This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
July 30, 2014 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network
One year after Chelsea Manning’s conviction, Amnesty International is still calling on the US government to grant her clemency. Amnesty demands that Chelsea be freed immediately, and for the US government to, “implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.” Read the full statement from Amnesty International below or click here to view it on amnesty.org:
Exactly one year after Chelsea Manning was convicted of leaking classified government material, Amnesty International is renewing its call on the US authorities to grant her clemency, release her immediately, and to urgently investigate the potential human rights violations exposed by the leaks. Chelsea Manning has spent the last year as a convicted criminal after exposing information which included evidence of potential human rights violations and breaches of international law. By disseminating classified information via Wikileaks she revealed to the world abuses perpetrated by the US army, military contractors and Iraqi and Afghan troops operating alongside US forces. “It is an absolute outrage that Chelsea Manning is currently languishing behind bars whilst those she helped to expose, who are potentially guilty of human rights violations, enjoy impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director Amnesty International. “The US government must grant Chelsea Manning clemency, order her immediate release, and implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”
After being convicted of 20 separate charges Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, much longer than other members of the military convicted of charges such as murder, rape and war crimes.
Before her conviction, Chelsea Manning had already been held for three years in pre-trial detention, including 11 months in conditions which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as cruel and inhumane.
Chelsea Manning has always maintained that her motivation for releasing the documents to Wikileaks was out of concern for the public and to foster a meaningful debate on the costs of war and the conduct of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Notable amongst the information revealed by Private Manning was previously unseen footage of journalists and other civilians being killed in US helicopter attacks.
"The US government appears to have its priorities warped. It is sending a worrying message through its harsh punishment of Chelsea Manning that whistleblowers will not be tolerated. On the other hand, its failure to investigate allegations that arose from Chelsea Manning’s disclosures means that those potentially responsible for crimes under international law, including torture and enforced disappearances, may get away scot-free,” said Erika Guevara.
“One year after the conviction of Chelsea Manning we are still calling on the US government to grant her clemency in recognition of her motives for acting as she did, and the time she has already served in prison.”
Amnesty International has previously expressed concern that a sentence of 35 years in jail was excessive and should have been commuted to time served. The organization believes that Chelsea Manning was overcharged using antiquated legislation aimed at dealing with treason, and denied the opportunity to use a public interest defence at her trial.
In addition, there is little protection in US law for genuine whistleblowers, and this case underlines the need for the US to strengthen protections for those who reveal information that the public has the right to know.
It is crucial that the US government stops using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning.
Markin comments (Winter 2014):
There is no question now that Chelsea Manning’s trial, if one can called what took place down in Fort Meade a trial in the summer of 2013 rather than a travesty, a year after her conviction on twenty plus counts and having received an outrageous thirty-five year sentence essentially for telling us the truth about American atrocities and nefarious actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the American government can stick its nose that her case has dropped from view. Although she occasionally gets an Op/Ed opportunity, including in the New York Times, a newspaper which while recoiling at the severity of the sentence in the immediate reaction did not question the justice of the conviction, and has several legal moves going from action to get the necessary hormonal treatments reflecting her real sexual identity (which the Army has stonewalled on and which even the New York Times has called for implementing) to now preparing the first appeal of her conviction to another military tribunal the popular uproar against her imprisonment has become a hush. While the appeals process may produce some results, perhaps a reduction in sentence, the short way home for her is a presidential pardon right now. I urge everybody to Google Amnesty International and sign on to the online petition to put the pressure on President Barack Obama for clemency.
I attended some of the sessions of Chelsea Manning’s court-martial in the summer of 2013 and am often asked these days in speaking for her release about what she could expect from the various procedures going forward to try to “spring” her from the clutches of the American government, or as I say whenever I get the chance to “not leave our buddy behind” in the time-honored military parlance. I have usually answered depending on what stage her post-conviction case is in that her sentence was draconian by all standards for someone who did not, although they tried to pin this on her, “aid the enemy.” Certainly Judge Lind though she was being lenient with thirty-five years when the government wanted sixty (and originally much more before some of the counts were consolidated). The next step was to appeal, really now that I think about it, a pro forma appeal to the commanding general of the Washington, D.C. military district where the trial was held. There were plenty of grounds to reduce the sentence but General Buchanan backed up his trial judge in the winter of 2014. Leaving Chelsea supporters right now with only the prospect of a presidential pardon to fight for as the court appeals are put together which will take some time. This is how I put the matter at one meeting:
“No question since her trial, conviction, and draconian sentence of thirty-five years imposed by a vindictive American government heroic Wiki-leaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning’s has fallen off the radar. The incessant news cycle which has a short life cycle covered her case sporadically, covered the verdict, covered the sentencing and with some snickers cover her announcement directly after the sentencing that she wanted to live as her true self, a woman. (A fact that her supporters were aware of prior to the announcement but agreed that the issue of her sexual identity should not get mixed up with her heroic actions during the pre-trial and trial periods.) Since then despite occasional public rallies and actions her case had tended, as most political prisoner cases do, to get caught up in the appeals process and that keeps it out of the limelight.”
