***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- With The Dubs Could This Be Magic In Mind- Jenny Dolan Speaks Her Mind, Circa 1962

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- With The Dubs Could This Be Magic In Mind- Jenny Dolan Speaks Her Mind, Circa 1962

By Si Lannon

[Some of the stories from the old Acre working-class neighborhood in deathless North Adamsville by some of the original “present at the creation” older writers which former site manager Allan Jackson (a former Acre denizen himself) let them do as they pleased seem worthy of an additional presentation. What Allan called an encore presentation when he did a re-run of a rock and roll series based on these same Acre corner boy experiences. With this proviso that I do some introductions and some updating if necessary.

I should point out that I am not of that Acre corner older boy generation which came of age in the 1960s (I came of age with guys like writers here Zack James and Lance Lawrence about a decade later although Zack’s oldest brother Alex had spoon-fed Zack on stories of the old days in their Acre neighborhood). Thus on some occasions when I reviewed these stories they set my teeth on edge since I came up in a fairly rich family in New York and had never brushed shoulders with poverty, with what that meant and never either had anything but a storybook knowledge of corner boy life except I steered very clear of the town toughs in Croton-on-Hudson where I grew up).

That said some stories are eternal like the one here where anybody, certainly any young woman, any high school young woman could relate to Jenny Dolan’s longings for some boy who seemingly didn’t know she existed-or so she thought. I personally never had a girl that was all that determined to get my attention, but I sure wish I had. When I asked Seth Garth what he knew about the Jenny Dolan-John O’Connor romance which sparked this remembrance he froze, froze in his tracks at the name. When he defrosted, he told me that he had had a crush, a very 1960s word from what I can gather on that same Jenny Nolan and even fifty years later he wished she had given him the looks she saved for her John. So Jenny’s story has the ring of truth to it although in my neighborhood no self-respecting guy, certainly no football player would expose himself to comradely ridicule by letting a girl sit on his lap and dare him to put her off.     

One of the things that I am interested in is what happened to the parties involved in these stories, if that is known. In this case, strangely, according to Si Lannon who wrote the original story after seeing Jenny at the 50^th anniversary class reunion and she gave him the details of the tryst she had with Johnny that Chrissie McNamara who was supposedly Jenny’s friend stole Johnny away from Jenny in senior year. The strange part is that Johnny and Chrissie, Mr. and Mrs. Toyota of Eastern Massachusetts to let you know their fates, are still married while Jenny, has been married four times and confided in Si that she never got over that “theft” of Johnny by Chrissie although she held no animosities. What she did say was that she thought he multiple marriages were a fruitless search for another Johnny or failure to keep Johnny, take your choice. Such is life. Greg Green]      

A YouTube film clip of The Dubs performing the classic, Could This Be Magic.

THE DUBS


"Could This Be Magic"

Could this be magic
My dear
My heart's all aglow
Could this be magic
Loving you so

Could this be magic
My dear
Having your love
My prayers were answered
So far from above

I thought it would be
Just a memory
To linger my heart in pain
But too much pride
I opened up my eyes
And I'm with you dear once again

Could this be magic
My dear
Having your love
If this is magic
Then magic is mine
Could this be magic
Then magic is mine

Jenny Dolan speaks from out of the 1960s night:

I suppose everybody in America knows, knows by heart now, that John O’Connor and I, Jenny Dolan, are an “item.” The poster boy and girl sweethearts of North Adamsville High according to one piece of gossip that I heard, or overheard, Joanne Doyle saying sarcastically in the girls’ lav at school one Monday morning when she was giving her weekend round-up report to all who would listen. What I couldn’t spread around about her and her lover boy, Frankie, but that was old Jenny, old miserable Jennie, before I got my John, and got him good. Of course, Joanne only retells what the pizza pie in your eye corner boy king, so-called, Frankie, Frankie Riley if you are one of the about three people in the Class of 1964 who doesn’t know him, has already started spreading around. The gist of tale is that he has lost his ace-in-the-hole (really just his bodyguard for when he makes the wrong move, Joanne Doyle not around wrong move, on some real tough guy's girl), Jumping John O’Connor (although I am putting a stop to calling him that name, and fast) to a frill (that’s me, or that’s me when Frankie does his 28 flavors of disrespect to girls thing, except to no-nonsense mistress Joanne, by calling them frills, molls, frails and everything else that he has picked up from watching too many 1930s gangster films, and reading too many Raymond Chandler crime novels). See John and Frankie go back to first grade together over at North Adamsville Elementary and somehow Frankie thought that was enough to keep the “twists” (girls again) at a distance so John could be his full-time “body-guard.”

And if Frankie hasn’t spread the news around about John and me then Peter Paul Markin, clueless Peter Paul when it comes to knowing anything about girls (and girls and guys who get together for more fun, Saturday night fun, than just some silly reading books at the library, or going to a debate about whether Red China should, or shouldn’t be admitted to the United Nations, or stuff like that) will, once Frankie unleashes him to spread it around. Now everybody respects Peter Paul for his knowledge, for his devotion to learning more about stuff, and for sticking up for the, as he calls them, the “fellow down-trodden” of the earth but he has been strictly blind-sided by Frankie ever since he came to North Adamsville. When I was lonely (lonely for my John, if you want to know) I went out with Peter Paul, once, but no thanks. So between Joanne (really Frankie), Frankie (really Joanne) and Peter Paul (really Frankie, and maybe Joanne) you’ve probably got the story all wrong. Like the why behind why John and I did not get together until just now, although we were made for each other and that’s the truth and has been the truth for a long time.

Let me tell the story, my side, and see if it is anything like you heard from Frankie, or Peter Paul. Although now that I think about it if you got it from Peter Paul then you haven’t finished reading the treatise on the subject of John O’Connor and Jennifer Dolan yet and I can save you some time and save your eyes too. See back in sixth grade when I was just starting to get a little shape but was still really just a “stick” I went to Chrissie McNamara’s twelfth birthday party. Now Chrissie and I had been friends for ages so I expected to be at the party but what really got my girl temperature up was that John was going to be there.

Now John was good-looking even then, kind of quiet, a good all-around athlete (a great football player-in-the-making even then, even then in little Pop Warner League), and, I think, shy around girls but I had eyes for him. Big eyes, and not just twelve- year old big eyes, but going way back to first communion at Sacred Heart where we were boy white suit and girl white dress paired together to walk down to the communion rail and I had to calm him down because he was scared of the idea of eating the wafer, the body and blood of Christ. No, I was not every day in every way crushed up on him but crushed up somewhere deep inside since then. In sixth grade time though when I started getting my shape a little, you know, I couldn’t keep from thinking of him. So at Chrissie’s party I was flying high in expectation. I had my best dress on, had taken a long soapy bath, and worn some of my mother’s perfume (don’t tell her, okay). And I wasn’t disappointed because he asked me to dance, dance close, dance airless close. I almost kissed him then, but I waited until the lights went out that signaled the time for some “petting” games to start and then ran over to the sofa and planted the biggest, hardest kiss I could on him. Boy, did I have my signals crossed because he pushed me aside (not hard but definitely aside) and ran out of the house. That’s how he got the name Jumping John O’Connor once Frankie got the story out. He hated the name, and I did too.

