Sat. May 26, 3-5PM Dispatches from Okinawa, Japan
To Occupy Maine
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Sunday, May 27, 2018
Sat. May 26, 3-5PM Dispatches from Okinawa, Japan
The Perfect Crime Busted-With Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder In Mind
The Perfect Crime Busted-With Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder In Mind
By Lionel Adderley
Ray Milland, the great English tennis star from the 1940s and 1950s not the famed Oscar-winning actor with the commanding voice and dapper manners, played his projected crime, his murder of his wife too cute. Did what every amateur criminal has done and had a plan, not a bad plan by any means, but a plan that just had too many moving parts. The kiss of death for any such venture. And the man who spoke those words Reginald Marsh, “Reggie” was a man who should know since he had spent almost half his life as a professional “hit man” for whoever had the dough and wherewithal to hire his services. Reggie used to laugh anytime he read a crime detection book where the perfect crime got snagged up in some not thought out item like forgetting to close a door which did the felon in. Did the same anytime he saw a movie where the suspect would build up and build up until that decisive climax where the villain of the piece would be nabbed for having his or her underwear on the wrong way or something.
Had had to laugh as well in contrast about his own experiences where he flitted in and out of airports (this before such events as 9/11 made getting through security more onerous if not impossible). He had gotten through a couple of times with a weapon so disassembled that even when the courteous airport security agents asked him what it was he was able to say it was a new invention he was going to a convention in hopes of getting venture capital to mass produce the item. Had passed through bus stations, and train depots without much trouble at all. Had had no problem keeping his freedom for so long by observing that one simple notion-keep it simple.
So one night when he mentioned to the guy sitting beside him, a guy he knew slightly, that the great English tennis star of yesteryear, of the war years and the early 1950s, Ray Milland had just been picked up for murder he figured that once again the plan was way over the top for what Ray was trying to accomplish. Simply in the end murder his wife through the legal process. The guy sitting next to Reggie, a mild-mannered sort, Henry Higgins, responded to Reggie’s comment by asking him about the known details of the Milland murder. That was all Reggie needed to hear as he went almost apoplectic to once again show how his “perfect crime” theory gone wrong by over-planning had been verified.
Of course a guy like Ray Milland had certain expenses, had developed certain expensive habits while cavorting with the Mayfair swells who supported tennis in those days. And among the ladies provided the money and sexual favors that allowed Ray to prosper once his serious professional tour playing days were over. That was the bitch though. A guy like Ray, brought up on the British public school tradition and its finale, Cambridge or Oxford just couldn’t get used to living on high society hand-outs. That was when the no question handsome and surface debonair Ray took dead aim at Margo Kelly, yes the Margo Kelly whose father had all the dough in Philadelphia locked up in his vaults, and after some serious wooing took her hand.
The marriage might not have been made in heaven but for a few years Ray held off his temptation to bed every female Mayfair swell that crossed his path in the interest of keeping the money spigot running. Besides Margo was nothing to throw out of bed, at least at first before her (and his) ardor wore off. Then one day Ray found a letter from Margo to a guy in America, some kind of writer whom she had known back in the states, Robert Cummings. The letter contained explicit suggestions that this secret love affair was going to explode in his face as soon as this Cummings bastard hit the cliffs of Dover. The thought that after all the years of surface faithfulness he had been cuckolded by his wife and more importantly to place his financial future in doubt got him to the drawing board. Didn’t think twice, or for two minutes, about not doing the deed. Maybe it was depending too much on his Cambridge heritage, maybe it was his anger at Margo but he immediately went into overdrive in planning the caper. Made mistake number one right away by putting together an elaborate scheme based on anonymously blackmailing Margo over the love letter. Went way over the top there was no other way to explain it. Had stolen a Margo pocketbook some time before which contained a love letter and had been blackmailing her on that basis figuring she would come across with the dough rather than be exposed as an adulteress. Reggie speculated that Ray should have killed her, or better, had her killed by a professional like him outright then. Could have claimed some bogus over-heated blood-boiling bullshit that a friendly court might buy into.
No, Ray let the whole thing fester until what he thought was an opportune moment when he made his worst mistake. Brought an amateur into the operation. Or if not an amateur not a professional killer. Seems Ray had been in his overheated condition looking for a “fall guy” to take the rap if necessary. Had been “channeling” an old rummy of a college acquaintance who had taken up small-time con jobs and midnight creeps, a guy who went under about six aliases but Reggie said he would just call him Smythe-Jones and that would do. Never ask a rummy to do anything, period. Ray’s idea was to blackmail this Smythe-Jones into murdering Margo in order not to be turned in by Ray to the peelers. Of course a rummy thinking about stir and having to dry out will fall to any scheme especially if there is some cash involved. And as Ray laid out the plan to Smythe-Jones he became all ears. Figured a big time guy like Ray would not leave him in the lurch.
The whole fucking plan hinged on a key. See the idea was that Smythe-Jones was to strangle Margo in what was to look like a rummy doing a midnight creep burglary. But you can’t leave being able to jimmy open a window or a door to chance so Ray placed a key above the door to the flat for Smythe-Jones to use to enter, open a window from the garden to make the burglary idea plausible and hide behind a curtain in the study where the telephone was located when Ray made a call to the flat awakening Margo late at night. Then our rummy would pounce. One less beautiful Mayfair swell in the world. End of story.
No way, no fucking way. The whole thing went south. First Ray called late then, then half-drunk rum brave Smythe-Jones couldn’t subdue Margo and she killed him with a blow to his soft-boiled head. Christ what a mess. Ray was on the line while all this fiasco was going as Margo asked for bloody help. That is when Ray went into Plan B (Higgins mentioned to an associate after Reggie was long gone that he had never seem such a look of contempt on a man’s face when he uttered the words “Plan B” like there was no more heinous activity that a man could promote). He would set Margo up for the “murder” of Smythe-Jones using his, Ray’s, blackmail of his wife the past several months as the reason that Margo had had to kill the rummy. It worked, worked so well that Margo got railroaded right up to the hang-man’s noose.
