Happy Birthday Keith Richards-From The Archives- The Cultural Contradictions Of The Generation Of '68

Commentary

Those who have followed this space over the past year may have noticed that I have spend some little time going back down memory lane some forty years to that decisive year of 1968, a year to which I have attached the term the 'Generation of ’68'-the generation who fought or fought against the Vietnam war and other issues of that day. Blame the misbegotten elections of 2008 for my preoccupations. I expected to spend more time on that presidential campaign but around June of this year I discovered that it was basically so much “ill wind” abrewing. So onward.

Of course the generic term ‘Generation of ‘68’, like that of our immediate forbears the media-crowned ‘greatest generation’, is as much a metaphor for what we attempted to do in those days on a social, political and cultural level as an actual definable structured phenomena. In the past I have mentioned that we, mainly out of innocence or better still ignorance (sometimes willfully so, as in the early rejection of Marxism as a guide to seeing things) made every mistake in the social, political and cultural book. We have, unfortunately, lived to pay for those essentially youthful mistakes with a forty year ‘blow back’ from the reactionaries who have had a free run of this country ever since.

If today, in December 2008, we have a little breathing room for our old time visions we best think things through better this time because, as it turns out, we are historically only given limited space and time to prove that we are capable of listening to “the better angels of our natures”. That said, as I have been at pains to point out in this space, not all of our long ago efforts should be dismissed out of hand. I nevertheless want to use this entry as a place to examine some of the cultural conceptions that, upon reflection, while they seemed very radical and progressive then seem kind of stale and ‘corny’ today. I intend this as a continuing entry through the next year or so. Feel free to add your "howlers" from the old days. Here’s the grab bag for now.

Back To The Archives, Please.

The Rolling Stones: Sympathy For The Devil, starring The Rolling Stones (1968 members), directed by Jean-Luc Godard, 1968

In an entry elsewhere in this space I noted my early youth allegiance to The Rolling Stones with the following remarks:

“I am not sure exactly when I first hear a Stones song although it was probably “Satisfaction”. However, what really hooked me on them was when I hear them cover the old Willie Dixon blues classic “The Red Rooster”. If you will recall that song was banned, at first, from the radio stations of Boston. Later, I think, and someone can maybe help me out on this, WMEX broke the ban and played it. And no, the song was not about the doings of our barnyard friends. But, beyond that it was the fact that it was banned that made me, and perhaps you, want to hear it at any cost….

That event began my long love affair with the blues. And that is probably why, although American blues also influenced the Beatles, it is the Stones that I favor. Their cover still holds up, by the way. Not as good, as I found out later, as the legendary Howlin' Wolf’s version but good. I have also thought about The Stones influence recently as I have thought about the long ago past of my youth. Compare some works like John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” and The Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” (yes, I know these are later works) and I believe that you will find that something in the way The Stones presented that angry, defiant sound appealed to my working class alienation.”

Thus when I recently re-watched this Stones-based documentary, self-styled political manifesto and 'new wave' film by one of the cultural hero-directors of the 1960’s I expected to get as excited over its presentation as the first time I saw it. Well, here is the “skinny”. I still love The Stones’ song “Sympathy For The Devil” the production of which forms the core of this film. I do not, however, need to see the creation of this musical rock and roll gem over the course of an hour and one-half interspersed with one thousand and one of Godard’s pre-occupations of the day from Marxism to pornography to racism to Black Nationalist politics. In out youths we accepted anything that was new, different and haphazard as pure as the driven snow. Forty years later this reviewer may be a more little jaded but certainly less self-indulgent, as Godard should have been in directing this film. Some things from the 1960’s age very well like the social commitment to “seek a newer world”. Others are best left in the archives.

Strictly For Aficionados

The “Genuine” Basement Tapes”, Volumes 1-5, Bob Dylan and The Band (1967 members), Alternate Edge Productions, 2002

In a review of Bob Dylan’s “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan” elsewhere in this space I noted:

“In reviewing Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic album “Bringing All Back Home” (you know, the one where he went electric) I mentioned that it seemed hard to believe now that both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). I further pointed out that it is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.”

And I am still glad of that fact. What I am less enamored of is the virtual cottage industry that has grown up around various bootleg, basement, cellar, barn, attic or other odd location versions of Dylan’s work, electric or acoustic. This archival material is nice for folk, rock and cultural historians but I would argue that Mr. Bob Dylan’s usually well-produced albums are after over forty years more than enough to listen to without having to get into the minutia of his career. And, somehow, made to feel in the process that one has missed something without this other more esoteric material. In short, these five volumes of practice, outtakes, cuts, etc. done with The Band while he was “hiding” out in rural New York after his motorcycle accident are strictly for aficionados.

