John McCain-Hands Off Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn

Commentary

October 11, 2008

For the fourth time this presidential season I have had to repost this item on Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This time it is one putative Republican presidential candidate John McCain, mad "terrorist" bomber of everything he could get in his sights over North Vietnam while he was a Navy pilot, who is muddying up the waters. I have nothing in common with Democratic Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden but he has his finger on the situation. Why, if it was such a big issue didn't John McCain raise to Barack Obama to his face on debate night, October 7, 2008. Not much of interest was being said so it would have been okay to brooch the subject. Well done, Joe. As for the rest of this damn presidential campaign season- the hell with it. Forward to a workers party!

October 7, 2008

Apparently, for the third time this presidential season I have to dust off this old review of the Weather Underground and the activities of leftist Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Why? Sarah Palin, self-proclaimed "hockey mom" Republican Vice-presidential candidate, has decided that the virtue of the American Republic requires a rehashing of that old chestnut concerning the supposed organic relationship between the "terrorist" professors and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. I am reposting previous comments here because, frankly, I have nothing to add to the previous comments. Except this, Professors Ayers and Dohrn can now serve as prima facie evidence that ostensible leftists should be very careful in the choice of bourgeois capitalist candidates they "hang around with". In short, stay very far away from those types.



August 26, 2008

Apparently, the Republican presidential campaign of Arizona Senator John McCain is trying to get mileage out of some tenuous connection between Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama and very, very ex-Weatherpeople Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This same issue popped up in the spring of 2008. The introductory comment used there reposted directly below and a review of what The Weather Underground really meant politically still apply. I would only add that forty years of "cultural wars" by these reactionaries, led by Karl Rove and his ilk, is enough. I only hope that when our day comes we will relegate them to some nice island somewhere so they can "reflect" on their sins and leave the rest of us alone.

*******

May 2008

There is currently a tempest in a teapot swirling around Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama concerning his relationship with former Weatherpeople Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Here are a couple of reviews from last year on the historic significance of that movement. The real question to ask though is not why Obama was hanging around with Ayers and Dohrn but why they were hanging around with this garden-variety bourgeois candidate on the make. Enough said.

YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

DVD REVIEW

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND: REBELS WITH A CAUSE, 2003

In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.

One of the political highlights of the film is centered on the 1969 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention that was a watershed in the student anti-war protest movement. That was the genesis of the Weathermen but it was also the genesis of the Progressive Labor Party-led faction that wanted to bring the anti-war message to the working class by linking up the student movement with the fight against capitalism. In short, to get to those who were, or were to be, the rank and file soldiers in Vietnam or who worked in the factories. In either case the point that was missed, as the Old Left had argued all along and which we had previously dismissed out of hand, was that it was the masses of working people who were central to ‘bringing the war home’ and the fight against capitalism. That task still confronts us today.

One of the paradoxical things about this film is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that that movement also fought out the above-mentioned fight in 1969. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the worldwide revolutionary movement in order to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) had a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *An Encore Presentation-Douglas Brinkley's Radio Interview On His Bob Dylan "Rolling Stone" Magazine Interview

Click On Title To Link To Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" Interview With Professor Douglas Brinkley (Known Previously In This Space For His Friendship With The Late "Gonzo" Journalist Doctor Hunter S. Thompson) About His 2009 Bob Dylan "Rolling Stone" Magazine Interview.

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- On Memphis Minnie's Birthday-*Once Again A “Blues Mama” For Our Times- The Blues Of Maria Muldaur

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Maria Muldaur Perfoming "One Hour Mama".

CD Review

Richland Woman, Maria Muldaur, Stony Plain Records, 2001

This review was originally posted as a review for Maria Muldaur’s “Sweet Lovin' Ol’ Soul”. The main points made there apply here as well.

I have often noted that when white women cover blues songs done by the old classic black singers like Memphis Minnie, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton and the like some undefined ingredient is missing. Call it "soul" or the "miseries" or whatever you like but somehow the depths of a song are generally not reached. Not so here, as Maria Muldaur presents the second of an anticipated three albums covering some great classics of old time barrel house blues. (The first album was "Richland Woman's Blues", taking the title from a song by Mississippi John Hurt so you know Maria is reaching for the blues roots, no question).

