Friday, June 08, 2018

Howling At The Moon-When Howlin’ Wolf Held Forth

Howling At The Moon-When Howlin’ Wolf Held Forth  




 From The Pen Of Bart Webber


One night when Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris were sitting in Johnny D’s over in Somerville [this night was several years before the recent 2015 announcement that that central spot for the blues tradition and up and coming newer musical genre was closing after a forty year run], over near the Davis Square monster Redline MBTA stop sipping a couple of Anchor Steam beers, a taste acquired by Sam out in Frisco town in the old days on hot nights like that one waiting for the show to begin and picked up by Ralph along the way when drinking his life-time scotch whiskey became verboten after a bad medical check-up about ten years before Ralph mentioned that some music you acquired kind of naturally. A lot of their conversations of late, the last few years as they slid into retirement Ralph giving the day to day operations of his specialty electrical shop over to his youngest son and Sam giving the day to day management of his high volume printing business to his longtime employee, Jimmy Jones, who held the place together at the beginning while Sam headed West with a gang of other Carver corner boys in search of the great blue-pink American West night that animated much of the late 1960s had centered on their lifetime of common musical interests (except folk music which Sam came of age with, caught the drift as it came through Harvard Square where he would hang out to get out of the house when tensions boiled  o to some extent but which mostly even with Bob Dylan anti-war protest songs made him grind his teeth.




By naturally Ralph meant, you know like kids’ songs learned in school. Songs like The Farmer in the Dell, which forced you a city kid like Ralph born and raised in Troy, New York a strictly working class town then, and now,  although you might not have designated yourself as such at that age to learn a little about the dying profession of family farmer and about farm machinery; Old MacDonald, ditto on the family farmer stuff and as a bonus all the animals of the farm kingdom and their distinctive noises that still rattled Ralph’s head on hard drinking night if he got melancholy for his tortured childhood; Humpty Dumpty, a silly grossly overweight holy goof of the rankest order, an egghead to boot and that didn’t mean intellectual, far from it, who couldn’t maintain his balance come hell or high water although you might not have thought of that expression, that hell or high water expression, or used it in the high Roman Catholic Saturday-go-to-confession-to confess those damns, hells, and fucks that had entered you vocabulary through osmosis and Sunday-go-to-communion-to-absolve-all-sins Morris household out in Troy where Ralph still lives; and,  Jack and Jill and their ill-fated hill adventure looking for water like they couldn’t have gone to the family kitchen sink tap for their needs but thinking about it later what were they really doing up there. All this total recall, or mostly total recall showing indeed whether you designated yourself as a city kid or not you were one of the brethren, etc. you have embraced that music as a child in case you have forgotten. Music embedded in the back of your mind, coming forth sometimes out of the blue even fifty years later (and maybe relating to other memory difficulties among the AARP-worthy but we shall skip over that since this sketch is about the blues, the musical blues and not the day to day getting old blues).


Sam nodded his head in agreement then chimed in with his opinion the music of junior high school as he thought, looking behind the bartender’s head to the selection of hard liquors displayed with the twinkle of an eye, about switching over to a high-shelf scotch whiskey, Haig &Haig, his natural drink of late, despite the hot night and hot room beginning to fill up with blues aficionados who have come to listen to the “second coming,” the blues of James Montgomery and his back-up blues band. (Sam unlike Ralph suffering no medical warning about the dire consequences to his system about throwing down a few shots since his health was in better shape than Ralph, Ralph having taken a beating in that department with whatever hellious chemical his government, or rather the American government for which he refused to take any credit or blame, was throwing on the ground of Vietnam from the nightmare skies during that long, bloody lost war).


That “second coming” referring to guys, now greying guys, who picked up the blues, especially the citified electric blues after discovering the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Magic Slim and James Cotton back in their 1960s youth, made a decent living out of it and were still playing small clubs and other venues to keep the tradition alive and to pass it on to the kids who were not even born when the first wave guys came out of the hell-hole Delta South of Mister James Crow sometime around or after World War II and plugged  their guitars into the next gin mill electric outlet in places off of Maxwell Street in Chicago, nursing their acts, honing their skills.  


Yeah, getting back to junior high, Sam thinking about that hormonal bust out junior high weekly music class with Mr. Dasher which made Sam chuckle a bit, maybe that third bottle of beer sipping had gotten him tipsy a little, as he thought about the old refrain, “Don’t be a masher, Mister Dasher” which all the kids hung on the poor, benighted man that time when the rhyming simon craze was going through the nation’s schools. Thinking just then that today if some teacher or school administrator was astute enough to bother to listen to what teenage kids said amongst themselves, an admittedly hard task for an adult in any era, in an excess of caution old Mister Dasher might be in a peck of trouble if anyone wanted to be nasty about the implication of that innocent rhyme.  Yeah, Mr. Dasher, the mad monk music teacher (who on the side in those days, not unlike these days, when teachers couldn’t live on their teaching incomes led an old-time, old time to Sam and his classmates Benny Goodman-style swing and sway big band at special occasions and as a regular at the Surf Ballroom over in Plymouth on Friday nights), who wanted his charges to have a well-versed knowledge of the American and world songbooks. Thus  you were forced to remember such songs as The Mexican Hat Dance, God Bless America, and Home On The Range under penalty of being sent up to the front of the room songbook in hand and sing the damn things. Yes, you will remember such songs unto death.


Sam and his corner boys at Doc’s Drugstore found out later that the Dasher was motivated by a desperate rear-guard action to wean his charges away from rock and roll, away from the devil’s music although he would not have called it that because he was too cool to say stuff like that, a struggle in which he was both woefully overmatched by Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Bo, and the crowd and wasting his breathe as they all lived for rock and roll at Doc’s Drugstore after school where he had a jukebox at his soda fountain. And they were not putting their three selections for a quarter to hear hokey Home on the Range  


Ralph agreed running through his own junior high school litany with Miss Hunt (although a few years older than Sam he had not run through the rhyming simon craze so had no moniker for the old witch although now he wished he had as he chuckled to himself and turned a little confession red although he not been into that stifling confession box on his gamy knees in many years, and it would not be nice either). Ralph added that some of the remembered music reflected the time period when you were growing up but were too young to call the music your own like the music that ran around in the background of your growing up house on the mother housewife radio or evening record player which in Ralph’s case was the music that got his parents through his father’s soldierly slogging on unpronounceable Pacific islands kicking ass against the Nips (his father’s term for the dirty bastard Japanese) and mother anxiously waiting at home for the other shoe to fall or the dreaded military officer coming up to her door telling her the bad news World War II.