See Ray worked some great moves to push Margo toward the gallows. Told Margo not to call the police until he got home. Got home to do some nifty work like disappearing that guilty key from Smythe-Jones’s pocket into her handbag, putting that dastardly love letter that had burned a hole in his brain into the rummy’s pocket and best of all, an inspired move, getting rid of that so-called murder scarf Smythe-Jones was to use and replacing it with one of her stockings like she was sick unto to death of paying the bloody beast blackmail and was to finish it the only way possible with the sullen death of the blackmailer.
Some beautiful stuff, stuff guys will study for years trying to perfect. But the whole sorry thing unraveled in the end. That fucking key bothered the peelers and bothered this Cummings lover guy who fancied himself something of an amateur sleuth. So the day before Margo was to swing, the freaking day before Ray would have had it made, could have lived in splendor with every woman he could get his hands this Cummings decided to test the key theory. Found out that no way could Margo have had the key that Smythe-Jones was supposed to use to get into the flat to kill her. The coppers came into play too since one of their officers was not fully convinced that Margo had done the murder. Had been bothered by the key angle and Margo’s seeming inability to explain it away. So between the two forces opposed to him Ray had to cry “uncle.” That was all that Reggie knew about the case after what had come out after they picked Ray up in that high-end flat. Reggie told Higgins before he left a few weeks later that Ray would have been better off just slitting Margo’s throat after finding her and that American in bed together. He probably would not have swung for it in the heat of passion.
That “left a few weeks later” should be explained. Reggie had been telling Higgins his simple art of murder theories while they were “bunk-mates” at Reading Gaol where the pair were awaiting execution. Reggie’s number had come up first. See, Reggie did not follow his own advice in the end and had only been enthralled by the Milland case out of a latent professional interest. Reggie had found his own wife in the arms of another man and like Ray had been outraged that he had been cuckolded. So he had hired a “hit man” to waste his wife and her lover. Except, acting in rage and not good sense he wanted to watch as the deed was done. Had planned it so that he would surprise the entangled couple in bed (in his own damn house which further enraged him) feign outrage, real enough as it was, then have the “hit man” come in and waste the guy, then her. While the “hit man” got away Reggie was spotted by a neighbor coming out of his own apartment right after the murders. He took the fall. Took the big-step off. Jesus. Keep it simple.
A View From The Left- NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong
The Libya Model: It’s Not Always All About Trump
John Bolton and Mike Pence must have known what they were doing. President Trump’s national security adviser and Vice President could not have been oblivious that advocating a “Libya model” for North Korea’s denuclearization would go over badly with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who presumably does not wish to be overthrown and killed after giving up his nukes, the fate that befell Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi… While ultimately the United States will need to be part of any peace deal, inter-Korean diplomacy toward peace and reconciliation, supported by other peace-makers and diplomats, should continue. Nobody in the current administration has any track record of success in international peace and diplomacy, but such people do exist, including some who made progress with North Korea in the past. They could task themselves with doing the job Trump and company are backing away from, offering to advise or serve this administration, or going to Korea themselves to make peace. More
Warning Against 'Return to Rhetoric of Nuclear Annihilation,' Koreans and Anti-War Voices Demand Trump Resume Peace Talks
Refusing to let a chance to achieve lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula slip away and warning against "return to a rhetoric of nuclear annihilation," a group of peace activists, foreign policy experts, and ordinary Koreans gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Friday to call on President Donald Trump to reverse his cancellation of the June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and immediately return to the negotiating table. "The people of both North and South Korea, and especially women, have worked too long and have come too close to reaching the first steps towards the signing of a Peace treaty to see the talks collapse," Christine Ahn, Korea expert and founder of Women Cross DMZ, said in a statement on Thursday. More
Trump’s Iran Sanctions Are an Obvious Prelude to War
The Trump plan is to use the power of the American economy to strong-arm nations into line. Back our sanctions, threatens the administration, or lose access to the U.S. market. And given that the world uses the dollar as its de-facto international currency, financial institutions may find themselves barred from using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunications (SWIFT), the American-controlled network that allows banks and finance centers to transfer money from country to county. Those threats have not exactly panicked the rest of the world. China and India, which between them buy more than 1 million of the 2.1 million barrels of oil Iran produces each day, say they will ignore the sanctions. And according to Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign affairs minister, “The European Union is determined to act in accordance with its security interests and protect its economic investments.” …In short, the sanctions won’t work, but were they really meant to? It’s possible that the White House somehow thinks they will — delusion is a characteristic of the Oval Office these days — but other developments suggest the administration is already putting in place a plan that will lead from economic sanctions to bombing runs. More
House NDAA Clarifies Trump Has No War Authorization for Iran
Trump himself has hinted at military action against Iran and both he and Pompeo have taken a page from the Iraq war playbook by falsely linking Iran to al-Qaeda. Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Jim McGovern (D-MA), and Walter Jones (R-NC) deserve tremendous credit for taking a stand for peace and Congress’ Constitutional war-making authorities by introducing the amendment and ensuring its passage in the House. Now, the Senate should make sure that this clear statement of fact is included in the final version of the NDAA. More
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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
131 House Dems Help GOP Pass Massive Pentagon Budget with Billions for New Nuclear Arsenal