Over the past year or so Chelsea Manning has been honored and remembered by the Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade in Boston in such events as the VFP-led Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade, the Memorial Day anti-war observance, the yearly Gay Pride Parade, the Rockport July 4th parade, the VFP-led Veterans Day Peace Parade, and on December 17th her birthday. We have marched with a banner calling for her freedom, distribute literature about her case and call on one and all to sign the pardon petitions. The banner has drawn applause and return shouts of “Free Chelsea.” The Smedley Butler Brigade continues to stand behind our sister. We will not leave her behind. We also urge everybody to sign the Amnesty International on-line petition calling on President Obama to use his constitutional authority to pardon Chelsea Manning
Additional Markin comment on his reasons for supporting Chelsea Manning:
I got my start in working with anti-war GIs back in the early 1970s after my own military service was over. After my own service I had felt a compelling need to fight the monster from the outside after basically fruitless and difficult efforts inside once I got “religion” on the war issue first-hand. That work included helping create a couple of GI coffeehouses near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down at Fort Dix in New Jersey in order for GIs to have a “friendly” space in which to think through what they wanted to do in relationship to the military.
Some wanted help to apply for the then tough to get discharge for conscientious objection. Tough because once inside the military, at least this was the way things went then, the military argued against the depth of the applying soldier’s convictions and tended to dismiss such applications out of hand. Only after a few civil court cases opened up the application process later when the courts ruled that the military was acting arbitrarily and capriciously in rejecting such applications out of hand did things open up a little in that channel. Others wanted to know their rights against what they were told by their officers and NCOs. But most, the great majority, many who had already served in hell-hole Vietnam, wanted a place, a non-military place, a non-GI club, where they could get away from the smell, taste, and macho talk of war.
Although there are still a few places where the remnants of coffeehouses exist like the classic Oleo Strut down at Fort Hood in Texas the wars of the past decade or so has produced no great GI resistance like against the Vietnam War when half the Army in America and Vietnam seemed to be in mutiny against their officers, against their ugly tasks of killing every “gook” who crossed their path for no known reason except hubris, and against the stifling of their rights as citizens. At one point no anti-war march was worthy of the name if it did not have a contingent of soldiers in uniform leading the thing. There are many reasons for this difference in attitude, mainly the kind of volunteer the military accepts but probably a greater factor is that back then was the dominance of the citizen-soldier, the draftee, in stirring things up, stirring things up inside as a reflection of what was going on out on the streets and on the campuses. I still firmly believe that in the final analysis you have to get to the “cannon fodder,” the grunts, the private soldier if you want to stop the incessant war machine. Since we are commemorating, if that is the right word the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I check out what happened, for example, on the Russian front when the desperate soldiers left the trenches during 1917 after they got fed up with the Czar, with the trenches, with the landlords, and the whole senseless mess.
Everyone who has the least bit of sympathy for the anti-war struggles of the past decade should admire what Chelsea Manning has done by her actions releasing that treasure trove of information about American atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere. She has certainly paid the price for her convictions with a draconian sentence. It is hard to judge how history will record any particular heroic action like hers but if the last real case with which her action can be compared with is a guide, Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers, she should find an honored spot. Moreover Chelsea took her actions while in the military which has its own peculiar justice system. Her action, unlike back in Vietnam War times, when the Army was half in mutiny was one of precious few this time out. Now that I think about she does not have to worry about her honored place in history. It is already assured. But just to be on the safe side let’s fight like hell for her freedom. We will not leave our sister Chelsea behind.
