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
The tragic terrorist murders of 189 innocent Parisians and
the wounding of 359 others on the evening of November 13 are inseparable
outcomes of the never-ending imperialist wars in the Middle East.
Just as the U.S. responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks with
wars and immediate enactment of heightened surveillance and repressive measures
to curb dissent, the French government is doing the same, ready to exploit the
horrific murders and grief to increase fear and anger towards Muslims and
refugees, rather than looking at the root causes of these acts. [Read
more]
No
U.S. Ground Troops in Syria! U.S. Out of Syria!
Antiwar forces
in the U.S. must join together to plan actions to protest the growing U.S.
intervention in Syria. The most recent step has been to introduce up to 50
Special Forces combat troops to work with what are called "moderate" rebel
groups to fight against Islamic State/Daesh. This violates earlier promises by
the Obama administration not to send troops to Syria. Contrary to the official
White House announcement, the mission is a combat one and troops are likely to
face combat. This is an escalation of what is already a major intervention and
war [Read more]
On Thursday,
October 15, President Obama announced that the expected drawdown of U.S. forces
in Afghanistan will not happen and that 9,800 U.S. troops will remain in the
country for a year and then be reduced to 5,000. This means that the 14 year
Afghanistan war, the longest in U.S. history, will continue into the next U.S.
administration.
Even these high troop numbers are deceiving because they do not include the
troops from other U.S. allies that remain in Afghanistan and they do not include
the 30,000+ contractors and mercenaries paid for by the U.S., a number that
increases each time the U.S. announces a drawdown of its troops [Read more]
UNAC
goes to Cuba and the Philippines
A number of UNAC members and supporters are traveling to
Cuba to attend the 4th
International Seminar for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples. The conference
will be held in the province of Guantanamo and will focus on military bases.
Additionally, two UNAC leaders are attending an important conference in the
Philippines where the US is in the midst of a huge military buildup as part of
its “pivot” to Asia. We urge you to donate to help our supporters attend these
events. You can send a check made out to UNAC to UNAC, PO Box 123, Delmar NY
12054 or click the link below to donate by credit card.
Where
are we demonstrating? Park
Street and Tremont, Boston
When? Nov.
21 at 1pm
Why? The
US-NATO alliance just completed its largest military operation to date in Europe
– called Trident Junction – with Russia as the main target. At the same time,
Washington escalated its four-plus-year proxy war against the Syrian government
by sending Eagle jets to the Turkish-Syrian border and U.S. Special Forces into
Syrian territory to protect the so-called “moderate rebels.”
All
of this has come in response to Russia’s intervention to eliminate ISIS in
Syria. The Obama administration’s campaign promise of “no boots on the ground”
has once again been broken. What Washington has promised with its actions is
ever-lasting war.
People
all over the world have paid a price for the U.S.-NATO escalation. Hundreds have
died in a recent massacre in Paris. Fifty died in Beirut just days before.
Hundreds more died just weeks before in the bombing of a Russian tourist flight
from Egypt. Washington and its allies have armed and empowered terrorist groups
like ISIS to destabilize the Syrian government. The result of this U.S. and NATO
military intervention in the region is the blowback that struck the people at
home. This intervention has also led to a dangerous military escalation that
brings the U.S. closer to a regional war with Russia.
The
cost of U.S. war has been far reaching. Over 4 million people have died in
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq since the “War on Terror” began in 2001. North
Africa has been turned into a hotbed of chaos and terrorism since NATO destroyed
Libya in 2011. And Congress has promised $80 billion more in revenue for the
trillion dollar Pentagon military apparatus necessary to maintain the global
supremacy of the U.S. superrich. These critical funds come from our own pockets
and could be used to develop education, healthcare, employment, and housing for
all.