Bessie Smith's "Put It Right Here" sticks out here. Blind Willie Johnson’s classic religiously-tinged “Soul Of A Man” and Mississippi Fred McDowell’s "I’ve Got To Move” get their proper workout. The big highlight though (and a very necessary “re-discovery”) is the tribute to Memphis Minnie, “In My Girlish Days” (I wish Maria would cover “Bumble Bee”. Whoa). As Maria points out in her liner notes (to “Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul”) some of these songs here are ones that she wanted to do earlier in her career but was either talked out or could not do justice to then. But now Maria knows she has paid her dues, I know she has paid her dues, and you will too. Listen.

"IN MY GIRLISH DAYS"

Late hours at night, trying to play my hand
Through my window, out stepped a man
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

My mama cried, papa did, too
Oh, daughter, look what a shame on you
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

I flagged a train, didn't have a dime
Trying to run away from that home of mine
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

I hit the highway, caught me a truck
Nineteen and seventeen, when the winter was tough
I didn't know no better
Oh boys
In my girlish days

(spoken: Lord, play it for me now)

All of my playmates is not surprised,
I had to travel 'fore I got wise
I found out better
And I still got my girlish ways

*The Bob Dylan Bootleg Legacy- A Time Capsule

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   

CD REVIEW

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3, Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 1991.

I have spilled no little ink on the question of the value of various bootleg products, genuine basement tapes, fake basement tapes, etc. that have come out of over the years detailing the career of the premier folk troubadour of his times, Bob Dylan. The core of my argument is that if you have limited cash resources, time or energy (or, heaven forbid, aren't all that into him) then getting copies of his earlier albums rather than more esoteric compilations is the way to go. That said, I can remember being very pleasantly surprised when this three volume CD start of what would become, as of this writing, an eight volume series came out.

The virtue of this particular set housed under roof is that it ranges in material, time and composition from Dylan's early work in 1961 until the time of release, 1991. In between we are feasted to outtakes, variations and some never, until then, previously released material. Thus we get some early talking blues material that shows the early influence of Woody Guthrie on Dylan's early style as he tries to find his "voice" (and Volume One ends with a poetic screed/talking blues in honor of Woody that alone is worth the price of admission to this volume).

We further get some glimpses at Dylan's changeover to a more personal, less quasi-political style, in the mid-1960's with songs like "Farewell, Angelina" and "Sad-eyed Lady Of The Lowlands". Of course, the whole switchover to electric, including electric back up band (The Band, initially), gets signaled here by full array of tracks with the classic "Like A Rolling Stone" being a very nice highlight. His religious conversion, or whatever it was (or is), is expressed in songs like "Foot Of Pride" and "Tell Me". Then there are the variations like a faster version of "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry" than the one used on an earlier album. And, of course, the outtakes like the truncated version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" recorded here. All in all, quite a mishmash but a mishmash with great historical interest. And a few tunes that should have been released long ago like "Blind Willie McTell", a carib-flavored "Santa Fe" and "Walking Down The Line". Feast on.

Note: As always in this series there is a very informative and copious set of liner notes that go into detail about the genesis of each song or some other worthwhile tidbit.


ANGELINA

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1981 Special Rider Music

Well, it's always been my nature to take chances
My right hand drawing back while my left hand advances
Where the current is strong and the monkey dances
To the tune of a concertina

Blood dryin' in my yellow hair as I go from shore to shore
I know what it is that has drawn me to your door
But whatever it could be, makes you think you've seen me before
Angelina

Oh, Angelina. Oh, Angelina

His eyes were two slits that would make a snake proud
With a face that any painter would paint as he walked through the crowd
Worshipping a god with the body of a woman well endowed
And the head of a hyena

Do I need your permission to turn the other cheek?
If you can read my mind, why must I speak?
No, I have heard nothing about the man that you seek
Angelina

Oh, Angelina. Oh, Angelina

In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode
The peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed
I was only following instructions when the judge sent me down the road
With your subpoena

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?
I've tried my best to love you, but I cannot play this game
Your best friend and my worst enemy is one and the same
Angelina

Oh, Angelina. Oh, Angelina

There's a black Mercedes rollin' through the combat zone
Your servants are half dead; you're down to the bone
Tell me, tall man, where would you like to be overthrown
Maybe down in Jerusalem or Argentina?

