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CD REVIEW Got My Mojo Workin’, James Cotton and his band, Blu Mountain Records, 2003 I have, over the past year or so, spent some time tracing the roots of the blues from its southern country home, mainly on the plantations, farms and small towns that surround them, through its transition into the larger cities of the South where the crowds and hence the lyrics got more sophisticated and, ultimately, to the blues Mecca, Chicago, and other Northern cities where blacks migrated en masse between the two world wars and in the immediate post World War II period. As part of that exposition I have discussed not only the differences in the lyrics reflecting the changeover from the moaning and groaning of the plantation life to the hyper-intensity of city life. I have also mentioned the key change in the guitar going from some old acoustic instrument to the electric guitar of the cities. Along the way I have failed to mention, or not mentioned enough, some of the other changes in instrumentation. For one, and this is relevant here, the harmonica. This instrument, as an accompanying sound, has a long history beyond its key place in the blues saga. However, with the citification of the blues its role in a blues band as back up to those electric guitars and drums became more central. In short, a strong harmonica player became necessary to fill in the spaces left by the reverberating guitar. Correspondingly, virtuosity on the harmonica brought its own rewards. I would argue that Sonny Boy Williamson's role in this change was key in the 1920's and 1930's followed by Lil' Walter of the early Muddy Waters Band. And who followed Walter - well, the artist under review here, James Cotton. Like all talented musicians with any sense of leadership James Cotton, after serving his long apprenticeship with Muddy Waters, went on to form his own band. This CD is one of the results of those efforts. James, as always, plays the bejesus out of the harmonica. His backup band is a little more than adequate. The gruff-voiced Cotton does so-so a job on the vocals. However, this album left me drifting in and out. Some tracks are very fine like "Fanny Mae", "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and the title track "Got My Mojo Workin'". However, such numbers as "Goodbye My Lady", "Teenie Weenie Bit" and Help Me" seemed forced. I confess this is the only CD of Cotton's that I have reviewed but off of this performance I sure wish he had been back with Muddy wailing out on something like "Hootchie Gootchie Man". Got My Mojo Working by Preston Foster / McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand I'm gonna have all you women right here at my command Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you Play on! Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working Got my mojo working, but it - uh uh - just won't work on you __________ Note: the original version of Got My Mojo Working was sung in a jump blues style by Ann Cole. She performed the song on stage in 1956, which was how Muddy Waters found the song!. Muddy Waters adapted it to his style but the bassline is still the same. The song can be found on the 1999 Rhino Records anthology album Jump, Jive & Swing. These are the lyrics to the original version as sung by Ann Cole and written by Preston Foster: FANNIE MAE Well I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me Oh I ain't in any trouble and so much misery Now Fannie Mae, baby won't you please come home Fannie Mae ae ae, baby won't you please come home Yeah I ain't been in debt baby since you been gone I can hear your name a ringin on down the line I can hear your name a ringin on down the line I want to know pretty love how do I win my time MUSICAL INTERLUDE I no o o o for me, I no-o-o-o for me Well I ain't been in trouble and so much misery Song Lyrics: Good Morning Little School Girl
Written and Recorded by: Sonny Boy Williamson II (1937) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good mornin' 'lil school girl, can I go home, can I go home with you? Tell your mother and your father, I'm a little school boy too Woke up this mornin', woke up this mornin', I didn't know what to, I didn't know what to do I didn't have no blues, baby, bit I couldn't be satisfied I'm gettin' me an airplane, I'm gettin' me an airplane, get in my airplane Gon' fly all oh-oh, gon' fly all over this land I'm gonna find my little school girl, find her in the world somewhere Good mornin' 'lil school girl, good mornin' 'lil school girl Can I go home with, can I go home with, can I go home with you? Tell your mother and your father, Johnny little school boy too Come be my baby, come be my baby, I buy you a diamond, I buy you a diamond ring You don't be my little baby, I ain't gonna buy you a doggone ring
A Brooklyn hipster, old blues music, cultural appropriation, a ghost story: these are ingredients in Hari Kunzru's new novel, White Tears. He talks with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Early on in Hari Kunzru's new novel, the narrator, Seth, a white Brooklyn hipster, makes this statement about his love of quintessentially black, old blues music. Speaking of his fellow hipster and wealthy college buddy, Carter, he says, we really did feel that our love of the music bought us something, some right to blackness. What Seth and Carter find, as the story unfolds, isn't what they bought but what they owe.