This
is especially important as the wars on oppressed people continue to wage on
within the war-making nations. The racist anti-immigrant movements in Europe and
the U.S. are already planning how they will use the attacks in Paris on November
13 to bolster their violent campaigns against African, Arab, and Latino
immigrants. Police chiefs across the U.S. who have been pushed back by the Black
Lives Matter movement are at this very movement feverishly strategizing about
how they will use the Paris attacks to support the ongoing police war against
Black and Brown people.Homeland Security and the Wall Street interests that it
serves will try to use the Paris attacks to expand surveillance and repression
against protest movements. Politicians and their billionaire backers are already
plotting how they will use the Paris attacks to launch a wider war against the
peoples of the Middle East, Africa and Asia -- the same way that Bush used 911
to destroy Iraq. Now is the time for all of us who know this to stand up and say
NO!
Join
us at Park Street in Boston to speak out and demand an end to all U.S.-NATO
wars! U.S. out of Syria! No to attacks on Immigrants! Divest from war, invest in
the people!
Sponsors
include: International Action Center, Syrian American Forum, Committee for Peace
and Human Rights, Boston
United National Anti-War Coalition, Community Activist Chuck Turner, Coalition
for Equal Quality Education Peoples Power Assembly, Women's Fightback
Netork, Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST), Workers World Boston branch
(list in formation)
This
list is for discussion of plans for peace and justice work in the Greater Boston
area by member groups of United for Justice with Peace.
Policies for the list are posted at
http://justicewithpeace.org/ujp-discuss.
Saturday,
December 5th - 3 PM Encuentro
5 (9A Hamilton Place)
Featured speakers: Genevieve Morse Shop Steward
and Executive Board member Mass Teachers Association - CSU*;
Socialist Alternative Cameron Bateman Labor
Rep, Mass Nurses Association* And more
TBA!
The US labor movement is in deep turmoil. The defeats
in Wisconsin, Michigan and other former hotbeds of industrial unionism show that
a new way is needed in leading the fight back for the organized working
class.
In unions around the country, the question of who to support in
the presidential elections is being hotly debated. Many union
leaderships are pushing for endorsing Hillary Clinton, a known Wall Street
lackey and former Wal-Mart board member, against the wishes of the
rank-and-filers supporting insurrectionary candidate Bernie
Sanders.
The recent decision by one of the biggest unions in the
US to support Hillary, an opponent of the $15 an hour minimum wage, over
Sanders, a huge $15 supporter whose biggest campaign donors are almost all from
organized labor, has caused a massive uproar of discontent among the
rank-and-file.
Come out and discuss with several union leaders
about the need for labor to come out against support for HIllary Clinton and how
union democracy can be restored to help rebuild a fighting labor movement.
When we fight, we win!
(*Personal
Capacity)
Fight for a better world and help rebuild an
organized socialist movement.
Click the banner to apply to join
Socialist Alternative
today!
Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Five
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
He, Nelson Algren, the poet-king of the midnight police line-up, night court shuffle, drug-infested jack-roller, dope-peddler, illicit crap game back alleys, Chicago-style, what did Carl Sandburg the old dusty poet call Chi, oh yeah, hog-butcher and steel-driver of the world, wrote of small-voiced people, mostly people who had started out in the world with small voices, small voices which never got louder. (Except that junkie wail when deep in the “cold turkey” fits, except that drunk dark tavern cheap low-shelf rye whiskey shrieking in the early morning high moon, except that stealthy jack-roller cry of delight once his victim wears that spot of blood on the back of his neck like some red badge of sap-dom, except that scream when some he-man decides that for a minute he would gain a big voice and smack his woman a few times to straighten her out, except that holler when some john decided to bust up his paid-up junkie whore just because he could, except, oh, hell, enough of exceptions in the neon-blazing small voice night.)