She was stolen from her mother when she was three days old
Now her vengeance has been satisfied and her possessions have been sold
He's surrounded by God's angels and she's wearin' a blindfold
And so are you, Angelina

Oh, Angelina. Oh, Angelina

I see pieces of men marching; trying to take heaven by force
I can see the unknown rider, I can see the pale white horse
In God's truth tell me what you want, and you'll have it of course
Just step into the arena

Beat a path of retreat up them spiral staircases
Pass the tree of smoke, pass the angel with four faces
Begging God for mercy and weepin' in unholy places
Angelina

Oh, Angelina. Oh, Angelina

BLIND WILLIE MCTELL

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1983 Special Rider Music


Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, "This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem."
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker's bell
(Yeah), nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

There's a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He's dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There's a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

Well, God is in heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

FAREWELL ANGELINA

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965, 1966 Warner Bros. Music Inc


Farewell Angelina
The bells of the crown
Are being stolen by bandits
I must follow the sound
The triangle tingles
And the trumpet play slow
Farewell Angelina
The sky is on fire
And I must go.

There's no need for anger
There's no need for blame
There's nothing to prove
Ev'rything's still the same
Just a table standing empty
By the edge of the sea
Farewell Angelina
The sky is trembling
And I must leave.

The jacks and queens
Have forsaked the courtyard
Fifty-two gypsies
Now file past the guards
In the space where the deuce
And the ace once ran wild
Farewell Angelina
The sky is folding
I'll see you in a while.

See the cross-eyed pirates sitting
Perched in the sun
Shooting tin cans
With a sawed-off shotgun
And the neighbors they clap
And they cheer with each blast
Farewell Angelina
The sky's changing color
And I must leave fast.

King Kong, little elves
On the rooftoops they dance
Valentino-type tangos
While the make-up man's hands
Shut the eyes of the dead
Not to embarrass anyone
Farewell Angelina
The sky is embarrassed
And I must be gone.

The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it's quiet.


FOOT OF PRIDE

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1983 Special Rider Music

Like the lion tears the flesh off of a man
So can a woman who passes herself off as a male
They sang "Danny Boy" at his funeral and the Lord's Prayer
Preacher talking Ôbout Christ betrayed
It's like the earth just opened and swallowed him up
He reached too high, was thrown back to the ground
You know what they say about bein' nice to the right people on the way up
Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin' down

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

Hear ya got a brother named James, don't forget faces or names
Sunken cheeks and his blood is mixed
He looked straight into the sun and said revenge is mine
But he drinks, and drinks can be fixed
Sing me one more song, about ya love me to the moon and the stranger
And your fall by the sword love affair with Erroll Flynn
in these times of compassion when conformity's in fashion
Say one more stupid thing to me before the final nail is driven in.

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

There's a retired businessman named Red, cast down from heaven and he's out of his head
He feeds off of everyone that he can touch
He said he only deals in cash or sells tickets to a plane crash
He's not somebody that you play around with much
Miss Delilah is his, a Philistine is what she is
She'll do wondrous works with your fate
Feed you coconut bread, spice buns in your bed
If you don't mind sleepin' with your head face down in a grave.

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

Well they'll choose a man for you to meet tonight
You'll play the fool and learn how to walk through doors
How to enter into the gates of paradise
No, how to carry a burden too heavy to be yours
Yeah, from the stage they'll be tryin' to get water outta rocks
A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks
They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in
Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss banks

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

They got some beautiful people out there, man
They can be a terror to your mind and show you how to hold your tongue
They got mystery written all over their forehead
They kill babies in the crib and say only the good die young
They don't believe in mercy
Judgment on them is something that you'll never see
They can exalt you up or bring you down main route
Turn you into anything that they want you to be

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

Yes, I guess I loved him too
I can still see him in my mind climbin' that hill
Did he make it to the top, well he probably did and dropped
Struck down by the strength of the will
Ain't nothin' left here partner, just the dust of a plague that has left this whole town afraid
From now on, this'll be where you're from
Let the dead bury the dead. Your time will come
Let hot iron blow as he raised the shade

Well, there ain't no goin' back when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

I SHALL BE RELEASED

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1967,1976 Dwarf Music

They say ev'rything can be replaced,
Yet ev'ry distance is not near.
So I remember ev'ry face
Of ev'ry man who put me here.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

They say ev'ry man needs protection,
They say ev'ry man must fall.
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Some place so high above this wall.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd,
Is a man who swears he's not to blame.
All day long I hear him shout so loud,
Crying out that he was framed.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

LAST THOUGHTS ON WOODY GUTHRIE

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1973 Special Rider Music

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup
If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long
And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'
And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'
And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'
And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'
And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"
And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin' three queens
And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine

Bouncin' around a pinball machine
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin'
On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm talking
In this air I'm inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'
On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'
In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'
In the words that I'm thinkin'
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'
And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it's something special you're needin'
And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding


And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills

"Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it's funny
No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club

And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are sellin' you
And it ain't in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain't in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache«
And inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're foolin' you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of rnoney and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that

Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AINÕT REAL"

No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer race
You can't hear yer name, you can't see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in the Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-*Out In The Be-Bop Night- Fragments On Working Class Culture- Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-The Ghost Dance-Late 1969

Markin comment:

The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search mentioned in the headline.