After that I didn’t run into him enough to get nervous because at school we were in different classes and, obviously, I wasn’t hanging around shabby, two-bit, greasy pizza parlors wasting my good time and energy listening to Frankie (and his lap dog, Peter Paul) play his lordship and chamberlain. Besides Joanne, Joanne Doyle, Frankie’s plain jane, so-called girlfriend, and I never got along ever since I told her that Frankie was calling me up on the telephone anytime they had a “misunderstanding.” She flat-out didn’t believe me but ask Peter Paul, he knows, he knows everything about Frankie Riley and his “love” life.

This year though, sophomore year, John and I have our daily last period study class together and a couple weeks into the class I noticed that he kept looking (for a second anyway) in my direction. More than once. And I started looking in his direction (for a second anyway, and more than once). As we found out later everybody in the class, including the study class monitor, Miss Wilmot, the old dyke, knew we were “making eyes” at each other. Except, of course, maybe Peter Paul who was also in the study hall down front and reading. Still, naturally, that will not stop him from claiming in his treatise that he was the key to introducing John and me.

Believe me I didn’t know what to do at first. I was “gun-shy” from that sixth- grade fiasco party so I was afraid to think that he might be interested in me. But, and I admit it, I was miserable, and had been pretty miserable since John’s rebuff that Chrissie’s party night, even though I went out with lots of boys. Then one day I figured out (and talked to Chrissie about it, and she agreed) that John, shy, quiet John wasn’t going to do anything about me unless I started the ball rolling. And here is what I figured out to do (on my own, no Chrissie help). I was going to go into the lion’s den, the holy of holies, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor where Frankie and his boys, including John, hung out a lot and just flop myself in John’s lap and dare him, no double- dare him, to throw me off in a public place. And I was going to do it too, once I got my courage up, or was miserable enough to try anything.

Well, one Friday night, one October Friday night, a few weeks ago I got so miserable at home that I decided to go for broke. I walked up the Downs and entered Salducci’s, fearful, very fearful, but then I saw John sitting on the outside of the booth with the boys (Frankie, Peter Paul, Fingers Kelly, John and a couple of other denizens) and saw my chance. I quickly walked over and flopped myself on John lap. And you know what he said. “I’m sorry” as he gently, very gently, broke my fall with his strong arms. My heart went crazy with fear. I thought that I had once again misinterpreted his looks at me in study class just like at the party and started to get up. But as I started to get up John held me close, held me close like maybe it was going to take the whole football team, both offense and defense, and scrubs and water boys thrown in, to get me off his lap before he finished his red-faced say.

And this is what he said and said in a way that he had been thinking about it for a while. “I’m sorry, real sorry, that I pushed you away at Chrissie’s birthday party and ran out and never apologized. I just didn’t know what to do then.” And he added, “Will you forgive me?” Frankie and the boys were flabbergasted but John, red-faced and all, maybe more so after saying his piece, held his ground. I wanted to say all kinds of witty, smart things but all I could blurt out was, “yes.” I started to get up but he would not let me up (and truthfully I wasn’t trying very hard anyway) until he asked to walk me home. You know the answer so I will not be coy. As we walked and talked it seemed like an instant until we got to my house. The lights were out but John said he wanted to talk a little, and we did, boy and girl things that you don’t need to know about. And while we were talking, he reached out and held my hand. And I got all red-faced, especially when every once in a while, he would loosen up his grip and then gently squeeze my hand again like he was afraid to let go. And I was afraid to let him let it go. I will tell you that night, I swear, John could have done anything he wanted with me, anything, but we just held hands, tight hands. Okay, you have the story straight now.

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

A link to a WBUR (NPR) "Morning Edition" report on the installation of Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros work of art after a long absence.     

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/01/10/mfa-siqueiros-painting

By Frank Jackman

We live in weird times. Not just the Age of Trump madness which is getting a bit tiresome although Donald J. represents the best possible “recruiting sergeant” of our side, for the left possible (hell maybe even for the middling muddle and rational right too). No today in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes committed by Hollywood power broker, Washington wizard fixer men fisting power, media stars tumbling to stuff twelve year olds would think twice about, and don’t forget a few guys next door who can take the fall too although it will not reach the 24/7/365 news cycle I want to mention, once again, the dilemma of trying to separate out, if that is even possible, the horrible actions and crimes of these creative types and their works.     

What got me going on this question was a recent revelation by actress Tippi Hendron who starred in one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classis suspense films The Birds that he relentlessly pursued her against her very strong wishes to the contrary. Worse he basically ruined her future promising career by using his authority as a great film director to bad-mouth her in the film industry when she wouldn’t respond to his brutish behavior. That brought the vexing question to a head. It still has not been fully answered as yet but for myself I have a diminished regard for Sir Alfred’s work when I have to think about reviewing anything of his as I did recently with a review of his classic The 39 Steps.

Now comes another version of that same question although it does not involve sexual harassment or crimes but the more serious one of political assassination. As the link above indicates the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is after a long absence displaying a major work by Mexican muralist and political activist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Fair enough as far as it goes. Although the MFA representative gusted forth about Siqueiros’ combination of artistic mastery and left-wing political activist she left out one little point. David Alfaro Siqueiros led a group of political thugs on the compound of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico and attempted, and failed, to murder that world-historic figure. Although not for trying it was only a miracle he was not murdered then.      

Now we all know of the checkered careers of all kinds of culturati-bandits from Villon to Bellini to modern day and we cherish some of their cultural achievements but even if we recognize, and we should at some level, the great artistry of Siqueiros can we really sweep his criminal political activity under the rug. Or ignore it as the MFA representative did. Shame on her.   

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

A link to a WBUR (NPR) "Morning Edition" report on the installation of Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros work of art after a long absence.     

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/01/10/mfa-siqueiros-painting

By Frank Jackman

We live in weird times. Not just the Age of Trump madness which is getting a bit tiresome although Donald J. represents the best possible “recruiting sergeant” of our side, for the left possible (hell maybe even for the middling muddle and rational right too). No today in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes committed by Hollywood power broker, Washington wizard fixer men fisting power, media stars tumbling to stuff twelve year olds would think twice about, and don’t forget a few guys next door who can take the fall too although it will not reach the 24/7/365 news cycle I want to mention, once again, the dilemma of trying to separate out, if that is even possible, the horrible actions and crimes of these creative types and their works.     