Yeah, Nelson had it right, had that ear for the low moan, the silence in the face of ugly Division Street tenements not fit for the hogs much less the hog-butchers, had the ear for the dazed guys spilling their pitter-patter to Captain just like back in home sweet Mississippi, Georgia, wherever, had the ear for the, what did Jack Kerouac called them, yes, the fellahin, the lump mass peasants, except now they are hell-bound bunched up together on the urban spit, small voices never heard over the rumble of the subway, working stiffs (stinking hog-butchers, sweated steel-driving men, grease-stained tractor-builders, frayed-collared night clerks in some seedy flop, porters sweeper out Mister’s leaving from his executive bathroom, and their women (cold-water flat housewives, cheap Jimmy Jack’s Diner waitresses pencil in ear and steam-tray sweated too tight faded white uniform hustling for nickels and dimes, beaten down shoe factory workers work men did not do, working donut shops filling donuts to feed the tribe, the younger ones hitting Benny’s Tavern for a few quick ones and maybe a quick roll in the hay if some guy pays the freight, older woman doing tricks for extra no tell husband cash, for a fix if she is on the quiet jones), sometimes their kids (already street-wise watching older brothers working back alley jack-rolls, cons, hanging in front of Harry’s Variety doing, well, just doing until the midnight sifter time rolls around), their kids growing up like weeds, who turned out to be disappointments.
But who could expect more from the progeny of small-voiced people, guys who sat around gin mills all night (maybe all day too I knew a few who inhabited the Dublin Grille in my old hometown of Carver, a smaller version of Chi town, another town filled with small-voice people, just fewer, small tenements, cold-water flats, same seedy places not fit to hang in, genteel people hang in).
Nelson never wrote, or wrote much, about big-voiced people who Greek tragedy stumbled, tumbled down to the sound of rumble subway stops out their doors (that damn elevated shaking the damn apartment day and night, rattling the windows, so close passengers got an eyeful when some floozy readied herself for her night’s work or not bothering with modesty, high as a kite, just letting herself not feel anything). Never spoke of people who fell off the rim of the world from some high place due to their hubris, their addictions, their outrageous wanting habits never sated before the fall (not some Edenic fall, not some “searching for the garden” like some uptown tea-fed hipsters claimed they were seeking just ask them) but a silly little worldly fall that once it happened the world moved on and ignored.
Wrote instead of the desperately lonely, a shabby-clothed wino man talking to himself on some forsaken park bench the only voice, not a big voice but a voice that had to be reckoned with, of the stuffed cop swaggering his billy club menacingly to move him on, or else, a woman, unhappy in love, hell maybe jilted at the altar, sitting alone like some Apple Annie in that one Ladies Invited tavern on the corner, the one just off Division where she had met that man the first time and meets all men now, all men with the price of a drink, maybe two, no more, and that eternal price of a by-the-hour flop over on neon hotel, motel, no tell Mitchell Street.
Yeah, a big old world filled with the lonely hearing only their own heartbeats, heard no other heartbeats as they waited out their days. What did T.S. Eliot, the poet and a guy who if strait-laced and Victorian knew what he was talking about call it, oh yeah, measured out their lives in coffee spoons. Nelson wrote of alienated people too, not the Chicago intellectuals who were forever belly-aching about the de-humanization of man (Studs Terkel could quote chapter and verse on these guys and their eternal studies about the plight of man, and they merely made of the same clay) about how we had built a mechanical world from which we had to run but the common clay, the ones who manned the conveyor belts, ran the damn rumbling subways, shoveled the snow, hell, shoveled shit day and night.
Wrote of the night people, not the all night champagne party set until dawn and sleep the day away but of the ones who would show up after midnight in some police precinct line-up, the winos, the jack-rollers, the drifters, the grifters, the midnight sifters, maybe a hooker who had not paid the paddy and thus was subject to the grill. Wrote of the people who inhabit the Nighthawk Diner (artist Edward Hopper’s all shape angles, all dim lights outside, bright fluorescent no privacy, no hiding lights inside, all the lonely people eating their midnight hamburgers fresh off the greased grill, another grill that forlorn hooker knew well), or Tom Waits’ rummies, bummies, stumblers, street-walkers looking for respect all shadows left behind, take your pick), the restless, the sleepless, the shiftless, those who worked the late shift, those who drew the late shift of life, those who worked better under the cover of night in the dark alleyways and sullen sunken doorways.