That said, for those who insist on getting their little hands on this material here is the “scoop”. From Volume One- “Odds And Ends”. From Volume Two- “Quinn The Eskimo”. From Volume Three-“Tiny Montgomery”, “Santa Fe” and “Sign Of The Cross (excellent)”. From Volume Four- “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”, “Confidential To Me” and “Bring It On Home”. From Volume Five (the album to get if you get just one)-“Four Strong Winds”, Joshua Gone Barbados” “I Forgot To Remember To Forget”, “Bells Of Rhymney”, “Spanish Is The Loving Tongue”, “Cool Water”, “Banks Of The Royal Canal”. These are all covers and very nicely done, if sometimes hard to hear.

Once Again, On Those Damn Tapes

The Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan and The Band (1967 members), CBS Records, 1975

Parts of this review were used in a review of The “Genuine” Basement Tapes. I make most of the same objections here for this set as I did there, except if you need to choose between the two the quality of the production values here is greater than on the former. Although the more I listen to Volume 5 of the “genuine” tapes with that “Joshua Gone Barbados” and hard to hear but mesmerizing cover of “ I Forgot To Remember to Forget” and a couple of others I am starting to waver.

In a review of Bob Dylan’s “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan” elsewhere in this space I noted:

“In reviewing Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic album “Bringing All Back Home” (you know, the one where he went electric) I mentioned that it seemed hard to believe now that both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). I further pointed out that it is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.”

And I am still glad of that fact. What I am less enamored of is the virtual cottage industry that has grown up around various bootleg, basement, cellar, barn, attic or other odd location versions of Dylan’s work, electric or acoustic. This archival material is nice for folk, rock and cultural historians but I would argue that Mr. Bob Dylan’s usually well-produced albums are after over forty years more than enough to listen to without having to get into the minutia of his career. And, somehow, left to feel that one has missed something without this other more esoteric material. That same sentiment applies to the virtuoso work of The Band in their heyday. And certainly to their joint work. In short, this two disc set of practice, outtakes, cuts, etc. done with The Band while he was “hiding” out in rural New York after his motorcycle accident are strictly for aficionados.

That said, for those who insist on getting their little hands on this material here is the “scoop”. “Tears Of Rage” ; “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”; “Yazoo Street Scandal” and “Odds and Ends” are what you are getting this CD for. That does not seem like enough given what I mentioned above.

Happy Birthday Keith Richards- *Stonesmania-Back To Basics- The Rolling Stones When The Earth Was Young- The Forty Licks Tour

CD Review

Forty Licks, The Rolling Stones, ABKCO Records, 2002

I will repeat here what I have mentioned in other reviews of the early work of The Rolling Stones…. “Hey, in 2009 no one, including this reviewer, NEEDS to comment on the fact that The Rolling Stones, pound for pound, have over forty plus years earned their place as the number one band in the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon. Still, it is interesting to listen once again to the guys when they were at the height of their musical powers (and as high, most of the time, as Georgia pines)”. This “greatest hits” compilation takes us back to the days, before the heavier rock sound but right up their in competition with the Beatles for the ‘soul’ of the youthful rock fans of the 1960’s. Some of these songs are classic of the rock ‘n’ roll song book others are just faded memories. The cover of “Not Fade Away”,their own “Satisfaction”, “The Last Time”, "Gimme Shelter", Sympathy For The Devil" and “19th Nervous Breakdown” will endure as long as people need rock ‘n’ roll to get through the day. "Street Fighting",“Tell Me” and “Play With Fire” are more for youthful memories. The new stuff added for this tour promotion is rather same old-same old. It's the old stuff you want this for, especially for beginners.

UNDER MY THUMB
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

Under my thumb
The girl who once had me down
Under my thumb
The girl who once pushed me around

It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb

Ain't it the truth babe?

Under my thumb
The squirmin' dog who's just had her day
Under my thumb
A girl who has just changed her ways

It's down to me, yes it is
The way she does just what she's told
Down to me, the change has come
She's under my thumb
Ah, ah, say it's alright

Under my thumb
A siamese cat of a girl
Under my thumb
She's the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world

It's down to me
The way she talks when she's spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb
Ah, take it easy babe
Yeah

It's down to me, oh yeah
The way she talks when she's spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb
Yeah, it feels alright

Under my thumb
Her eyes are just kept to herself
Under my thumb, well I
I can still look at someone else

It's down to me, oh that's what I said
The way she talks when she's spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb
Say, it's alright.