President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I was asked by a fellow member of Veterans For Peace at a monthly meeting about the status of the case of Chelsea Manning since he knew that I had been seriously involved with publicizing her case and he had not heard much about the case since she had been convicted in August 2013 (on some twenty counts including several Espionage Act counts) and sentenced by Judge Lind to thirty-five years imprisonment to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That had also been the time immediately after the sentencing when Private Manning announced to the world her true sexual identity and turned from Bradley to Chelsea.
I responded to my fellow member that, as usual in such super-charged cases involving political prisoners, once the media glare of the trial and sentencing is over the case usually fell by the wayside into the media vacuum while the appellate process proceed on over the next several years. At that point I informed him of the details that I did know to that point. Chelsea immediately after sentencing had been put in the normal isolation before being put in with the general population at Fort Leavenworth. She seemed to be adjusting according to her lawyer to the pall of prison life as best she could. Later she had gone to a Kansas civil court to have her name changed from Bradley to Chelsea Elizabeth which the judge granted although the Army for a period insisted that mail be sent to her under her former male Bradley name. Her request for hormone therapies to help reflect her real sexual identity had either been denied or the process stonewalled despite the Army’s own medical and psychiatric personnel stating in court that she was entitled to such measures. At the beginning of 2014 the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, General Buchanan, who had the authority to grant clemency on the sentence part of the case, despite the unusual severity of the sentence, had denied Chelsea any relief from the onerous sentence imposed by Judge Lind. Locally on Veterans Day 2013 we honored Chelsea at the annual VFP Armistice Day program and in December 2013 held a stand-out celebrating Chelsea’s birthday (as we did in December 2014).Most important of the information I gave my fellow VFPer was that Chelsea’s case going forward to the Army appellate process was being handled by nationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander and her associate Vincent Ward. Thus the case was in the long drawn out legal phase that does not generally get much coverage except by those interested in the case like well-known Vietnam era Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, various progressive groups which either nominated or rewarded her with their prizes, and the organization that has steadfastly continued to handle her case’s publicity and raising financial aid for her appeal, Courage to Resist (an organization dedicated to publicizing the cases of other military resisters as well.
At last month’s meeting (February 2015) that same VFPer asked me if it was true that as he had heard the Army, or the Department of Defense, had ordered Chelsea’s hormone therapy treatments to begin. I informed him after a long battle, including an ACLU suit ordering such relief, that information was true and she had started her treatments a month previously. I also informed him that the Army had thus far refused her request to have an appropriate length woman’s hair-do. On the legal front the case was still be reviewed for issues to be presented which could overturn the lower court decision in the Army Court Of Appeals by the lawyers and the actual writing of the appeal was upcoming. A seemingly small but very important victory on that front was that after the seemingly inevitable stonewalling on every issue the Army had agreed to use feminine or neutral pronoun in any documentation. They had last June also been successful in avoiding the attempt by the Department of Defense to place Chelsea in a civil facility as they tried to foist their “problem” elsewhere.
On the political front Chelsea continued to receive awards, and after a fierce battle in 2013 was finally in 2014 made an honorary grand marshal of the very important GLBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco. Recently she has been given status as a contributor to the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper that was central to the fight by fellow whistle-blower Edward Snowden, where her first contribution was a very appropriate piece on what the fate of the notorious CIA torturers should be, having face such torture down in Quantico added to the poignancy of that suggestion.Locally over the past year we have marched for Chelsea in the Boston Gay Pride Parade, commemorated her fourth year in prison last May with a vigil, honored her again on Armistice Day, celebrated her 27th birthday in December with a rally, and continue to urge one and all to sign the on-line Amnesty International petition asking President Obama to grant an immediate pardon as well as asking that those with the means sent financial contributions to Courage To Resist to help with her legal expenses.