You know, guys like Frank (Sinatra, the chairman of the board, that all the bobbysoxer girls, the future mothers of Sam’s and Ralph’s generation swooned over), The Andrew Sisters  and their rums and coca colas, Peggy Lee fronting for Benny Goodman and looking, looking hard for some Johnny to do right, finally do right by her, etc. Other music, the music of their own generation, classic rock and rock came more naturally since that is what they wanted to hear when they had their transistor radios to their ear up in their bedrooms or could hardly wait to hear when the jukebox guy came into Doc’s to put the latest selections in (and to have his hand greased by Doc for “allowing” those desperately desired songs onto his jukebox to fill his pockets with many quarters, see he was “connected” and so along with the jukebox hand over fist money-maker cam the hand).


That mention of transistor radios got Ralph and Sam yakking about that old instrument which got them through many a hard teenage angst and alienation night. That yakking reflecting their both getting mellow on the sweet beer and thinking that they had best switch to Tennessee sipping whisky when the wait person came by again since they had moved from the bar to a table near the stage to get a better view of the band if they were to make it through both sets that night (and Ralph thinking, just this once, just for this bluesy night he would “cheat” a little on that scotch whiskey ban). This transistor thing by the way for the young who might wonder what these old geezers were talking about since it was clearly not iPods was small enough to put in your pocket and put up to your ear like an iPod or MP3 except you couldn’t download or anything like that.


Primitive technology okay but life-saving nevertheless. Just flip the dial although the only station that mattered was WJDA, the local rock station (which had previously strictly only played the music that got all of our parents through their war before the rock break-out made somebody at the station realize that you could made more advertising revenue selling ads for stuff like records, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants, and cool clothes and accessories than refrigerators and stoves to adults).


Oh yeah, and the beauty of the transistor you could take it up to your bedroom and shut out that aforementioned parents’ music without hassles. Nice, right. So yeah, they could hear Elvis sounding all sexy, her word whether she knew the exact meaning or not, meaning all hot and bothered, according to one girl Sam knew even over the radio and who drove all the girls crazy once they got a look at him on television. Chuck Berry telling our parents’ world that Mr. Beethoven and his crowd, Frank’s too, all had to move over because there was a new sheriff in town.  Bo Diddley asking a very candid question about who put the rock in rock and roll and offering himself up as a candidate. Buddy Holly crooning against all hope for his Peggy Sue (or was it Betty Lou), Jerry Lee inflaming all with his raucous High School Confidential from the back of a flatbed truck, etc. again.


The blues though, the rarified country and electric urban blues of the likes of Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, and Howlin’ Wolf was an acquired taste. Acquired by Sam through listening to folk music programs on that very same transistor radio in the early 1960s after flipping the dial one Sunday night once he got tired of what they claimed was rock music on WJDA and caught a Boston station, WBZ and later WCAS. The main focus was on other types of roots music but when the show would take a break from down home mountain music, western swing ballads, and urban protest music the DJ would play some cuts of country or electric blues. See all the big folkies, Dylan, Tom Rush, Dave Van Ronk, people like that were wild to cover the blues in the search for serious roots music from the American songbook. So somebody, Sam didn’t know who, figured if everybody who was anybody was covering the blues in that folk minute then it made sense to play the real stuff.  (Sam later carried Ralph along on the genre after they had met down in Washington, D.C. in 1971, had been arrested and held in detention at RFK Stadium for trying to shut down the government if it did not shut the Vietnam War, had become life-long friends and Ralph began to dig the blues when he came to Cambridge to visit Sam although he would shutter his ears if Sam played some folk stuff).


The real stuff having been around for a while, having been produced by the likes of Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf going back to the 1940s big time black migration to the industrial plants of the Midwest during World War II when there were plenty of jobs just waiting (and plenty taken away when the soldiers and sailors, white soldiers and sailors came home on the overcrowded troop transports looking to start life over again and raise those families they dreamed about in the muds of Europe and the salty brine of the atoll Pacific). But also having been pushed to the background, way to the background with the rise of rock and roll (although parts of rock make no sense, don’t work at all without kudos to blues chords, think about Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 and Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll, check it out). So it took that combination of folk minute and that well-hidden from view electric blues some time to filter through Sam’s brain.


What did not take a long time to do once Sam got “religion” was going crazy over Howlin’ Wolf when he saw him perform down in Newport when everybody who was anybody that high school and college kids wanted to hear in that folk minute showed up there.  Once Sam had seen him practically eat that harmonica when he was playing that instrument on How Many More Years. There the Wolf was all sweating, running to high form and serious professionalism (just ask the Stones about that polished professionalism when he showed them how to really play Little Red Rooster which they had covered early on in their career as they had covered many other Chess Records blues numbers, as had in an ironic twist a whole generation English rockers in the 1960s while American rockers were basically clueless until the Brits told them about their own roots music) and moving that big body to and fro to beat the band. Playing like god’s own avenging angel, if those angels played the harmonica, and if they could play as well as he did.
They both hoped that greying James Montgomery, master harmonica player in his own right, blew the roof off of the house as they spied the wait person coming their way and James moving onto the stage getting ready to burn up the microphone. And he and his band did just that. Yes, that blues calling from somewhere deep in the muds is an acquired taste and a lasting one.    

*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!-Russell Maroon Shoats

*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!-Russell Maroon Shoats



http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners.html



A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month 

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)


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

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

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



  • The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-On The Late Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider”

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-On The Late Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider”




    Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
    You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.   


    Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit    would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  



    DVD Review

    Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, directed by Dennis Hopper, 1969


    In the recent Associated Press obituary for the late actor and director, Dennis Hooper, is quoted as believing that, for him, the 1969 counter-cultural classic motorcycle film that he directed, “Easy Rider”, was more a statement about the political landscape of the times than a male-bonding biker “road” movie. I agree with him, or at least that is how I have always viewed the film. The subjects of drugs, using and selling, dressing for “hippie" success, the hard road of rural communal living (or urban communal living, for that matter), and trying to cope with the “squares” and “rednecks” were all in a day’s work back in the days for those of us committed to “seeking a newer world.”