Scene Nine: Scenes From Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- The Ghost Dance-Late 1969

Damn, already I missed Angelica, road-worthy, road-travel easy, easy on the eyes and easy getting us a ride Angelica as I traveled down Interstate 80 onto the great prairie Mid-American hitchhike road after we parted at the Omaha bus station, she heading home East, at least Indiana east from Nebraska, and I to the savage search for the blue-pink great American West night. And I will tell you true that first ride and every ride after that, every miserable truck stopped or sedan ride, it didn’t matter, made me utter that same oath.

Right then though I was on my first connection ride out of Omaha and as luck would have it this big bruiser, full tattoo armed with snakes, roses and lost loves names, truck driver who was obviously benny-ed, benny-ed to perdition and was talking a blue streak was driving right through to Denver, my next destination. All I wanted was the ride but I knew enough of the road, enough of the truck driver come-on part of it anyway to know that this guy’s blue streak was a small price to pay for such a lucky break. See, some guys, some guys like Denver Slim, who left me off at that long ago (or it seemed like long ago) Steubenville truck stop and Angelica (hey, now I know who to blame, if I ever get my hands on that damn Denver Slim… Ya, ya, what are you going to do, big boy?), wanted to talk man to man. Back and forth like real people, especially as I reminded him of his errant (read: hippie –swaying) son. Other guys are happy for the company so they can, at seventy or seventy-five miles an hour with the engine revved high and where conversation is made almost painful and chock-filled with the “what did you says?”, spout forth on their homespun philosophy and take on this wicked old world. With these guys an occasional “Ya, that’s right,” or a timely “What did you mean by that?” will stand you in good stead and you can nod out into your own thoughts.

And that is exactly where I wanted be, as old Buck (where do they get these names) droned on and on about how the government was doing, or not doing this or that for, or to, the little guy who helped build up, not tear down, the country like him. What Aunt Betty, sweet Neola grandmotherly Aunt Betty, said as she left me off at the Interstate 80 entrance still rings in my ears. I was good for Angelica. Hell, I know I was. Hell, if I had any sense I would admit what I know inside. Angelica was good for me too. But see the times were funny is a way. No way in 1962, or ‘64, or ’66, let’s say, that I would have run into an Angelica. I was strung out, strung out hard on neurotic, long black-haired (although that was optional), kind of skinny (not thin, not slender, skinny, wistfully skinny, I say), bookish, Harvard Square, maybe a poet, kind of girls. If I said beatnik girls, and not free-form, ethereral, butterfly breeze “hippie” girls you’d know what I mean. As a kid I was cranked on pale, hell wan was more like it, dark-haired, hard Irish Catholic girls, and I mean hard Irish Catholic girls with twelve novena books in their hands, and lust in their hearts. So, I swear, when Angelica’s number turned up I was clueless how to take just a plain-spoken, says what she means, means what she says young woman who had dreams (unformed, mainly, but dreams nevertheless) that also were plain-spoken. Ah, I can’t explain it now, and I doubt I ever will. Just say I was stunted, stunned, and smitten, okay and let me listen to old Buck’s drone.
****
I have now put many a mile between me and Omaha and here I am well clear of that prairie fire dream now in sweet winter desert night Arizona not far from some old now run down, crumbling Native American dwellings that keep drawing my attention and I still want to utter that oath, that Angelica oath. Sitting by this night camp fire casting its weird ghost night-like shadows just makes it worst. And old now well-traveled soldiers turned “hippies”, Jack and Mattie, playing their new-found (at least to me) flute and penny whistle music mantra to set the tone.