After I got home that night of the meeting I began thinking that a lot has happened over the past year and one half in the Chelsea Manning case and that I should made what I know more generally available to more than my local VFPers. Just one more example of our fervent belief that as we have said all along we will not leave our sister behind…
From A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin Series- In The Heat Of the Be-Bop 1960s Rock Night- Yah, We Were All
Exiles On Main Street
From The Pen
Of Sam Lowell
A while
back, a few months ago although the project had been percolating in his brain
for the previous year or so after some incident reminded him how much he missed
his old corner boy from the 1960s North Adamsville night, the late Peter Paul
Markin, Bart Webber wrote up what he called, and rightly so I think, an elegy
for him, A
Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin. Bart had
approached me about doing the chore since we now live in the same town, Carver
about thirty miles south of our growing- up town. He figured that since he had
retired from the day to day operations of his print shop which was now being
run by his oldest son, Jeff, and I was winding down my part in the law practice
I had established long ago I would have plenty of time to write and he to
“edit” and give suggestions. He said he was not a writer although he had plenty
of ideas to contribute but that I who had spent a life-time writing as part of
my job would have an easy time of it. Bart under the illusion that writing dry
as dust legal briefs for some equally dry as dust judge to read is the same as
nailing down a righteous piece about an old time corner boy mad man. I turned
him down flat which I will explain in a moment.
The way Bart
presented that proposal deserves a little mention since he did it one night
when the remnant of Markin’s old comrades still alive who still reside in the
area, Frankie, Josh, Jack Callahan, Jimmy Jenkins, Bart and me were drinking
now affordable high-shelf liquors at “Jack’s” in Cambridge near where Jimmy
lives. During the conversation, not for the first time, Bart mentioned that he
was still haunted by the thought he had
the year before about the time that Markin had us in thrall one night out in
Joshua Tree in 1972 when we were all high as kites on various drugs of choices
and he, at first alone, and then with Josh began some strange Apache-like dance
and they began to feel (at least according to Josh’s recollection) like those
ancient warriors who tried to avenge their loses when white settlers had come
to take their lands and we all for one moment were able to sense what it was
like to be warrior-avengers. Markin had that effect on the rest of us, was
always tweaking us on some idea from small scale larcenies to drug-induced
flame-outs. Yeah, that miserable, beautiful, so crooked he could not get his
legs in his pants, son of a bitch, sainted bastard still is missed, still has
guys from the old days moaning to high heaven about that lost. Bart insisted
there was a story there, a story if only for us and someone (all eyes on me)
should write it up.
I can say
all of that and say at the same time that I can say I couldn’t write the piece.
See while at times Markin was like a brother to me and we treated each other as
such he also could have his “pure evil” moments which the other corner boys
either didn’t see, or didn’t want to see. These may be small things now on
reflection but he was the guy who almost got me locked up one night, one summer
night in 1966 before our senior year when Frankie who usually was the “on-site”
manager of our small larcenies was out of town with his girlfriend. Markin
figured since he was the “brains” behind the various capers that he could do
one on his own but he needed a look-out, me. The caper involved a small heist
of a home in the Mayfair swells part of North Adamsville whose owners were
“summering” somewhere in the Caribbean. Markin had “cased” or thought he had
cased the place fully except he didn’t factor in that the owners had a house
sitter during that time. Markin startled her as he entered a side door, she
screamed, Markin panicked, as she headed for the telephone to call the police
and he fled out the door. But see Markin came running out that door toward me just
when the cops were coming down the street where we met in their squad car
directly toward us. They stopped us, told to get in the car and headed to that
Mayfair house. As it turned out the house-sitter couldn’t identify either of
us, couldn’t identify Markin and the cops had to let us go. No question Markin
panicked and no question he made a serious mistake by heading my way knowing
what he knew. I had, and have always had, the sneaking suspicion that he might
have rolled me over as the B&E guy if it had been possible. I have a few
other stories like that as well but that gives you a better insight into what
Markin could turn into when cornered.
So Bart
wrote the piece himself, wrote the “dimmed” elegy (the “dimmed” being something
I suggested as part of the title) and did a great job for a guy who said he couldn’t
write. Frankly any other kind of elegy but dimmed would fail to truly honor
that bastard saint madman who kept us going in that big night called the early
1960s and drove us mad at the same time with his larcenous schemes and
over-the-top half-baked brain storm ideas and endless recital of the eight
billion facts he kept in his twisted brain (estimates vary on the exact number
but I am using the big bang number to cover my ass, as he would). I need not go
into all of the particulars of that piece except to say that the consensus
among the still surviving corner boys was that Bart was spot on, caught all of
Markin’s terrible contradictions pretty well. Contradiction that led him from
the bright but brittle star of the Jack Slack’s bowling alleys corner boy back
then to a bad end, a mucho mal end murdered down in Sonora, Mexico in 1976 or 1977
when some drug deal (kilos of cocaine) he was brokering to help feed what Josh
said was a serious “nose candy” habit went sour for reasons despite some
investigation by Frankie Riley, myself and a private detective Frankie hired were
never made clear. What was clear was that he was found face down on some dusty
back road of that town with two slugs in his head and is buried in the town’s
forlorn potter’s field in some unmarked grave. That is about all we know for
sure about his fate and that is all that is needed to be mentioned here.
