Happy Birthday Townes-*In The Time Of My Country Music Moment- The Work Of Singer/Songwriter Townes Van Zandt-Early Townes

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Townes Van Zandt Doing His Song "Waitng Around To Die"

CD Review

Early Townes

Townes Van Zandt, Townes Van Zandt, Tomato Records,

The main points of this review have been used to review other Townes Van Zandt CDs.

Readers of this space are by now very aware that I am in search of and working my way through various types of American roots music. In shorthand, running through what others have termed "The American Songbook". Thus I have spent no little time going through the work of seemingly every musician who rates space in the august place. From blues giants, folk legends, classic rock `n' roll artists down through the second and third layers of those milieus out in the backwoods and small, hideaway music spots that dot the American musical landscape. I have also given a nod to more R&B, rockabilly and popular song artists then one reasonably need to know about. I have, however, other than the absolutely obligatory passing nods to the likes of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline spent very ink on more traditional Country music, what used to be called the Nashville sound. What gives?

Whatever my personal musical preferences there is no question that the country music work of, for example, the likes of George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette in earlier times or Garth Brooks and Faith Hill a little later or today Keith Urban and Taylor Swift (I am cheating on these last two since I do not know their work and had to ask someone about them) "speak" to vast audiences out in the heartland. They just, for a number of reasons that need not be gone into here, do not "speak" to me. However, in the interest of "full disclosure" I must admit today that I had a "country music moment" about thirty years ago. That was the time of the "outlaws" of the country music scene. You know, Waylon (Jennings) and Willie (Nelson). Also Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Jerry Jeff Walker. Country Outlaws, get it? Guys and gals ( think of Jesse Colter)who broke from the Nashville/ Grand Old Opry mold by drinking hard, smoking plenty of dope and generally raising the kind of hell that the pious guardians of the Country Music Hall Of Fame would have had heart attacks over (at least in public). Oh, and did I say they wrote lyrics that spoke of love and longing, trouble with their "old ladies" (or "old men"), and struggling to get through the day. Just an ordinary day's work in the music world but with their own outlandish twists on it.

All of the above is an extremely round about way to introduce the "max daddy" of my 'country music moment', Townes Van Zandt. For those who the name does not ring a bell perhaps his most famous work does, the much-covered "Pancho And Lefty". In some ways his personal biography exemplified the then "new outlaw" (assuming that Hank Williams and his gang were the original ones). Chronic childhood problems, including a stint in a mental hospital, drugs, drink, and some rather "politically incorrect" sexual attitudes. Nothing really new here, except out of this mix came some of the most haunting lyrics of longing, loneliness, depression, sadness and despair. And that is the "milder" stuff. Not exactly the stuff of Nashville. That is the point. The late Townes Van Zandt "spoke" to me (he died in 1997) in a way that Nashville never could. And, in the end, the other outlaws couldn't either. That, my friends, is the saga of my country moment. Listen up to any of the CDs listed below for the reason why Townes did.

Townes Van Zandt was, due to personal circumstances and the nature of the music industry, honored more highly among his fellow musicians than as an outright star of "outlaw" country music back in the day. That influence was felt through the sincerest form of flattery in the music industry- someone well known covering your song. Many of Townes' pieces, especially since his untimely death in 1997, have been covered by others, most famously Willie Nelson's cover of "Pancho and Lefty". However, Townes, whom I had seen a number of times in person in the late 1970's, was no mean performer of his own darkly compelling songs.

This compilation, “Townes Van Zandt”, gives both the novice a Van Zandt primer and the aficionado a fine array of his core early works in one place Start with “Don’t You Take It Too Bad”, work through the longing felt in “I’ll Be Here In The Morning”, and the pathos of “For The Sake Of The Song” that could serve as a personal Townes anthem. Then on to the sadness of “Columbine” and “Waiting’ Round To Die”. Finally, round things out with the slight hopefulness of “Colorado Girl” and the epic tragedy of “None But The Rain”. My special favorite here, as attested to by an old worn out LP album version of this CD is "(Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria". For sheer poetic lyrical form I do not think Townes did one better, the thing jumps with many apt metaphors. Many of these songs are not for the faint-hearted but are done from a place that I hope none of us have to go but can relate to nevertheless. This well thought out product is one that will make you too a Townes aficionado. A welcome addition are the copious liner notes that give some sense of his life, his work and his lyrics. Get to it.