Hey, I just remembered, sitting here wrapped up in Angelica and ancient primal tribal memories out of the whistling black star-filled night that I haven’t filled you in on where I have been, who I have seen (like John and Mattie), and how I got here from that star-crossed Neola night, at least the past Denver part. Jesus, and here we are only a few hundred miles from the ocean. I can almost smell, smell that algae sea churned smell, almost see the foam-flecked waves turn against the jagged-edged La Jolla rocks and mad, aging surfer boys from another time looking for that perfect wave. Ya, another more innocent time before all hell broke loose on us in America and crushed our innocent youthful dreams in the rice paddies of Asia, our Angelica plain-spoken dreams, but not our capacity to dream. That only makes the Angelica hurt worst as I remember that she had never seen the ocean, the jagged edged, foam-flecked ocean that I went on and on about and I was to be her Neptune on that voyage west to the rim of the world. Well let me get to it, the filling you in part..

After grabbing that straight ride from blue streak talkin’ old Buck I did tell you about, and a short but scary two day delay by a serious snow squall hurricane-wind tumult just before the Rocky Mountain foothills leading into Denver I got there in good order. If I didn’t tell you before, and now that I think about it I didn’t, I was to hook up with my now traveling companions, Jack and Mattie, there for the final trip west to the ocean and serious blue-pink visions. If you don’t remember Jack and Mattie, they are two guys that I picked up on the Massachusetts highways heading south in the days when I had a car this year in the early spring. We had some adventures going south, that I will tell you about another time, before I left them off in Washington, D.C. so they could head west from there. We agreed then to meet up in Denver later in the year where they expected to stay for a while. My last contact with them in late summer had them still there but when I arrived at the communal farm on the outskirts of Denver where they had been staying I was informed that they had gotten nervous about being stuck in the snow-bound Rockies and wanted to head south as fast as they could. They had left a Phoenix address for me to meet them at. I stayed at the commune for a few days to rest up, doing a little of this and that, mostly that, and then headed out myself on what turned to be an uneventful and mercifully short hitchhike road trip to Phoenix to connect with them.

And so here we are making that last push to the coast but not before we investigate these Native American lands that, as it turns out, we all had been interested in ever since our kid days watching cowboys and Indians on the old black and white 1950s small screen television. You know Lone Ranger, Hop-along Cassidy, Roy Rogers and their sidekicks’ fake, distorted, prettified Old West stuff. Stuff where the rich Native American traditions got short shrift.

Earlier today we had been over to Red Rock for an Intertribal celebration, a gathering of what was left of the great, ancient warrior nations that roamed freely here not all that long ago but who are now mere “cigar store” Indian characters to the public eye. The sounds, the whispering shrill canyon sounds and all the others, the sights, the colors radiant as they pulled out all the stops to bring back the old days when they ruled this West, the spirit, ah, the spirit of our own warrior shaman trances are still in our heads. I am still in some shamanic-induced trance from the healing dances, from warrior tom-tom dances, and from the primal scream-like sounds as they drove away the evil spirits that gathered around them (not hard enough to drive the marauding “white devil” who broken their hearts, if not their spirits though). Not only that but we scored some peyote buttons (strictly for religious purposes, as you will see) and they have started to kick in along with the occasional hit from the old bong hash pipe (strictly for medicinal purposes).

So right now in this dark, abyss dark, darker than I ever saw the night sky in the East even though it is star-filled, million star-filled, in this spitting flame-roared campfire throwing shadow night along with tormented pipe-filled dreams of Angelica I am embedded with the ghosts of ten thousand past warrior- kings and their people. And if my ears don’t deceive me, and they don’t, beside Jack’s flute and Mattie’s penny whistle I hear, and hear plainly, the muted gathering war cries of ancient drums summoning paint-faced proud, bedecked warriors to avenge their not so ancient loses, and their sorrows as well.

And after more pipe-fillings that sound got louder, louder so that even Jack and Mattie seem transfixed and begin to play their own instruments louder and stronger to keep pace with the drums. Then, magically, magically it seemed anyway, I swear, I swear on anything holy or unholy, on some sodden forebear grave, on some unborn descendent that off the campfire- reflected red, red sandstone, grey, grey sandstone, beige (beige for lack of better color description), beige sandstone canyon echo walls I see the vague outlines of old proud, feather-bedecked, slash mark-painted Apache warriors beginning, slowly at first, to go into their ghost dance trance that I had heard got them revved up for a fight. Suddenly, we three, we three television-sotted Indian warriors got up and started, slowly at first so we are actually out of synch with the wall action to move to the rhythms of the ghosts. Ay ya, ay ya, ay ya, ay ya,…..until we speed up to catch the real pace. After what seems an eternity we are ready, ready as hell, to go seek revenge for those white injustices.

