in, ocean smells described, toward town, his new town. A slack city, a black and white city without color, or need, with a multitude of sinners, some brain-addled like him, some beyond brain-addled, but all waiting for that next fix, that next sure thing that would break them out for some important life work, or not. Like a sign. Signifying? Maybe just to whet the appetite for more fixes, more sure things to chase the hard-hearted day away.

He, uneasily, roamed among them, his fellow addles, trying to hear through the mumble, through the deceptions, through the glassy-eyed stare, the never-ending glassy-eyed stare. And heard shouts about this and that, about the next sure thing maybe, against the coming of the new day, hell, about heaven and heaven’s blessed, and about heaven’s luck, and about the next journey. Yah, that next journey, like maybe there were ten or eleven, hell, twelve gates to the city. Jesus, the brain-addled confusion was starting to kick in, kick in with a thud, as he thought he heard some high white note trumpet blowing some sweet Gabriel blow. But that couldn’t be right because he could clearly see the trumpeter and trumpet although the high white note had turned to air ashes in the hubbub of whiskeys ordered, pizzas consumed, and coffees (no teas here, not among the brain-addled) sipped and slurped, constant milling chatter, chatter beyond that, all inchoate.

Then he started to work, his mumbo-jumbo work, eyes left, eyes, right, eyes up in heaven’s door, looking for that right combination that would fix him, fix him until the next fix, jesus, would l it ever end. Of course he had his maw this day, a few shillings (nice touch he thought), and desire, word desire, number desire, word-number desire, number-word desire, and then silence. He had hit the fix line, the line of no return as he heard, heard in his head at least, the mandela turn once more. And then he heard bells, laugh bells at first, then diminished, and then silent. The waiting began, and the crowd hushed, or merely mingle talked in low places, before the great yawl, before nature’s spin turned.

About eight visions then came to him, one after the other like some childhood parade, all in colors, all in order, all with determined looks. He did not believe in colors, or numbers, or words, just then just mandela fixes, and release. And as the four winds blew across that city just that afternoon and those eight (or was it nine or ten he had never thought to get an accurate count, and didn’t think that he needed to) visions blew this way and that he knew, knew for certain that he was doomed, doomed to repeat that eight -visioned scene over and over. That thought, for just that minute made him think, made him realize that the abyss was not such a bad place. At least the fix-dreaming would be over, and the number worry, the word worry, the color worry would be over. And maybe he could cool off his tormented brain.

Later lashed against the high end double seawall, some unknown, unnamed shoreline below, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white linen not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless childhood petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, always unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall-laden streets, some Grenada night, maybe Spanish, maybe Moroccan or maybe a desolate sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. A ring cries out in that abyss night. Wrong number, brother. Yah, wrong number, as usual.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches- The Time Of Laura’s Time

Scene: A smoky sunless nameless, or rather legion, bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe "Cold, Cold Heart" from father's home down in sad-sack Kentucky long gone daddy left years before and gladly times. Order another deadened drink, high- end beer these days, gone are rotgut whiskey (or high blend when in the chips) accompanied by that self-same beer, slightly benny-addled. Then, like some misbegotten scene out of Rick’s Café, in walks a vision. A million times in walks a vision, in a million walk in bars, some frail, naturally, but in white linen this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches searching for meaningful shells, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Yes, that seems about right, right against the inflation -beggared times right, and mean street break-down right. And then this Peter Paul Markin tale, really Laura's tale okay:

Walking down the narrow stairs leading to the admission window booth at Johnny Fleet’s in good old Harvard Square on this cold Columbus Day 1978 night, jesus 1978 is almost gone already, I was suddenly depressed by this thought-how many times lately had I walked down these very stairs looking, looking for what, looking, as Tom Waits says in his song, for the heart of Saturday night, looking recently every night from Monday to Sunday and not just Saturday. Looking, not hard looking, not right now hard looking anyway after my last nitwit affair, but looking for a man who at least has a job, doesn’t have another girlfriend or ten, and who wants to settle down a little, settle down with me a little. Yes, if you really need to know, want to know, I’ve got those late twenties getting just a touch worried old maid blues.

My parents, my straight-arrow, god-fearing, Methodist god-fearing and that is a fierce fearing, hard-working, lost in some 1950s dreamland parents, my mother really, my father just keeps his own counsel between shots of whiskey and trying to read the latest seed catalogues that keep him and his business alive through the haze, keeps badgering me about finding a nice young man. Yes, easy for you to say you don’t know the nitwits who are out there and they ain’t Rickey Nelson dream jukebox guys, Mother. And then she starts on the coming home, coming home to cranky Mechanicsville (that’s in upstate New York, near Albany, if you don’t believe me) and finding some farmer-grown boy from high school and X, Y, and Z, farmer boys all, still asks about me. No thanks, jesus, that is why I fled to Boston right after college in 1972 (and fled to a far-away, and a no living at home college too but don’t tell her that) and not just because I wanted to get my social worker master’s degree like I told them. And so here I am, a few years later, walking down these skinny stairs again, sigh, yet again.