    In that sense “Easy Rider” is a very, very different road trip from that of the literary one in Jack Kerouac’s 1957 “On The Road” (although the “action” of that book actually took place in the late 1940s). That small generational difference in time probably in cultural time was a matter of different epochs. The action of “On The Road” speaks to an almost subterranean escape from the bleakness of American conformity in the immediate post-World War II period behind the backs of the "squares". The bikers, Fonda and Hopper (Wyatt and Billy, alright), in “Easy Rider” are up front and public about their “making and doing” , as reflected the change in mores of their times as they confronted their version of American conformity in the 1960s. In the end they lost that very public battle, and we have been fighting a rearguard series of “culture war” battles ever since. But watch this film to get a slice of 1960s Americana. (Did we really wear that stuff and get all crazy like that? Yes, we did. Although under oath I will plead the 5th.) And if you are too young to know some of the references just ask mother and father (or the grandparents, ouch!). They WILL know.

    Note: The late Doctor Gonzo”, journalist Hunter Thompson, rather eloquently in HIS countercultural classic, “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas”, mentioned toward the end of that fearsome saga that sometime in the late 1960s he could almost see the high tide of the movement ebbing before his eyes signaling the end of all those fierce dreams that we had of that “newer world” and the beginning of the approach of the “night of the long knives.” “Easy Rider” is the cinematic take on that proposition

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967 -*When “Doctor Gonzo” Was "King Of The Hill'-The Master Journalism Of Hunter S. Thompson-"The Great Shark Hunt"

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967 -*When “Doctor Gonzo” Was "King Of The Hill'-The Master Journalism Of Hunter S. Thompson-"The Great Shark Hunt"



    Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
    You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.   



    Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit    would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  



    Book Review

    The Great Shark Hunt; Gonzo Papers Volume One, Hunter S. Thompson, 1978


    In a review of Hunter Thompson's later journalistic work compiled under the title , Song Of The Doomed, a retrospective sampling of his works through the early 1990s, many of the early pieces which appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine during its more radical, hipper phase, I noted the following points that are useful to repost here in reviewing The Great Shark Hunt, an earlier, similar compilation of his journalistic pieces:

    “Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists, like Karl Marx. Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and other less radical progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self-defense if nothing else, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This is particularly true when it comes from a man of big, high life appetites, a known dope fiend, a furious wild man gun freak, and all-around edge city lifestyle addict like the late, massively lamented, massively lamented in this quarter in any case, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Nevertheless, although he was far, very far, from any thought of a socialist solution to society's current problems and would reject such a designation, I think out of hand, we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us-but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of mad truth-seeking journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.

    I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself, or wanted to been seen, as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968, my generation, being just enough older to have been formed by an earlier, less forgiving milieu, coming of adult age in the drab Cold War, red scare, conformist 1950s that not even the wildly popular Mad Men can resurrect as a time which honored fruitful and edgy work, except on the coastal margins of society. His earlier writings show that effect. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson’s career, the part culminating with the demise of the arch-fiend, arch-political fiend, Richard Nixon. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the pressure of time-lines and for mass circulation media, these pieces show an uneven quality. Hunter's manic work habits, driven by high dope infusions and high-wire physical stress, only added to the frenzied corners of his work which inevitably was produced under some duress, a duress that drove his hard-boiled inner demons onward. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others, hopefully, will push on further.

    One should note that "gonzo" journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within a story by interposing himself/herself as an actor in that story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in the formal schools of other disciplines like history and political science, is that somehow one must be ‘objective’. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter’s way.

    As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that the period covered by this compilation was a period of particular importance in American history, the covering of which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on wrestling with the phenomena of one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, all-around political chameleon and off-hand common criminal. His articles beginning in 1968 when Nixon was on the rising curve of his never ending “comeback” trail to his fated (yes, fated) demise in the aftermath of the Watergate are required reading (and funny to boot). Thompson went out of his way, way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon, as Robert Kennedy in one of his more lucid comments noted, represented the "dark side" of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson’s work.

    Beyond the Nixon-related articles that form the core of the book there are some early pieces that are definitely not Gonzo-like. They are more straightforward journalism to earn a buck, although they show the trademark insightfulness that served Thompson well over the early part of his career. Read his pieces on Ernest Hemingway-searching in Idaho, the non-student left in the 1960’s, especially the earnest early 1960s before the other shoe dropped and we were all confronted with the madness of the beast, unchained , the impact of the ‘beats’ on the later counter cultural movements and about the ‘hippie’ invasion of San Francisco. The seminal piece on the Kentucky Derby in 1970 which is his ‘failed’ (according to him, not others) initial stab at “gonzo” journalism is a must read. And finally, if nothing else read the zany adventures of the articles that give us the title of the book, “The Great Shark Hunt”, and his ‘tribute’ to his friend the “Brown Buffalo” of future legend, Oscar Acosta. Those are high water marks in the great swirl of Hunter S. Thompson’s career. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.”

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-From The Archives Of The “American Left History” Blog-Hunter Thompson-“Doctor Gonzo” Where Are You Now When We Need You?

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-From The Archives Of The “American Left History” Blog-Hunter Thompson-“Doctor Gonzo” Where Are You Now When We Need You?


    Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
    You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.   


    Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit    would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  


    Markin comment:


    One of the beautiful things about commentary on American bourgeois presidential electoral politics is that with a change of name here, maybe these days an added gender or two, maybe a longer list of contenders in one contest year than another, you can “cut and paste” from 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 ( I’m ready) and be right on point. The following piece from the archives is a case in point. But the real beauty, as stated in the entry, is that I don’t have to actually vote for any of them. That, as the commercial says, is priceless.
    ********
    In my old age I am getting a little weak-kneed about having to wade through the basically vacuous blather coming out of the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating processes. While we are in a little period of ‘doldrums’ before the deluge I keep falling back to the work of Hunter Thompson on earlier presidential campaigns to try to keep a little sanity. Here’s a little tribune to the fallen journalist. Damn, Hunter we sure as hell could use you now. Call me collect from wherever you are. I’ll gladly accept the charges. Selah.