He wrote big time, big words, about the small-voiced people, big words for people who spoke in small words, spoke small words about small dreams, or no dreams, spoke only of the moment, the eternal only the moment. The next fix, how to get it, worse, how to get the dough to pay the fixer man, he, sending his woman out on the cold damp streets standing under some streetlight waiting for Johnnie and his two minute pleasures, she if she needs a fix, well, she trading blow jobs for smack, so as not to face that “cold turkey” one more day. The next drink, low boy rotgut wines and cheap whiskies, how to get it, the next bet, how to con the barkeeper to put him on the sheet, the next john, how to take him, the next rent due, how to avoid the dun and who after all had time for anything beyond that one moment.
Waiting eternally waiting to get well, you in such bad shape you can’ t get down the stairs, waiting for the fixer man to walk up the stairs and get you well, well beyond what any medical doctor could prescript, better than any mumbo-jumbo priest could absolve, to get some kicks. (Needle, whiskey, sex although that was far down the list by the time that needle was needed or that shot of low-shelf whiskey drove you to your need, again.) Waiting for the fixer man, waiting for the fixer man to fix what ailed them.
So not for Algren the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world talking to kindred about prices of wheat and corn walking the road to their proper Sunday white-clad church after a chaste Saturday red barn dance over at Fred Brown’s, the prosperous small town drugstore owners filling official drug prescriptions hot off some doctor’s pad and selling the under-aged liquor as medicine without prescription for whatever the traffic would bear, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon where the blue-haired ladies get ready for battle and gossip about how Mister so and so had an affair with Miss so and so from the office and how will Mildred whom of course they would never tell to keep the mills rolling do when the whole thing goes public.
Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice (calling in checks at a moment’s notice), the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard. One suspects that he could have written that stuff, written and hacked away his talent like those who in the pull and push of the writing profession had (have) forsake their muses for filthy lucre. No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him his due took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.
And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she, secretly, was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he, maybe secretly maybe not, was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he, very publicly, in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, under some railroad trestle, in some dime flop house, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.
Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, from The Man With The Golden Arm, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden needle arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20th century, okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, from Walk On The Wild Side, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up, come up for some place where time stood still to gain succor in the urban swirl, to feast at the table, come up from the back forty lots, the prairie golden harvest wheat fields, the Ozarks, all swamps and ooze, mountain wind hills and hollows, the infested bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.
I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn’s roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Hell, call it by its right name, the white trash, that lumpen mush. And he or she was right, of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop of that ilk from thrown out Europe are explored. All the pig thieves, cattle-rustlers, poachers, highwaymen, the -what did some sociologist call them?, oh yeah, “the master-less men,” those who could not or would not be tamed by the on-rushing wheels of free-form capitalism as the system relentlessly picked up steam, the whole damn lot transported. And good riddance.
The population of California after World War II was filled to the brim with such types, the feckless “hot rod” boys, boys mostly too young to have been though the bloodbaths of Europe and Asia building some powerful road machines out of baling wire and not much else, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways looking for the heart of Saturday night, looking for kicks just like those Chicago free-flow junkies, those twisted New Orleans whoremasters. Wandering hells angels riding two by two (four by four if they felt like it and who was to stop them) creating havoc for the good citizens of those small towns they descended on, descended on unannounced (and unwelcomed by those same good citizens). In and out of jail, Q, Folsom, not for stealing pigs now, but armed robberies or some egregious felony, but kindred to those lost boys kicked out of Europe long ago. Corner boys, tee-shirted, black leather jacket against cold nights, hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, permanent hurts, permanent hatreds, paid to that Algren observation. All the kindred of the cutthroat world, or better “cut your throat” world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.
He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm, abandoned for the bright lights of the city and useless to that short-weighting farmer who now is a prosperous sort, making serious dough as the breadbasket to the world. They, the off-hand hot rod king, the easy hell rider, the shiftless corner boy, had no existence, no outlets for their anger and angst, in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small, too small for the kicks they were looking for. They needed the anonymous city rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid- row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, always, always a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. They identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, with Algren’s blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners (see it always comes back to that lonely, alienated Nighthawk Diner just ask Waits), the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a true vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.