Johnny’s (nobody calls it Johnny Fleet’s except for one-time people or tourists) isn’t a bad place to hang your hat, as my father always likes to say, when he finds that one or two places in the universe outside of the farm where he feels comfortable enough to stay more than ten minutes before getting the “I’ve got to go water the greenhouse plants” or something itch (read: drink itch). Not a bad place for a woman, a twenty–eight year old woman with college degrees and some aims in life beyond some one-night stand every now and again. Or not a bad place for a pair of women, if my friend and roommate, Priscilla, decides she is man-hungry enough to make the trip to Harvard Square from the wilds of Watertown, and can stand the heavy smoke, mainly cigarette smoke as far as I know, but after a few drinks who knows, that fills the air before the night is half over.

Tonight Priscilla is with me because she has a “crush” on Albie St John, the lead singer for the featured local rock group, The Haystraws. And the last time she was here he was giving her that look like he was game for something although he is known around the Square as strictly a “for fun” guy. And that is okay with Priscilla because she has some guy back home some guy from upstate New York where she is from near Utica, some fresh from the farm guy who she has known since about third grade, who will marry her if and when she says the word.

Here is the funny thing though alone, or like tonight with Priscilla, this funky old bar is the only place around where a woman can find a guy who is the least bit presentable to the folks back home, wherever back home is. I’ve met a couple of decent guys in here, although like I said before, things didn’t work out for some reason because they were one-night stand guys or already loaded down with girlfriends and I am in no mood to take a ticket, stuff like that. So you can see what desperate straits I am in still trying to meet that right guy, or something close, without a lot of overhead. My standards may be a little high for the times but I’m chipping away at them by the day.

Moreover, this place, this Johnny’s is the only place around that has the kind of music I like, a little country although not Grand Ole Opry country stuff like my parents go for, you know George Jones or Aunt Bee, or someone. And is a little bit folkie, kind of left-handed folkie, more like local favorite Eric Andersen folk rock, and a little old time let it rip 1950s rock and roll, like The Haystraws cover. You know, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, those guys, that I never knew anything about when I was a kid since I never got past Rickey Nelson and Bobby Darin, darn him, out in the farm field sticks. Upstate New York, like I said, not far out of Albany but it might as well have been a million miles away with me picking my sting beans, tomatoes, and whatever else pa grew to keep us from hunger’s door.

Not for me this trendy disco stuff, not my style at all, no way, although I love to dance and even took belly dancing lessons although I am not voluptuous, more just left of skinny if I say it but really voluptuous Priscilla calls me just skinny. Also my kind of guy would never, never wear an open shirt and some chainy medallion around his neck. Jesus, no way. Plus, a big plus, Johnny’s has a jukebox for intermissions filled with all kinds of odd-ball songs, real country, stuff, late 1950s rock and roll (the Rickey Nelson/Bobby Vee/Bobby Darin stuff) that nobody but me probably ever heard of unless, of course, you were from Mechanicsville, or a place like that.

After going through mandatory license check and admission fee stuff, saying “hi” to the waitresses that I know now by name, and Priscilla does too, and the regular bartenders as we pass by we find our seats, kind of “reserved” seats for us where we can sit and not be hassled by guys, or be hassled if something interesting comes along. I have been in kind of a dry spell, outside the occasional minute affair if one could really call some of the “affairs” even that, for about six months now. Ever since I started to work, work doing social work, my profession, if you need to know. That’s what I am trained to do anyway although when I first came to town a few years ago I was, as one beau back then said, “serving them off the arm” in a spaghetti joint over the other side of Cambridge. Strictly a family fare menu and plenty of college guys including a few who I wound up dating, low on funds doing the cheap Saturday night date circuit. All in all a “no tips” situation anyway you cut it, although plenty of guff, a lot of come-ons, and extra helpings of “get me this and get me that.”

Before that, out in Rochester in college, and later after a short stop at hometown Mechanicsville it was nothing but wanna-be cowboy losers, an occasional low-rent dope dealer, some wanna-be musicians, farmer brown farmers, and married guys looking for a little something on a cold night. Ya, I know, I asked for it but a girl gets cold and lonely too. Not just guys, not these days anyway. But I am still pitching, although very low-key. That is my public style (some say, say right to my face, prim but that’s only to fend off the losers).

“Laura, what are you having, tonight honey?’ asked my “regular” waitress, Lannie, and then asked Priscilla the same. “Two Rusty Nails,” we replied. Tonight, from a quick glance around the room even though it is a Columbus Day holiday night, looks like it is going to be a hard-drinking night from the feel of it. That means on my budget and my capacity about three drinks, max. About the same for Priscilla unless she is real man-hungry. But that is just between us, okay. Lannie, as is her habit, knowing that we are good tippers (the bonds of waitress sisterhood as Priscilla has also “served them off the arm”) brought the drinks right away. And so we settled in get ready to listen to The Haystraws coming up in a while for their first set. Or rather I did the settling in. Priscilla was looking, looking hard at Albie, and he was looking right back. I guess I will be driving home alone tonight.

As I settled in I noticed that some guy was playing the jukebox like crazy. Like crazy for real. He kept playing about three old timey LaVern Baker songs, "Jim Dandy" of course, and "See See Rider" but also about six times in a row her "Tomorrow Night". I was kind of glad when the band, like I said, these really good rockers, The Haystraws, began their first set. And so the evening was off, good, bad, or indifferent.