    This commentary was originally used as part of a review of Hunter Thompson's Songs of the Doomed. Since most of the points I made in my review of that book apply here I will let that review stand in for the essential thrust of his whole body of political work. Obviously each book written by Thompson on the various presidential campaigns is formatted differently but whether Thompson was skewering the Nixon era, the Reagan era, the Clinton era or the Bush eras the song is the same. And it was not (and is not) pretty.


    Generally the most the trenchant social criticism, commentary and analysis complete with a prescriptive social program ripe for implementation has been done by thinkers and writers who work outside the realm of bourgeois society, notably socialists and other progressive thinkers. Bourgeois society rarely allows itself, in self defense, to be skewered by trenchant criticism from within. This was particularly true when it came from a known dope fiend, gun freak and all-around lifestyle addict like the late, lamented Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Although he was far from any thought of a socialist solution and would reject such a designation we could travel part of the way with him. We saw him as a kindred spirit. He was not one of us- but he was one of us. All honor to him for pushing the envelope of journalism in new directions and for his pinpricks at the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Such men are dangerous.


    I am not sure whether at the end of the day Hunter Thompson saw himself or wanted to been seen as a voice, or the voice, of his generation but he would not be an unworthy candidate. In any case, his was not the voice of the generation of 1968 being just enough older to have been formed by the earlier, less forgiving milieu of the 1950's. His earlier writings show his struggle to break out of formalistic journalism. Nevertheless, only a few, and with time it seems fewer in each generation, allow themselves to search for some kind of truth even if they cannot go the whole distance. This compilation under review is a hodgepodge of articles over the best part of Thompson's career. As with all journalists, as indeed with all writers especially those who are writing under the gun and for mass circulation media these works show an uneven quality. However the total effect is to blast old bourgeois society almost to its foundations. Others will have to push on further.


    One should note that `gonzo' journalism is quite compatible with socialist materialism. That is, the writer is not precluded from interpreting the events described within himself/herself as an actor in the story. The worst swindle in journalism, fostered by the formal journalism schools, as well as in other disciplines like history and political science is that somehow one must be `objective'. Reality is better served if the writer puts his/her analysis correctly and then gets out of the way. In his best work that was Hunter's way.


    As a member of the generation of 1968 I would note that this was a period of particular importance which won Hunter his spurs as a journalist. Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States and all- around political chameleon. Thompson went way out of his way, and with pleasure, skewering that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick him when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon represented the `dark side' of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as craven brute. Sound familiar? If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man before history please consult Thompson's work. Hunter, I hope you find the Brown Buffalo wherever you are. Read this book. Read all his books.

    In The Time Of The Soviet-American World War II Friendship-With Edward Myrtryk’s Seven Miles From Alcatraz In Mind-Again

    In The Time Of The Soviet-American World War II Friendship-With Edward Myrtryk’s Seven Miles From Alcatraz In Mind-Again  





    By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

    Recently I responded to an old time film review, the Seven Miles From Alcatraz mentioned in the headline to this piece by my old friend and competitor Sandy Salmon (mentioned below in more detail) in order to express dismay not at the review which was perfectly okay but at what the plotline was trying to get at, what propaganda points since this was a World War II production were being made in the film itself. The plotline centered on a couple of escapees from the “Rock,” from Alcatraz out there in that big Japan seas swirl called San Francisco Bay where American land ended then (this during the height of World War II before bombed-out Hawaii acquired vaunted statehood to extend the empire). My objection to that plotline was that I found it incredulous that a filmmaker, a filmmaker who later would fall under the ax when the Cold War red scare freeze came rushing in (and later turn fink when they put the squeeze on), Edward Dmytryk, would bring a couple of hardened shoot ‘em up cons into the “popular front” against the Fascist Axis whatever his political sympathies were at the time.

    I got two diverse reactions from that simple comment. One, from the unusual red-baiters who saw my comment as just another part of the international communist conspiracy to foul-up the pure American air, the purity of the cinema (using that exact high blown word which told me a lot about where they were coming from culturally) even some seventy years after the fact. I was befuddled by this tact since apparently these people had not heard the news, the rather old news, the Soviet empire had been dismantled about twenty-five years ago and was no longer in effect (although Russia is much in the news again these days but for different reasons).

    The other respond was “shock” that I could not believe that two felons, two stalwart Americans in the immersed in the felony community, could identify with the just cause of the anti-Nazi struggle. In short that I wore my political incorrectness on my sleeve for all the candid world to see. Apparently in their view these guys who were ready to commit murder and mayhem against the denizens of the lighthouse that lammed onto in their escape until the Nazi menace confronted them in the face. The minute I saw those words felony community or maybe it was career criminal community I was seething at that point I knew I was in deep trouble.

    For those who did not see the original comment (or Sandy’s rather ordinary but well-written review of the film which took the whole experience at face value I have re-posted it below with a few added points to address the “better dead than red” and better dead than politically incorrect comment. This should end the tempest in a teapot.    

    *********

    Okay, okay regular readers of this space (and of the on-line version of the American Film Gazette) know that I have, how did Pete Markin the administrator of this site put it, oh yeah, put myself out to pasture. In other words retired from the day to day grind of film reviews what with the inevitable deadlines sneaking up and giving me heartburn when I haven’t figured out a “hook” to tie the review up with and Pete is e-mailing me every other minute for copy like some whirling dervish (no offense to the dervish community intended) I had had enough. I had conned my old friend, colleague and competitor Sandy Salmon (from that same American Film Gazette where he was a regular film critic with a by-line long before I began to occasionally write for the publication) into doing the yeoman’s work until he in his turn will retire and let younger hands get their chance. (Maybe under the circumstances I such not have used the word “conned” which might offend members of the career criminal community so I will say “browbeat” which I assume will offend no “community.”) I also mentioned in that notice of retirement that I would occasionally comment on whatever I felt like commenting on as long as I didn’t have to meet some damn deadline.     