While the world responds with alarm over President Donald Trump's spontaneous decision to cancel diplomatic talks with North Korea scheduled for next month—which aimed to ease rising nuclear tensions—131 Democrats in the U.S. House joined with the overwhelming majority of Republicans to pass a $717 billion Pentagon spending bill that includes massive expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. "The overwhelming cost of unnecessary and aggressive military invasions could be better spent at home meeting human needs." —Michael McPhearson, Veterans for Peace. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2019 authorizes the development of new low-yield submarine-launched nuclear warheads that the Trump administration demanded in its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which was released in February and denounced by disarmament advocates as "radical" and "extreme." On Thursday, anti-war activists and lawmakers shamed the Democrats who voted with the GOP to approve the military spending bill, and warned of its consequences. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), according to Politico, said the measure "pushes us even further and faster down the path to war, toward a new nuclear arms race." More
Keating, Lynch, Moulton, Neal, Tsongas YES; Capuano, Clark, Kennedy, McGovern NO
RALPH NADER: Audit The Outlaw Military Budget Draining America's Necessities
Top military, diplomatic, and political leaders have exposed, warned of, and condemned our runaway, unaudited military budgets for decades, to no avail. (For many examples, see America’s War Machine: Vested Interests, Endless Conflicts by James McCartney, with Molly Sinclair McCartney.) They usually come to the same desperate conclusion: that only organized citizens back in their Congressional Districts can make Congress stop this spending spree. Only us, Americans! … There is some light. Fifty-three members of the House of Representatives have signed on to H.R. 3079, which would reduce the budget of the Department (subject to emergency presidential waivers) by one-half of one percent if the Pentagon’s financial statements do not receive an audit OK by the GAO. H.R. 3079 is a stirring in the body politic, however weak the pulse. Obtain a copy of H.R. 3079 and its named sponsors to see whether your Representative is on board. If not, demand to know why. All of Connecticut’s Representatives have ducked co-sponsoring this bill. [McGovern, Clark. Moulton are so far co-sponsoring] More
The Deep, Uniquely American Roots of Our Affordable-Housing Crisis
In the 1990s, the national crisis in affordable
housing didn’t feel as acute because income growth was relatively strong, giving people more of a cushion to afford their rent. But when the subprime-mortgage crisis hit in 2007, America’s long-term refusal to deal with housing was once again laid bare. If modern mass homelessness began in the 1980s, the foreclosure and housing crises at the end of the 2000s represented a second wave that redoubled the problem. Nearly 3 million homes were foreclosed on in both 2009 and 2010; those homeowners sank back into the rental market, competing for cheap units with the low-income people who were already renting. Millennials delayed homeownership. The share of households renting in the country’s 50 largest cities climbed from 36 percent in 2006 to over 40 percent in 2014. Roughly 10 million more families rented in 2016 compared with the decade prior… The housing crisis “is like a game of musical chairs,” says Nan Roman. “There’s just not enough chairs for the number of people.” And the private sector simply can’t solve this problem. More
HOW TO PROTECT A RENTER NATION
Nationwide, renters make up 51 percent of the population of the 100 largest U.S. cities. This resurgence to establish rent control policies is part of a statewide—and national—movement for tenants’ rights. This specific policy is just one part of a larger effort by people and organizations who believe that housing is a human right and that it shouldn’t only be a sure thing for those with a lot of money… In 2017, Homes for All, a national campaign launched byRight to the City Alliance, a network of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations, held a “Renter Week of Action.” Among other items, it advocated for tenants’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, to establish community control over land and housing through land trusts, cooperatives, and non-market solutions for affordable homes, and to support increased funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development so that everyone who qualifies for assistance can get it. The fight for housing rights is steeped in history that has affected people differently based on their class and race. It’s important to understand that tenants’ rights is not a small, niche issue, Urban Habitat’s Samara says. “It’s a major fight for people of color,” he says. “This is part of a long history of working-class people of color asserting their right to place.” More
Long but very interesting read:
THE 9.9 PERCENT IS THE NEW AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY
The meritocratic class has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other people’s children. We are not innocent bystanders to the growing concentration of wealth in our time. We are the principal accomplices in a process that is slowly strangling the economy, destabilizing American politics, and eroding democracy. Our delusions of merit now prevent us from recognizing the nature of the problem that our emergence as a class represents. We tend to think that the victims of our success are just the people excluded from the club. But history shows quite clearly that, in the kind of game we’re playing, everybody loses badly in the end. More
The Surprising List of Democrats Who Just -- Gratuitously -- Bowed to Big Finance
In a win for amnesia, Congress advanced a bipartisan bill on Tuesday deregulating the banking industry, just a decade after Wall Street triggered a financial crisis that caused millions to lose their jobs and their homes. S.2155, known as the Crapo bill both for its co-author, Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and its general quality, was pitched as a narrow measure to provide relief for salt-of-the-earth community banks and 
credit unions. But anyone making that claim is either misinformed or trying to spin the truth. In reality, the Crapo bill will deregulate 25 of the 38 largest banks in America, weaken capital requirements that force banks to pay for their own mistakes, free some lenders from disclosing data used to detect lending discrimination and largely handcuff the Federal Reserve's ability to apply special regulations to the biggest banks, to name just a few provisions. More
credit unions. But anyone making that claim is either misinformed or trying to spin the truth. In reality, the Crapo bill will deregulate 25 of the 38 largest banks in America, weaken capital requirements that force banks to pay for their own mistakes, free some lenders from disclosing data used to detect lending discrimination and largely handcuff the Federal Reserve's ability to apply special regulations to the biggest banks, to name just a few provisions. More
Media Quote Frank on Rolling Back Dodd/Frank--Not Disclosing He’s Now a Bank Director
While some criticized the Democrats who took the side of the banks, they could point in their defense to a seemingly authoritative source: former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, one-half of Dodd/Frank’s namesake and its chief sponsor in the House. Frank weighed in on the rollback in an interview with CNBC (5/22/18), saying that “It does not in any way weaken the regulations we put in there for the largest banks or that were there to prevent the kind of crisis we had ten years ago,” and noting that the rollback “is not a big number on the bill. It’s a small number.” What CNBC does not cite is Frank’s role as a member of the board of Signature Bank, a New York-based institution that held $43 billion in assets at the end of 2017. More
“Honoring the Flag”. . .