About half way through the set I noticed this jukebox guy kept kind of looking at me, kind of “checking”me out without being rude about it. You know those little half-looks and then look away kind of like kid hide-and-seek and back again. Now I have around long enough to know that I am not bad to look at even if I am a little skinny and I take time to get ready when I go out, especially lately, and although times have been tough lately I am easy to get to know but this guy kind of put me on my guard a little. He was about thirty, neatly bearded which I like and okay for looks, I have been with worst. But what I couldn’t figure out, and it bothered me a little even when I tried to avoid his peeks (as he “avoided”mine) is why he was in this place.

Johnny’s, despite its locale in the heart of Harvard Square, is kind of an oasis for country girls like me, or half-country girls like Priscilla (from upstate New York too, Utica, in case you forgot) and guys the same way although once in a while a Harvard guy from the sticks comes around (or a guy who says he goes to Harvard. I have met some who made the claim who I don’t think could spell the name of the college, I swear). This guy looked like Harvard Square was his home turf and if he found himself five feet from a well-lighted street, a library, or a bookstore he would freak out big time. He might have been an old folkie, maybe early Dylan or Dave Von Ronk that nasal hard to understand kind of stuff, he had that feel, or maybe a bluesy kind of guy, Muddy Waters maybe, but he was strictly a city boy and was just cruising this joint.

But here is where this jukebox joe story gets interesting. At intermission Priscilla had to run to the ladies’ room and on the way this guy, Allan Jackman, as I found out later when he introduced himself to me, stopped her and said that her brunette friend looked very nice in her white linen pants and blouse. He then said to her that he would like to meet me. Priscilla, a veteran of the Laura wars (and I of hers), had the snappy answer ready, “Go introduce yourself, yourself.” And he did start to come over but I kind of turned away to avoid him just in case he had escaped from somewhere (yah, like I said before my luck has been running a little rough lately so I am a little gun-shy). Still he worked his way over.

And this is the very first thing that Allan ever said to me. “I noticed that you kind of perked up when I played LaVern Baker’s "Tomorrow Night". Have you been disappointed when things didn’t work out after that first night of promise too, like in the song?” Not an original line, but close. I answered almost automatically, “Yes.”Then he introduced himself and just kind of stood there not trying to sit down or anything like that waiting for me to make the next move. Then Priscilla came back and said she had run into Albie St. John and he wanted to “talk” to her before the band came back for a second set (she said with a certain twist like she was doing him this big favor and not like she was practically drooling at the idea. Like I said I am definitely driving home alone today.). She left and Allan was still standing there, a little ill at ease from his look. Befuddled by his soft non-threatening demeanor, and soft manners, I was not sure if I wanted him to sit down or not but then I said what the hell, he seems nice enough and at least he was not drunk.

So he sat down, and gently, actually very gently, shook my hand and said “thank you” for letting me let him sit at the table. In the flush of reaction to that gentle handshake, I swear no man had ever taken my hand in such a manly manner without guile or gimme something before, I relaxed a little and asked him, not an origin question but I was curious, what brought him to Johnny’s. He started to tell me about his country minute, about finding out about the wild boys of country music, about Hank Williams (I winched, that was my father’s music) about this guy Townes Van Zandt and so on.

And then he said he was looking for me. I winched again. Not another crazy. No, not me exactly, but me as a person who he sensed had been kind of beaten down in the love game lately like he had. He said he saw that look in my face, in my eyes, when he kind of half-checked me out at the jukebox. (I made him laugh when I said we were kid-hide-and-seeking earlier). I said I thought he had fully “checked me out”but he would only confess to the half. We both laughed at that one.

And after that opening, strange to say, because being a country girl, and being brought up in a Methodist-etched household to keep my thoughts to myself, or else, or else Dad would have a fit, I started to talk to him about my troubles lately. And he listened and kept asking more questions, not in-your- face questions, but questions like he was really interested in the answers and not as some fiendish experiment to take advantage of a simple girl. And then I asked him a few things and before we knew it the evening’s entertainment was over and Lannie kept telling us that we had to go. I still had some doubts about this guy, this city boy and his city ways, and his fierce piercing blue eyes that could be true or truly devilish.

As we got up to leave he asked, kind of sheepishly with a little stutter, asked, for my telephone number. No “my place or your place, honey,” or “let’s go down the Charles and have some fun,” or “I brought you six drinks (we had each bought our own) and so I expect something more” or any of that usual end of the night stuff that I have become somewhat inured to. He simply, softly, said he wanted it because he wanted to call me up tomorrow night. We kind of laughed at that seeing the way we met, before we met. I hesitated just a minute and he, sensing my dilemma, started to turn to leave. A guy who knows how to take no for an answer, or the possibility of no, without recrimination or fuss. Wait a minute, Laura. Before he took two steps I blurted out my number. And then put it on a cocktail napkin for him. As I passed the glass wet napkin to him he said he would call about seven if that was okay. I said yes. And then he shook my hand, shook it even more gently than when he introduced himself, if that was possible. I flushed again as he headed to the door. Something in that handshake said you had better not let this one get away. Something that said you had better be near the phone at 7:00 PM tomorrow night waiting for his call. And I will be.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches- “Down And Out In America-Part I”

Walking down Route 5 west out of Moline, quarter in his pocket, holes in his shoes, patched up, make due patched until sunnier days, by some cardboard graham cracker package cut-out a while back when he had time, endless time to cut out the moon if he needed to, just outside of Gary, Indiana. Damn that was weeks ago, and heading west to those sunnier days and getting out of north and Midwest winter were not get closer, damn not any closer. Hell, he had only himself to blame, no, get that negative thought  out of  his head because if he dwelt (dwelled ?) on it he could not push forward and get himself straight, get himself clean in some California ocean wash foam-flecked sea baptism.   