Hari Kunzru's novel is called "White Tears." It's a mystery, a coming-of-age story, a history, and Hari Kunzru joins me now from New York. Welcome.
HARI KUNZRU: Hello.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Your main characters are these bedroom music collectors and DJs, and they're called Carter and Seth. And I think they are recognizable to anybody that's seen a beard in Park Slope. Can you tell us about who they are when we meet them?
KUNZRU: Yeah. They meet at a liberal arts college somewhere upstate in New York. And Carter is - he's the heir to one of America's great fortunes. He's an extremely wealthy young man, and he's kind of the coolest guy on campus. He's - he has money to do whatever he wants, if he wants to throw a party or whatever. And Seth is exactly the opposite. He is a loner. He's a very introverted young man who has a fascination with music technology and kind of geeking out on various kinds of music things. And the love of music is what draws these two very unlikely friends together.
They are sort of obsessive collectors of black music. And Carter, in particular, who, I think, feels that for all his money, his life is rather weightless and the things you do doesn't - don't have substance, he feels that there's something real and true and authentic that he can get from this music and from this culture that he doesn't have himself.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The central event that propels the mystery in this novel is an act of theft. Explain what happens.
KUNZRU: Essentially, Seth and Carter, these two young, white men, fake a 1920s blues record. They take a few words of a blues song that Seth has heard traveling around the city, and they put it together with a guitar figure. They bury the whole thing in crackle and hiss, and they present it as if it's a very old 1920s blues record.
Now, they put this out on the internet as a sort of calling card for their production house, and people get very excited about it. And they're contacted by an old blues collector who asks them where they found this record, and they're very smug and amused. You know, they say - ha ha ha, we made it up. And he says, well, no, you didn't. I haven't heard this record since 1959, and there is a story attached.
And this collector, who's a character called JumpJim, once went down to the South with an older and very obsessive collector called Chester Bly. And the story follows from the present, falling back into the past and follows these guys as they go around the South looking for old records.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is there a similarity to this character in, let's say, Alan Lomax and the other early white collectors? You know, they saved this music for posterity. But did they also kind of steal it?
KUNZRU: Well, I think that this is a fascinating area, and it's one of the questions that really drew me to the blues and to the history of blues collecting and the story of the Lomaxes because these collectors were certainly - and many are now - elite white men. But it's not a simple question of nasty white people stealing from authentic black people. They did do real cultural work in rescuing things that otherwise would have been cast into oblivion. But at the same time, they interpreted that in a certain way. They had certain views about what was good and what was bad, and they kind of remade the story of the blues in an image that suited them.
You know, the Lomaxes, father and son, John Lomax was a particularly - I suppose he would be thought of as quite a problematic character in our days. And in the '30s, he was a folk song collector. And what he loved was the most authentic - he was looking for the roots of music. And he asked himself where he could find the most authentic black music that was untouched by contact with white people. And the answer he came up with was in the penitentiary.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK ISLAND LINE")
KELLY PACE: (Singing) I said the Rock Island Line.
UNIDENTIFIED CUMMINS STATE FARM INMATES: (Singing) Is a mighty good road.
PACE: (Singing) I said the Rock Island Line.
UNIDENTIFIED CUMMINS STATE FARM INMATES: (Singing) Is the road to ride.
PACE: (Singing) I said the Rock Island Line.