The Unbearable Whiteness of NFL Ownership
On Wednesday, 31 out of 32 NFL team owners voted to appease President Donald Trump by banning any form of on-field protest or demonstration during the pregame singing of the national anthem… At least 70 percent of NFL players are black, according to the latest information available from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, or TIDES, at University of Central Florida. Yet ownership of the league is much less diverse, according to TIDES: Only two teams, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills, have people of color in majority ownership — a Pakistani-born American and an Asian-American, respectively. What’s more, the entire league doesn’t have a single African-American team owner — not one. And it is the team owners who are making the executive decisions in this case. The NFL players union announced that they weren’t even consulted before the team owners voted and made their announcement about the ban of any on-field demonstrations during the national anthem. More
Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance
Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance
Not all war poetry can stand the test of literary greatness or longevity but it is almost all very poignant and to the point
Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance
Poets' Corner- On Memorial Day For Peace-War And Remembrance
Not all war poetry can stand the test of literary greatness or longevity but it is almost all very poignant and to the point
The Search For The Great Blue-Pink American West Night-Part 32-With Western Artist Ed Ruscha In Mind
The Search For The Great Blue-Pink American West Night-Part 32-With Western Artist Ed Ruscha In Mind
By Art Critic Si Landon
Just then Bart Webber was in a California state of mind, was ready to chuck everything and go back on the road, the road to perdition to hear his wife, of thirty plus years, Betty Salmon, tell it when he went off on his tirade about the old days, and worse, the old guys, guys like Markin who had dragged him out West kicking and screaming. Now to hear him tell it Bart was the guy who propelled the sluggish Markin westward. We will get to the why of Bart’s new found interest in retracing his youthful fling in the bramble-filled West, out there where the states are square and you had better be as well on the way to the edge of the continent and the dreaded Japans sea for failure but first the what.
It seemed that Bart had jumped the gun somewhat because he found himself out in San Francisco, the place where he met up with Markin and some of the other North Adamsville corner boys in that fateful year of 1968 when he rode for a few months with the guys on Captain Crunch’s yellow brick road converted school bus come travelling caravan home, at a printing and media conference, what would be his final conference since he was putting his printing business in the capable hands of his youngest son who truth be told had been handling the day to day operations of the shop anyway and was itchy to run the operation himself. While riding on the BART into the city he noticed on a billboard that the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park was featuring a retrospective by the Western artist Ed Ruschua, an artist that Bart had always admire ever since he had seen his series on gas stations and their role in the great post-World War II golden age of the American automobile, the wide open highways and cheap gas.
Taking an afternoon off he went over to Golden Gate and viewed the exhibit, a show that had well over one hundred paintings, photographs, prints and petro-maps. One set of photographs taken on one of Ruscha’s trips from his native Oklahoma to Los Angeles via the southern desert-etched route drove Bart to distraction as there he saw gas stations in places like Needles, on the California-Arizona border, Kingman, Flagstaff, Gallup, and a few other places he had passed through on one of his hitchhike or car-sharing trips to California. Saw too coyotes, Native American reservations, buffalos roam. Saw a series of prints and paintings of the famous Hollywood sign that told him the first time that he had seen the sign up in the hills that he had arrived in the land of sun and fantasy. Saw a darkly troubling painting all done in dark somber colors of the death of the Joshua trees in the high desert, a place where he had performed under the influence of serious dope inhalation the “ghost” dance with Markin, Jack Callahan, Josh Breslin and Frankie Riley. Saw plenty of photographs and paintings detailing the degradation of that part of California Ruscha had travelled through on those golden age trips. He was, well-known as a man not to show much public emotion, shaken almost to tears at the vistas that he witnessed. Could not get the thoughts of his old “hippie” minute out of his mind. (That “minute” then signifying that he finally came to a realization after a few months that unlike Markin, Josh, or Sam Lowell another late arrival in California from the corner boys who stayed on the road for a few years that he was a stationary person, missed old North Adamsville and missed old ball and chain Betty Salmon.)
Here’s how the whole thing played out back then and maybe, just maybe you will begin to understand why Bart was shaken almost to tears for visions of his long lost youth. Despite the urban legend Bart tried to create lately around his role in sending Markin westward Markin, and only Markin was the guy who led the charge west. Had been the guy of all the guys on the corner who predicted, predicted almost weekly from about 1962 on that a big sea-change was coming and they had better be ready to ride the wave. They all, Bart included blew Markin’s predictions off out of hand because frankly if the subject around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor come Friday night wasn’t about girls, cars, money, getting drunk or any combination of those subjects they didn’t give a rat’s ass as Frankie Riley would say about some seaweed change.
Things pretty much stayed that way all through high school although that didn’t stop Markin from his predictions especially when the blacks down south got all uppity (signifying that the corner boys except Markin didn’t give a rat’s ass about that subject either and maybe worse-around use of the common “n” word) and folk music, the urban folk revival minute as Markin called it, took off. All that meant and this was stretching it was cheap dates with girls who might “put out.” Bart was even less interested in the latter since Betty was still stuck in some Bobby Rydell crush and did not like folk music (and still didn’t so Bart only played it when she was out of the house). Stayed that way for a couple of years after high school as they went their separate ways except the Friday night reunions at Tonio’s to, well, kill time. Then the Vietnam War came on strong which they did give a rat’s ass about, wanted to see the commies bite the dust although except for Sal Russo and Jimmy Jenkins who laid down his head over there and whose name now is on black granite down in Washington and in granite in North Adamsville, they did not volunteer. (Those who were called eventually all went including Markin who lost a lot over there, had serious troubles with the “real” world coming back and in the end couldn’t shake whatever it was that took the life out of him.)
Then in the spring of 1967 Markin did two things, one, the fateful decision to drop out of Boston University after his sophomore year to go “find himself,” a characteristic of the times, of the generation, of the best part of the generation and the other, the less fateful but still fraught with danger decision to head west, to hitchhike west to California after he had read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road about six times and declared that now was the moment that he had been talking about all those Friday nights in front of Tonio’s. So he headed west with no compulsion, wound up hooking up with a caravan out there. The Captain Crunch yellow brick road caravan that would eventually be composed of at least a half dozen North Adamsville corner boys turned “hippies” for varying lengths of time. Bart was pretty late on that “train” didn’t go out until the summer of 1968 after he found out that due to a childhood injury that left him with a pronounced limp despite a couple of surgeries was declared 4-F, unfit for military service by the friends and neighbors at his local draft board. That pretty late also meant that Markin who shortly after he got out to San Francisco received his own draft notice and was an additional reason why Bart left the road early since he knew the ropes.