He spoke of jazz and the blues, as if all the hell in this wicked old world could be held off for a minute while that sound sifted thought the night fog air reaching the rooming house, the flop, the ravine, the beer hall as it drifted out to the river and drowned. Music not upfront but as a backdrop to while the steamy summer nights away, and maybe the frigid lake front winter too. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker, Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, made absolutely no sense, and so it went.
He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well, almost saintly and sacramental. Brothers and sisters just read The Last Carousel if you want to know about love. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.
***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Billie’s Back- The Crests’ “Step By Step”
Peter Paul Markin comment:
This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer around, heartthrob to the girls that is. And on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of finding-out-about-girls worthiness.
Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations (somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
********
Billie, William James Bradley, comment:
What the hell’s going on? It is almost like I can’t even listen to my transistor radio these days without wanting to throw up. Yes, that’s right throw up. And Markin, Peter Paul Markin, my best friend over at Adamsville South Elementary a couple of years back will back me up on this if he even comes back around the old neighborhood to breathe some real air, some fresh sea air, and get the low-down on what is good in music these days. Except I won’t have much to tell him right now. Like I said I feel like throwing up most of the time when I listen to the radio. Nothing righteous. Nothing like Elvis when he was righteous, hungry and righteous, a few years back. Or Jerry Lee before he got into cousin-marrying trouble or Chuck Berry when he got into no-no white girl trouble. Fabian, Conway Twitty, Duane Eddy, Ricky Nelson, jesus, even Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers and on and on with twaddle, yes, twaddle about this and that oddball thing about teen life. And girls, girls with money to buy the records, who seem to just want dreamy stuff about sad movies, some sad-sack boyfriends, johnny, jimmy, joey angels, following guys to the end of the earth, and all that. No more be-bop-a-loola. I tell you we are in the dumps and it ain’t getting better, if anything worst.
Here is what I am up to these days, and maybe you should be too. I am starting to listen and listen hard to doo wop stuff. The stuff that came out of the street corners of New York City and other big town places where you had guys (and chicks too) singing, no instruments, or maybe some low-down, low-key piano, just doing harmonies, and doo wop background responses. Cool. Yah, I know I got in trouble, musically anyway, trying to cover righteous Bo Diddley down here in the white projects playing off “colored” music that really, really I say, drove early rock. Just ask Elvis, if he is in a truthful mood.
But this stuff, this doo wop stuff, if it gets around more, can break the pretty boys and their dreamy girl thing up. So here is what I am doing now that it is summer, school is out, it’s hot, and we haven’t got a damn thing to do, and no money to do it with if we had that damn thing to do. I have been listening to doo wop records like crazy, right now I am concentrating on the Crests and their great harmonies on Step by Step. Here is what I want to do just like we tried last summer when Markin was around more. A few guys, a few of my guys, my hanging-around-waiting-to-do-this-and-that-but-just-now-waiting-fire-guys, will get together around dusk in back of the old school around the playground area and start practicing harmonies. Markin scoffed at the idea at the time, as usual. But then, just as the sun started going down, a couple of girls would come by to listen and not “dogs” either, or sticks. Then a couple more, and a couple more, and there you have it.
Of course after that Markin wanted to do it every day, all day, even in the afternoon heat, and Markin hates the heat. So I figure that we can try it again this year and maybe we can break out of the Bobby Vee mold. But see here is where I am on the hook. If you can believe this I need Markin, need him bad. Last summer when he was around more I tried to keep him in the background as his voice was starting to change. Yah, I tried to ship him and his voice to Chicago if you want to know the truth, best friend and all. But lately I have been having trouble on the call and response side of Step by Step and now that Markin has a more bassy voice I sure could use him otherwise I will never break out into my proper place in the doo wop world. Got it, Markin.