KUNZRU: He got access to various penitentiaries in the South, and he recorded the people that he found there. And it seemed not to really touch him, the actual condition of the people that he was recording, the situation in which they found themselves. And eventually he discovered Lead Belly, the very famous blues musician and a while later, secured his release and took him on a sort of circuit of lecture demonstrations. And Lead Belly would play at parties on the Upper West Side to sort of left-leaning, liberal types.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEAD BELLY: (Singing) Good night, Irene. Good night, Irene. I'll get you in my dreams.
JOHN LOMAX: That's fine, Lead Belly. You're a fine songster. I never heard so many good nigra songs.
LEAD BELLY: Thank you, sir, boss.
KUNZRU: So there were these very complex power relations, I suppose, that are going on there.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Would I be right in saying that your book is an indictment of the infatuation with blackness and black culture by white people?
KUNZRU: I think an indictment might be a bit too straightforward a word. I mean, I think that America is a country that is haunted by its racial history. And it is very hard for black and white Americans to look at each other in an uncomplicated way and to understand each other in an uncomplicated way. And often in the realm of culture, and especially in the realm of music, there is this possibility of connection but actually it becomes very fraught.
And I'm not saying that white people, or any people, shouldn't listen to any kind of music they wish to listen to but that there's a difference between loving something and trying to own it or control it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Your characters are collectors, but they don't make art themselves. So what do you think the responsibility of the curator is?
KUNZRU: I think you have to be very alive to the possibility that you're using these objects to tell a story that's your story rather than the story that actually is there. When you think about the blues, the taste for the blues that we have now is really largely formed by a group of collectors in New York in the '40s and '50s.
And these guys had a particular feeling about what was good about this music, and it was all about outsiders, and it was all about the slightly mythical, diabolical figure who goes down to the crossroads and sells his soul to the devil to play guitar. And actually, that has a lot to do with their own desires and their own feelings about otherness, perhaps. So as a curator, I think you need to be alive to the possibility that you're actually distorting things sometimes with your love and passion.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is that a responsibility that you feel as well? Should there be a limit to what writers write about if they're not directly connected to that specific history?
KUNZRU: Well, I think that's a dangerous route to go down because I think, a priori, no writer should be limited in any way like that. But you have to understand that you can do things well or badly. The question of rights is often brought up when it comes to, should writers be able to write different kinds of characters or people who are distant from them? But - and if you take that to its logical conclusion, everybody would have to just write characters who are exactly like them. I would be in a sort of strange world populated exclusively by mixed race British-Asian guys. And so, you know...
GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter) Sounds like a fun world.
KUNZRU: It's a crazy world, but it's a world of, you know, Eccles. It's a solipsistic world. So what all writers have to try and occupy positions distant from their own. You know, you have to occupy a position of different genders, different ages, different races. You know, in this book, I clearly don't own any of these positions. But also I've tried to approach it, I suppose, with humility. That seems to be a good word. The writers should approach their material with a degree of humility.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Hari Kunzru's book is called "White Tears." Thank you so much for being with us.
KUNZRU: Well, thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FUTURE BLUES")
WILLIE BROWN: (Singing) Can't tell my future, and I can't tell my past.
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And Then Some
Has He Got His Mojo Workin'? - The Blues Harmonica Of James Cotton
CD REVIEW
Got My Mojo Workin’, James Cotton and his band, Blu Mountain Records, 2003
I have, over the past year or so, spent some time tracing the roots of the blues from its southern country home, mainly on the plantations, farms and small towns that surround them, through its transition into the larger cities of the South where the crowds and hence the lyrics got more sophisticated and, ultimately, to the blues Mecca, Chicago, and other Northern cities where blacks migrated en masse between the two world wars and in the immediate post World War II period. As part of that exposition I have discussed not only the differences in the lyrics reflecting the changeover from the moaning and groaning of the plantation life to the hyper-intensity of city life. I have also mentioned the key change in the guitar going from some old acoustic instrument to the electric guitar of the cities.