In Honor Of Women’s History Month – Poet Jesse Baxter’s In Pharaoh Times

In Honor Of Women’s History Month – Poet Jesse Baxter’s In Pharaoh Times

In Pharaoh Times

Isis, daughter of Isis major, mother- wife-sister of the human sun god

Awoke, awoke with a start weary from brother couplings; and stray poppy laden abandoned copulations

Configurations only a deacon priest filled with signs and amulets could fathom, or some racked court astrologer

To face the stone-breaking day, a day filled to the brim, overflowing, with portents

Arisen, washed, fragranced, headed to the balcony to observe unseen and to be observed seen beneath the cloudless skies      

Out in the ocean sea of whirling sand, out in the endless chiseled stone sun blazing day; her sea visage on down heads, eyes averted

Hittites, Gilts, Samians, Cretans, Nubians, Babylonians all conquered all down heads and averted eyes

Out on the ocean see, a lone sable warrior defeated, defeated with down head and upward eye disturbed the blistering heat day

Isis, daughter of Isis major, mother-wife-sister-child of the human sun king    shrinks back in fear, fear time has come

That black will devour Nubian and rise, rise

Yes, rise in Pharaoh times       

Jesse Baxter had never been so angry in his black young life as he had been at his, well, let’s call her his lady friend, Louise Crawford, since he was not sure whether girlfriend in the intricate relationship networks of the1960s in quirky old Greenwich Village in the depths of trail-blazing New Jack City was an appropriate designation for their newly flowered relationship. Jesse a budding poet, a very hopeful poet who had just begun to get noticed in that rarified Village air had become one of Louise Crawford ‘s, ah, “conquests” on her way to tasting  all that the Bohemian night offered (not quite “beat,”  that had become passé by then and not quite “hip” as in hippie that would become the fashion later in the decade so bohemian, meaning out on the cultural outer edge, would do, would do as long as Jesse thought such a term was appropriate).

Jesse had seen Louise around the Village several times at the trendy art shows, upbeat coffeehouses beginning to emerge from “beat” poetry and jazz scenes to retro folk revival stuff, and at a few loft parties large enough to get lost in without having met everybody or anyone, if that was what one wanted. He had heard of her “exploits,” exploits tramping through the budding literati but had only become acquainted with Louise through her “old” lover, Jose, Jose Guzman, the surrealist-influenced painter who was beginning to make a splash for himself in the up and coming art galleries emerging over in nearby Soho. And either she had tired of him (possible) or he had tired of her (more probable since Jose was thrown off right from the beginning by her “bourgeois “command manner and her overweening need to seem like a white hipster under every circumstance although she was quote, Jose, quote, square, unquote but a good tumble, a very good tumble under the sheets) and so one night she had hit on Jesse at a coffeehouse where he was reading and that was that.

But enough of small talk and back to Jesse’s rage. At one up-scale party held on Riverside Drive among the culturati, or what passed for such in downtrodden New York,  as they had become an “item” Louise had introduced Jesse as the “greatest Negro poet since Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.” Jesse was not put off by the comparison with the great Hughes, no way, he accepted that designation with a certain sense of honor, although qualified a bit by the different rhythm that motivated Langston’s words, be-bop jazz, and his own Bo Diddley /Chuck Berry-etched  “child of rock and roll” beat running in his head. What he was put off by was that “negro”  designation, a term of derision just then in his universe as young blacks, especially young black men, were moving away from the negro Doctor King thing and toward that Malcolm freedom term, black, black as night, black is beautiful. Jesus, hadn’t she read his To Malcolm –Black Warrior Prince. (Apparently one of the virtues of tramping through the literati was an understanding that there was no actual need to read, look, hear, anything that your new “conquest” had written, drawn or sung. In the case of Louise she had made something of an art form out of that fact once confessing to Jesse that she had only actually read (and re-read) his Louise Love In Quiet Time written by him after some silly spat since she was the subject. His other work she had somebody summarize for her. Jesus, again.)  