That foul
end might have been the end of it, might have been the end of the small legend
of Markin. Even he would in his candid moments accept that “small” designation.
Yes, been the end of the legend except the moaning to high heaven still every
time his name comes up. Except this too. Part of Bart’s elegy referenced the
fact that in Markin’s sunnier days before the nose candy got the best of him, brought
out those formerly under control outrageous “wanting habits,” in the early
1970s when he was still holding onto that “newer world” dream that he (and many
others, including me and Bart for a varying periods) did a series of articles
about the old days and his old corner boys in North Adamsville. Markin before
we lost contact, or rather I lost contact with him since Josh Breslin his friend
from Maine (and eventually our friend as well whom we consider an honorary Jack
Slack’s corner boy) met out in San Francisco in the Summer of Love, 1967 knew
his whereabouts outside of San Francisco in Daly City until about 1974 wrote
some pretty good stuff, stuff up for awards, and short-listed for the Globe.
Pushed on by
Bart’s desire to tell Markin’s story as best he could who must have been driven
by some fierce ghost of Markin over his shoulder to do such yeoman’s work, he, Frankie
(our corner boy leader back then who had Markin as his scribe and now is a big
time lawyer in Boston), Josh, and I agreed that a few of the articles were
worth publishing if only for ourselves and the small circle of people whom
Markin wrote for and about. (Markin’s oldest friend from back in third grade,
Allan Johnson, who would have had plenty to say about the early days had passed
awayafter a long-term losing fight with
cancer before this plan was hatched, RIP, brother.) So that is exactly what we
did. We had a commemorative small book of articles and any old time photographs
we could gather put together and had it printed up in the print shop that Bart’s
oldest son, Jeff, is now running for him since his retirement from the day to
day operations last year.
Since not
all of us had everything that Markin wrote, as Bart said, what the hell they
were newspaper or magazine articles to be used to wrap up the fish in or
something after we were done reading them, we decided to print what was
available. Bart was able to find copies of a bunch of sketches up in the attic
of his parents’ home which he was cleaning up for them when they were putting
their house up for sale since they were in the process of downsizing. Josh,
apparently not using his copies for wrapping fish purposes, had plenty of the
later magazine pieces. I had a few things, later things from when we went on
the quest for the blue-pink Great American West hitchhike road night as Markin
called it. Unfortunately, we could not find any copies of the long defunct East Bay Eye and so could not include
anything from the important Going To The Jungle
series about some of his fellow Vietnam veterans who could not adjust to the
“real” world coming back from ‘Nam and wound up in the arroyos, canyons,
railroad sidings and under the bridges of Southern California. He was their
voice on that one then, if silence now who those aging vets desperately a voice.So Markin can speak to us still. Yeah, like
Bart said, that’s about right for that sorry ass blessed bastard saint with his
eight billion words.
Below is the
short introduction that I wrote for that book which we all agreed should be put
in here trying to put what Markin was about in content from a guy who knew him
about as well as anybody from the old neighborhood, knew his dark side then and
when that came out later too:
“The late
Peter Paul Markin, also known as “the Scribe, ” so anointed by Frankie Riley
the unchallenged self-designated king hell king of the schoolboy night among
the corner boys who hung around the pizza parlors, pool halls, and bowling
alleys of the town, in telling somebody else’s story in his own voice about
life in the old days in the working class neighborhoods of North Adamsville
where he grew up, or when others, threating murder and mayhem,wanted him to tell their stories usually gave
each and every one of that crew enough rope to hang themselves without
additional comment. He would take down, just like he would do later with the
hard-pressed Vietnam veterans trying to do the best they could out in the
arroyos, crevices, railroad sidings and under the bridges when they couldn’t
deal with the “real” world after Vietnam in the Going To The Jungle series that won a couple of awards and was short-listed
for the Globe award, what they wanted the world to hear, spilled their guts out
as he one time uncharitably termed their actions (not the veterans, not his
fellows who had their troubles down in L.A. and needed to righteously get it
out and he was the conduit, their voice, but the zanies from our old town), and
then lightly, very lightly if the guy was bigger, stronger than him, or in the
case of girls if they were foxy, and mainly just clean up the language for a
candid world to read.