Along the way I have failed to mention, or not mentioned enough, some of the other changes in instrumentation. For one, and this is relevant here, the harmonica. This instrument, as an accompanying sound, has a long history beyond its key place in the blues saga. However, with the citification of the blues its role in a blues band as back up to those electric guitars and drums became more central. In short, a strong harmonica player became necessary to fill in the spaces left by the reverberating guitar. Correspondingly, virtuosity on the harmonica brought its own rewards. I would argue that Sonny Boy Williamson's role in this change was key in the 1920's and 1930's followed by Lil' Walter of the early Muddy Waters Band. And who followed Walter - well, the artist under review here, James Cotton.
Like all talented musicians with any sense of leadership James Cotton, after serving his long apprenticeship with Muddy Waters, went on to form his own band. This CD is one of the results of those efforts. James, as always, plays the bejesus out of the harmonica. His backup band is a little more than adequate. The gruff-voiced Cotton does so-so a job on the vocals. However, this album left me drifting in and out. Some tracks are very fine like "Fanny Mae", "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and the title track "Got My Mojo Workin'". However, such numbers as "Goodbye My Lady", "Teenie Weenie Bit" and Help Me" seemed forced. I confess this is the only CD of Cotton's that I have reviewed but off of this performance I sure wish he had been back with Muddy wailing out on something like "Hootchie Gootchie Man".
Got My Mojo Working
by Preston Foster / McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do
I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm gonna have all you women right here at my command
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
Play on!
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it - uh uh - just won't work on you
__________
Note: the original version of Got My Mojo Working was sung in a jump blues style by Ann Cole. She performed the song on stage in 1956, which was how Muddy Waters found the song!. Muddy Waters adapted it to his style but the bassline is still the same. The song can be found on the 1999 Rhino Records anthology album Jump, Jive & Swing. These are the lyrics to the original version as sung by Ann Cole and written by Preston Foster:
FANNIE MAE
Well I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
Oh I ain't in any trouble and so much misery
Now Fannie Mae, baby won't you please come home
Fannie Mae ae ae, baby won't you please come home
Yeah I ain't been in debt baby since you been gone
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I want to know pretty love how do I win my time
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
I no o o o for me, I no-o-o-o for me
Well I ain't been in trouble and so much misery
Song Lyrics: Good Morning Little School Girl
Written and Recorded by: Sonny Boy Williamson II (1937)
To Sin By Silence When We Should Protest Makes Cowards Out Of Men (Women Too)!-Build The Resistance!
By Political Commentator Frank Jackman
To Sin By Silence When We Should Protest Makes Cowards Out Of Men … (and I added women too)-lines from “Protest” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Usually when I want to grab a line or two from some poem it would more likely by from say Bertolt Brecht’s “To Those Born After,” Langston Hughes’ “Homage To John Brown” or Claude McKay’s “Let’s Us Die Like Men (and I would add women here again) and not some relatively obscure American poet but when the point is made so succinctly I could not resist using the damn thing as it disturbed my sleep one night
Ella Wheeler Wilcox whatever her vices or virtues as an American working the ways of the late 19th and early 20th century had it exactly right-had a mantra that we need to live by these dark days on the American frontier (the frontier not Harvard Professor Turner’s old idea about the closing of the frontier once you hit the Pacific Ocean with all its consequences for a restless people ever since but the outer edge of civil society). We must continue to resist the Trump government with whatever resources we have. And whatever hubris we can gather in to keep us from the storm that has gathered right on our doorsteps.
Most of us didn’t want this fight, the older ones of us thinking that maybe we could pass on under conditions of an armed truce with the imperial government. But then the cold civil war descended on us and we had to pick sides, those of us who see the necessity of picking sides when bans are in place, when walls are being built and when the rich, no, hell no, the super-rich have literally stepped up to besieged every social program that our people need to face the next day. And act. Act to build the resistance which these days looks like it will need to be on the order of the French Resistance in World War II.
Do you really want to bend your head down when the deal, the hell train coming, goes down and your kids, if you have kids, your grandkids if you have grandkids, or just your own conscience asks you what did you when it was time to speak up. Remember Ella had it right, right as rain.