What got me going on this question was a recent revelation by actress Tippi Hendron who starred in one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classis suspense films The Birds that he relentlessly pursued her against her very strong wishes to the contrary. Worse he basically ruined her future promising career by using his authority as a great film director to bad-mouth her in the film industry when she wouldn’t respond to his brutish behavior. That brought the vexing question to a head. It still has not been fully answered as yet but for myself I have a diminished regard for Sir Alfred’s work when I have to think about reviewing anything of his as I did recently with a review of his classic The 39 Steps.

Now comes another version of that same question although it does not involve sexual harassment or crimes but the more serious one of political assassination. As the link above indicates the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is after a long absence displaying a major work by Mexican muralist and political activist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Fair enough as far as it goes. Although the MFA representative gusted forth about Siqueiros’ combination of artistic mastery and left-wing political activist she left out one little point. David Alfaro Siqueiros led a group of political thugs on the compound of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico and attempted, and failed, to murder that world-historic figure. Although not for trying it was only a miracle he was not murdered then.      

Now we all know of the checkered careers of all kinds of culturati-bandits from Villon to Bellini to modern day and we cherish some of their cultural achievements but even if we recognize, and we should at some level, the great artistry of Siqueiros can we really sweep his criminal political activity under the rug. Or ignore it as the MFA representative did. Shame on her.   

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

The Vagaries Of Art At The Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston -The Mexican Muralist And Political Assassin David Alfaro Siqueiros

A link to a WBUR (NPR) "Morning Edition" report on the installation of Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros work of art after a long absence.     

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/01/10/mfa-siqueiros-painting

By Frank Jackman

We live in weird times. Not just the Age of Trump madness which is getting a bit tiresome although Donald J. represents the best possible “recruiting sergeant” of our side, for the left possible (hell maybe even for the middling muddle and rational right too). No today in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes committed by Hollywood power broker, Washington wizard fixer men fisting power, media stars tumbling to stuff twelve year olds would think twice about, and don’t forget a few guys next door who can take the fall too although it will not reach the 24/7/365 news cycle I want to mention, once again, the dilemma of trying to separate out, if that is even possible, the horrible actions and crimes of these creative types and their works.     

What got me going on this question was a recent revelation by actress Tippi Hendron who starred in one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s classis suspense films The Birds that he relentlessly pursued her against her very strong wishes to the contrary. Worse he basically ruined her future promising career by using his authority as a great film director to bad-mouth her in the film industry when she wouldn’t respond to his brutish behavior. That brought the vexing question to a head. It still has not been fully answered as yet but for myself I have a diminished regard for Sir Alfred’s work when I have to think about reviewing anything of his as I did recently with a review of his classic The 39 Steps.

Now comes another version of that same question although it does not involve sexual harassment or crimes but the more serious one of political assassination. As the link above indicates the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is after a long absence displaying a major work by Mexican muralist and political activist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Fair enough as far as it goes. Although the MFA representative gusted forth about Siqueiros’ combination of artistic mastery and left-wing political activist she left out one little point. David Alfaro Siqueiros led a group of political thugs on the compound of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico and attempted, and failed, to murder that world-historic figure. Although not for trying it was only a miracle he was not murdered then.      

Now we all know of the checkered careers of all kinds of culturati-bandits from Villon to Bellini to modern day and we cherish some of their cultural achievements but even if we recognize, and we should at some level, the great artistry of Siqueiros can we really sweep his criminal political activity under the rug. Or ignore it as the MFA representative did. Shame on her.   

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up- Sean Connery’s “You Only Live Twice” (1967)-A Film Review

Will The Real Bond, James Bond Stand Up- Sean Connery’s “You Only Live Twice” (1967)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon  

I am not sure what to say right now after reading Leslie Dumont’s scathing polemic cum review of one in the apparently never-ending series of James Bond films which new manager Greg Green went out of his way to have her write even though young Alden Riley and I have been running the rack on this series. The film, Tomorrow Never Dies with the lovely delicious Pierce Brosnan going through the paces of the legendary indestructible MI6 agent in the 1990s. That “apparently never-ending” no joke despite the fact that the original creator of the character Ian Fleming has long passed the shades (they were diddling with the plots when he was alive in any case including on the film I will attempt to review). James Bond, although I am not sure either party will like the comparison, now joins Bob Dylan in the never-ending category (for concerts still performed and Bootleg CD series never finished).

All of that though is not the beef today since Leslie whom I knew for a short time when she was a stringer for the American Film Gazette after she left her stringer job on this site and before she finally, finally landed a by-line at New York Today has thrown down the gauntlet. Leslie in that review of hers took on the whole James Bond male chauvinism bullshit mystique. (Although the fact that he is never really scratched despite an armada of weaponry thrown his way by every bad ass in the world, male or female, apparently does not bother her or the not so veiled battles between the good British Empire and the heathen commies of whatever designation.) But what has me in dither is that she went after the little pseudo-battle that Alden Riley, the former Associate Film Critic under the previous management and I, the former Senior Film Critic under that same management about who was the epitome of the James Bond character. When the deal went down it came down to two contestants-subtly handsome Connery or pretty boy Brosnan. She took us apart for not dwelling on the obvious 1950s sense of the male-female relationship. Seemingly the woman that I knew, even if slightly, with the wicked sense of irony has ditched that persona for the crusading third-wave feminist.

And Leslie might be right. No, not right about Alden and my little fisticuff but in light of the sexual harassment and sexual crimes of Harvey Weinstein and a now long trial of powerful Hollywood power brokers, Washington heavies, media hotshots, and hell the guys next door against women maybe this is a time to shed some light on the way business was done in the old days. Maybe the way the female eye candy in the various Bond films are portrayed aids and abets those real life situations but I believe that is Leslie’s place to speak about. And she did.

Look I have spent a zillion years doing freaking film reviews here and at American Film Gazette (according to the new site manager here Greg Green who also came over from that publication it has racked up forty thousand plus reviews in its long hard copy and on-line history). The angle I was looking at, Alden too except he wanted to look at it from the view of the more recent Bond films, was in the context of the silly plotlines, the improbable escapes and the silly concept of sexual allure developed in those films. It would have been false, and maybe that is wrong but that is the way it comes down, for me, Alden can speak for himself, if I started going on and on about the sexploitation inherent in the romanticizing of what after all in real life is a pretty dull and unrewarding profession-covert spying.  This is probable not the last of the dispute between Leslie and me on the social issues as she called thet but let’s fight that out on more serious looks at what is wrong with the still prevalent sexually unequal society that we live in. As we have found very graphically in the immediate past we do not live in a post-racial society and now we know we have been living in a “bubble” as well about living in a post-sexual inequality world.        