Say it's all...
Say it's all...

Take it easy babe
Take it easy babe
Feels alright
Take it, take it easy babe.

Happy Birthday Keith Richards- *Stonesmania- The Rolling Stones Aging Well (Alright, Just Okay) - "It's Only Roll 'n' Roll

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of The Rolling Stones performing "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" the title track from their "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll album.

CD Review

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, The Rolling Stones, originally released in 1974

Hey, in 2009 no one, including this reviewer, NEEDS to comment on the fact that The Rolling Stones, pound for pound, have over forty plus years earned their place as the number one band in the rock `n' roll pantheon. Still, it is interesting to listen once again to the guys when they were at the height of their musical powers (and as high, most of the time, as Georgia pines). This album from the tail end of their most creative period , moreover, unlike let us say Bob Dylan who has produced more creative work for longer, is the `golden era" of the Stone Age. The album, however, is a little uneven in spots reflecting, I think, a certain exhaustion of material that they could call their totally their own unless the time when they owned a big chunk of rock 'n'roll in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The age of a more sedate music (at least technically) was approaching and I think there was some confusion about whether to embrace it or “spoof” it. Still the title track “It's Only Rock 'n' Roll"if only for the message makes their 'greatest hits' list. Right?

Add in the very germane (for the 1960s generation) "Time Waits For No One" and their cover of the old Temptations tune "To Proud To Beg" and this is a snappy little remastered album.

"Its Only Rock N Roll"

If I could stick my pen in my heart
I would spill it all over the stage
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya
Would you think the boy is strange? Ain't he strange?
If I could win ya, if I could sing ya
A love song so divine
Would it be enough for your cheating heart
If I broke down and cried? If I cried?
I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it
I know it's only rock'n roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do
Oh, well, I like it, I like it, I like it
I said can't you see that this old boy has been lonely?


If I could stick a knife in my heart
Suicide right on stage
Would it be enough for your teenage lust
Would it help to ease the pain? Ease your brain?
If I could dig down deep in my heart
Feelings would flood on the page
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya
Would ya think the boy's insane? He's insane
I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it
I said I know it's only rock'n roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do
Oh, well, I like it, I like it, I like it
I said can't you see that this old boy has been a lonely?


And do ya think that you're the only girl around?
I bet you think that you're the only woman in town


I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it
I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it
I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do
Oh, well, I like it, I like it. I like it...

In The Time Of The Second Mountain Music Revival- A Songcatcher Classic Song- "Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies"-Maybelle Carter-Style

In The Time Of The Second Mountain Music Revival- A Songcatcher Classic Song- "Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies"-Maybelle Carter-Style

As told to Si Lannon

A YouTube film clip of a classic Song-Catcher-type song from deep in the mountains, Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies. According to my sources Cecil Sharpe (a British musicologist in the manner of Francis Child with his ballads, Charles Seeger, and the Lomaxes, father and son when they headed south and west to fink the “people’s music”)"discovered" the song in 1916 in Kentucky. Of course my first connection to the song had nothing to do with the mountains, or mountain origins, or so I though at the time but was heard the first time long ago in my ill-spent 1960s youth listening to a late Sunday night folk radio show on WBZ in Boston hosted by Dick Summer (who is featured on the 2012 Tom Rush documentary No Regrets about Tom’s life in the early 1960s Boston folk scene) and hearing the late gravelly-voiced folksinger Dave Van Ronk like some latter-day Jehovah doing his version of the song. I know the next day I rushed over to the now exiled out in Utah somewhere Allan Jackson’s house and asked him if he had heard the song the previous night. He said hell no. This before he became a serious folk aficionado and was still hung up on some lollipop music that all the neighborhood high school girls were going crazy over, a bunch of Bobbies, I forget the last names, and so required some attention if he was to get anywhere with Diana Nelson. 

But that was high school dream stuff so I let it go then. A couple of years later when he was in college at Boston University he took a date to the long gone Club Nana over in Harvard Square to hear Dave Von Ronk play and where he did the song. He called me the next saying that he finally got it. By the way the way that Club Nana date came about was that his date was crazy for Dave Von Ronk. Some things never changed. In all quite a bit different from the Maybelle Carter effort here. I'll say.