Bart, despite whatever happened later, was happy to be heading out and once he decided to go he also decided that he would hitchhike out like all the other guys except Sam Lowell who to placate anxious parents, really an anxious mother went out by bus. Even Sam after five plus days on a stinking Greyhound bus with the usual screaming kids left to wander the aisles and the inevitable overweight seatmate who snored and despite a couple of pleasant days from New York to Chicago with a chick who caught his eye and whom he flirted like crazy with said later that he would have rather hitched than go through that again (and all his later trips would be done that way). Bart figured that although the road might be slow with the many false starts and being left in some strange places where grabbing a ride was not easy that it would be interesting once he got past the stifling East and Great Plains to see what was what in the West (that stifling Ruscha could attest to since he was nothing but a child of the Great Plains, hell, an Okie so he knew he had to head west in that big old Chevy Bart had heard he went out to L.A. in that fateful 1956 year when he entered art school out there).
Bart thinking about the experience, that first road out, that always served as a hallmark for every guy’s trip out remembered more or less vividly all those dusty side roads he got left on after his own trip through Oklahoma. Although the big Eisenhower-driven national security Interstate highway system made it easier in the mid-1960s to travel the hitchhike road than all the back roads and Route 66 that Bart had read about in Jack Kerouac’s travel the open road book On The Road that Markin made everybody read when they all were in high school even though he wasn’t much of a reader, didn’t think as much of the be-bop beats as Markin did who thought they were the max daddies he was waiting for even though by their time the “beat” thing was passe was old news, ancient history it was actually easier to get rides on the smaller roads where people could see you from down or up the road. In any case you were sure to be left off on more than one back road since that was just the way it was, nobody who was say going to Denver was going to let you off in the middle of Interstate 80 when you saw the sign for Cheyenne just ahead.
Funny all the strange signs he saw out on the open back roads like the mere fact of putting a sign up would draw people to your Podunk town , or your Podunk store. He had had to laugh when he saw Ruscha’s photograph of a town out in nowhere which probably had a population of less than one thousand but which had a sign documenting all the about ten church denominations that kept the good people of the town on their feet. He had seen more Jesus Save signs and the like than you could shake a stick at the further west he went until they stopped, stopped dead the closer you got to coastal California. Saw more signs for cigarettes, beer, whiskey, dry goods (quaint), no trespassing, no loitering, no anything than he ever noticed back home. He wondered if people travelling through North Adamsville had that same feeling about his own Podunk town. He knew for sure that there were not top-heavy signs about all the religious denominations of the town at least not in the Acre where all you saw was a fistful of Catholic churches, Roman Catholic for the unknowing about differences.
Had seen above all the signs that directed you to the nearest gas stations, almost a ritualistic sign that you were still in the golden age of the automobile, of the superhighway and of cheap gas. Hell even in North Adamsville right across from the high school he remembered the service station owners who had business right next to each other would have “gas wars,” would have signs out with prices like 30 cents per gallon versus say 29 cents. Yeah, cheap gas, and plenty of service too. Lots of guys, guys who needed to support their “boss” car habits worked as gas jockeys filling up tanks, checking oil and tires and wiping off windshields. Saw every kind of gas station from the one franchised out by Esso and Texaco to little fly-by-night operations with no name gas, a rundown coke machine that barely worked and bathrooms with stained sinks and broken plumbing and had not been cleaned since Hector was a pup. You had to use your own handkerchief to wipe your hands. Even some of the diners, diners like Jimmy Jack’s back home where all the guys hung out after leaving off their dates if they didn’t get lucky and wind up down at the far end of Squaw Road on Adamsville Beach fogging up some “boss” car into the wee hours of the morning had gas stations or at least pumps out on those long stretch deserted roads so nobody would get stranded on in the hot sun (and the owners probably figured that while stopping for gas the little family might as well have something to eat at the high carbohydrate steamed everything counters and booths).
Saw plenty of weird natural formations along the way getting twenty mile rides here from ranchers or farmers going up the road, fifty miles there from high-rollers taking the high side to Vegas, a few miles from high school kids joy-riding to while away the afternoon to avoid the dreaded chores that awaited them at home. Saw every kind dusty dried out tree seeking nourishment from the waterless ground. Saw rock formations hounded by the winds and sheered to perfection. Saw every color of brown, of beige, of grey. Saw too in Joshua Tree of a thousand tears, tears for the creeping civilization that was choking them away and tears one high doped up night when Markin and a few others channeled the shamans of the past in a ghost dance off the flickering canyon walls, hah, walls of brown, of beige, of grey. Bart never got over that experience, never saw what the white man, what his people had done so clearly even if he wasn’t about to do anything about it except load up on peyote buttons and ancient dreams of mock revenge.
Saw above all as he grabbed that last one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty mile stretch to Frisco town the refuge of the high speed road, the broken glass, the road kill, the busted fences where some fool had gone off the highway drunk or doped up so he didn’t feel a thing, saw stripped off bare truck tires blocking easy passage on the road ahead. Saw the bramble, the flotsam and jetsam of modern day life. Saw too though as he got closer to Frisco, as he could almost smell the ocean, the land’s end, the Japan seas or back home that the West was very different, that those who had make the trek, maybe were forced to make the trek were very different from the East that he knew. But maybe too they would have to run from a thing which they had built.