Stopping for a moment adjusting that damn two-bit cardboard once again he began to reflect on just how he had gotten here, jesus, he had the time for figuring that out on this lonesome Moline road. A road filled with families, farm families from the look of them, prosperous, farm prosperous just now with farm prices rising (fact known through courtesy of a ride a couple of rides back from some Farmer Brown, at one time up against it to the banks but now flush with that prices rising gloat look), heading to some Jimmy Jack’s Diner for the daily special (meat loaf, pot roast, steak, prime rib, for the really prosperous) and decidedly not interested in picking up any obviously non-Moline, non- Midwestern, hell, maybe for all they knew some illegal wetback bracero. 

He had that look with his leather-beaten skin now tanned beyond golden day tans and more like some tex-mex broiled sun bracero picking farm product (cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, who knows) and in fact he had spent a few back-breaking bracero-like days stooped over some sting bean field to earn enough dough to move west from stalled Ohio a while back. And then had been bracero short-changed by the farm straw boss for half his pay for room and board. A laugh, room, a dormitory for twenty snoring, stinking winos or their brethren, food, some slops not fit for the sty, but he hard-up needed the money, needed to get sanity west, and needed not to be billy-clubbed by no straw boss (or thirty day “vagged” by his friends, the local cops).  And so he took the dough, took his ass out of the broiled fields and headed west from Cincinnati. No, he would get no Moline escape that day from the corn-fed sedan and van traffic that he saw pass him by, pass him by with that sullen, permanent look of scorn, the scorn of those just up the ladder from cardboard-packed  make due shoes.      

Nor would he get, unless he was very lucky get, a worthwhile ride, from the usually friendly cross state (or country) professional truckers, who more times than not, used to like having the company to spill their guts into the wind to. Or explain their latest theory about how the government, the wife, the kids, anybody, was screwing them over, royally, always royally. And, despite his own hard luck just then, self-imposed or not, he always half-nodded in agreement that the room for righteous guys in this wicked old world was getting small, and getting smaller fast.

But see the company lawyers, probably, or maybe the insurance agents, were putting a serious crimp into old blue-eyed good old boy hankering to tell their untold stories to wayward young guys, looking kind of hippie-like or not, ever since the roads got more dangerous for everybody. So unless some local trucker had not heard the news, or some continental trucker was in a fuck-you mood toward his boss, or some trucker was so lonesome that he needed some rider to take his mind off the road  as that trucker headed across state to some forlorn grain silo he was stuck in Moline for a while. Maybe for a while in the pokey too if he stayed here, solo quarter in his pocket, too long. It had happened more than once, although not in Moline. A couple of times in Connecticut and Arizona but he had been forewarned, and, damn, when he thought about it, up in his home state  of Massachusetts, not twenty-five miles from home North Adamsville. Jesus.      

Again stopping to readjust that cardboard square holding the dust and debris of the road from boring a bigger hole in his white (kind of white anyway) socks he really did want to try to think about  how he got on this road, this exact Moline road he had not been on since he had hitchhiked in search of the great blue-pink American West night with fair Angelica, back in, what was it 1969, and they had been forced to shack up in some non-descript motel he thought was located further up the road as he searched for it as he walked along , and memory,  because it had rained for something like five days straight. And fair Angelica, thrilled by the road and jail-break from Muncie, Indiana (via a Steubenville, Ohio truck-stop diner) still was enough of a bedazzled young woman not to see the romance in five day rains.

Maybe that was the start of it, the long road down the slippery-slope of this praying for some relief hunger madness. Not the Angelica part , although that ended with her going back to Muncie after some California time, and a few years later, a return to Hollywood, well, not to stardom but some celebrity. He wondered where she was now out in the American night. And he wondered if she would smile, or cry, if she saw her ex-beau, looking bracero-hungry, out on the road. Cry, cry a million tears, probably, that was the way she was, plain-spoken Midwest girl “what you see is what you get,” and what you got was worth getting, although mist-bedazzled non-bracero hungry ex-beau could quite see that point through the “high purpose” search for the American dream night then.       

If that was not the start of it, then, no question, the break with Joyell, and with civilized society (as she, Joyell, put it) definitely had been. When he, looking for some quick change, fast dough, with no heavy lifting, and plenty of time to think about the next search dream, started dealing a little dope (nothing heavy at first, a little weed, grass, mary jane,  whatever you call it in your neck of the woods, some peyote buttons, in season, in search west season, a little speed for the frantic work ahead, to friends, and their friends, and then their friends, and then somebody’s friends, and then to strangers, and their friends).

And of course when he  got caught up in laying around waiting for the search for the next dream, then he started to short weight, just a little, because well because they were just strangers, and their friends. At first. Then some deal went south, or maybe you juts smoked or snorted it up with some stranger friends, and you owed the patron some dough and he wouldn’t take manana for an answer. And so you “borrow” a C-note until next week when the ship comes in, and when it doesn’t borrow a couple of C-notes to cover that original C-note, and expenses. And so on, and so on.