    I have of late been impressed by some of Sandy’s reviews which are pretty good and which I have no quarrel with. What I have noticed when he reviews older films which is what this space is more and more dedicated to given the paucity of current first rate films is that some remark he makes or some insight of his gets me to the computer to make a comment. That is what I am up to today in regard to a recent review he did of a 1940s World War II film, part propaganda, part action thriller entitled Seven Miles From Alcatraz. The “hook” for me was not the fact that it was directed by Edward Myrtryk who would after the war be red-baited and scapegoated as one of the Hollywood Ten, guys who wouldn’t snitch on their fellows who might have in the past been reds, you know, communists . Honorably done at the time although unlike Howard Fast and Dalton Trumbo he eventually spilled his guts to whoever would listen in order to save his wretched career. That direction might have been part of what I was looking at which I will explain in a minute since the thrust of the film fit in very well with what the American Communist Party on orders from Moscow were doing to help the war effort once the Soviets became allies of the Allied Alliance in 1941.        

    No, what got me about this film was that even hardened criminals could under the story-line presented aid the war effort, could in this case be anti-Nazi fighters. My first reaction was WTF, yeah, that is exactly what I thought. Here is the gist of the story. A couple of hard cases tired of Alcatraz, the “Rock”, the supposedly inescapable Rock out in the dangerous Frisco Bay swirls and eddies escaped to a lighthouse out in the harbor, out by the Japan currents from what I could gather. At that lighthouse there was the lighthouse keeper (an important job in the treacherous waters in the Bay), his daughter and a couple of other guys, one a goof but the other who just so happens to turn out to be a Nazi spy. A Nazi spy who was connected with a group of fellow conspirators who have plans to blow up half of Frisco town once they grabbed a submarine ride off that lighthouse’s reaches and get back to the Fatherland. Naturally they get nowhere once these cons get their patriotic fervor up after they “realize” that if Frisco town goes the Rock goes too if they get captured and are returned there. The conspiracy and the sub once the military gets a fix on them from the lighthouse keeper after the cons struggle with the Nazi agents trying to get back home goes to the briny deep. Fair enough nobody liked the idea, least of all me, of half of Frisco town being blown up.


    What is really galling though is the idea that these hardened hoods were to be considered cinematically part of the great united front to wipe the Nazis and their allies off the face of the earth. Guys from Steubenville, Ohio and Hazard, Kentucky who were itching to volunteer once the Japanese did their dastardly deeds at Pearl Harbor I understand as part of the front. Guys building ships, welding like crazy on three shifts 24/7/365 to produce a ship a day I get it. Rosy the riveter picking up the slack when the menfolk went off to war great. Granny planting her Victory Garden, nice work. Kids running around getting string and aluminum foil for the war effort good young citizens. But cons who would as soon as put a slug in you, hey, in that light-keeper if it came to it before they “got religion” on what was what with the damn Nazis no I cannot buy that. What was Dmytryk thinking of anyway when he took on this film and the screwy story line.                

    The Literary World Lamp Goes Dim Again-“Portnoy’s Complaint” Author Philip Roth Has Cashed His Check At 85

    The Literary World Lamp Goes Dim Again-“Portnoy’s Complaint” Author Philip Roth Has Cashed His Check At 85




    A link to an NPR Open Source program hosted by Christopher Lydon who interviewed Philip Roth at his Connecticut home in 2006

    http://radioopensource.org/philip-roth/

    By Bart Webber


    As usual Scribe, the late Peter Paul Markin, who was what amounted to our intellectual-in- residence that residence being our 1960s corner boy haven in front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor in the Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville, was the first to hip us to the recently deceased American author Philip Roth. The book he hipped us to was the first big Roth novel Portnoy’s Complaint in 1969 while Scribe was doing his psychologically fatal tour in Vietnam. He kept raving about it being the first truly honest, if over the top, depiction of sexual acts including the no-no talk masturbation along with serious dirty language not known in earlier books, at least books we knew about. Previously he had like half the literary world touted guys like his heroes Hemingway and Fitzgerald with a little John Dos Passos thrown in (and it was mostly guys in his literary pantheon although Dorothy Parker and strangely Edith Wharton were on his top writers list). Beyond that he dared not go in our crowd, our crowd of Irish Catholic corner boys who while pissing against the wall about the ill effects of that doctrine on our love lives and our guilt trips still maintained some semblance of adherence if only as background noise in our brains.       
      
    That Irish Catholic stranglehold was no small matter when it came to anything involving Jews. That despite Vatican II of our later youth eliminating the idea of Jews as Christ-killers (my grandmother who had many good qualities never reconciled herself to that elimination and to her dying day cursed John Paul XXII for his infamy. Also hated the idea of the Mass in the vernacular although she could speak no Latin phrases when in church). Mostly this was a “street” gentile anti-Semitism, a little Jew-baiting of Jewish kids in our high school who were all the smart ones in the academic sense and we, even Scribe for a time, hated that book smart idea. It was fine to be street smart like our leader Frankie Riley but book smart was off the charts. Except when Scribe went into one of his raves. He went to his grave cursing himself for in high school not hanging out with the Jewish kids who filled up the Great Book Club which he had refused to join because of the ban on book smarts which even he tended to adhere to inside our corner boy circle. So this was not some neo-Nazi thing but a common, too common, gentile distaste and disparagement of the “other” (nice term, right). The one Jewish kid, a good kid and an athlete which held some cache with us, who tried to hang with us on the Tonio corner got the cold shoulder and after a while stopped trying to bust into our ignorant little crowd.         