[By the way that “or so I thought” about mountain music later turned out to be not quite true. My father from coal country Hazard, Kentucky out by the hills and hollows (I refuse to write “hollas”) and my mother left Boston for a time to go back to his growing up home to see if they could make a go of it there after World War II. They could not but that was a separate story while they were there I was conceived and being carried in my mothers’ womb so it turned out the damn stuff was in my DNA. Go figure, right.]     

COME ALL YE FAIR AND TENDER LADIES
(A.P. Carter)

The Carter Family - 1932

Come all ye fair and tender ladies

Take warning how you court young men

They're like a bright star on a cloudy morning

They will first appear and then they're gone

They'll tell to you some loving story

To make you think that they love you true

Straightway they'll go and court some other

Oh that's the love that they have for you

Do you remember our days of courting

When your head lay upon my breast

You could make me believe with the falling of your arm

That the sun rose in the West

I wish I were some little sparrow

And I had wings and I could fly

I would fly away to my false true lover

And while he'll talk I would sit and cry

But I am not some little sparrow

I have no wings nor can I fly

So I'll sit down here in grief and sorrow

And try to pass my troubles by

I wish I had known before I courted

That love had been so hard to gain

I'd of locked my heart in a box of golden

And fastened it down with a silver chain

Young men never cast your eye on beauty

For beauty is a thing that will decay

For the prettiest flowers that grow in the garden

How soon they'll wither, will wither and fade away

******

ALTERNATE VERSION:

Come all ye fair and tender ladies

Take warning how you court young men

They're like a star on summer morning

They first appear and then they're gone

They'll tell to you some loving story

And make you think they love you so well

Then away they'll go and court some other

And leave you there in grief to dwell

I wish I was on some tall mountain

Where the ivy rocks are black as ink

I'd write a letter to my lost true lover

Whose cheeks are like the morning pink

For love is handsome, love is charming

And love is pretty while it's new

But love grows cold as love grows old

And fades away like the mornin' dew

And fades away like the mornin' dew

Happy Birthday Keith Richards *Stonesmania- The Rolling Stones Aging Well (Alright, Just Okay) - "Tatoo You"

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of The Rolling Stones performing "Start Me Up" from their "Tattoo You" album.

CD Review

Tatoo You, The Rolling Stones, 1981

Hey, in 2009 no one, including this reviewer, NEEDS to comment on the fact that The Rolling Stones, pound for pound, have over forty plus years earned their place as the number one band in the rock `n' roll pantheon. Still, it is interesting to listen once again to the guys when they were at the height of their musical powers (and as high, most of the time, as Georgia pines). This album from the tail end of their most creative period , moreover, unlike let us say Bob Dylan who has produced more creative work for longer, is the "golden era" of the Stone Age. The album, however, is a little uneven in spots reflecting, I think, a certain exhaustion of material that they could call their totally their own unless the time when they owned a big chunk of rock 'n'roll in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The age of a more sedate music (at least technically) was approaching and I think there was some confusion about whether to embrace it or “spoof” it. Still the "Start Me Up' track, a staple of their live concerts and a great way to rev up the 1960s aging children is a Stones "greatest hits" " number, right? "Worried About You" and "No Use In Crying" are stick outs in this CD. I do not think anything else here qualifies for their "greatest hits" vault.

Rolling Stones — Start Me Up lyrics

If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
Ive been running hot
You got me ticking gonna blow my top
If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
You make a grown man cry
Spread out the oil, the gasoline
I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine
Start it up
If you start it up
Kick on the starter give it all you got, you got, you got
I can't compete with the riders in the other heats
If you rough it up
If you like it you can slide it up, slide it up
Don't make a grown man cry
My eyes dilate, my lips go green
My hands are greasy
Shes a mean, mean machine
Start it up
If start me up
Give it all you got
You got to never, never, never stop
Never, never
Slide it up
You make a grown man cry
Ride like the wind at double speed
Ill take you places that youve never, never seen
Start it up
Love the day when we will never stop, never stop
Never stop, never stop
Tough me up
Never stop, never stop, never stop
You, you, you make a grown man cry
You, you make a dead man cum
You, you make a dead man cum

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Lead Belly's "Bourgeois Blues"-A Song For Our Times-Build The Resistance

Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots-Lead Belly's "Bourgeois Blues"-A Song For Our Times-Build The Resistance   

A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject from Leadbelly who may have sang the song seventy or eighty years ago but is not that far off now-except now it is more than just black people.


Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. And those songs provide our movement with that combination entertainment/political message that is an art form that we use to draw the interested around us. Even though today those interested may be counted rather than countless and the class struggle to be whiled away is rather one-sidedly going against us at present. The bosses are using every means from firing to targeting union organizing to their paid propagandists complaining that the masses are not happy with having their plight groveled in their faces like they should be while the rich, well, while away in luxury and comfort.  

But not all life is political, or rather not all music lends itself to some kind of explicit political meaning yet speaks to, let’s say, the poor sharecropper at the juke joint on Saturday listening to the country blues, unplugged, kids at the jukebox listening to high be-bop swing, other kids listening, maybe at that same jukebox now worn with play and coins listening to some guys from some Memphis record company rocking and rolling, or adults spending some dough to hear the latest from Tin Pan Alley or the Broadway musical. And so they too while away to the various aspects of the American songbook and that rich tradition is which in honored here.   

This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up. 

These  are the lyrics-take the "n" word part as you will but that is what he wrote.

The Bourgeois Blues

Lead Belly

Lord, in a bourgeois town
It's a bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Home of the brave, land of the free
I don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs
We heard the white man say "I don't want no niggers up there"
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

Well, them white folks in Washington they know how
To call a colored man a nigger just to see him bow
Lord, it's a bourgeois town

Uhm, the…  

Happy Birthday Keith Richards- *"I Am The Blues”- The Music Of Blues Man Willie Dixon

Click On Title To Link YouTube's Film Clip Of Willie Dixon Performing " Blues You Can't Lose".


DVD Review

Willie Dixon: I Am The Blues, Willie Dixon, Quantum Leap Productions, 2002


Readers of this space will, probably, already be familiar with the name of Willie Dixon if one is the slightest bit familiar with Chicago blues, Chess Records, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or even The Rolling Stones’ cover of his “Little Red Rooster”. In this one hour presentation you get a very quick overview of his major songs, his take on the ups and downs of the blues as a genre and his performance of a number of his classics written while at Chess and at other venues. Outstanding is his classic “I’ve Got The Blues” and the song that Koko Taylor and Howlin’ Wolf made famous, “Wang Dang Doodle”. This is a serious piece of blues, especially Chicago blues, history by a man at, or near, the center of it in its hey day as he nears the end of his own career (1984).

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of  ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

Happy Birthday Keith Richards-Not Ready For Prime Time AARP Songs- The Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Beatles performing When I'm Sixty-Four from the animated movie Yellow Submarine.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964 and thus already past sixty-four, comment:

Many of my fellows from the Generation of '68 (a. k. a. baby-boomers) will be, if you can believe this, turning sixty-four this year. So be it.

When I'm Sixty-Four - The Beatles

When I get olded, loosing my hair,
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me the Valentine,
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine

If I stay out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word I could stay with you.

I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday morning go for a ride

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight,
if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form,
Mine for evermore,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.
*******
Ancient dreams, dreamed.

Ya, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff and just call her a woman and be done with it, will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what. Tie up a guy so bad he will go to the chair kind of smiling, okay maybe just half-smiling. Frank (read: future Peter Paul and a million, more or less, other guys) had it bad as a man could have from the minute Ms. Cora walked through the door in her white summer blouse, shorts, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white. She may have been just another blonde, very blonde frail serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint but from second one she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale. I swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled at the screen for him to get the hell out of there at that moment. But do you think he would listen, no not our boy. He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end.

Nose flattened cold against the frozen, snow falling front window apartment project hang your hat dwelling, small, warm, no hint of madness, or crazes only of sadness, brother kinship sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching as he, that older brother, goes off to foreign places, foreign elementary school reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic places and, he, the nose flattened against the window brother, is left to ponder his own place in those kind of places, those foreign-sounding places, when his time comes. If he has a time, has the time for the time of his time, in this red scare (but what knows he of red scare only brother scares), cold war, cold nose, dust particles in the clogging air night.

A cloudless day, a cloudless Korean War day, talk of peace, merciless truce peace and uncles coming home in the air, hot, hot end of June day laying, face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, fields for slides and swings, diamonded baseball, no, friendlier softball fields the houses are too close, of gimps, glues, cooper-plated portraits, of sweet shaded elms, starting, now that he too, that nose-flattened brother, has been to foreign places in the time of his time, to find his own place in the sun but wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means that, and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes, but changes.