Just then he got tired of thinking about those busted deals, those busted dreams, and the hard fact that in the end he had to hit the road west one dark night, one dark night midnight creep after taking about eighty dollars from Joyell’s pocketbook, and putting  some distance between him and her. Some no return distance from the look of it. He started to tear up as he thought about that and did not hear the brakes of a fully-loaded Andersen Grain Company hiss as the truck came to a stop and the big burly driver called out, “Hey, I’m Memphis Slim and I’m heading to Denver and if you don’t’ mind me talking your ear off I could use the company.” He put his rucksack over this shoulder and climbed on board. Yes, he could listen, listen to eternity, to some poor snook talk his ear off heading west.  

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-Down On The Mean Streets Detour- A Quick Tour

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-Down On The Mean Streets Detour- A Quick Tour

Endless tramp walked streets, waiting for the next fix. Waiting really for some god miracle, some murmured pray sacrilege and redemption seeking miracle. Waiting for all the accumulated messes of this world, this made world to seep into the gutter. Waiting for all past history, all past memoir better, all past sorrows, given and received, all past two roads taken, wrong road chosen, all personal hurts, given and taken, all past vanities to break down in the means streets, and closure. No, not closure, relief.  Waiting, yah, waiting but to no avail. And so all roads, chosen and unchosen closed, all forward turned back, all value devalued, all this ….

Five AM , dark turning to a shade lighter, after a hard ground under the Eliot Bridge bed night, cold October cold with all newspapers, Herald, Globe, upscale New York Times for a pillow  used for ground cover yelling about some guy named Jimmy Carter and about how he is saved. Running for president too. The guy will need more saving that I need.  Ironic though, just that minute when he needed to be saved. Lord saved, mercy saved, some humble Joyell saved (although he did not know it, know it for a very long time, too long and too late).

Long walk along the Charles, supermarket double brown bag (laughed at Mexican luggage) for all worldly possessions, some seedy Jack Kerouac Merrimack walk, Jack’s river, Jack’s childhood going to manhood river and place of refuge from mother hurts and, Joyell, oops sorry,  Maggie Cassidy hurts too. A tee shirt, maybe two, no wild boy cool 1950s Brando tight against the chest, maybe a pack of Luckies rolled up one sleeve but Sally’s used wear swear stains showing under the armpits, underwear, ditto, socks, ditto, a half rank pair of pants (no childhood concern about cuffed or uncuffed now, or color even), ditto, no, Goodwill bargain, another shirt to match the one he was wearing, Sally’s or Goodwill forgot, comb, and a bar of soap, Dial, bought precious bought to own something, and done. All worldly possessions reduced almost to grave size.

Long walk to safe downtown Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, and five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. And no ocean to wash them clean. His street bathroom, a splash (unlike those ocean wave splashes on ancient dream Pacific nights now faded) of water on the face, some precious soap, precious coaxed bought soap, paper towel for a wash cloth, haphazard combing (hell, he was not entering a beauty contest, jesus, no), some soap under the stained tee shirt for underarms and done. Worldly beauty done. 

Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out under some other Eliot Street Bridge bungalow (switched nightly to avoid cop riffs and fellow tramp rip-offs, real hazards in his new world as he learned quickly, painfully quickly). Walk, stopping for an occasional library break , for a quick nod out, really, and quick read, not some political book though, these days, Genet, Celine, Burroughs, Kerouac (not “On The Road” magic gear master Dean trips but Big Sur traumas), and such self-help books. (Ironic.)   

And minute plan, plan, plan, plain mex paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Waiting for the next fix. Desolation row, no way home.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-High Heel Sneakers, Circa 1964

CD Review

The Rock and Roll Era: 1964, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987

The summer of 1964 we freshly- minted high school graduates ready to face the big bright sun new world that had been laid out for us, and that we felt we could shuffle around at will if things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to, were, as old Worthworth’s poem proclaimed, those who could claim “to be young was very heaven “. More importantly we were summer of 1964 and freshly-minted eighteen years old and therefore permitted, legally permitted (although “unofficially” we had entered several months earlier), to enter the “hot spot” teen night club, The Surf . Most importantly summer of 1964 and soon to be freshly- minted college freshmen gave us cachet with, well, who else, the girls who flocked to the club in droves looking, well who else, looking for guys and maybe a bright prospect college freshman guy.   

As with all such teen things though, college guys, hamburger flippers, gas station grease monkeys or low-rider bikers, this one summer of 1964 Saturday evening, a July night, that put things in perspective, started off slowly. Slowly meaning the girls were not flocking into the club in droves, those that had did not look like they were looking for soon to be freshly-minted college freshmen but rather solid gas station grease monkeys (who at least had the advantage of being able to help fix that old 1957 DeSoto that was always dripping oil). A little later though thing s did pick up once the local legend cover band , The Rockin’ Ramrods, started to warm up for their first set and suddenly the place was filled with girls (and guys too, not with the girls, it was that kind of place, strictly a meet and match place.)  

Now part of the reason that things had started slowly was that everybody with any dough and a few connections had brought “the fixings” with them. In twenty- one legal age Maine the Surf Club was strictly, very strictly “no alcohol allowed.” So “the fixings,” meaning alcohol in those days, meant that one and all had spent the early evening out along the seashore boulevard parking lot that stretched from the Surf Club to Seal Rock down at the far end of Olde Saco Beach drinking and getting themselves “rum” brave enough to face the evening. We (my corner boys from Mama’s Pizza Parlor and me) had done our share as well but being rookies at this business had come early and had finished up our portions already so we slipped inside the club.    