Later. after he arrived in San Francisco, met Markin, Josh and Frankie on Russian Hill and then joined them on the journey south for a few months (with a couple of trips back home in between) he would see Ruscha’s L.A. would see those luscious Hollywood signs, and would like any tourist from Podunk image that he had the wherewithal to make it as a star, or something like that name in lights. Got to know L.A. too well, couldn’t handle the freeway craziness, couldn’t handle the sameness of the endless strip malls, the endless rows of tickey-tack houses, couldn’t handle the sprawl that was turning a small town into a mega-town. Yeah he knew exactly what Ruscha was driving at, was trying to chronicle. Bot still he missed the opportunity to see if he did have what it took to survive in California, to have drunk in the scenes.
And you wonder why Bart just then as he approached retirement as he approached his seventh decade was in a frenzy to repeat his past.
From The Anti-War Archives-War And Remembrance- A Boston Veterans For Peace Memorial Day-(Updated)
From The Anti-War Archives-War And Remembrance- A Boston Veterans For Peace Memorial Day-(Updated)
A continuing cautionary tale
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Fritz, old battle-scarred and battle-weary purple-hearted Fritz Taylor, Vietnam, 1969-1971, Fritz John Taylor, RA048433691 to be exact, had to laugh as he made his way from Adamsville to the downtown Boston waterfront in the later spring of 2014. To the green jut of land Christopher Columbus Park, and that name, causing further bemusement when he first heard of the locale, could itself tell a big story about the old days of European-centered military adventures to the Americas and also to the days when the first Pilgrims like old F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dutchmen on seeing the “fresh green breast” of Long Island had the capacity to wonder about what the new land, to them, might bring forth, for what he was not sure, exactly, was either the third or fourth annual Veterans For Peace counter-Memorial Day commemoration (partnered in November with the counter-traditional Armistice Day, the original named reason for the observance in order to commemorate the armed truce which ended the blood-bath First World War).
Fritz had not laughed a funny laugh as he was prone to do these days when something struck him as unusual, but laughed out loud at the thought of a no-go, not even boot camp as far as he knew, commander-in chief of all the American imperial armed forces, United States President Barack Obama, suddenly warming up to his post-Osama Bin Laden kill authorization (after having , vicariously, watched the SEAL action in “real time”) very consciously earlier this day placing himself at the center of the Memorial Day action in Arlington National Cemetery trying to draw succor from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. Talking aimlessly, or maybe better superficially, about valor, about the good of the cause, about the last full measure of devotion, and lastly, what war in the end is all about, saving your buddy’s ass, or he yours.
But see, to Fritz’s way of thinking, Lincoln at least had the advantage, the very distinct advantage, of not only having said those kinds of words and those kinds of sentiments first and therefore in a more free-lance, free-wheeling eloquent way but said them at humankind's hallowed Gettysburg in the wake of what turned out to the decisive great Northern victory (along with Grant’s Vicksburg victory) in a war, that by hook or by crook, turned chattel slavery times out the door.
What could one imperial chief, Barack Obama, today draw on for succor? Leading a 50,000 troop wind-down in Iraq [a wind-down fact to finish in 2015 in serious dispute what with the creeping “re-escalations” of recent years-FJ], a thoughtlessly unjust war if there ever was one, with more than its fair share of collateral damage, read American troop-driven civilian killings, and to call it by its right name, murder. Yes, yes, by all means Fritz Taylor knew, knew chapter and verse, that when it did not really count one non-president Barack Obama opposed George’s Follies but that was then, and this, this was desperately now with the latest headlines out of Baghdad announcing a 200,000 mass march calling for an American withdrawal post-haste.
Fritz Taylor, Fritz Taylor who had gotten “religion” on the subject of war, on collateral damage, on don’t give a damn about spending soldiers’ blood and lives since those lost Vietnam days, himself lost in some drug addiction time, some newspaper-strewn park bench time, some lost family connection time, took a moment to reflect on that fact, and to murmur softly to himself- Obama, Mr. President, since Fritz is putting things in a more kindly fashion now- get the hell out of Iraq, completely out, and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ]
Fritz had to laugh, and the nature of that laugh need not be repeated here, about how big bad Barrack Obama, whom almost every non-veteran of any battle, except maybe the battle for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, or of the bar stool in some ill-lit barroom but those don’t count in real battle scars world, has been touted as some kind of Gandhian pacifist while constantly upping the ante in Afghanistan since about day one of his administration, the troop commitment ante, the one that really counts. And making that ill-conceived policy the lynch-pin for his whole world-wide war strategy, with no serious end date in sight (and no congressional oversight to stop him, according to a recent vote on the question of war budget authorizations-the real deal when it comes to war policy).
Fritz’s thoughts just then as well dwelled on the more recent, the more off-hand stuff, the several hundred drones attacks in Pakistan, the few thousand, give or take, cruise missiles (oops, that’s a NATO operation, he forgot, sorry) in Libya and the general policeman of the world carrying a big stick, a very big stick indeed, in the rest of the world. So he felt compelled to murmur under his breathe, no, really curse under his breathe, Mr. President, Fritz still being the soul of politeness these days, these got anti-war “religion,” drug- free, alcohol-free, stable home under his feet days, get the hell out of Afghanistan and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ.] And while you are at it, Mr. Obama, keep American hands off, way off the rest of the world, as he then saw the first of several white dove on black background Veterans for Peace (VFP) flags flying in the wind down near the ferry docks adjacent to this Columbus honor park.
And although a moment ago he raged with grievous anger at the American imperial state and its two-bit sheriff (oops, sorry again, President) he felt calmer, as he always felt calmer, when he spied the white-doved, black-background flags because that meant kindred, mainly Vietnam-era kindred but sprinkles of others as well. Guys, mostly, and a few women as well, now graying guys, seriously graying guys, now walking a little more haltingly due to life’s toll, now maybe not in that tip-top shape that made them prime Grade A cannon fodder back in the days, who had been through battles, real battles and post-war battles, some of them anyway just like him, whom he always argued had more than enough “cred” when anti-war talk time came around. And others, other anti-warriors, who only credentials were some well-written papers, some well-spoken speech, or a safely-protected street march in some big or middle-sized American city or town who knew, knew deep in their hearts that Fritz’s point was true. And they were deferential, sometimes just a little too paternally or maternally deferential, when the big brassy white flag-draped veterans came marching their way.