Yeah Makin would
bring out what they, we, couldn’t say, maybe didn’t want to say. That talent was
what had made the stories he wrote about the now very old days in growing up in
North Adamsville in the 1960s when “the rose was on the bloom” as my fellow
lawyer Frankie Riley used to say when Markin was ready to spout his stuff so
interesting. Ready to make us laugh, cringe, get red in the face or head toward
him to slap him down if he got too righteous. Here is the funny part though. In
all the stories he mainly gave his “boys” the best of it. Yes, Bart is still
belly-aching about a few slights about his lack of social graces that old
Markin threw his way, and maybe he was a little off on the reasons why I gave
up the hitchhike highway blue-pink Great American West night quest that he was
pursuing (what he called sneeringly my getting “off the bus” which even he
admitted was not for everyone) but mainly that crazy maniac with the heart of
gold, the heart of lead, the heart that should have had a stake placed in its
center long ago, that, ah, that’s enough I have said enough except I like Bart
still miss and mourn the bastard.”
Here is something
I wrote after reading one of the articles that Markin wrote about the place of
the Rolling Stones in rock history back in 1972, I think. That rock history was
one of his serious interests, one that he wrote about like a lot of his work
for the small circulation “idea” journals and off-beat magazines meaning no
dough publications. He had written in that article about his youthful
controversy with our corner boy leader, Frankie Riley (mentioned above), on
those Friday no dough, no car, no date nights that plagued our youth concerning
the better band, the Beatles or the Stones. I have just updated his basic argument
with Frankie, who I also had the same controversy with (and still do as a recent
meeting over drinks to rekindle the dispute for this piece demonstrated very clearly)
to include my having seen a film documentary about the making of the album Exiles On Main Street. This piece will also reflect on one of his
experiences coming of age in North Adamsville which was very much like the rest
of us had experienced as well when our world was fresh:
In The Heat Of the Be-Bop 1960s Rock Night- Yah, We Were All
Exiles On Main Street
I am sure that Mick and the boys will gladly
take a back seat to Howlin' Wolf on this one.
In the old days, the old high
school days when such things mattered, my best friend at North Adamsville High
School (we actually went back to old North Adamsville Middle School days
together), Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley to give his full moniker, spent endless
hours arguing over the merits of the Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones as the
primo rock band of the times. The times being the early 1960s, the time of the
edge, just the wee edge of the beginning of the uprisings associated with our
generation, the generation of ’68.
I will get into the specifics of
that Frankie controversy a little later but for the purposes of argument a
review of a film documentary about the making of the Stones’ 1972 album, Exile
on Main Street, the real controversy is over whether this album was their
best ever or not. At that point Frankie and I had lost contact so that I will
just give as my opinion that for pure blues-ness, pure Stones’ foundational
blue-ness, for country rooted-ness, and for musicianship it is hard to argue
that any other Stones' album was better. And that opinion, now with the benefit
of the documentary footage and current interviews with many of the
personalities from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to the sidemen, hangers-on,
gofers, and their manager during this period, Marshall Chess (son of the controversial
legendary Chess Records blues label founder, Leonard Chess, who gave the likes
of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James and many other famous blues names a
leg up in the Chicago night), about how it was produced, and what it all meant,
still holds up.
I noted in the headline that in
the 1960s we, at least those of us who were politically alienated from mainstream
Western social norms or at wits end for some other more personal reasons, were
all exiles on Main Street. Main Street being a convenient term of art for all
that was square, not cool, up-tight, piggish, and a thousand other words we
used to separate our youth culture out from the ticky-tack little white house
with the picket fence dream that passed for social reality then (and,
unfortunately, now, well kind of now). For the Stones this notion of exile,
self-imposed exile, not glad-tiding self-imposed exile to hear the lads tell
it, had another element. They had to flee England in order to escape from some
terrible tax burdens that had accumulated and for which they did not have
control over solving (or money to pay). So off to the south of France they go,
to live and to produce the new album and in order to get some dough.