Once the band started up though I was rum brave enough to corner a girl

I had been eyeing for a few minutes, and she, I thought, had been eyeing me.
(I told you it was that kind of place, with guys eyeing and girls eyeing in order to live up to that meet and match reputation.)  What caught my fuzzy, bleared eye was that she was wearing high-heel sneakers, light blue, that were the minute rage among young women that summer. And that meant that she was hip, hip in a way that guy could think about, or dream think about.  

Wouldn’t you know it just that minute when I asked her for a dance the band started to play “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen, a song that had practically become the national anthem of the Surf Club (and maybe the national anthem of party hungry, boy and girl hungry, youth everywhere). Now I didn’t (and don’t’) dance particular well but my moves on that song must have impressed Betty enough because after that dance was over and I had said thank you she asked me to come back to her wall (when the music started the walls were where you wanted to be not caught at some hunker down no eyeing table) to talk to her and later, after some feeling out talk to see if we did match, asked me, if you can believe this, if at intermission I might not like to go with her to her car and have a drink or two to cool off. Yes, that summer of 1964.

 

 

Join Veterans For Peace In Boston On Veterans/Armistice Day

The Latest From The "Leonard Peltier Defense Committee" Website-Free Leonard Peltier Now!-Free All Our Class-War Prisoners!-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!

Click on the headline to link to the “Leonard Peltier Defense Committee” website for the latest news on our class-war political prisoner brother, Leonard Peltier.

Markin comment:

Long live the tradition of the James P. Cannon-founded International Labor Defense (via the American Communist Party and the Communist International's Red Aid). Free Leonard, Free Mumia, Free Lynne, Free Bradley, Free Hugo, Free Ruchell-Free all our class-war prisoners!

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

In “surfing” the “National Jericho Movement” Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck (now deceased), whom I had read about in a “The Rag Blog” post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I have been a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan – “strong>An injury to one is an injury to all.”

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases internationally that are brought to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

The Latest From The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee- Free Lynne Stewart And Her Co-Workers Now!

Click on the headline to link to the  “Justice For Lynn Stewart Defense Committee” for the latest in her case.

Markin comment:

Free Lynne Stewart and her co-workers! Free Grandma Now!

*******

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)

In “surfing” the  "National Jericho Movement" Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck (now deceased), whom I had read about in a <i>The Rag Blog</i> post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I have been a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - <strong>An injury to one is an injury to all.</strong>

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases internationally that are brought to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. <strong>Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now! </strong>

 

 

The Labor Party Question In The United States- An Historical Overview-Fight For A Worker Party That Fights For A Workers Government

Click on the headline to link to the  “James P. Cannon Internet Archives” for an online copy of his 1940s documents on the labor party question in the United States in his time. 

These notes (expanded) were originally presented as The Labor Question in the United States at a panel forum on the question on Saturday August 4, 2012 by a radical historian familiar with this history. As a number of radicals have noted, most particularly organized socialist radicals, after the dust from the fall 2012 bourgeois election settles, regardless of who wins, the working class will lose. Pressure for an independent labor expression, as we head into 2013, may likely to move from its current propaganda point as part of the revolutionary program to agitation and action so learning about the past experiences in the revolutionary and radical labor movements is timely.

**********

I had originally expected to spend most of the speech at the forum delving into the historical experiences, particularly the work of the American Communist Party and the American Socialist Workers Party with a couple of minutes “tip of the hat” to the work of radical around the stillborn Labor Party experiences of the late 1990s. However, the scope of the early work and that of those radicals in the latter work could not, I felt, be done justice in one forum presentation. Thus these notes are centered on the early historical experiences. If I get a chance, and gather enough information to do the subject justice, I will place notes for the 1990s Labor Party work in this space as well.           

The subject today is the Labor Party Question in the United States. For starters I want to reconfigure this concept and place it in the context of the Transitional Program first promulgated by Leon Trotsky and his fellows in the Fourth International in 1938. There the labor party concept was expressed as “a workers’ party that fights for a workers’ government.”  [The actual expression for advanced capitalist countries like the U.S. was for a workers and farmers government but that is hardly applicable here now, at least in the United States. Some wag at the time, some Shachtmanite wag from what I understand, noted that there were then more dentists than farmers in the United States. Wag aside that remark is a good point since today we would call for a workers and X (oppressed communities, women, etc.) government to make our programmatic point more inclusive.]    

For revolutionaries these two algebraically -expressed political ideas are organically joined together. What we mean, what we translate this combination as, in our propaganda is a mass revolutionary labor party (think Bolsheviks first and foremost, and us) based on the trade unions (the only serious currently organized part of the working class) fighting for soviets (workers councils, factory committees, etc.) as an expression of state power. In short, the dictatorship of the proletariat, a term we do not yet use in “polite” society these days in order not to scare off the masses.  And that is the nut.  Those of us who stand on those intertwined revolutionary premises are few and far between today and so we need, desperately need, to have a bridge expression, and a bridge organization, the workers party, to do the day to day work of bringing masses of working people to see the need to have an independent organized expression fighting programmatically for their class interests. And we, they, need that party pronto.