But just as quickly the now flickering camp fire flame goes out, or goes to ember, the shadow ghost dance warriors are gone and we crumble in exhaustion to the ground. So much for vengeance. We, after regaining some strength, all decide that we had better push on, push on hard, to the ocean. These ancient desert nights, sweet winter desert nights or not, will do us in otherwise. But just for a moment, just for a weak modern moment we, or at least I knew, what it was like for those ancient warriors to seek their own blue-pink great American West night.

For Kate McGarrigle’s Birthday- *Songs For Aging Children (Oops!, Adults) -The Later Music Of Loudon Wainwright III

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Loudon Wainwright III Doing "Homeless".

CD Review

Last Man On Earth, Loudon Wainwright III, Red House Records, 2001

Okay, I have written plenty of prose stuff about the trials and tribulations, political or otherwise, of my generation, the now aging children of the "Generation Of '68. But who will chronicle in song or verse the "not going gently into that good night", as Dylan Thomas would have it, of that generation? Well, I have at least a contender for that position in the songwriting division, Loudon Wainwright III. For those who are unfamiliar with the name Brother Wainwright was something of well known, if secondary, figure on the 1960's folk revival circuit. If that is not enough information then he was once married to Kate McGarrigle, one of the accomplished folk- singing McGarrigle sisters. If that is still not enough then he played, in several episodes at least, the guitar- strumming GI in the television series "MASH". For the younger set, Loudon is Rufus Wainwright's father. There, I think I have touched all the bases.

Why is Brother Wainwright my candidate for the oracle of the swan song of our generation (it appears that he is an almost exact contemporary of mine)? Well, just take a listen to this CD(or read the lyrics)," Last Man On Earth", and you will know. Sure, it is a little light on the need to continue the political struggle that we started in our youth but on the questions of losing parents, reconciling with the lost of parents, reflecting on that fact that some issues between the generations never got resolved (and now never will) and dealing with the inevitable, if sometimes humorous, medical questions, of our own aging process he is right on.

That list of issues further includes the whys and wherefores of a lifetime of frustration about artistic endeavors (or whatever road we traveled), the little question of immortality and the now really big question of how to get through to the next day. It is all there. I want to say that this is a man's CD, and as to subject matter and "feel" it is, but I think Brother Wainwright has captured many a dilemma that we can all, male and female, relate to. Hell, Rufus can sing to the kids, Loudon is ours. That is the "skinny" here from one "last man on earth" to another.

Last Man On Earth Lyrics

In the year 2000
my age was 53
born in the first half
of the last century
I always was post-modern
but that's ancient history
Now I'm the last man on Earth
that's what the matter is with me
I guess I'm old fashioned

Retro to a degree
you could say I'm a throw-back
anachronistically
air conditioning is here to stay
and that makes me unhappy
cause I'm the last man on Earth
that's what the matter is with me
I don't have a portfolio
I gotta pleed guilty
the best things are the worthless now
that's just because they're free
and if your not a millionaire yet
boy, you better be
Now, I'm the last man on Earth
that's what the matter is with me
I should be optimistic
and go buy some bonds and stocks
They'll find a cure for Cancer soon
we may get trigger-locks
existence is no picnic
as statistics all have shown
we learn to live together
and then we die alone
everybody's got a website
but that's all Greek to me
I don't own a computer
I hate that letter "e"
I don't pack a cell phone
or drive an SUV
Yes, I'm the last man on Earth
that's what the matter is with me
I'm the last man standing
save the last dance for me
I've taken the last train to Clarksville
I'm the fifth monkey
nice guys always finish last
no one's nicer than me
Yeah, I'm the last man on Earth
That's what the matter is with me
Kid's used to say their prayers at night
before they went to bed
St. John told us that God is love
Nietzsche said he was dead
this thing we call existence
who knows what it all means?
Time and Life and People
are just glossy magazines
I sat and watched those guys
debate each other on TV
politicians, wrestlers
they're all the same to me
hey, I don't give a damn
which idiot runs this country
Since I'm the last man on Earth
It don't matter to me
In the year 2000
my age was 53
I know that I'm grumpy
middle-aged crazy
but if you are a woman
you might have to sleep with me
Since I'm the last man on Earth
and I can guarantee
I'm the last man on Earth
and there ain't nothing wrong with me