Here is Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After" if you need further reason-
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder That was ruled by hunger. I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar And then I joined in their rebellion. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles, I lay down to sleep among the murderers, I didn't care for much for love And for nature's beauties I had little patience. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time, My speech betrayed me to the butchers. I could do only little But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily: That's what I hoped. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small, Our goal lay in the far distance Clearly in our sights, If for me myself beyond my reaching. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries More often than shoes, Through the war of the classes despairing That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised Hatred of oppression still distorts the features, Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly. Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness, Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer Do human beings still treat themselves as animals, Look back on us with indulgence.
Stop Continuing To Let The Military Sneak Into The High Schools-Down With JROTC And Military Recruiter Access-What Every Young Woman Should Know
Frank Jackman comment:
One of the great struggles on college campuses during the height of the struggle against the Vietnam War back in the 1960s aside from trying to close down that war outright was the effort to get the various ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps, I think that is right way to say it) programs off campus. In a number of important campuses that effort was successful, although there has been back-sliding going on since the Vietnam War ended and like any successful anti-war or progressive action short of changing the way governments we could support do business is subject to constant attention or the bastards will sneak something in the back door.
To the extent that reintroduction of ROTC on college campuses has been thwarted, a very good anti-war action indeed which had made it just a smidgen harder to run ram shot over the world, that back door approach has been a two-pronged attack by the military branches to get their quota of recruits for their all-volunteer military services in the high schools. First to make very enticing offers to cash-strapped public school systems in order to introduce ROTC, junior version, particularly but not exclusively, urban high schools (for example almost all public high schools in Boston have some ROTC service branch in their buildings with instructors partially funded by the Defense Department and with union membership right and conditions a situation which should be opposed by teachers’ union members).
Secondly, thwarted at the college level for officer corps trainees they have just gone to younger and more impressible youth, since they have gained almost unlimited widespread access to high school student populations for their high pressure salesmen military recruiters to do their nasty work. Not only do the recruiters who are graded on quota system and are under pressure produce X number of recruits or they could wind doing sentry guard duty in Kabul or Bagdad get that access where they have sold many young potential military personnel many false bills of goods but in many spots anti-war veterans and other who would provide a different perspective have been banned or otherwise harassed in their efforts.
Thus the tasks of the day-JROTC out of the high schools-military recruiters out as well! Let anti-war ex-soldiers, sailors, Marines and airpersons have their say.
Electric Blues Harmonica Great James Cotton Passes At 81 Link to NPR tribute to James Cotton http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/03/16/520453907/james-cotton-legend-of-the-blues-harmonica-dies-at-81
Zack James comment: the number of guys who can trace their roots back to country blues days-guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James Son House have mostly long a go passed the shades. Now were are seeing the last of the great links to the 1940s and 1950s electric blues explosion, guys like Howin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, the blues that most of my generation came of blues age on are passing as well. James Cotton, RIP,
The Struggle Continues...Supporter The Military Resisters-Support The G.I. Project
By Frank Jackman
The late Peter Paul Markin had gotten “religion” on the questions of war and peace the hard way. Had before that baptism accepted half-knowingly (his term) against his better judgment induction into the Army when his “friends and neighbors” at his local draft board in North Adamsville called him up for military service back in hard-shell hell-hole Vietnam War days when the country was coming asunder, was bleeding from all pores around 1968. Markin had had some qualms about going into the service not only because the reasoning given by the government and its civilian hangers-on for the tremendous waste of human and material resources had long seemed preposterous but because he had an abstract idea that war was bad, bad for individuals, bad for countries, bad for civilization in the late 20th century. Was a half-assed pacifist if he had though deeply about the question, which he had not.