That program, the program that we as revolutionaries would fight for, would, as it evolved, center on demands, yes, demands, that would go from day to day needs to the struggle for state power. Today such demands focus on massive job programs at union wages and benefits to get people back to work, workers control of production as a way to spread the available work around, the historic slogan of 30 for 40, nationalization of the banks and other financial institutions under workers control, a home foreclosure moratorium, and debt for homeowners and students. Obviously more demands come to mind but those listed are sufficient to show our direction.  

Now there have historically been many efforts to create a mass workers party in the United States going all the way back to the 1830s with the Workingmen’s Party based in New York City. Later efforts, after the Civil War, mainly, when classic capitalism began to become the driving economic norm in America, included the famous Terence Powderly-led Knights of Labor, including  some integrated black and white locals), a National Negro Union, and various European social-democratic off -shoots (including pro-Marxist formations). All those had flaws, some serious like being pro-capitalist, merely reformist, and the like (sound familiar?) and reflected the birth pangs of the organized labor movement rather than serious predecessors.  

Things got serious around the turn of the century (oops, turn of the 20th century) when the capitalist s in the “age of the robber barons” declared unequivocally that class warfare between labor and capital was the norm in American society (if not expressed that way in “polite” society). This was the period of the rise the Debsian-inspired party of the whole class, the American Socialist Party. More importantly, if contradictorily, emerging from a segment of that organization, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) was, to my mind the first serious revolutionary labor organization (party/union?) that we could look to as fighting a class struggle fight for working class interests. Everyone should read the Preamble to the IWW Constitution of 1905 (look it up on <i>Wikipedia</i> or the <i>IWW </i>website) to see what I mean. It still retains its stirring revolutionary fervor today.  

The most unambiguous work of creating a mass labor party that we revolutionaries could recognize though really came with the fight of the American Communist Party (which had been formed  by the sections, the revolutionary-inclined sections, of the American Socialist Party that split off in the great revolutionary/reformist division after the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917) in the 1920s to form one based on the trade unions (mainly in the Midwest, and mainly in Chicago with the John Fitzgerald –led AFL). That effort was stillborn, stillborn because the non-communist labor leaders who had the numbers, the locals, and, ah, the dough wanted a farmer-labor party, a two class party to cushion them against radical solutions (breaking from the bourgeois parties and electoralism). Only the timely intervention of the Communist International saved the day from a major blunder (Go to the <i>James P. Cannon Internet Archives</i> for more, much more on this movement.  Cannon, and his factional allies including one William Z. Foster, later the titular head of the Communist Party, were in the thick of things to his later red-faced chagrin).

Moving forward, the American Communist Party at the height of the Great  Depression (the one in the 1930s, that one, not the one we are in now) created the American Labor Party (along with the American Socialist party and other pro-Democratic Party labor skates) which had  a mass base in places like New York and the Midwest. The problem though was this organization was, mainly, a left-handed way to get votes for Roosevelt from class conscious socialist-minded workers who balked at a direct vote for Roosevelt. (Sound familiar, again?) And that, before the Labor Party movement of the 1990s, is pretty much, except a few odd local attempts here and there by leftist groups, some sincere, some not, was probably the last major effort to form any kind of independent labor political organization. (The American Communist Party after 1936, excepting 1940, and even that is up for questioning, would thereafter not dream of seriously organizing such a party. For them the Democratic Party was more than adequate, thank you. Later the Socialist Workers Party essentially took the same stance.)

That is a summary of the historical aspects of the workers party question. The real question, the real lessons, for revolutionaries posed by all of this is something that was pointed out by James P. Cannon in the late 1930s and early 1940s (and before him Leon Trotsky). Can revolutionaries in the United States recruit masses of working people to a revolutionary labor party (us, again) today (and again think Bolshevik)? To pose the question is to give the answer (an old lawyer’s trick, by the way).

America today, no. Russia in 1917, yes. Germany in 1921, yes. Same place 1923, yes. Spain in 1936 (really from 1934 on), yes. America in the 1930s, probably not (even with no Stalinist ALP siphoning). France 1968, yes. Greece (or Spain) today, yes. So it is all a question of concrete circumstances. That is what Cannon (and before him Trotsky) was arguing about. If you can recruit to the revolutionary labor party that is the main ticket.  We, even in America, are not historically pre-determined to go the old time British Labor Party route as an exclusive way to create a mass- based political labor organization. If we, however, are not able to recruit directly then we have to look at some way station effort. That is why in his 1940 documents (which can also be found at the <i>Cannon Internet Archives</i> as well) Cannon stressed that the SWP should where possible (mainly New York) work in the Stalinist-controlled  (heaven forbid, cried the Shachtmanites) American Labor Party. That was where masses of organized trade union workers were to be found who still held to the old labor traditions. 

Now I don’t know, and probably nobody else does either, if and when, the American working class is going to come out of its slumber. Some of us thought that Occupy might be a catalyst for that. That has turned out to be patently false as far as the working class goes. So we have to expect that maybe some middle level labor organizers or local union officials feeling pressure from the ranks may begin to call for a labor party. That, as the 1990s Socialist Alternative “Justice” Labor Party archives indicate, is about what happened when those efforts started.