White Winos Lyrics

Mother liked her white wine
She'd have a glass or two
Almost every single night
After her day was through
San se chardonnay chaiblie
Pinot gris jiot
Just to take the edge of
Just to get the glow
You've got to take the edge off
If you wanna get the...
Mother liked her white wines
She'd have a glass or three
We'd sat out on the screen porch
White winos mam and me
We'd talk about her childhood
Recap my career
When we got to my father
That was when I'd switch to beer
We got to the old man
And I'd always switched to
Mother liked her white wine


CHORUS:

I go to the graveyard where we all must go
Among the dead & the buried there just so I will know
What it's like beneath those trees listening to that wind
I go to the graveyard & I'll be back again

I played in the graveyard when I was just a boy
I'd run among the headstones myself I would enjoy
But I was young & hardly knew what would happen then
I played in the graveyard & I'll be back again

I walk through the graveyard I read the headstones
So many dead & buried there, each one all alone
An old man and an infant & a little child of ten
I walk through the graveyard & I'll be back again

My father's in the graveyard, my dear mother too
I viit them with flowers what else can I do
I go to the graveyard to remember them
I'm an orphan in the graveyard & I'll be back again

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell- On The Anniversary Of The Death Of Jimi Hendrix- From Woodstock Nation (1969)To Class-Struggle Nation (2011)

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jimi Hendrix performing his classic blues rock, Hey, Joe.

Markin comment:

As we gear up for another titantic struggle to bring the American "beast" down it is rather appropriate to remember one of the icons of the 1960s cultural struggles this year.

From the American Left History blog

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

*The Cultural Wars-Part 247- Woodstock 2007

COMMENTARY

As a political writer who stands well outside the traditional political parties in this country I do not generally comment on specific politicians or candidates, unless they make themselves into moving target. Come on now, this IS politics after all. How can I justify not taking a poke at someone who has a sign on his chest saying –Hit Me? Lately Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Senator John McCain has fallen all over himself to meet that requirement.


And what is the fuss about. Studied differences about how to withdraw from Iraq? No. Finding ways to rein in the out of control budgets deficits? No. A user friendly universal health care program? No. What has sent the good Senator McCain into spasms is a little one million dollar funding proposal (since killed in the Senate) that would have partially funded a museum at Woodstock, site of the famous 1969 counter-cultural festival. His view is that the federal government should not be funding projects that commemorate drug, sex and rock and roll. Well so be it. However, the topper is this. In order to sharply draw the cultural war line in the sand he mentioned (just in passing, I’m sure) to the Republican audience that he was speaking to that he did not attend that event as he was ‘tied up’ elsewhere.

Unlike his draft dodging fellows, like Bush Cheney, Wolfowitz, et. al in the Bush Administration McCain saw action in Vietnam. Of course that action was as a naval pilot whose job it was to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, a task in which they very nearly succeeded. Through the fortunes of war he was shot down and spent several years in a POW camp. That comes with the territory. In the summer of 1969 this writer also had other commitments. He was under orders to report to Fort Lewis, Washington in order to head to Vietnam as a foot soldier. That too comes with the territory. The point is why rain on someone else’s parade just because you want to be a hero. Moreover, it is somewhat less than candid to almost forty years later belly ache about it.


A note on Woodstock as an icon of the 1960’s. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. We liked that idea then, even those of us who were rank and file soldiers. Not everyone made it through that experience . Others recoiled in horror later, including some of those today on the right wing of the culture wars. And others who did not 'inhale' or hang around with people who did formed another reaction to those events. Those experiments and others like communal living, alternative lifestyles and ‘dropping out’, however, were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a fundamental political change in society proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Note this well. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, and today by John McCain spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty years of ‘cultural wars’ in revenge by them and their protégés is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell-The Cultural Wars-Part 247- Woodstock 2007

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell-The Cultural Wars-Part 247- Woodstock 2007

COMMENTARY

As a political writer who stands well outside the traditional political parties in this country I do not generally comment on specific politicians or candidates, unless they make themselves into moving target. Come on now, this IS politics after all. How can I justify not taking a poke at someone who has a sign on his chest saying –Hit Me? Lately Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Senator John McCain has fallen all over himself to meet that requirement.