It almost seems silly to go through the plot now except there is no heavy lifting once you have seen a few of these formula films and can do a quick, very quick, summary since we have already hit Leslie’s male chauvinist pig aspect, my hero unscathed aspect, and that anti-communist angle as well. All we really have left is whether Sean Connery is the real Bond, James Bond or is that sniveling pretty boy the champ.   

An American spaceship is dragooned in space whereabouts unknown except it was probably brought down somewhere near Japan. Naturally in anti-communist, pre-Soviet meltdown times that country would be the number one fall guy. But the Bolsheviks don’t figure although not for trying since before long a second space almost goes missing and the POTUS (you know what that means today in text-speak) is ready to rain hell and damnation on Moscow and Leningrad if the caper goes off. Not to worry because not only is WWIII avoided but private citizen bad guys are put to the screws (although not forever since, as usual, the mastermind bad guy makes his escape to fight another inevitable day).

The whole caper was an outsourced job by the infamous SPECTRE organization that knows no limits, no boundaries and will do whatever is necessary for the highest bidder. Here the Reds, Red China, People’s Republic. After ten million kicks, about six millions rounds of ammo fired his way, a few new techno-toys driven escapes, some cavorting with women after a hard day’s work Bond, James Bond, once again saves the world. As Leslie quoting mad monk Phil Larkin, another wild man writer here, WFT. And maybe that is really what we should all take out of this stuff.      

The Con Is The Con-Is On-Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968)-A Film Review

The Con Is The Con-Is On-Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968)-A Film Review   

By William Bradley, Junior

[This review is not under the “in the pipeline” truce negotiated with the site manager here so is free from any mention of the previous site as per the agreement. Moreover this is William Bradley’s very first review and so he is unaware of, and had not been part of the previous turmoil. Greg Green]   

The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, 1968    

In my old growing up neighborhood back in the 1980 of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Sacred Heart Parish part if anybody knows Pawtucket which is what we always called it although the city called it The Heights every guy around, some girls too but not too many and mainly the ones who hung around with the guys who cared about such things, loved the con. Loved the con artist above all others, the local favorites being Ben Jeffrey and Ralph Morris who pulled some serious capers (and later did serious time but that was when they got in coke and smack and lost their bearings and not in the days when they were on a roll). In the days when barely out of high school they clipped a society guy for fifteen thousand big ones in a time and place where that number meant something. So don’t think I am blowing smoke at you. Think I am a small time rube who gets all starry-eyed over criminals and bad asses.

Of course there was a corollary to the high regard that con artists were held in over mere bank robbers and burglars, people like that who had no style, unlike that possessed by the legendary Thomas Crown, played to cool hand perfection by dare-devil Steve McQueen in the film under review The Thomas Crowne Affair (the 1968 one not, as Bart Webber a helpful writer here told me, the re-make with pretty boy Pierce Brosnan in the 1990s). Everybody loves a con except when he or she is the victim. That is when the “ouch” comes in as it will to the supposedly inured to con artistry Vicki the very successful insurance investigator who runs up against our boy Thomas. And is overmatched, way overmatched  

Perfection itself is how the whole thing went. Poor little rich boy Tommy has a yen for the dark side, for stretching the limits just for the hell of it to tweak society or to prove something to himself. So he hires five guys all unknown to each other (four for the heist and then the weak link getaway car guy whom you should never trust sine they usually get the short end of the stick money) and him to them to pull the biggest Boston bank job since the Brink’s job. Two mil in small bills which he quickly ships over to Geneva in a couple of suitcases. Of course if for no other reason than the insurance companies do not like to take such hits, raises premiums there is blowback, big blowback. In the form of a beautiful ruthless and smart woman investigator Vicki, played by then new star Faye Dunaway. She will play a cat and mouse game with Tommy while the public coppers diddle and dandle. No problem except one big problem not for Tommy but for Vicki she falls for the guy while getting his chains ready for him, ready for the big step-off. As she closes in he proposes a way out-do the robbery again. She buys into the thing. But who had the last laugh. A classic double con-beautiful as he flies the coop and so Brother Crown will go into the Hall of Fame, become a legend for public coppers and private snoops alike.             

And whoever is left back in Sacred Heart Parish to sing the praises.   

From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-This Is Class War-We Say No More-Defend Our Unions! - Defend The Boston Commune! Take The Offensive!-March Separately, Strike Together –International General Strike- Down Tools! Down Computers! Down Books! - All Out On May Day 2012

Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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OB Endorses Call for General Strike

January 8th, 2012 • mhacker • Passed Resolutions No comments

The following proposal was passed by the General Assembly on Jan 7, 2012:

Occupy Boston supports the call for an international General Strike on May 1, 2012, for immigrant rights, environmental sustainability, a moratorium on foreclosures, an end to the wars, and jobs for all. We recognize housing, education, health care, LGBT rights and racial equality as human rights; and thus call for the building of a broad coalition that will ensure and promote a democratic standard of living for all peoples.
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Markin comment:

Wage cuts, long hours, steep price rises, unemployment, no pensions, no vacations, cold-water flats, homelessness, and wide-spread sicknesses as a result of a poor medical system. Sound familiar? Words, perhaps, taken from today’s global headlines. Well, yes. But these were also the conditions that faced our forebears in America back in the 1880s when the “one percent” were called, and rightly so, “the robber barons,” and threatened, as one of their kind stated in a fit of candor, to hire one half of the working class to kill the other half, so they could maintain their luxury in peace. That too has not changed. What did change then is that our forebears fought back, fought back long and hard, starting with the fight for the eight-hour day symbolized each year by a May Day celebration of working class power. We need to reassert that claim. This May Day let us revive, revive big time, that tradition as we individually act around our separate grievances and strike, strike like the furies, collectively against the one percent.

No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) American working people, the so-called middle class for those who frown upon that previous more truthful designation, has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses, heavy job losses in the service and manufacturing sectors (and jobs not coming back), paying for the seemingly never-ending bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay, we pay), mountains of consumer debt for everything from modern necessities to just daily get-bys, and college student loan debt as a lifetime deadweight around the neck of the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. Add to that the double (and triple) troubles facing immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities and women and the grievances voiced in the Declaration of Independence seem like just so much whining. In short, it is not secret that the working class and its allies have faced, are facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of their material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).

That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those same 1930s and struggle, struggle like demons against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. Struggle like they did in places like Minneapolis San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit. Those labor-centered struggles demonstrated the social power of working people to hit the “economic royalists” (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their “free-speech” parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” Moreover a new inspired fight like the action proposed for this May Day 2012 can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in the 1930s but there is something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.

We ask working people to join us this day in solidarity by stopping work for the day, and if you cannot do that reasonably for the day then for some period. Students-Out of the class rooms and into the streets! The unemployed, homeless and others who have been chewed up by this system come join us on the Boston Common. Look for further details on the Occupy Boston website. All out on May Day 2012.