Oh sure, this third (or was it fourth) commemoration was not well-attended, maybe a hundred, not the thousands standing on those big and mid-sized city and town street corners, or walking past those benighted American flag-bedecked blessed sweet good night grave sites with their complements of still-grieving kin, but this place, this momentarily hallowed anti-war place is not measured by numbers this day but by remembrance, hard-earned remembrance, hard-earned rage against the night cannon fodder-used and folly remembrance. And, oh sure, the speeches, the speeches by those graying activists, with just the barest sprinkle of newer Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans, were directed at that hundred angel choir of kindred. And Fritz, having heard every anti-war argument before, having heard every political prisoner Private Bradley Manning story before [Now Chelsea to reflect her newer female sexual identity self, still a private but also still since her conviction in 2013 serving a thirty-five sentence for, in the end, spilling the beans about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan mostly graphically and sickeningly the video called “Collateral Murder”], [Now mercifully released via last minute commutation of sentence by that same Obama whose administration went after whistle-blowers with a vengeance.] having heard about the collateral damage, foreign division, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine, civilian horror story before; and every collateral damage, domestic division, devastated military families story before still drank in the words. And said his fair share of old-time protest “right on,” brother, or sister. And yelled loudly and proudly, “Free Bradley Manning.” [Chelsea now] Yes, these days Bradley [Chelsea] Manning’s fight is us, our younger fighting spirit us. The torch has now been passed to the new guys, and the core of that couple of hours as well. Fritz Taylor just for that moment felt ten feet tall for having made this day’s journey. He was charged-up again.
On the way home, or rather on the way to meet, over near the Adamsville River, his better other, Lillian, his “sweet pea” he had named her for her sunny disposition, and her tough determination to give him a home to feel planted in and, early on, a little anti-war “religion” bump start too he passed, as thinking about it later he should have expected, a very different Memorial Day celebration sponsored by the Adamsville Veterans Of Foreign Wars (VFW). Before he got “religion” he had spent many a cheap drinks drinking hour at that same VFW hall, or the American Legion hall farther up the street, and had thought nothing of retelling many bar stool battle stories to anyone who would listen. And listen they did because Fritz had another kind of “cred” in those days, battle-tested credentials, as against the state-side duty and or rear area supply sergeants that populate these VFW and American Legion barrooms.
But right now he was chagrined at this tactless “celebration” going on before his eyes, complete with family-friendly barbecue, pony rides and merry-go-round for the kids, and more thoughtless, neglected and discarded American flags than one could shake a stick at. Those quickly passed scenes momentarily brought back to Fritz’s mind ancient unhealed, unheal-able, wounds, and ancient, also unheal-able, angers as well. What was not ancient, although also unheal-able, was when, as he quietly passed by, some long-in-the-tooth ex- supply sergeant VFW honcho noticed Fritz’s still shirt-pinned buttons calling for Obamian troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom for Private Bradley [Chelsea] Manning and called him a “commie”. Fritz thought, Jesus, where has this guy been the past twenty years or so but he also reflected, especially seeing the kids unconsciously drink in the warrior atmospherics that went with this celebration, that charged-up or not, he still had a hell of a lot of work to do. A hell of a lot.
A continuing cautionary tale
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Fritz, old battle-scarred and battle-weary purple-hearted Fritz Taylor, Vietnam, 1969-1971, Fritz John Taylor, RA048433691 to be exact, had to laugh as he made his way from Adamsville to the downtown Boston waterfront in the later spring of 2014. To the green jut of land Christopher Columbus Park, and that name, causing further bemusement when he first heard of the locale, could itself tell a big story about the old days of European-centered military adventures to the Americas and also to the days when the first Pilgrims like old F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dutchmen on seeing the “fresh green breast” of Long Island had the capacity to wonder about what the new land, to them, might bring forth, for what he was not sure, exactly, was either the third or fourth annual Veterans For Peace counter-Memorial Day commemoration (partnered in November with the counter-traditional Armistice Day, the original named reason for the observance in order to commemorate the armed truce which ended the blood-bath First World War).
Fritz had not laughed a funny laugh as he was prone to do these days when something struck him as unusual, but laughed out loud at the thought of a no-go, not even boot camp as far as he knew, commander-in chief of all the American imperial armed forces, United States President Barack Obama, suddenly warming up to his post-Osama Bin Laden kill authorization (after having , vicariously, watched the SEAL action in “real time”) very consciously earlier this day placing himself at the center of the Memorial Day action in Arlington National Cemetery trying to draw succor from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. Talking aimlessly, or maybe better superficially, about valor, about the good of the cause, about the last full measure of devotion, and lastly, what war in the end is all about, saving your buddy’s ass, or he yours.
But see, to Fritz’s way of thinking, Lincoln at least had the advantage, the very distinct advantage, of not only having said those kinds of words and those kinds of sentiments first and therefore in a more free-lance, free-wheeling eloquent way but said them at humankind's hallowed Gettysburg in the wake of what turned out to the decisive great Northern victory (along with Grant’s Vicksburg victory) in a war, that by hook or by crook, turned chattel slavery times out the door.
What could one imperial chief, Barack Obama, today draw on for succor? Leading a 50,000 troop wind-down in Iraq [a wind-down fact to finish in 2015 in serious dispute what with the creeping “re-escalations” of recent years-FJ], a thoughtlessly unjust war if there ever was one, with more than its fair share of collateral damage, read American troop-driven civilian killings, and to call it by its right name, murder. Yes, yes, by all means Fritz Taylor knew, knew chapter and verse, that when it did not really count one non-president Barack Obama opposed George’s Follies but that was then, and this, this was desperately now with the latest headlines out of Baghdad announcing a 200,000 mass march calling for an American withdrawal post-haste.