Nighttime fears, red-flagged Stalin-named fears, red bomb unnamed shelter blast fears, named, vaguely named, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg hated stalinite jews killed fears, jews killed our catholic lord fears and what did they do anyway fears against the cubed glass glistening flagless flag-pole rattling dark asphalt school yard night, alone, and, and, alone fears avoidance, clean, clear stand alone avoidance of old times sailors, tars, sailors’ homes AND deaths in barely readable fine- marked granite-grey lonely seaside graveyards looking out on ocean homelands and lost booty. Dead.


Endless walks, endless sea street seawall walks, rocks, shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat to the left making hard the way, the path, okay, to uptown drug stores, Rexall’s drug store, grabbing heist-stolen valentine, ribbon and bow valentine night bushel, signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, if only she, about five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet.


Walks, endless waiting bus stop non-stop walks, up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets, deeply gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles, pass trees are green, coded, endless trees are green secret-coded waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now, for one look, one look, that would elude him, elude him forever such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. And no dance either, no high school confidential (hell elementary school, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out, at least no potato sack stick dance with coded name brunette. That will come, that will come.

City square no trespass standing, low-slung granite buildings everywhere, granite steps leading to granite doors leading to granite gee-gad counters, hated, no name hated, low-head hated, waiting slyly, standing back on heels, going in furtively, coming out ditto, presto coming out with a gold nugget jewel, no carat, no russkie Sputnik panel glitter for his efforts such is the way of young lumped crime, no value, no look, just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark, dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dream make no more sense that this bodily theft.

A bridge too far, an unarched, unsteeled, unspanned, unnerved bridge too far. One speed bicycle boy, dungarees rolled up against dog bites and geared meshes, churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names. Twelve-year old hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing

Lindo, lindos, beautiful, beautifuls, not some spanish exotic though, maybe later, just some junior league dream fuss though, some future cheerleader football dame though, some sweated night pasty crust and I, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before my time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for me, no jack swagger, or bobby goof as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Me, I’ll take exotics, or lindos, if they every cross my path, my lonely only path

Sweated dust bowl nights, not the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else, something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, for some sense of worth in the this moldy white tee shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers pushing the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then. Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common tokyo dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise. Who would have figured that one?

Main street walked, main street public telephone booth cheap talk walked searching for some Diana greek goddess wholesale on the atlantic streets. Diana, blonde Diana, cashmere-sweatered, white tennis –shoed Diana, million later Dianas although not with tennis shoes, really gym shoes fit for old ladies to do their rant, their lonely rant against the wind. Seeking, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on senior errands. No way, no way and then red-face, alas, red-faced no known even forty years later. Wow.

Multi-colored jacket worn, red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, cigarette, Winston small-filtered, natch, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. Move out the act onto Boston fresh streets. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessary of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame, and then the abyss on non-fame, non- recognition and no more snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.


Drunk, whisky drunk, whisky rotgut whisky drunk, in some bayside, altantic bayside, not childhood atlantic bayside though, no way, no shawlie way, bar. Name, nameless, no legion. Some staggered midnight vista street, legs weak from lack of work, brain weak, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish although who could have known that then. Who could have know that tet, lyndon, bobby, Hubert, tricky dick war-circus thing then.

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head and ten-thousand, no on hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting, dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama that portent no good, no earthy good. Except this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? And the die is cast, not truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the night cast but cast. Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light.

The great Mandela cries, cries to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son has found his way, a strange way but a way. And a certain swagger comes to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. No cigarette hanging off the lip now, not Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that. Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this is a road less traveled for reason, and not ancient robert frost to guide you… Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.

Bloodless bloodied streets, may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. But stop. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove and no flame-flecked phoenix but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva comes a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ will take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart acting in god’s place can even dream of.

Chill chili nights south of the border, endless Kennebunkports, Bar Harbors, Calais’, Monktons, Peggy’s Coves, Charlottetowns, Montreals, Ann Arbors, Neolas, Denvers by moonlight, Boulders echos, Dinosaurs dies, salted lakes, Winnemuccas flats, golden-gated bridges, malibus, Joshua Trees, pueblos, embarcaderos, and flies. Enough to last a life-time, thank you. Enough of Bunsen burners, Coleman stoves, wrapped blankets, second-hand sweated army sleeping bags, and minute pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, peyote seeds, and the shamanic ghosts dancing off against apache (no, not helicopters, real injuns) ancient cavern wall. And enough of short-wave radio beam tricky dick slaughters south of the border in deep fall nights. Enough, okay.

He said struggle. He said push back. He said stay with your people. He said it would not be easy. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. He said look for a sign. He said the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy. He said it again and again. He said struggle. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1917, he said it in 1973. Whee, an old guy, huh.

Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out. Plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Desolation row, no way home.

A smoky sunless bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home times. Order another deadened drink, slightly benny-addled, then in walks a vision. A million time in walks a vision, but in white this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Ya that seems right, right against the oil-beggared time, right.

Lashed against the high end double seawall, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall laden streets, some Grenada night or maybe Lebanon sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. Wrong number, brother. Ya, wrong number, as usual.

White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more war-weary dastardly fight against Persian gulf oil-driven time, against a bigger opponent, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy. The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly. Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. Out. Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. The other he said struggle, struggle. Ya, easy for you to say.

Desperately clutching his new white flags, his 9/11 white flags, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones, white flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. Now ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turns right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. Not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, and this is no time to stick out with white flags (or red, for that matter). He jumps out of the way, the horde passes brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy say, oh yes, struggle.

One more battle, one more, please one more, one fight against the greed tea party night. He chains himself, well not really chains, but more like ties himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief. Another guy does the same, except he uses some plastic hand-cuff-like stuff. A couple of women just stand there, hard against that ebony fence, can you believe it, just stand there. More, milling around, disorderly in a way, someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene is complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knows, knows for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora whom he needed to worry about, and that his child dream was a different thing altogether. But who, just a child, could have known that then.


Beatles, Class of 1964, counterculture, generation of '68, Rock and Roll, The Rolling Stones

The Night When The World Came Down Upon Peter Paul Markin’s Head-With Roy Lichtenstein’s 1968 Time Magazine Cover Of Bobby Kennedy In Mind

The Night When The World Came Down Upon Peter Paul Markin’s Head-With Roy Lichtenstein’s 1968 Time Magazine Cover Of Bobby Kennedy In Mind

By Bart Webber (with the ghost hand of Sam Lowell on his shoulder)

The ghost of the late sorely lamented Peter Paul Markin has hovered over this publication long after his early, too early demise back in the 1970s (and in its sister publications as well as a quick recent glance indicated starkly to me upon investigation). Maybe it because we have begun reaching a milestone, 50^th anniversary commemorations of various youth-defining events, maybe arbitrary, maybe as the late scientist Steven Jay Gould was fond of saying mere man-made constructs and no more but which has infested a number of us older writers some of who knew Markin personally and others who have been influenced by the hairy tales of his existence. (The younger writers mostly, as one told me, could give a fuck about an old junkie has been who didn’t have sense enough to not try some crazy scheme to get rich quick in the cocaine trade against the growing Columbian cartels so what could he expect.) Almost every event during this commemoration period had Markin’s imprint on it. (We always called him Scribe but I will stick with his surname here.)

Therefore it does not take much to flicker a flame if something going back to those days jumpstarts renewed thoughts of Markin. That happened one afternoon recently when Si Lannon was on assignment to do an article on the Cezanne Portraits exhibition at the National Gallery and as is his wont (and Sam Lowell’s too especially if Laura Perkins is along) he runs up to the National Portrait Gallery to see what is up there. Not much since the last time he was there except on a wall on the first floor under the title Remembrance there was Roy Lichtenstein’s famous Time magazine cover of Robert Kennedy done in the spring of 1968 shortly before his assassination in California after his primary victory over Eugene in June of that year. Si was so shaken by that picture that he immediately called me and I thereafter called a few other guys and the mere mention of that cover got us back to Markin square one.

See Markin, beyond being the guy who in our circle named the fresh breeze coming through the land for what would be called by others the Generation of ’68 and which we thanks to Markin we were card-carrying members was also far and away the most political of us all. Saw that any dreams of that newer world he was always hassling us about was going to require serious changes in the political winds. Moreover Markin had from I don’t remember how early on but as long as I had known him tied his fate to becoming some kind of politician, some kind of mover and shaker in that newer world. As for me I could have given a damn about politics then since I was starting up my printing business and, truth, was busy trying to get into my girlfriend’s pants. Not Markin though he had spent that whole spring working his ass off for Robert Kennedy, had gone up and down the East Coast trying to recruit resistant students not only to vote for Bobby but get out on the trail. That student resistance factored in by the fact that Bobby had not gotten into the presidential contest until after Lyndon Baines Johnson the sitting President and odds on favored in 1968 to win the election decided after the debacle of Vietnam, of Tet, not to run and the previously “Clean for Gene” crowd was reluctant to go with Bobby. Saw him as an interloper.       