The Latest From The “Occupy May Day Facebook Page” Website- March Separately, Strike Together –International General Strike- Down Tools! Down Computers! Down Books!- All Out On May Day 2012

Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy May Day Facebook Page website. Occupy May Day has called for an international General Strike on May Day 2012. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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OB Endorses Call for General Strike

January 8th, 2012 • mhacker •

Passed Resolutions No comments The following proposal was passed by the General Assembly on Jan 7, 2012:

Occupy Boston supports the call for an international General Strike on May 1, 2012, for immigrant rights, environmental sustainability, a moratorium on foreclosures, an end to the wars, and jobs for all. We recognize housing, education, health care, LGBT rights and racial equality as human rights; and thus call for the building of a broad coalition that will ensure and promote a democratic standard of living for all peoples.
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Markin comment:

Wage cuts, long hours, steep price rises, unemployment, no pensions, no vacations, cold-water flats, homelessness, wide-spread sicknesses as a result of a poor medical system. Sound familiar? Words, perhaps, taken from today’s global headlines. Well, yes. But these were also the conditions that faced our forebears in America back in the 1880s when the “one percent” were called, and rightly so, “the robber barons,” and threatened, as one of their kind stated in a fit of candor, to hire one half of the working class to kill the other half, so they could maintain their luxury in peace. That too has not changed. What did change then is that our forebears fought back, fought back long and hard, starting with the fight for the eight-hour day symbolized each year by a May Day celebration of working class power. We need to reassert that claim. This May Day let us revive, revive big time, that tradition as we individually act around our separate grievances and strike, strike like the furies, collectively against the one percent.

No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) American working people, the so-called middle class for those who frown upon that previous more truthful designation, has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses, heavy job losses in the service and manufacturing sectors (and jobs not coming back), paying for the seemingly never-ending bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay, we pay), mountains of consumer debt for everything from modern necessities to just daily get-bys, and college student loan debt as a lifetime deadweight around the neck of the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. Add to that the double (and triple) troubles facing immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities and women and the grievances voiced in the Declaration of Independence seem like just so much whining. In short, it is not secret that the working class and its allies have faced, are facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of their material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).

That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those same 1930s and struggle, struggle like demons against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. Struggle like they did in places like Minneapolis San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit. Those labor-centered struggles demonstrated the social power of working people to hit the “economic royalists” (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their “free-speech” parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” Moreover a new inspired fight like the action proposed for this May Day 2012 can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in the 1930s but there is something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.

We ask working people to join us this day in solidarity by stopping work for the day, and if you cannot do that reasonably for the day then for some period. Students-out of the class rooms and into the streets. The unemployed, homeless and others who have been chewed up by this system come join us on the Boston Common. Watch this site for further specific details of events and actions. All out on May Day 2012.

When Legend Slayer Will Bradley Falls Down On The Job- Marvel Comic Universe’s So-Called Legendary Heroes Ride Again-Yawn-The Avengers: Infinite Wars (2018)-A Film Review

When Legend Slayer Will Bradley Falls Down On The Job- Marvel Comic Universe’s So-Called Legendary Heroes Ride Again-Yawn-The Avengers: Infinite Wars (2018)-A Film Review    

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

The Avengers: Infinity Wars, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and a cast of mutants, foul balls, quirky bastards, the merely ugly, dead-beats, grafter, drifters, grifters and the chronically unemployable, 2018

I am pissed off, and no don’t pardon my English, not with what I have say. I have been sidelined for a while doing other projects for site manager Greg Green. Stuff which will see the light of day this Spring under my by-line. That completion made me available for another assignment, a film review to get my hand back into that tough racket, that cutthroat business where since everything is essentially subjective you are only as good as your last review, maybe the last word of your last review. I was anxious to get back into the game after months of research, quiet writing, and editing. What I did not expect was to get this loser of a so-called superhero film, The Avengers: Infinity Wars (and whatnot). And that is the focus of why I am pissed off, and remember I am not looking for any pardon.

First off I thought we were supposed to be done with this Marvel/DC comic book characters come to the big screen after the internal rebellion when the writers here, young and old, unlike the purge of Allan Jackson the previous site manager which was before my time, and was essentially young against old refused to continue to 24/7/365 if it had come to that last number write about this type of film. The brainstorm of the clueless Greg Green (sorry Greg) who wished to boost the readership by appealing to the crowds interested in these bogus superheroes. I had not been paying that much attention to individual reviews but had thought that fever was over. Greg has assured me that it really was with the exception of an occasional foray to keep our hand in.         

Here is what I don’t get, don’t understand even if Greg and others want to grab an occasional spike in readership by ripping out a page from the comics to the chagrin of the serious and older readership who don’t give a fuck about such muck fouling up this publication and have been vocal about the matter. Beside this superhero stuff, this legend business is supposed to be the domain of Will Bradley who over the past couple of years has made a name for himself as the “legend-slayer.” The guy who wants us to face crummy reality without the crutch of undeserved or faked legends. Fair enough and I was happy when he took down guys like that rack-renter, Will’s expression, Robin Hood and that slave-driver Captain Blood among others. When Greg asked him to do this review he balked telling Greg that for the foreseeable future he was going all out to break the one legend that he has not been able put a dent in, the legend of early aviator Johnny Cielo.

You know what I say. Who the hell is this guy who nobody knows about, or as in my own case only knows from history class in high school where he was said to have something to do with the Wright Brothers down at Kitty Hawk back in the early days of flight. I asked around and the only ones who knew more about the guy were a couple of lefties I knew from Columbia University who told me he had been some important cog in the Cuban Revolution, had delivered guns and supplies to Fidel Castro up in the mountains when they needed that kind of help. Will couldn’t have spared the time to bust this weak-kneed Avenger crowd in about three paragraphs and go about his business with Johnny what’s his name.

     

Next ancient Sam Lowell who in the old days they tell me actually was the film editor and chief reviewer here who by rights should have been the “go to” guy when Will went into his tantrum. No such luck. It appears that the old goat (and in the interest of transparency an adversary in a couple of earlier film review battle of wits with me) is now knee-deep, Greg’s term, in trying to prove that the reason that the famous, famous to him and maybe some of the older crowd, private detective from California Lew Archer never made the Hall of Fame was that he suffered from sexual impotency. That seemingly two-minute job and done has got Sam (and poor Laura his long-time companion and something of mentor to me) staying up late at night trying to figure out what went wrong with this Lew. Lew, another guy nobody I know ever heard of since our P.I models are Savanah Duane and Ben Silver, neither of whom take beatings and grab slugs doing their private eye work like they say Phil Larkin and Sam Spade did. How primitive.

With those guys sidelined Greg came sauntering in to ask me for a big favor. Fortunately, as the “disclaimer” above pointed out we are in some cases, and this Avenger stuff is prime evidence for the policy, doing short reviews. Praise be. But why couldn’t I just do a thumbs up or down. Easy thumbs down. That would bust that legend is less than a minute. But no go as Greg wanted a few paragraphs to fill in some blank spot or something. So here goes.       