And it was not like Louise Crawford, yes, that Crawford, the scion-ess [sic] of the Wall Street Crawfords who had (have) been piling up dough and gouging profits since the start of the republic, was not attuned to the changes going on underneath bourgeois society just then but was her way to “own” him, own him like in olden times. While he was too much the gentile son of W.E.B. Dubois’ “talented tenth” (his parents both school teachers down in hometown Trenton who however needed to scrimp and safe to put him through Howard University) to make a scene at that party latter in the cab home to her place in the Village (as the well-tipped taxi driver could testify to, if necessary) Jesse lashed into her with all the fury a budding poet and belittled black man could muster. In short, he would not be “owned” by some white bread women who was just “cruising” the cultural and ethnic out-riggings before going back to marry some son of some sorry family friend stockbroker and live on Riverside Drive and summer in the Hamptons and all the rest while he struggled to create his words, his black soul-saturated words.

The harangue continued up into her loft and then Jesse ran out of steam a little (he had had a little too much of high-shelf liquors and of hits on the bong pipe to last forever in that state). Louise called for a truce, said she was sorry, sorry for being a square, and called him to her bed, pretty please to her bed. He, between the buzz in his head from the stimulants and the realization that she was good in bed, if nothing else, followed. And that night they made those sheets sweat with their juices. After they were depleted Jesse thought to himself that Louise might be just slumming but he would take a ticket and stay for the ride and felt asleep. Louise on the other hand, got up and went to the window to look out at her city, lit a cigarette and pondered some of Jesse’s words, pondered them for a while and got just a little bit fearful for her future as she would back to her bed and lay down next to the sleeping Jesse.

 Later when he awakened just before dawn Jesse wrote his edgy poem In Pharaoh Times partially to contain the edges of his left-over rage and partially to take his distance from a daughter of Isis…

And hence this Women’s History Month contribution.                      

In Honor Of The 98th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take One -In The Time Of His Time

In Honor Of The 98th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take One -In The Time Of His Time

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Billy Casey woke up in a sweat that early March 1919 night, woke up in a once again sweat that he had earned from his experiences as a doughboy, an American doughboy in France now furloughed home to New York City, awaiting medical discharge from that mustard gas explosion that harried his breathe ever since. Yes, he had had it rough overseas, had seen some stuff and done some stuff he didn’t want to repeat to anybody, stuff that frankly no man should be forced to do making him remain silent when asked, and which he believed, or he came to believe, no man would do even to an animal. He had put some of that behind him but still a little corner would flare up on nights when he was excited and he was excited this night and had been for the past few nights about big doings in Moscow coming up in a few days (or since he wasn’t sure of the dates of the conference, except early March, maybe had already occurred), about creating a new organization, a new international organization that would “speak” Russian to the bosses, all the bosses, everywhere, to working people together right the wrongs of this wicked old world. 

See, Bill Casey had gotten “religion,”  no not catholicprotestantjewishmuslim religion but the good word-the socialist word , the word that all workingmen, and Bill Casey was nothing if not a working man, were brothers and that the robbers of the world were the only ones who had benefited from the damn war “to end all wars” over in Europe.  And Bill had the destroyed lungs to prove it was not him who had benefited. This new language had been taught to him by a fellow soldier, a fellow doughboy, Tim Ryan, who had belonged to the American Socialist Party before the war, before he passed away from failed lungs in that French convalescent home Bill was assigned before coming back to America. So when Bill got back to New York the first thing, well maybe not the first, the first being to roll the pillows with his long-suffering girlfriend, Rosie, also nothing if not a daughter of the working class, he marched down to the American Socialist Party office in Greenwich Village (that is where his deceased comrade told him to go since that is where he had been a member) and joined right up.   