    The fact is part of the reason we didn’t go for book smarts, except as always when Scribe got on his high horse, was we, and I in particular then did not give a fuck about books, high-brow or low. Never read much except a few times to get next to some girl who would mention some book and had I read it and off I would go to the Thomas Knowles Public Library and grab a copy. Most of the stuff was too gushy romance which I held my nose as I read. But such is the love battles. As for Jewish writers I would say I don’t remember reading any then, then in high school. Especially after Scribe would fill, try to fill, our lonely Friday nights reading some fag homo named Allen Ginsberg, a friend of Jack Kerouac, who had written a poem Howl  which he insisted that we let him read once he “discovered” the Beats. Jesus, a couple of guys, Timmy Riley for one who later on became one of the great drag queens in San Francisco after he came out of the closet and maybe Jack Callahan who holds the distinction of being the sole corner boy who stayed married to one woman for life almost tore Scribe apart one night to stop his madness. Later in the Summer of Love we would be so stoned on drugs that when Scribe started to recite Howl we were all ears.
    To cut to the chase about Philip Roth once Scribe gave the word that this guy had something to say even to us gentile anti-Semites about the new mores in book world where unlike in Hemingway and Fitzgerald say they merely alluded to various sexual practices and had their swears sanitized he let it all hang out we were all ears. Except here is the funny part we were talking that talk, except maybe going on and on about masturbation so much, out in the streets so I remember Frankie Riley who respected Scribe more than the rest of us wondering what the big deal was. So, yeah, Philip Roth wrote some good stuff, told a tale well, expanded the literary universe, or what was left of it back then and got a bunch of guys who probably would have not given a damn reason to read him. RIP, Philip Roth, RIP             

    FromThe Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- On IWW (Wobblie) Folksinger Utah Phillips (2005)





    This entry was originally written as a commentary on Utah Phillip’s Songbook- Starlight on the Trail issued in 2005. Looking it over I believe that the comments can be applied to this CD as well, obviously noting the differences in format. However Utah has been consistent throughout his career in both the kind of songs he writes and sings about. He has also maintained his same basic political philosophy so my comments about our political differences also apply. Nevertheless treasure any CD you can get your hands on.

    The left-wing political consciousness I developed in my youth coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960’s. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival, this movement was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review Utah Phillips Songbook while he is very much alive.

    Many of the folksingers of the 1960 have attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. Bob Dylan’s work became more informed by the influences of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the French Symbolists of the late 1800’s and thus moved away to a more urban, sophisticated vision. From the start and consistently throughout his long career Utah has acted as a medium giving voice to the troubles of ordinary people and the simpler ethos of a more rural, Western-oriented gone-by day in the American experience. He evokes in song the spirit of the people Walt Whitman paid homage to in poetic form and John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck gave in prose. He sits confortably in very fast company. Therefore, Utah Phillips can justly claim the title of people’s troubadour.

    A word about politics. Generally, one rates music without reference to politics. However, Utah has introduced the political element by the way he structured the Songbook. Each song is introduced by him as to its significance heavily weighted to his political experiences, observations, and vision. Thus, political comment is fairly in play here. Utah is a long time anarchist and unrepentant supporter of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World, hereafter IWW). Every militant cherishes the memory of the class battles led by the IWW like the famous Lawrence (Ma) strike of 1912 and honors the heroes of those battles like Big Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John and the militants they recruited to the cause of the working class in the first part of the 20th century. They paved the way for the later successful labor organization drives of the 1930’s.

    Nevertheless, while Utah and I would both most definitely agree that some old-fashioned class struggle by working people in today’s one-sided class war would be a very good thing we as definitely differ on the way to insure a permanent victory for working people in order to create a decent society. In short, Utah’s prescriptions of good moral character, increased self-knowledge, and the creation of small intentional communities are not enough. Under modern conditions it is necessary to take and safeguard political power against those who would quite consciously deny that victory. History has been cruel in some of the bitter lessons working people have had to endure for not dealing with the question of taking state power to protect their interests. But, enough said. I am more than willing to forgive the old curmudgeon his anarchist sins if he’ll sing ‘I Remember Loving You’ the next time he tours the Boston area. [2012-Adieu, brother-JLB]

    On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair”-A Few Thoughts

    On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair”-A Few Thoughts 



    A link to an National Public Radio On Point program featuring the 50th anniversary of the musical and it meaning then, and now:

    http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/04/fifty-years-of-hair  



    By Si Lannon


    The first time I heard that Seth Garth was going to preempt political aficionado Frank Jackman and do the 200th anniversary of the birth of Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was upon publication under the former’s name. Which pisses me off since I have been squeezed out apparently of getting any assignments around the incredible number of 1968 events which are having their 50th anniversary commemorations. (The Marx 200th anniversary thing intersects 1968 via a then growing interest in his theories among students and young radicals once the old tactics and strategy around Democratic Party takeover politics went asunder.) Upon privately complaining to site manager Greg Green he gave me this assignment to make a few comments of the 50th anniversary of the musical Hair, on Broadway at least although it had been off-Broadway the year before, one of the few musicals that could have possibly captured some of the pathos, bathos and essence of what was going on in all its messy splendor in that year.

    Hair represented that trend away from goodie two shoes formula entertainment like song and dance musicals and thinly pitched family dramatic productions. That represented what the audiences of the 1950s were interested in and still had, have a place in the Great White Way scheme of things. But the unacknowledged (at the time not so now once the cultural critics took their long look at the subject) effect of the vanguard work that was being done in little theaters for little money for little audiences finally took root. Artaud’s Theater of the Absurd, Brecht’s didactic efforts and the like finally found a more receptive general audience. So Hair in 1967-68 did not raise as many hairs among the theater going public as it might have earlier in the decade when it would have been treated as an end of run “beat” saga. That is no to say the subject of intense profanity, vivid sexual reference, an interracial cast and endless paeans to drugs of all sorts didn’t raise hackles, didn’t have members of the audience walking out shaking their heads but as word got out that this was a generational sage for the agents of Aquarius the thing couldn’t be stopped. And as one voice in the above mentioned link noted she was still playing in, albeit in Vermont, one of the last real refuses of the survivors of the Generation of ’68 is still being produced someplace in this wild wicked old land.         




    Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers”- A Film Adaptation

    Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Killers.

    DVD Review

    The Killers, starring Edmond O’Brian, Burt Lancaster, and Ava Gardner, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, 1946


    As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this genre I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they also have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity the film under review, The Killers, is under that former category.

    Although the screen adaptation owes little, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name this is primo 1940s crime noir stuff. Here, although Hemingway left plenty of room for other possibilities in his plot line, the question is why did two professional killers, serious, bad-ass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless “Swede” (played by a young, rough-hewn Burt Lancaster). But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a woman, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that would be Kitty Collins (played by sultry, very sultry, husky-voiced, dark-haired Ava Gardner) as just a poor colleen trying to get up from under and a femme fatale that has the boys, rich or poor, begging for more.