Actually before here goes let me say that I, like young writer Will Bradley who like me is still trying to grab a niche, go up the food chain as Seth Garth also something of a mentor to me likes to say I am not opposed to legends, solid deserved ones. I heartily agree that the Green Lantern operation which is now protecting the greater universe with a limited task force and our own section guardian Hal Jordan are doing a great job and grand public service in guarding us against our real and imagined fears. I can even buy the idea that maybe Superman or Iron Man has a small role to play in protecting us from an occasional bad actor who gets loose and who menace us for a minute. But the whole freaking Marvel Comic Universe stable for one simple job, no way.        

Thor, you know the guy who had the hammer, lost, found, lost again, one of the Marvel Comical Universe stalwarts was having dispute, a big time dispute with some Thanos, some bad ass guy who wants to control the universe and was willing to wipe out one half of said population if he didn’t get his way, get his magic elixir or something. Thor takes a well-deserved beating and Thanos is half way home to the fruition of his master plan. Since the rest of the Marvel clowns are unemployed, are sitting on their hands, are really otherwise unemployable they gather round their loser Thor. To yet again battle Thaos and his minions, a rough-edged crew that I would have advised Iron Man, the Black Widow, Spider Man, the Hulk and the other lesser has-beens to avoid at all costs since they looked meaner than Satan and his minions and you know what they did to Paradise, at least according to John Milton.

Naturally there are twelve million sham battles, a few altercations, some armed truces and then the final push which gets half of the citizenry of the universe blasted all for Marvel Comic Universe hubris. Wait until the next film. No, call up the Green Lantern organization and have them sent their ace Hal Jordan to come and deal with these cretins associated with this bastard Thanos. Then see how it was when real legends earned their keep.       

In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band

In The Beginning Was The Jug- The Jim Kweskin Jug Band

By Sam Lowell

No question I was, am, a central figure in the still on-going fallout over the purge, and that is exactly the right term although half the writers here who were down and dirty in the fight prefer to tell the tale that the previous site manger “retired.” Like Allan Jackson, yes, I am using his given name despite the notice from new site manager Greg Green that we were in the future in the interest of “moving on” not to mention him by name or speak of his accomplishments (presumably Allan’s down sides are still fair game), would voluntarily retire from something he helped create and loved. I also acknowledge here that although I was Allan closest and longest known friend going back to elementary school that I sided with the young rebel writers, the self-styled “Young Turks” although I hate that term when it came to choosing sides.

Allan was getting more and more wrapped into some 1960s and forget the rest thing that disturbed me no end as I continually told him especially when he went over the edge in that overkill of the 50^th Anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 stuff. So when I “conspired” with the younger writers (some of who had before Allan went hog wild over the situation never heard of the event, were to young to give fuck about the legendary in the mist 1960s) I told everyone straight up that this would have to be a purge-no quotation marks needed. We, he and I, had come up in the rough and tumble of radical 1960s politics so Allan knew that my defection meant only one thing if we were to be successful. He would be out, in exile, although don’t believe all that stuff about him being holed up Utah sucking up to Mitt Romney and that white underwear Mormon crowd or Kansas with the hard-shell flat-landers that is just urban legend stuff he, or somebody at his direction, made up to make this whole thing seem like a Stalinist coup and he, Leon Trotsky-like suffered defeat and exile in some American Siberia for his efforts. I know my Allan and I would not be surprised that a counterattack against me and the blog will come any day.

As part of the change in course and presumably as a safeguard against things going haywire like they began to do under the Jackson regime Greg initiated on his own a seven member Editorial Board to filter ideas and motions through. Some people, some opponents have called the board a group of toadies and “yes” people for whatever Greg has in mind. That is their opinion. In any case I was asked to sit on the board and I have along with several younger writers and one of the older writers who had abstained on the Jackson removal vote (there were several abstentions by older writers which makes me think I was not alone in thinking Allan had gone over the edge but didn’t want to buck him for any number of reasons. I would argue that had any one of them voted for Allan then my “desertion” would have meant nothing except I might have been the guy rumored to be in Utah or Kansas. Such is life.) 

Although the board is up and running for a few months now it has only been asked to approve one item-the “erasing” of Allan’s name from this site in the interest of whatever Greg thought that served. I have been around enough to know that it is beyond poor form to “erase” the past especially on a site dedicated to putting a big shining light on that past particularly the parts that get short shrift in the history books and mainstream media. I voted “no,” the lone dissenter with that one older writer’s abstention which may be his mode of operation on tough questions. Maybe that dissent will put me in better grace with Allan. 

I took this jug band, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band assignment because I am still crazy about this kind of music and because at least three of the original members of the band, Jim, Geoff, Maria are still performing occasionally together but usually individually and over the past several years I have seen them in various admittedly small venues around Greater Boston. I was surprised though when Greg mentioned to me that he no longer wanted to see pieces about “f—king” jug band music in the future and that this would be the last time he would let it pass since nobody under about the age of sixty gave a damn about this kind of music anymore.

Since Greg is considerable younger than I am I could see where it did not mean anything to him when he was growing up in Westchester County in New York but to cancel out in advance any reference to an important part of Americana in the 1920s and the revival in the 1960s seems short-sighted. Allan who also was crazy for jug music and who turned me onto the stuff in high school when he took me and our dates to the Unicorn Coffeehouse in Back Bay Boston to hear the legendary Harper Valley Boys do their jug, washtub, wringer magic. I will be bucking Greg a little on this one if I can find a spot to sneak a jug piece in.

Finally, and this part has nothing directly to do with jug music or anything else that has been presented here over the past almost fifteen years of this blog’s existence and prior to that the hard copy of it and it predecessors. I, like a number of irritated readers and a not a few writers have grown tired of seeing more than enough coverage of the internal crisis of the past few months here leading to the new regime. This new mandate by Greg with the majority of the Ed Board’s approval of “erasing” Allan Jackson’s name and work is kind of a watershed making me think the whole public airing has gone too far. Moreover the story is all over the place depending on who has their hackles up. This must stop and a return to ordinary commentary and reviews is in order.  

As a decisive member of the Editorial Board I have been able to negotiate with Greg a truce, an “armed truce” as one older wag put it which seems strange since the majority of personnel here have some very strong anti-war views. The “truce” has two parts. The first- all articles now in the pipeline, about fifteen, can carry whatever commentary about the internal dispute the writer wants to talk about. In return after that amnesty lot is posted there will be no overt references to the previous site manager or his achievements or failures. The second is that I will write as probably the most knowledgeable person around about all aspects of this publication and its personnel a full history of the site and of the internal dispute to be after it completion referenced in the archives as such for anybody to cite and refer others to -either writer or scholar. No guidance was given about how to do this task but I have decided to cut it up among the various parts of the American Songbook series which the jug band piece below is one example and then post the whole thing with comments from the two Ed Board members Greg has assigned to me for this work.              