Now Bill Casey had never been much for the books, and the materials that he received from the local secretary when he paid his dues and received his membership card seemed a lot more convoluted that the way his hospital pal explained it, but he plugged at it for a while, and that along with the weekly lectures helped him along. And he was going to be in full need of that knowledge because he had landed on his socialist arse (his expression) right at a time when the whole socialist movement was in turmoil. And the big event was the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fall-out from that event. See Bill’s pal had only known the American Socialist Party before that revolution, and since most of the party had been anti-war before his pal joined up to fight he didn’t know the stuff that was going on between the different factions-basically to stick with the Socialist (also known as the the Second) International or go with the new one, the one that said that the old one was done for and a new Communist International had to be formed to fight for revolutions everywhere. Heady stuff. Stuff to make Bill sweat in anticipation.

And that is where the martyred James Connolly, Bill’s hero from the Easter 1916 uprising in Dublin and a man who had been executed by the bloody British for his part in it, came into it. Or kind of came into it. See the fight over who were the real revolutionaries, the Europeans or the Russians, basically was hard to figure. That is when he met a guy, an Irish guy, a comrade, from one of the factions, Jim Cannon, who put him straight, who told him that if he wanted to get back for that dirty deal he received in France by his own government he had to go with the Russian Bolsheviks and the new international they were trying to form. And Bill Casey respected Jim Cannon, respected the big heavy-drinking Irishman from out in the sticks of Kansas and so he cast his fate with Jim and his communist brethren. And you know what else Jim said to him- he, Bill Casey,  should say at meetings and out on the Union Square and Village soapboxes to one and all what he saw and did in France so people would know, know better the next time the government tried to stuff a war down their throats. Bill Casey didn’t know if he could so that, could avoid some tough night sweats thinking about doing it, but he thought if it stopped some young guy from joining up maybe he would at that…   

Big Bill Haywood-Working Class Warrior

Big Bill Haywood-Working Class Warrior

Book Review

Big Bill Haywood, Melvyn Dubofsky, Manchester University Press, Manchester England, 1987

If you are sitting around today wondering, as I occasionally do, what a modern day radical labor leader should look like then one need go no further than to observe the career, warts and all, of the legendary Bill Haywood. To previous generations of radicals that name would draw an automatic response. Today’s radicals, and others interested in social solutions to the pressing problems that have been bestowed on us by the continuation of the capitalist mode of production, may not be familiar with the man and his program for working class power. Professor Dubofsky’s little biographical sketch is thus just the cure for those who need a primer on this hero of the working class.

The good professor goes into some detail, despite limited accessablity, about Haywood’s early life out in the Western United States in the late 19th century. Those hard scrabble experiences made a huge imprint on the young Haywood as he tramped from mining camp to mining camp and tried to make ends mean, any way he could. Haywood, moreover, is the perfect example of the fact that working class political consciousness is not innate but gained through the hard experiences of life under the capitalist system. Thus, Haywood moved from itinerant miner to become a leading member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and moved leftward along the political spectrum along the way. Not a small part in that was due to his trial on trumped up charges in Idaho for murder as part of a labor crack down against the WFM by the mine owners and their political allies there.

As virtually all working class militants did at the turn of the 20th century, Big Bill became involved with the early American socialist movement and followed the lead of the sainted Eugene V. Debs. As part of the ferment of labor agitation during this period the organization that Haywood is most closely associated with was formed-The Industrial Workers of the World (hereafter IWW, also known as Wobblies). This organization- part union, part political party- was the most radical expression (far more radical than the rather tepid socialist organizations) of the American labor movement in the period before World War I.

The bulk of Professor Dubofsky’s book centers, as it should, on Haywood’s exploits as a leader of the IWW. Big Bill’s ups and downs mirrored the ups and downs of the organization. The professor goes into the various labor fights that Haywood led highlighted by the great 1912 Lawrence strike (of bread and roses fame), the various free speech fights but also the draconian Wilsonian policy toward the IWW after America declared war in 1917. That governmental policy essentially crushed the IWW as a mass working class organization. Moreover, as a leader Haywood personally felt the full wrath of the capitalist government. Facing extended jail time Haywood eventually fled to the young Soviet republic where he died in lonely exile in 1928.