[A reference back to the American Communist Party’s work in the 1920s may be informative here. As mentioned above there was some confusion, no, a lot of confusion back then about building a labor party base on workers and farmers, a two -class party. While the demands of both groups may in some cases overlap farmers, except for farm hands, are small capitalists on the land. We need a program for such potential allies, petty bourgeois allies, but their demands are subordinate to labor’s in a workers’ party program. Fast forward to today and it is entirely possible, especially in light of the recent Occupy experiences, that some vague popular frontist trans-class movement might develop like the Labor Non-Partisan League that the labor skates put forward in the 1930s as a catch basin for all kinds of political tendencies. We, of course, would work in such formations fighting for a revolutionary perspective but this is not what we advocate for now.]   

Earlier this year AFL-CIO President Trumka made noises about labor “going its own way.” I guess he had had too much to drink at the Democratic National Committee meeting the night before, or something. So we should be cautious, but we should be ready. While at the moment tactics like a great regroupment of left forces, a united front with labor militants, or entry in other labor organizations for the purpose of pushing the workers party are premature we should be ready.   

And that last sentence brings up my final point, another point courtesy of Jim Cannon. He made a big point in the 1940s documents about the various kinds of political activities that small revolutionary propaganda groups or individuals (us, yet again) can participate in (and actually large socialist organizations too before taking state power). He lumped propaganda, agitation, and action together. For us today we have our propaganda points “a workers’ party that fights for a workers (and X, okay) government.” In the future, if things head our way, we will “united front” the labor skates to death agitating for the need for an independent labor expression. But we will really be speaking over their heads to their memberships (and other working class formations, if any, as well). Then we will take action to create that damn party, fighting to make it a revolutionary instrument. Enough said.           

**************

 

From The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty Website

 

 

Click on the headline to link to the “Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty” website.

Markin comment:

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I have been a political person, a long time. While I do not generally agree with the thrust of the Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty strategy for eliminating the death penalty nation-wide almost solely through legislative and judicial means (think about the 2011 Troy Davis case down in Georgia for a practical example of the limits of that strategy) I am always willing to work with them when specific situations come up. In any case they have a long pedigree extending, one way or the other, back to Sacco and Vanzetti and that is always important to remember whatever our political differences. 

 

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night-Juke Box Cash-In

 Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing Breathless to give a little flavor of the early 1960s American teen angst night.

Markin comment:

Frankie, Frankie, king of the old North Adamsville neighborhood, Frankie, king hell king, Frankie, king arbiter of the teen social mores, was the alpha and omega. Or that is what his relentlessly self- promoted image would have you believe. Most of it was strictly “flak” and now that we have some serious distance of time and space to shield us from retribution it can be safely told that a lot of this “mystique”, this Frankie, king of the hill, mystique, was made up by me to enhance his authority. Nothing wrong with that kings, and lesser kings and, hell, just average jacks and jills have been using this gag for centuries. What is not a gag, what is not “flak” is what I have to tell you here.

Frankie and I, of course, if you have been paying attention went back to old North Adamsville middle school days and although we had some tight moments old king Frankie, giving the devil his due, guided me fairly well through the intricacies of, well, ah, girls, girlish ways, and girlish charms. No question that I would have been left to dry out, alone, in that great teenage angst night if not for my brother, Frankie. And I’ll just give you one example, and you can judge for yourself. Okay.

I was just the other day telling someone about how in the great 1960s teen night a lot of our time, our waiting around for something, anything to happen time, was spent around places like pizza parlors, drugstore soda fountains, and corner mom and pop variety stores throwing coins into the old jukebox to play the latest “hot’ song for the umpteenth time (and then discard them, most of them anyway, after a few days). This is the scene that Frankie ruled over wherever he set up his throne. I was also telling that person about a little“trick” that I used to use when I was, as I usually was, chronically low on funds to feed the machine.

See, part of that waiting around for something, anything to happen, a big part, was hoping, sometimes hoping against hope, that some interesting looking frail (girl in the old neighborhood terminology, boy old neighborhood terminology that is, first used by Frankie, and then picked up by everyone else) would come walking through that door. And, especially on those no dough days, would put some coins in that old jukebox machine. I swear, I swear on anything, that girls, girls, if you can believe this, always seemed to have dough, at least coin dough, in those days to play their favorite songs.

So here is the trick part, and see it involves a little understanding of human psychology too, girl human psychology at that. Okay, say, for a quarter you got five selections on the juke box. Well, the girl, almost any girl that you could name, would have a first pick set, some boy romance thing, and the second one too, maybe a special old flame tryst that still hadn’t burned out. But, see after that, and this is true I swear, they would get fidgety about the selections. And, boy, that is where you made your move. You’d chime up with some song that was on your “hot” list like Save the Last Dance for Me, or some other moody thing and, presto, she hit the buttons for you.

That choice by you rather than, let’s say Breathless by Jerry Lee Lewis which maybe was your real “hot” choice told her you were a sensitive guy and worthy of a few minutes of her time. So you got your song, you got to talk to some interesting frail (you remember who that is, right?), and maybe, maybe in that great blue-pink great American teen night you got a telephone number even if she had a boyfriend, a forever boyfriend. Nice, right?

But here is the part, the solemn serious part, that makes this a Frankie story although He is not present in this scene, at least not physically present. Who do you think got me “hip” to this trick? Yes, none other than Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie, king of the teen night, king of the North Adamsville teen night. And, this is why he was king. He was so smooth, after a while, at directing the selections that girls would not even get a chance to pick those first current flame and old flame selections but he would practically be dropping their quarters in the machine for them. Hail Frankie.