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Who knows how it happened maybe somebody in the band looked up some songs in the album archives, or found some gem in some record store, an institution that sustained many for hours back then in the cusp of the 1960s folk revival when there were record stores on almost every corner in places like Harvard Square and you could find some gems if you searched long enough and found Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (although sometimes the search was barren or, maybe worse, something by Miss Patti Page or Tennessee Ernie Ford stared you in the face). From there they found, maybe Cannon’s Stompers, the Mississippi Sheiks or the Memphis Jug Band, saw they could prosper going back to those days if they kept the arrangements simple, and that was that.

See, everybody then was looking for roots, American music roots, old country roots, roots of some ancient thoughts of a democratic America before the robber barons and their progeny grabbed everything with every hand. And that search was no accident, at least from the oral history evidence having grown up with rock and roll and found in that minute that genre wanting.  Some went reaching South to the homeland of much roots music and found some grizzled old geezers who had made a small name for themselves in the 1920s when labels like RCA and Paramount went out looking for talent in the hinterlands.

So there was history there, certainly for the individual members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim, Geoff Mulduar, Mel Lymon, Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond , all well-versed in many aspects of the American Songbook (hell, I would say so, even old tacky Irving Berlin got a hearing), history there for the taking. All they needed was a jug, a good old boy homemade corn liquor jug giving the best sound and so they were off, off to conquer places like Harvard Square, like the Village, like almost any place in the Bay area. And for a while they did, picking up chimes, kazoos, harmonicas, what the heck, even standard guitars and they made great music, great entertainment music, not heavy with social messages but just evoking those long lost spirits from the 1920s when jug music would sustain a crowd on a Saturday night. Yeah, in the beginning was the jug…    

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-With Pretty Boy Brosnan’s James, James Bond “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997) In Mind

Will The Real James Bond Stand Up-With Pretty Boy Brosnan’s James, James Bond “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997) In Mind 

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

[Since Leslie Dumont was only recently hired to begin to yank the overwhelming male “good old boy club” previous character of this blog from its moorings she is naturally outside the truce agreement. Although, unlike recent hire Alex Radley also outside the agreement, strange as it may seem since she was very close, was a companion for several years of Josh Breslin who also writes in this space, and who was extremely close to the previous site manager she knew the previous site manager very well. Nevertheless that manager refused to hire her full time after she had been a stringer for a few years. Fed up she went elsewhere and finally got a by-line at New York Today. I deliberately assigned her this film which she accepted with good grace to finally get a woman’s view of this skirt-chasing fool Bond, James Bond. Greg Green]    

Tomorrow Never Dies, starring Pierce Brosnan, 1997

As my old friend and now fellow writer here Phil Larkin is fond of saying –WTF. (I have to laugh every time I think about his growing up moniker Foul-mouth, if ever a name.) In the year 2018 after all we have heard in gruesome detail about the misogynies of half the powerful men in Hollywood-land and who knows who else or what else it is rather fitting to be able to review a film that comes out of a series via the pen of bloody old British Empire aficionado Ian Fleming (did he ever may “Sir”) based on the character of one of the most cravenly misogynous men in fiction or film, Bond, James Bond (sorry Greg I couldn’t resist mimicking you).

Although it probable does not matter on these formula-driven vehicles now over the twenty hump in number this one is entitled Tomorrow Never Dies which is probably not true but at least gives this beast of a film a title. Another thing that clearly does not matter is who is playing the lead, the Bond, James Bond lead from Her Royal Highness’ the Queen’s first guy handsome Johnny Sean Connery through to whoever is doing the hard-scrabble chore these days. Pretty Boy Brosnan did four in the 1990s or so this one the second. Before I get into the play-by-play I should reference this silly little pissing contest that Sandy Salmon and Alden Riley both who should know better about who the real James Bond is have been having since Greg decided to run the road with this batch of films. Between from what I understand the two finalists Connery and Brosnan.

Beyond Phil’s classic WTF who cares. More important, more important for the future sanity of this space, why did neither of them even if only by implication if they were afraid to actually come out and say it that both these guys are twerps, male chauvinist pigs in second-wave feminist speak when it comes to what Josh (through the late Peter Paul Markin who I never met but who I heard a million too many stories about when Josh and I were bedmates) calls speaking the true no matter how bitter.         

It seem crazy to build the MCP case for something that is so obvious and has been through twenty something episodes but I will soldier on. Start with the main action (after ten senseless minutes of Jimmy proving he has metal blowing up terrorist supply dumps on the Russia border to show his “cred”). Sin number one as the “real” action opens up he is bedded with some alleged Danish professor, hell Jimbo probably couldn’t spell Danish or maybe thinks it was that awful breakfast treat before duty calls to prove his “cred” as a skirt-chaser, womanizer, stud, and not a latent homosexual as various academic feminists have speculated about over the years. And the every useful male chauvinist pig of blessed memory. Not only that but he answers that duty call, dutifully, in the middle of, well, let’s just call it coitus interruptus and move on. Like whatever the goddam assignment from that female MI5 boss of his couldn’t wait since everybody in the world knows or should be expected to know that when J.B. is on the case it is open and shut. Done.          

Jimmy only adds insult to injury by bedding an old flame who just so happens to be married to the arch-enemy in this saga, a Rupert Murdoch-type guy who wants to own the universe, or else. Finally he beds a commie agent. No, not the old time Soviet nemesis, the Russians, come on now this film is dated 1997 well after after the USSR went up in smoke and shot guys like Ian Fleming, John Le Carre and Tom Clancy’s reasons for existence all to hell. This young woman a versatile, brave Chinese agent who is far too bright for him but who after the action is over starts the inevitable action post-coitus pillow talk waiting for help to arrive. Funny because I have seen maybe five of these Bond things to get a sense of what the hell is the draw and guess what they all have this same 1950s era formula of bedding women who are just waiting to go down and dirty on the satin sheets. Like the women’s liberation movement now getting a third wind never existed never change the nature of the game.  Never let women be anything but vessels for male inadequacies (I already mentioned that latent homosexual point so I don’t need to repeat it here.)          

Oh yeah, yawn, the plot. Seems this guy Murdoch, no, Carter is setting up World War III between God Save The Queen England and the commies, remember not the USSR guys they are kaput, the Red Chinese as they said in the old days. Purpose? To sell a zillion newspapers, to run the rack on the world media market, and, hell, just to prove he can do it. (I will save my WTF on these reasons until later) The set-up is to sink a HMS ship and blame it on the nefarious Chinese Reds, grab a nuclear weapon from said sunken ship and then throw it at China and let the games begin. He is also looking for regime change backing a renegade Red General who will take over to avoid that WWIII. Reason? To break into the huge Chinese media market where he had been shut out by the wily Reds. Yeah, two things yawn and now that WTF.      