The professor adequately tackles the problem of the political and moral consequences of that escape to Russia for the IWW and to his still imprisoned comrades so I will not address it here. However, there are two points noted by Dubofsky that warrant comment. First, he notes that Big Bill was a first rate organizer in both the WFM and the IWW. Those of us who are Marxists sometimes tend to place more emphasis of the fact that labor leaders need to be “tribunes of the people” that we sometimes neglect the important “trade union secretary” part of the formula. Haywood seems to have had it all. Secondly, Haywood’s and the IWW’s experience with government repression during World War I, repeated in the “Red Scare” experience of the 1950’s against Communists and then later against the Black Panthers in the 1960’s should be etched into the brain of every militant today. When the deal goes down the capitalists and their hangers-on will do anything to keep their system. Anything. That said, read this Haywood primer. It is an important contribution to the study of American labor history.

*Writer's Corner- Jean Genet's "Our Lady Of The Flowers"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the French writer and playwright Jean Genet's first novel, "Our Lady Of The Flowers".

Book Review

Our Lady Of The Flowers, Jean Genet, 1943

Recently, in reviewing the texts for some of the plays by French writer and playwright, Jean Genet, I wrote the following first two paragraphs that apply to an appreciation of his first novel, “Our Lady Of The Flowers”, as well:

“There was a time when I would read anything the playwright Jean Genet wrote, especially his plays. The reason? Well, for one thing, the political thing that has been the core of my existence since I was a kid, his relationship to the Black Panthers when they were being systematically lionized by the international white left as the “real” revolutionaries and systematically liquidated by the American state police apparatus that was hell-bend on putting every young black man with a black beret behind bars, or better, as with Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and long list of others, dead. Genet, as his somewhat autobiographical “Our Lady Of The Flowers” details came from deep within a white, French version of that same lumpen “street” milieu from which the Panthers were recruiting. Thus, kindred spirits.

That kindred “street” smart relationship, of course, was like catnip for a kid like me who came from that same American societal intersection, the place where the white lumpen thug elements meet the working poor. I knew the American prototype of Jean Genet, up close and personal, except, perhaps, for his own well-publicized homosexuality and that of others among the dock-side toughs that he hung around with. So I was ready for a literary man who was no stranger to life’s seamy side. His play “The Maids” was the first one I grabbed (and I believe the first of his plays that I saw performed).”

I also noted in a review of “The Maids” that, fortunately, by the time that I got around to reading (and seeing) then such seemingly avant-garde material I had shed my prissy Catholic ignorance about the great varieties of human sexual expression, for good and evil. Especially about the overt homosexuality and masturbatory fantasies that dominate the story line, a plot, moreover, set in prison and concerning the French version of those lumpen elements, from the Parisian streets and waterfront, that I mentioned above that I grew up around in the 1950s. This reading is not for everyone, as literature or as prod to sexual fantasy, but it certainly is in the great French tradition of literature down at the base of society. And certainly a kindred spirit to Celine’s novelistic approach. The problem for us is, as the short-loved Paris Commune of 1871 found out, this lumpen social layer, this human dust form the “shock troops” for the reaction when society slides into a revolutionary period. For now though, read this.

Your monthly guide to the political revolution-from Our Revolution

Your monthly guide to the political revolution

March 2019 Membership Newsletter

March 2019 Membership Newsletter "Never doubt what a conscience-minded people can do to make what is upside down, upright."⁣⁣ - Senator Nina Turner

Bernie's running! Your support has given this movement the most important head start we could hope for: an organized grassroots army spanning the country and ready for action. You are helping us build direct outreach programs for phone banking, texting, and door knocking, one-on-one trainings with group leaders and volunteers, and event hosting guides for anyone and everyone interested in hosting an event.

Our Revolution President Nina Turner selected as one of the Bernie 2020 Campaign Co-Chairs Following the launch of Sen. Bernie Sanders' second presidential campaign, Sen. Nina Turner announced that she will be taking a leave of absence from serving as president of Our Revolution. Sen. Turner will serve as campaign co-chair for the Sanders campaign. During the leave of absence, Sen. Turner will remain on Our Revolution's board of Directors. Under the leadership of Sen. Turner, Our Revolution has grown to over 600 local groups in all 50 states and nine countries. From Medicare for All to immigration reform to a $15 minimum wage, Our Revolution is organizing in support of many of the issues that Sen. Sanders ran on and endorsing candidates committed to enacting progressive policies in their communities.