Fritz Taylor, Fritz Taylor who had gotten “religion” on the subject of war, on collateral damage, on don’t give a damn about spending soldiers’ blood and lives since those lost Vietnam days, himself lost in some drug addiction time, some newspaper-strewn park bench time, some lost family connection time, took a moment to reflect on that fact, and to murmur softly to himself- Obama, Mr. President, since Fritz is putting things in a more kindly fashion now- get the hell out of Iraq, completely out, and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ]
Fritz had to laugh, and the nature of that laugh need not be repeated here, about how big bad Barrack Obama, whom almost every non-veteran of any battle, except maybe the battle for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, or of the bar stool in some ill-lit barroom but those don’t count in real battle scars world, has been touted as some kind of Gandhian pacifist while constantly upping the ante in Afghanistan since about day one of his administration, the troop commitment ante, the one that really counts. And making that ill-conceived policy the lynch-pin for his whole world-wide war strategy, with no serious end date in sight (and no congressional oversight to stop him, according to a recent vote on the question of war budget authorizations-the real deal when it comes to war policy).
Fritz’s thoughts just then as well dwelled on the more recent, the more off-hand stuff, the several hundred drones attacks in Pakistan, the few thousand, give or take, cruise missiles (oops, that’s a NATO operation, he forgot, sorry) in Libya and the general policeman of the world carrying a big stick, a very big stick indeed, in the rest of the world. So he felt compelled to murmur under his breathe, no, really curse under his breathe, Mr. President, Fritz still being the soul of politeness these days, these got anti-war “religion,” drug- free, alcohol-free, stable home under his feet days, get the hell out of Afghanistan and stay out. [Ditto-2015-FJ.] And while you are at it, Mr. Obama, keep American hands off, way off the rest of the world, as he then saw the first of several white dove on black background Veterans for Peace (VFP) flags flying in the wind down near the ferry docks adjacent to this Columbus honor park.
And although a moment ago he raged with grievous anger at the American imperial state and its two-bit sheriff (oops, sorry again, President) he felt calmer, as he always felt calmer, when he spied the white-doved, black-background flags because that meant kindred, mainly Vietnam-era kindred but sprinkles of others as well. Guys, mostly, and a few women as well, now graying guys, seriously graying guys, now walking a little more haltingly due to life’s toll, now maybe not in that tip-top shape that made them prime Grade A cannon fodder back in the days, who had been through battles, real battles and post-war battles, some of them anyway just like him, whom he always argued had more than enough “cred” when anti-war talk time came around. And others, other anti-warriors, who only credentials were some well-written papers, some well-spoken speech, or a safely-protected street march in some big or middle-sized American city or town who knew, knew deep in their hearts that Fritz’s point was true. And they were deferential, sometimes just a little too paternally or maternally deferential, when the big brassy white flag-draped veterans came marching their way.
Oh sure, this third (or was it fourth) commemoration was not well-attended, maybe a hundred, not the thousands standing on those big and mid-sized city and town street corners, or walking past those benighted American flag-bedecked blessed sweet good night grave sites with their complements of still-grieving kin, but this place, this momentarily hallowed anti-war place is not measured by numbers this day but by remembrance, hard-earned remembrance, hard-earned rage against the night cannon fodder-used and folly remembrance. And, oh sure, the speeches, the speeches by those graying activists, with just the barest sprinkle of newer Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans, were directed at that hundred angel choir of kindred. And Fritz, having heard every anti-war argument before, having heard every political prisoner Private Bradley Manning story before [Now Chelsea to reflect her newer female sexual identity self, still a private but also still since her conviction in 2013 serving a thirty-five sentence for, in the end, spilling the beans about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan mostly graphically and sickeningly the video called “Collateral Murder”], [Now mercifully released via last minute commutation of sentence by that same Obama whose administration went after whistle-blowers with a vengeance.] having heard about the collateral damage, foreign division, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine, civilian horror story before; and every collateral damage, domestic division, devastated military families story before still drank in the words. And said his fair share of old-time protest “right on,” brother, or sister. And yelled loudly and proudly, “Free Bradley Manning.” [Chelsea now] Yes, these days Bradley [Chelsea] Manning’s fight is us, our younger fighting spirit us. The torch has now been passed to the new guys, and the core of that couple of hours as well. Fritz Taylor just for that moment felt ten feet tall for having made this day’s journey. He was charged-up again.
On the way home, or rather on the way to meet, over near the Adamsville River, his better other, Lillian, his “sweet pea” he had named her for her sunny disposition, and her tough determination to give him a home to feel planted in and, early on, a little anti-war “religion” bump start too he passed, as thinking about it later he should have expected, a very different Memorial Day celebration sponsored by the Adamsville Veterans Of Foreign Wars (VFW). Before he got “religion” he had spent many a cheap drinks drinking hour at that same VFW hall, or the American Legion hall farther up the street, and had thought nothing of retelling many bar stool battle stories to anyone who would listen. And listen they did because Fritz had another kind of “cred” in those days, battle-tested credentials, as against the state-side duty and or rear area supply sergeants that populate these VFW and American Legion barrooms.
But right now he was chagrined at this tactless “celebration” going on before his eyes, complete with family-friendly barbecue, pony rides and merry-go-round for the kids, and more thoughtless, neglected and discarded American flags than one could shake a stick at. Those quickly passed scenes momentarily brought back to Fritz’s mind ancient unhealed, unheal-able, wounds, and ancient, also unheal-able, angers as well. What was not ancient, although also unheal-able, was when, as he quietly passed by, some long-in-the-tooth ex- supply sergeant VFW honcho noticed Fritz’s still shirt-pinned buttons calling for Obamian troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom for Private Bradley [Chelsea] Manning and called him a “commie”. Fritz thought, Jesus, where has this guy been the past twenty years or so but he also reflected, especially seeing the kids unconsciously drink in the warrior atmospherics that went with this celebration, that charged-up or not, he still had a hell of a lot of work to do. A hell of a lot.
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