    As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But, high or low, all want some dough, and man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities. And duplicity, big-time duplicity, is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not the Swede, at least not in the long haul, and that notion will drive the action for a bit. And if you think about it, of course Kitty is going with the smart guy. And old Swede is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a prize fighter past his prime and looking, just like every other past his prime guy, for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in some shoddy flea-bitten rooming house out in the sticks, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

    Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Swede. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Ms. Kitty’s affections he, Swede, is involved along with Kitty’s current paramour, “Big Jim”, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a hat factory (who would have guessed that is where the dough, real dough, was). The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Kitty and Big Jim are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until an insurance investigator (ya, I know, what would such a guy want to get involved in this thing) trying to figure out why Swede just cast his fate to the wind starts to figure things out. And they lead naturally to the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.



    Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so, is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.

    On Memphis Minnie's Birthday ***A Blues Potpourri-The Blues Is Dues, Part II-The Sky May Be Crying But You Won’t Be

    Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of "Big Mama" Thornton performing "Hound Dog." Elvis step back, way back, on this one.

    CD REVIEW

    February Is Black History Month


    As those familiar with this space know I have spent a good amount of ink touting various old time blues legends that I ‘discovered’ in my youth. My intention, in part, is to introduce a new generation to this roots music but also to demonstrate a connection between this black-centered music and the struggle for black liberation that both blacks and whites can appreciate. Like virtually all forms of music that lasts more than five minutes the blues has had its ups and downs. After becoming electric and urbanized in the immediate post-World War II period it was eclipsed by the advent of rock&roll then made a comeback in the mid- 1960's with the surge of English bands that grew up on this music, and so on. Most recently there was mini-resurgence with the justifiably well-received Martin Scorsese PBS six-part blues series in 2003. A little earlier, in the mid-1990’s, there had also been a short-lived reemergence spearheaded by the ‘discovery’ of urban blues pioneer Robert Johnson’s music.

    The long and short of this phenomenon is that commercial record production of this music waxed and waned reflecting that checkered history. I have, in the interest of variety for the novice, selected these CDs as a decent cross-section of blues (and its antecedents in earlier forms of roots music) as to gender, time and type. The following reviewed CDs represent first of all an attempt by record companies to meet the 1990’s surge. They also represent a hard fact of musical life. Like rock&roll the blues will never die. Praise be. Feast on these compilations.

    The Sky May Be Crying But You Won’t Be

    Living The Blues: Blues Masters, MCA Records, 1995


    Many of the artists on this compilation have received individual attention by this reviewer elsewhere in this space. Thus I will highlight some of the lesser known artists who were either one hit johnnies (or janies) and for some reason did not make the blues pantheon. First, however, I must note that any compilation that starts off with “I’m Your Hoochie Goochie Man” by Muddy Waters, an incredible version of “Hound Dog” by “Big Mama” Thornton and “Back Door Man” by Howlin’ Wolf is has already paid its way. Add in a laid back Jimmy Reed on “Baby What Do You Want Me To Do”, a ripping slide guitar by Elmore James on “The Sky Is Crying”, a young and hungry John Lee Hooker flailing away on “Boogie Chillun” and “So Many Roads, So Many Trains” by the smooth Otis Rush and you have not been cheated.

    Now for the lesser lights that make this a virtually complete compilation of masters. How about a young but soon to be immortal Etta James on her classic “I’d Rather Go Blind”. Or the harmonica player extraordinaire, Little Walter, on “You’re So Fine”. And “The Things That I Used To Do” by the virtuoso guitarist Guitar Slim. And Lowell Fulsom rocking away on “Reconsider Baby. And…. Well, you get the picture. With the possible exception of Slim Harpo (who had a small body of work due to an early untimely death) all of these masters will be getting fuller treatment in this space later. For now this will give you an idea of what it was like when men and women played electric blues for real.

    BIG MAMA THORNTON HOUND DOG LYRICS

    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You can wag your tail
    But I ain't gonna feed you no more
    You told me you was high class
    I could see through that
    You told me you was high class
    I could see through that
    And baby I know
    You ain't no real cool cat
    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You can wag your tail
    But I ain't gonna feed you no more
    You made me feel so blue
    You made me weep and moan
    You made me feel so blue
    You made me weep and moan
    'Cause I'm looking for a woman
    All your lookin' for is a home
    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You ain't nothing but a hound dog
    Been snoopin' round my door
    You can wag your tail
    But I ain't gonna feed you no more

    On Memphis Monnie's Birthday-The “Kings Of Dinkytown**” - The Music Of Folk’s Spider John Koerner and Sidekicks Dave Ray And Tony Glover

    Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Spider John Koerner and
    Tony Glover performing "Last Lonesome Blues" at , appropriately, the Dinkyfest in 2007.


    **Dinkytown refers to the student/hip ghetto, etc. of Minneapolis back in the days (and perhaps today as well). It also seemingly reflects on the geographic range of the Koerner/Ray/Glover ambition.

    DVD Review

    Blues, Rags& Hollers: The Koerner, Ray& Glover Story,directed by Tony Glover, MVD Visual, 1986


    In a review of Spider John Koerner’s CD “Stargeezer” (see review entry accompanying this blog on this date, August 29. 2009) earlier this year I made the following comment that related to a question I was then asking about the fate of various male folk singers from the folk revival of the 1960s:

    “Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time folk artists that, along with the blues, were the passion of my youth in the early 1960's. You might also know, if you are keeping tabs, that I have been attempting to answer a question that I have posed elsewhere in this space earlier about the fate or fates of various performers from that period. Spider John Koerner was a lesser known, but important, fixture on the Cambridge/Boston folk scene during that time, as well as later once the hubbub died down and he and a local stalwart, Mr. Bones, carried on the tradition in smaller venues and in front of smaller crowds.”

    Well, according to this film documentary by Tony Glover, at various times part of the sporadic musical team of Koerner, Ray and Glover, there was more, much more to the Spider John story that I was aware of. And to the stories of Ray and Glover, as well. That said, it is nevertheless true that Spider John fell off the charts and became more of a regional influence. All of this seemingly by choice and by personal circumstance. That brings up the final point that I would make (other than recommending that if you are interested in the fates of the secondary occupants of the folk revival pantheon to view this very informative, if somewhat eccentric piece). Not everyone was cut out by disposition, drive, personal inclination or personal limitations to be “king of the hill” in the folk revival (or any other endeavor). But, damn they can still make good music and we owe a lot to this trio for preserving it for us.