Bernie 2020 Tabling Guide Check out our brand new Bernie 2020 Tabling Guide! Our Revolution staff members and volunteers have collaborated to develop this guide so that any local group, no matter how big or small, can start spreading the word about Bernie 2020 right in their communities.

Our Revolution Local Groups Organize for Medicare for All The Our Revolution Texting Team texted in preparation for the Medicare for All Week of Action, driving attendance to local barnstorms and phone calls to Congress. In partnership with a coalition spearheaded by National Nurses United, we are hosting close to a thousand local actions across the country in the coming weeks. Thanks to your hard work, Rep. Jayapal introduced her bill with 107 co-sponsors. Let's keep working to make sure this bill gets passed. Click here to find a Medicare for All barnstorm near you!

Our Revolution President Nina Turner and Board Member Jim Hightower Rally with Our Revolution Texas Senator Nina Turner was met with great enthusiasm and energy from Our Revolution Texas. She traveled across Houston and Dallas with Board Member Jim Hightower, met many fine political revolutionaries, and participated in the beginnings of a great Bernie Blue wave forming in Texas.

Our Revolution Membership Call featuring Michael Render, professionally known as Killer Mike Click here to listen to our monthly membership call featuring Our Revolution President Sen. Nina Turner and activist, recording artist, and actor Michael Render (pka Killer Mike) for a discussion on the origins and importance of Black History Month and the ongoing struggle for racial justice in America. Sen. Turner also discusses Bernie 2020 and how we can get involved!

Our Revolution's Texting Team storms Georgia Our Revolution Georgia Group Leader Krupesh is a part of the national texting team. Krupesh is a group leader for Grassroots Gwinnett, Our Revolution Georgia & is part of the national texting team. He took a break from reaching out to voters in his community to early vote! Also featured above is a real conversation he had with a supporter letting them know about the upcoming election and where to vote. Get Out the Vote efforts make all the difference in local races and the Our Revolution national texting team has sent out over 3,000 Get Out the Vote texts for the MARTA Referendum in Gwinnett County, GA. Click here to join the Our Revolution Texting Team!

Our Revolution in the Bay Area Our Revolution's political director David Duhalde and full-stack web developer Eric Broder met with more than 50 members of Our Revolution East Bay, Our Revolution Contra Costa, SF Berniecrats, and Richmond Progressive Alliance to discuss the months ahead in the fight for a more equitable and just society.

Our Revolution Somerville Stands with Royal Hospitality Services Workers In Sommerville, Massachusetts, due to the Green Line extension, Royal Hospitality Services may close in a few years, displacing more than 350 jobs in Union Sq. More than half the workers live in Somerville, many within walking distance of the plant. Somerville Stands Together is supporting a campaign to find a new home for the company in Somerville. Our Revolution Somerville members attended the Somerville City Council Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 11, where several workers from Royal Hospitality testified with support from co-workers who are members of UFCW Local 1445.

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From The Archives- Honor Captain John Brown Late Of Harpers Ferry-Revolutionary Slavery Abolitionist

From The Archives- Honor Captain John Brown Late Of Harpers Ferry-Revolutionary Slavery Abolitionist 

Saturday March 2-Bernie’s about to take the stage at our FIRST event BernieSanders.com

Bernie’s about to take the stage at our FIRST event

BernieSanders.com<info@berniesanders.com>

3/2/2019 12:15 PM

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Hey alfred -

Right now we’re in Brooklyn where Bernie is about to kick off the first official event of the campaign, and the energy in the crowd is incredible.

Take a look, and then tune in to watch the livestream of the event. Bernie will be getting on stage soon.

Together we're not only showing Trump and the billionaire class what they're up against – we're building the movement that will defeat them in 2020.

Tune in to the livestream now to watch Bernie officially kick off our campaign and talk about what’s next for our movement.

Today is a big day for our campaign. Thank you for being a part of it.

In solidarity,

Team Bernie

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