Of course, with such well-known
edge city crazies as Mick and Keith this was not going to be a Sunday in the
park. Along the way they picked up musicians, groupies, hangers-on, bag men,
bad guys, dope dealers and everyone with a little cache who could get to France
and be around the scene. And that scene included, surprise, surprise, dope of
every kind- from pills to smack (heroin, then, as now, not a “cool” drug
staple), booze by the buckets full, women, sex, and everything else under the
sun. Let’s leave it that the scene was the epitome of the slogan “drug, sex and
rock and roll” and along with the expression “live fast, die young and make a
good corpse” will get you the flavor of what went on just about right.
Oh yah, in case you forgot, it
also included an incredible amount of work by Mick and Keith writing material,
all members playing riffs until arms got sore, throats died and fingers began
to bleed. Not a recipe that your mothers would suggest for making successful
careers, of any kind. But just the right recipe to unleash the rock energy
built up in one of the great rock bands that every existed, then and AARP and
old age home-worthy now.
Take an hour out and look at some
serious rock history. Then go up in the attic and dust off the album, or check
it out in your CD collection, or download it to your iPod, or Google it
on YouTube but listen to it. Especially the blues-ish stuff like Tumblin'
Dice (that will get even grandpa out of his rocking chair); Sweet
Virginia; Sweet Black Angel; and the rootsy (Robert Johnson rootsy) Stop
Breaking Down.
Now back to serious Frankie
business. The Frankie business of figuring out the real places of The Stones
and the Beatles in the rock pantheon, for eternity. Back on those hot, steamy,
endless summer nights standing (or sitting on the curb) beneath those North
Adamsville street lights when that question mattered, mattered as a
"universal" question. I am not sure exactly when I first hear a
Stones song, although it was probably Satisfaction, and it was probably
up in Frankie’s cluttered bedroom, a place that served as a refuge from my own
storm-tossed house what with my mother’s tirades against, well, against
anything that I might do, or might think of doing. You know that song, or have
heard about it.
However, what really hooked me on
The Stones was when they covered the old Willie Dixon blues classic, Little
Red Rooster. If you will recall that song was banned, at first, from the
radio stations of Boston. Later, I think, and someone can maybe help me out on
this, WMEX broke the ban and played it. And no, the song was not about the
doings of our barnyard friends. But beyond the implicit sexual theme was the
fact that it was banned that made me, and perhaps you, if you are from the
generation of ’68, want to hear it at any cost. That says as much about my
personality then, and now, as any long-winded statement I could make. And that
is what also set Frankie and me apart on this question.
See, Frankie was from nowhere on
the blues. And I mean nowhere. Although Frankie reigned supreme as the king
hell king of our corner boy high school scene and was cool in many things, he
was pretty square in his music tastes. (Headquartered
early on in high school at the local pizza parlor, Salducci’s, owned by a
mad-hatter of a zen pizza-maker, Tonio, who loved Frankie practically like a
son for some reason never explained, at least that I could figure out but who
by senior year had sold out to other parties and gone back to Italy. Those “other
parties” did not want ill-bred, vagrant, larcenous corner boys hanging around their
to be family-friendly “let Ma have a night off and have a pizza” place and that
was how we wound up standing one foot against the wall in front of Jack Slack’s
bowling alleys.) He never got over Elvis really, never got over how the local
girls treated him like the “king” when he swiveled his hips at the school sock
hops, went wild when he put forth his Elvis-like sneer to be wiped off by those
adoring girls, and followed his ever depressing descend into Blue Hawaii-dom
(or worst) avidly. Frankie really believed that Roy Orbison was a demon based on
his song Running Scared (there is a
story behind that belief which involved the machinations of his girlfriend,
Joanne, which need not detain us here). Carl Perkins was another idol, and I
need not speak of the fact that he almost cried when they started picking on
Jerry Lee Lewis just because he married his cousin, or something. Thus far
though we were not that far apart.
But get this. He, king of the
be-bop night, no question, a guy whom I talked about universal things to and
got a thoughtful talking back to on, took it in strife when guys like Fabian,
Booby (oops) Bobby Vee, Conway Twitty (be serious), Bobby Darin, the Everly
Brothers, and Rick Nelson, jesus, Rick Nelson led the musical
counter-revolution in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Music that made me, on
certain days, abandon the transistor radio that was central to my home life
peace. (Yah, that Ma thing mentioned previously). So when the Beatles turned up
he was kind of nonplussed by them, and I swear he actually said this one night
and I will quote his words exactly just in case there are any legal
ramifications over it- “They did a nice cover of Twist and Shout”-jesus
christ. Even I saw them as a breath of fresh air then.