    "Me & My Chauffeur" lyrics by Memphis Minnie

    Won't you be my chauffeur
    Won't you be my chauffeur
    I wants him to drive me
    I wants him to drive me downtown
    Yes he drives so easy I can't turn him down
    But I don't want him
    But I don't want him
    To be ridin' his girls
    To be ridin' his girls around
    So I'm gonna steal me a pistol, shoot my chauffeur down
    Well I must buy him
    Well I must buy him
    A brand new V8
    A brand new V8 Ford
    Then he won't need no passengers, I will be his load
    Yes... take it away...
    Wanna let my chauffeur
    Wanna let my chauffeur
    Drive me around the
    Drive me around the world
    Then he can be my little boy, yes I'll be his girl

    When First Unto This Country
    Lyrics: Traditional
    Music: Traditional


    When first unto this country
    A stranger I came
    I courted a fair maid
    And Nancy was her name

    I courted her for love
    Her love I didn't obtain
    Do you think I've any reason
    Or right to complain

    I rode to see my Nancy
    I rode both night and day
    I stoled a fine stallion
    From Colonel Charles Grey

    I rode to see my Nancy
    I rode both day and night
    I courted fairest Nancy
    My own heart's true delight

    The sheriff's men they followed
    And overtaken me
    They carted me away
    To the penitentiary

    They opened up the door
    And then they threw me in
    They shaved off my hair
    And they cleared off my chin

    They beat me and they banged me
    And they fed me on dry beans
    'Til I wished to my own soul
    I'd never been a thief

    With my hands stuck in my pockets
    And my cap set on so bold
    My coat of many colors
    Like Joseph's of old

    When first unto this country
    A stranger I came
    I courted a fair maid
    And Nancy was her name

    Thursday, June 07, 2018

    The Other Thin Man-Ginger Rogers And William Powell’s “Star Of Midnight” (1935)-A Film Review

    The Other Thin Man-Ginger Rogers And William Powell’s “Star Of Midnight” (1935)-A Film Review




    DVD Review

    By Film Emeritus Sam Lowell

    [Although Sam is formerly retired he has expressed a desire to help out when we have several films to review and not enough hands to do the task. Since he is very familiar with The Thin Man series which also starred William Powell (and Myrna Loy) he was the natural choice to cover this film. Thanks, Sam-Pete Markin]

    Star of Midnight, starring Ginger Rogers, William Powell, 1935 

    One of the problems a few actors have had is to be type-cast into a certain cinematic persona. That was generally the case with William Powell, the male lead in the film under review, Star of Midnight where he plays a smart, sophisticated urban (New York City of course) man about town very similar to the role that he played in The Thin Man the year before this film was released (and would go on to star with Myrna Loy in six sequels, ouch) except here he is a high-priced lawyer, Dal, and not an ex-cop private dick Nick Charle. 


    The play is the same though although the romantic interest is Donna a young smitten, smitten by Dal, played by Ginger Rogers who is not his boon companion as Myra Loy as Nora Charles was. Here a friend of Dal’s is looking for him to find his missing paramour who blew Chic town (okay Chicago) a year before without leaving a forwarding address. (Forget it buddy, move on, and that isn’t even high-priced legal advice.)  The plot thickens when the three of them attend a play and nobody but a masked girlfriend is on the stage. The guy yells out Alice Bad move though since she is on the lam from somebody trying to silence here after she witnessed a murder in, ah, Chicago. Somebody has reason to silence her to cover up his own dastardly deeds so he let out that he was looking for Alice too. Don’t worry even though Dal was accused of killing a source killed in his own apartment he was left by the coppers to figure the whole thing out. And you know just like Nick (and Nora) he does. By the way Dal won’t be lonesome anymore. Donna snagged him. The killer: well grab the film and check it out. It could have been one of several people as usual.      

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- The Ebb Tide- The Rolling Stones- Altamont 1969

    The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- The Ebb Tide-  The Rolling Stones- Altamont 1969




    Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

    You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. In the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20th of this year.   


    Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit    would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  



    DVD REVIEW

    Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones Altamont Concert 1969, 1970


    I have written elsewhere in this space that when it comes to musical influences in my youth that the Stones played a key role in developing my tastes. I have also mentioned elsewhere that my youthful alienation was reflected in the language and sound of the group. I mentioned Street Fighting Man and Tumbling Dice, as well as an earlier cover of Little Red Rooster as important. All this is by way of saying that I looked forward recently to re-watching the old Stones documentary Gimme Shelter reviewed here, despite my knowledge of the tragic and unnecessary incidents that occurred at Altamont and marred the whole experience.

    If one is to recount the nodal points of the too short counter-cultural explosion of the 1960’s one could arbitrarily assign the Summer of Love in 1967 as the height and Altamont as the start of the decline. We can argue that point endlessly but clearly something or some things happened at Altamont that exposed the ugly side of the dope/counter-cultural scene. Moreover, on reflection no one can deny the unreasonableness of having the notorious California Hell’s Angels, despite favorable press from Tom Wolfe in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and Hunter Thompson in his classic study Hell’s Angels, as security for a 300,000 person event.

    Now, we finally get to the music and the film. And I think that this is about the right place for such comments about the event itself in the scheme of things. There have been many, many Stones concerts during the past forty years but none have had the cultural significance of Altamont. Most of the film is about how the Stones, good-naturedly if ultimately naively, tried to put the event together. A fair portion of the film is footage of the reaction by the Stones to the events that they witnessed from the stage including the one that led to a death. These segments are interspersed in between parts of the performances by the Stones and others.

    This film has not aged well, although Mick has. His voice comes off tinny here reflecting an earlier, more primitive sound technology that does not do justice to how Mick and the boys could whip up an audience. A nice surprise though is a very sensual Tina Turner (backed by Ike) performance. Unfortunately, the Jefferson Airplane's afternoon performance is marred by the same kind of violence that doomed the event. But here is the skinny. If you need to look at rock and roll history watch this one and one half hour documentary. If you want to hear the Stones at their best then purchase any one of about ten greatest hits albums available. That’s the ticket.