Like I tried to telegraph to you the reader so maybe you will go read a recent article I did for New York Today instead of going down this vagrant trail Jimmy and the Chinese agent kick, blast, fight, motorbike chase, detonate, sky-dive, leap tall buildings at a single bound, kick again after avoiding enough spent ammunition to have kept WWI going for another ten years without a scratch or even sweat on the upper lip on the way to that pillow talk at the end. I know I am rolling that Promethean stone up some fairly steep hill but isn’t 2018 the year to start pulling some thumbs down to this sullen silliness.         

From The Partisan Defense Committee- Honoring a Class-War Prisoner Tom Manning 1946–2019-All honor to Tom Manning! Free Jaan Laaman- He Must Not Die In Jail ! The Last Of The Ohio Seven -Give To The Class-War Political Prisoners' Holiday Appeal

From The Partisan Defense Committee- Honoring a Class-War Prisoner  Tom Manning  1946–2019-All honor to Tom Manning! Free Jaan Laaman- He Must Not Die In Jail ! The Last Of The Ohio Seven -Give To The Class-War Political Prisoners' Holiday Appeal


  

Workers Vanguard No. 1159 23 August 2019 Honoring a Class-War Prisoner Tom Manning 1946–2019 After more than three decades of torment in America’s dungeons, class-war prisoner Tom Manning died on July 30 at the federal penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia. The official cause of death was a heart attack, but it was the sadistic prison authorities who were responsible for the death of Manning, one of the last two incarcerated Ohio 7 leftists. In retaliation for his unwavering opposition to racial oppression and U.S. imperialism and his continued political activism, the jailers treated his medical needs with deliberate indifference and delayed necessary medication. His comrade and former prisoner Ray Luc Levasseur bitterly remarked, “Supporters scrambled to get a lawyer in to see him, but death arrived first.” Although we Marxists do not share the political strategy of the Ohio 7, we have always forthrightly defended them against capitalist state repression. Born in Boston to a large Irish family, Manning knew firsthand the life of working-class misery. In a short autobiographical sketch appearing in For Love and Liberty (2014), a collection of his artwork, he described how his father, a longshoreman and a postal clerk, worked himself to death “trying to get one end to meet the other...he always got the worst end.” A young Tom shined shoes and sold newspapers, while roaming the docks and freight yards looking for anything that could be converted into cash or bartered. Later, he worked as a stock boy and then as a construction laborer. After joining the military in 1963, he was stationed in Guantánamo Bay and then Vietnam. After returning to the U.S., Manning ended up in state prison for five years. “Given the area where I grew up, and being a ’Nam vet,” he wrote, “prison was par for the course.” There he became politicized, engaging in food and work strikes and reading Che Guevara. As Levasseur observed in 2014, “When Tom Manning and I first met 40 years ago, we were 27 years old and veterans of mule jobs, the Viet Nam war, and fighting our way through American prisons. We also harbored an intense hatred of oppression and a burning desire to organize resistance.” Moved by these experiences, Manning joined with a group of young leftist radicals in the 1970s and ’80s. Early on, they participated in neighborhood defense efforts in Boston against rampaging anti-busing racists and helped run a community bail fund and prison visitation program in Portland, Maine. They also ran a radical bookstore, which the cops targeted for surveillance, harassment, raids and assault. The activists, associated with the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit in the 1970s and the United Freedom Front in the ’80s, took responsibility for a series of bombings that targeted symbols of South African apartheid and U.S. imperialism, which they described as “armed propaganda.” Some of these actions were directed against Mobil Oil and U.S. military installations in solidarity with the struggle for Puerto Rican independence by the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Armed Forces of National Liberation). For these deeds, the Feds branded them “terrorists” and “extremely dangerous”—that is, issuing a license to kill. As targets of a massive manhunt, the young anti-imperialist fighters went underground for nearly ten years and were placed on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. Manning was captured in 1985 and sentenced to 58 years in federal prison. He was also sentenced to 80 years in New Jersey for the self-defense killing of a state trooper in 1981. The Ohio 7 became the poster children for the Reagan administration’s campaign to criminalize leftist political activity, declaring it domestic terrorism. In 1989, three of them—Ray and Patricia Levasseur and Richard Williams—were tried on trumped-up charges of conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government under the RICO “anti-racketeering” law and a 1948 sedition act. With Ray Levasseur and Williams (who died in prison in 2005) already sentenced to enough years to be locked up for the rest of their lives, the prosecution served no purpose other than to revive moribund sedition laws, which have been used historically to imprison and deport reds and anarchists. Despite the fact that the government spent nearly $10 million on the trial, the jury refused to convict. Manning spent half a lifetime in prison hell, marked by his torturers as a cop killer and brutalized for his left-wing political views. Stun-gunned, tear-gassed and dragged around by leg irons, he was kept in solitary for extended periods. Shortly after his arrest, he was body-slammed onto a concrete floor while cuffed to a waist chain and in leg irons, resulting in a hip fracture that was not repaired until years later. On a separate occasion, his right knee was permanently injured when five guards stomped on it. Yet another beating with his hands behind his back severely injured his shoulders. All in all, he had a total of 66 inches of scar tissue. But Manning remained unbroken. Among other things, he spoke out on behalf of other class-war prisoners, and he was also an accomplished artist behind bars. The actions of the Ohio 7 were not crimes from the standpoint of the working class. However, their New Left strategy of “clandestine armed resistance” by a handful of courageous leftists despaired of organizing the proletariat in mass struggle against the bourgeoisie. The multiracial working class, under the leadership of a revolutionary party fighting for a socialist future, is the central force capable of sweeping away the capitalist system and its repressive state machinery, not least the barbaric prisons. The Ohio 7 differed from the bulk of 1960s New Left radicals by their working-class origins and dedication to their principles; they never made peace with the capitalist order. Unlike most of the left, which refused to defend the Ohio 7 against government persecution, the SL and the Partisan Defense Committee have always stood by them, including through the PDC’s class-war prisoner stipend program. In an August 2 letter to the PDC, Manning’s lifelong comrade-in-arms Jaan Laaman (the last remaining Ohio 7 prisoner) eulogized: “Now Tom is gone. Our comrade, my comrade, who suffered years of medical neglect and medical abuse in the federal prison system, your struggle and suffering is now over brother. But your example, your words, deeds, even your art, lives on. You truly were a ‘Boston Irish Rebel,’ a life long Man of and for the People, a warrior, a person of compassion motivated by hope for the future and love for the common people, A Revolutionary Freedom Fighter.” All honor to Tom Manning! Free Jaan Laaman!