Now you get the idea of the
musical gap that developed between us. That hearing of Little Red Rooster,
moreover, began my long love affair with the blues, although somewhere deep in
my psyche, my projects boy psyche, I had that beat in my head way before I
could name it. I swear I grabbed every Muddy Waters, Big Joe Turner, Ike
Turner, John Lee Hooker album that I could get my hands on. And then branched
out to such esoteric stuff as the work of blues pioneers like Son House, Robert
Johnson, and Bukka White (he did Panama Limited and Aberdeen
Mississippi Woman on the sweat-dripping National Steel guitar and flipped
me out, and still flips me out. Google those on YouTube) and other early
country blues boys. Some of this also got mixed in at the time with my budding
interest in the folk music scene, the folk protest music scene. And that is
probably why, although the blues, particularly the Chicago blues, also
influenced the Beatles, it is The Stones that I favor. Their cover on Rooster
still holds up, by the way. Not as good, as I found out later, as the legendary
Howlin' Wolf's version but good.
I have also thought about the
Stones influence more recently as I have thought about the long ago past of my
youth. Compare some works like John Lennon's earnest, plaintive Working
Class Hero and The Stones' agitated Street Fighting Man (yes, I know
these are later works, later than the be-bop corner boy schoolboy night, but
they serve to make my point here) and I believe that something in the way The
Stones from early on presented that angry, defiant sound appealed to my sense
of working class alienation. Let’s leave it as they “spoke” to me and the
Beatles didn’t. Frankie, always caught up with some “twist” although mainly the
Joanne mentioned above moved to less defiant sounds. (That “twist” his term for
girl, woman learned from seeing to many second run black and white 1930s gangster
films and jaded Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe detective films at the Strand about
six blocks from where we lived.) But he was the king hell king corner boy, and
bailed me out of tough situations, tough girl situations and some other
semi-legal things, more times than not so he draws a pass on his vanilla tastes
here. Thanks, Frankie.
Afterthought: If we were really
thinking about comparisons between rock groups as you move later into the heart
of the 1960 after the counter-revolution got smashed the better one is actually
not the Beatles vs. The Stones but Stones vs. The Doors. On any given night in
the late 1960s when Jim Morrison, satanic, shamanic, mad man if you can be all
three at once, or believe you can be all three as he probably did when he was
in his drug-induced trance, leader of the band dug deeply into his psyche and
bared his shamanistic soul (and dug, dug deeply, into his medicine bag as well)
The Doors were the best rock band in the world. No question. Just listen to L.A. Woman, The End, Spanish Caravan and
the like. But when you start to list the all-time classic Stones hits from Gimme
Shelter to Tumblin’ Dice (like I say the one that will still get
even grandpa up and about) and how they stand the test of time The Stones win
hands down.
Street Fighting Man Lyrics Artist(Band):The Rolling Stones (M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of
marching, charging feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time
is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n'
roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a
street fighting man
No
Hey! Think the time is right for
a palace revolution
'Cause where I live the game to
play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n'
roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a
street fighting man
No
Hey! Said my name is called disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill
the king, I'll rail at all his servants
Well, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n'
roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a
street fighting man
No
"Working Class Hero" lyrics- John
Lennon
As soon as your born they make
you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of
it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel
nothing at all,
A working class hero is something
to be,
A working class hero is something
to be.
They hurt you at home and they
hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever
and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you
can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something
to be,
A working class hero is something
to be.
When they've tortured and scared
you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a
career,
When you can't really function
you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something
to be,
A working class hero is something
to be.
Keep you doped with religion and
sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever
and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasents
as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something
to be,
A working class hero is something
to be.
There's room at the top they are
telling you still,
But first you must learn how to
smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks
on the hill,
A working class hero is something
to be.
A working class hero is something
to be.
If you want to be a hero well
just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well
just follow me.
The Red Rooster Howling Wolf
I have a little red rooster, too
lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too
lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard,
upset in every way
Oh the dogs begin to bark,
and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound
begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind
people,
Cause little red rooster is on
the prowl
If you see my little red rooster,
please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster,
please drag him home