Here is the beauty, maybe treachery now that I think about the matter, of that bloody bastard Markin before Lyndon blew himself up and Bobby entered the fray he was sitting on his freaking hands perfectly willing to      

give Johnson a pass as vile as Vietnam was against the expected contest against Richard Nixon. Didn’t think whatever lukewarm and ill-formed sympathy he had for McCarthy’s anti-war positions he could beat Nixon (or anybody else he once mentioned after the New Hampshire primary upended politics for good that year with McCarthy’s better than expected showing-wasn’t Bobby-like ruthless enough). Two minutes after Bobby announced he called up some Bobby operatives he knew from the Boston mayor’s fight in 1967 and was on his way.     

When Bobby went down I think, and this is only speculation on my part since I didn’t see him much after he went into the Army and then afterward headed out to California to start “a new life,” something went out of Markin, some sense that the whole thing had been a mirage and that he was doomed. He always thought of himself as doomed, spoke of it sometimes when he was depressed, or things were tough at home. So as the ghost of Bobby Kennedy showed up on that Lichtenstein cover know this the ghost of Markin is right there too.           

*The House Un-American Activities Blues- The 1950's Red Scare-Woody Allen's The Front

[In a recent introduction to this new series, a series based on short film reviews for films that deserve short reviews if not just a thumb’s up or down I noted that Allan Jackson, the deposed previous site manager, required his film reviewers to write endlessly about the film giving the material an almost cinema studies academic journal take on it. That caused a serious decline in the number of reviews over the years which I hope to make up with a flurry of snap reviews for busy people. To see in full why check the archives for November 28, 2018- Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Series Greg Green]

DVD REVIEW

The Front, starring Woody Allen and Zero Mostel, directed by Martin Ritt, 1976

The various blanket infringements on the rights of ordinary American citizens and others since the criminal actions by Islamic fundamentalists of 9/11 hardly represent the first time that the American government has seen fit to curtail those rights. The Palmer Raids roundup of reds, radicals and foreigners in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution at the tail end of World War I comes to mind. As done the subject of this film, the 'red scare' against communist and other labor radicals after World War II with the onset of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, a former ally. The name of this period narrowly is given in the history books as the McCarthy witch-hunt era, although that hardly dose justice to the widespread political paranoia, high and low, in America at that time. The signature event was the execution of the Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, for passing 'atomic secrets' to the Soviet Union. As this film points out as it unfolds that political perfect storm dragged in and ruined many people from many fields, probably none more publicized than in the entertainment industry, especially film and the emerging television medium.

Woody Allen has performed many roles over the year from nerdy romantic lead to nerdy neurotic New York intellectual and social commentator but this is one of the few roles of his where the subject matter is more than just fodder for his sardonic writing or comedic talents. The story line here is rather simple, if the politics are rather more complex. Woody, a bright but underachieving New York bar cashier Howard Prince, as a favor (and to get some much needed cash as well) to his blacklisted lefty childhood television writer friend (played by Michael Murphy) agrees to “front” for him. This means that said friend does the writing and Woody gets the credit, the cash and, off-handedly as is the case with many commercial productions, the girl. In short order Woody gets to like the notoriety and the new lifestyle and agrees to front for other blacklisted writers. Then the real trouble starts.

During the early 1950’s it was not enough to write sanitary material for the mass media (approved by outsiders with their own agendas), it was not enough to apologize to various Congressional committees and their cohorts for youthful, innocent and, frankly, acceptable leftist political beliefs in order to survive in the entertainment industry (the subject here but it could have been in the trade unions, educational field, governmental service or almost any other facet of American life at the time). One had to grovel and name names. And the bulk of those who were called before the committees or faced other types of pressure did do, with regret, with relish or with indifference. But they did it.


There is an incredibly poignant sub-theme that runs throughout this film that details the pressures in the career-shattering of one of the “recanters”, Hecky Brown (masterfully played by Zero Mostel, blacklisted in the 1950’s himself as was the director Martin Ritt and some of the others), who in the end gives up Woody to the committees- finks on him, in other words. However filled with remorse Hecky commits suicide. That was not common to be sure. Hell, those were desperate times and not everyone has the courage to say no. Woody’s character, in the convoluted, Allen way does just that. And pays the consequences. So in the end there were choices. For every Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Bentley and the like there was a Howard Fast, a Dashiell Hammett and the like who said no. As some recently released information has indicated the Rosenbergs paid the ultimate price for their refusal to name names. That, in the end is what this film is all about and that is what should be honored. Just say no.