But everything in his blessed forsaken scatter-shot life pushed and pushed hard against his joining the ranks of the draft resisters whom he would hear about and see every day then as he passed on his truck route which allowed him to pay his way through college the Boston sanctuary for that cohort, the Arlington Street Church. Markin had assumed that since he was not a Quaker, Shaker, Mennonite, Brethren of the Common Life adherent but rather a bloody high-nosed Roman Catholic with their slimy “just war” theory that seemed to justify every American war courtesy of their leading American Cardinal, France Spellman, that he could not qualify for conscientious objector status on that basis. And at the time that he entered the Army that was probably true even if he had attempted to do so. Later, as happened with his friend, Jack Callahan, he could at least made the case based on the common Catholic upbringing. Right then though he was not a total objector to war but only of what he saw in front of him, the unjustness of the Vietnam War.
That was not the least of his situation though. That half-knowingly mentioned above had been overridden by his whole college Joe lifestyle where he was more interested in sex, drink, and rock and roll (the drugs would not come until later), more interested in bedding women than thinking through what he half-knew would be his fate once he graduated from college as the war slowly dragged on and his number was coming up. Moreover there was not one damn thing in his background that would have given pause about his future course. A son of the working-class, really even lower than that the working poor a notch below, there was nobody if he had bothered to seek some support for resistance who would have done so. Certainly not his quiet but proud ex-World War II Marine father, not his mother whose brother was a rising career Army senior NCO, not his older brothers who had signed up as a way to get out of hell-hole North Adamsville, and certainly not his friends from high school half of whom had enlisted and a couple from his street who had been killed in action over there. So no way was an Acre boy with the years of Acre mentality cast like iron in his head about servicing if called going to tip the cart that way toward straight out resistance.
Maybe he should have, at least according to guys he met in college like Brad Fox and Fritz Tylor, or guys who he met on the hitchhike road going west like Josh Breslin and Captain Crunch (his moniker not real name which Josh could not remember). The way they heard the story from Markin after he got out of the Army, after he had done his hell-hole thirteen months in Vietnam as an infantryman, twice wounded, and after he had come back to the “real” world was that on about the third day in basis training down in Fort Jackson in South Carolina he knew that he had made a mistake by accepting induction. But maybe there was some fate-driven reason, maybe as he received training as an infantryman and he and a group of other trainees talked about but did not refuse to take machine-gun training, maybe once he received orders for Vietnam and maybe once he got “in-country” he sensed that something had gone wrong in his short, sweet life but he never attempted to get any help, put in any applications, sought any relief from what was to finally crack him. That, despite tons of barracks anti-war blather on his part from Fort Jackson to Danang.
Here’s the reason though why the late Peter Paul Markin’s story accompanies this information about G.I. rights even for those who nowadays enter the military voluntarily, as voluntarily as any such decision can be without direct governmental coercion. Markin, and this part is from Josh Breslin the guy he was closest to toward the end, the guy who had last seen him in the States before that fateful trip to Mexico, to Sonora when it all fell apart one day, had a very difficult time coming back to what all the returnees called the “real” world after Vietnam service. Had drifted to drug, sex and rock and roll out on the West Coast where Josh had first met him in San Francisco until he tired of that, had started to have some bad nights.
Despite the bad nights though he did have a real talent for writing, for journalism. Got caught up in writing a series about what would be later called the “brothers under the bridge” about guys like him down in Southern California who could not adjust to the real world after ‘Nam and had tried to keep body and soul together by banding together in the arroyos, along the railroad tracks and under the bridges and creating what would today be called a “safe space.”
Markin’s demons though were never far from the surface. Got worse when he sensed that the great wash that had come over the land during the counter-cultural 1960s that he had just caught the tail-end had run its course, had hit ebb tide. Then in the mid-1970s to relieve whatever inner pains were disturbing him he immersed himself in the cocaine culture that was just rearing its head in the States. That addiction would lead him into the drug trade, would eventually lead him as if by the fateful numbers to sunny Mexico, to lovely Sonora way where he met his end. Josh never found out all the details about Markin’s end although a few friends had raised money to send a detective down to investigate. Apparently Markin got mixed up with some local bad boys in the drug trade. Tried to cut corners, or cut into their market. One day he was found in a dusty back street with two slugs in his head. He lies down there in some unknown potter’s field mourned, moaned and missed until this very day.