And what is the fuss about. Studied differences about how to withdraw from Iraq? No. Finding ways to rein in the out of control budgets deficits? No. A user friendly universal health care program? No. What has sent the good Senator McCain into spasms is a little one million dollar funding proposal (since killed in the Senate) that would have partially funded a museum at Woodstock, site of the famous 1969 counter-cultural festival. His view is that the federal government should not be funding projects that commemorate drug, sex and rock and roll. Well so be it. However, the topper is this. In order to sharply draw the cultural war line in the sand he mentioned (just in passing, I’m sure) to the Republican audience that he was speaking to that he did not attend that event as he was ‘tied up’ elsewhere.

Unlike his draft dodging fellows, like Bush Cheney, Wolfowitz, et. al in the Bush Administration McCain saw action in Vietnam. Of course that action was as a naval pilot whose job it was to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, a task in which they very nearly succeeded. Through the fortunes of war he was shot down and spent several years in a POW camp. That comes with the territory. In the summer of 1969 this writer also had other commitments. He was under orders to report to Fort Lewis, Washington in order to head to Vietnam as a foot soldier. That too comes with the territory. The point is why rain on someone else’s parade just because you want to be a hero. Moreover, it is somewhat less than candid to almost forty years later belly ache about it.


A note on Woodstock as an icon of the 1960’s. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. We liked that idea then, even those of us who were rank and file soldiers. Not everyone made it through that experience . Others recoiled in horror later, including some of those today on the right wing of the culture wars. And others who did not 'inhale' or hang around with people who did formed another reaction to those events. Those experiments and others like communal living, alternative lifestyles and ‘dropping out’, however, were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a fundamental political change in society proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Note this well. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, and today by John McCain spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty years of ‘cultural wars’ in revenge by them and their protégés is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell -Once Again From The Free-Form Butterfly Breeze Lady- Joni Mitchell’s "Hejira"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Joni Mitchell performing Coyote.

CD Review

Hejira, Joni Mitchell, Asylum Records, 1976

The last time that I reviewed a Joni Mitchell album in this space I noted that I actually knew her work before I was aware of her as a performer, from her songs covered by other artists. And before that angel-edged voice linked to those 1960s wistful lyrics were introduced to me in the late 1960s how did I know Joni? Well, thanks to folk song singer/songwriter Tom Rush who covered her Circle Game and Urge For Going. Hardly an angel-edged introduction. But there is more. I also knew her work from Dave Van Ronk’s gravelly-voice cover of that same Urge For Going. Again, no angel-edged voice. No way. Sorry brother Van Ronk. So when I heard her Ladies Of The Canyon I already knew some things about. Except that trilly, echo in the night, voice of her’s put those songs, and others, on another, more ethereal level. Just the right voice for the mystic-seeking, dream-vision floating, and, ah, dope-addled 1960s.

I would argue, moreover, that if the average male “hippie”, and maybe, females as well, although I am not as sure about that, into folk and folk rock in those days was asked to give his opinion of his vision of what a 1960s folk-singing “chick” (that was one of our artless terms for women in those days, although not the most artless) should look and sound like that composite would come out to very much the Botticelli-like Joni Mitchell. That said, her work here on this album, Hejira, which is from the tail-end, the very tail-end, of the folk-rock boom and just before the 1960s dreams died, and died hard, and reflects a little harder edge, both lyrically and vocally, and a little more sense of the down side of this wicked old world. Stick outs are: Coyote, Song For Sharon, and Refuge On The Roads. Still nice.

*Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell - From The 1960s Archives-Woodstock's 40th Anniversary- You Can't Go Home Again!

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell - From The 1960s Archives-Woodstock's 40th Anniversary- You Can't Go Home Again!


Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip on "Woodstock 1969". Some of the footage brings back pleasant memories. Others are, frankly, bizarre. Ah, those were the days though when to be alive was very heaven.

COMMENTARY 2009

Below is a repost of a commentary from 2007 about the continuing cultural wars centered on events like Woodstock from the 1960s and their lingering political effects.

The Cultural Wars-Part 247- Woodstock 2007 October 30, 2007

COMMENTARY

As a political writer who stands well outside the traditional political parties in this country I do not generally comment on specific politicians or candidates, unless they make themselves into moving target. Come on now, this IS politics after all. How can I justify not taking a poke at someone who has a sign on his chest saying –Hit Me? Lately Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Senator John McCain has fallen all over himself to meet that requirement.


And what is the fuss about. Studied differences about how to withdraw from Iraq? No. Finding ways to rein in the out of control budgets deficits? No. A user friendly universal health care program? No. What has sent the good Senator McCain into spasms is a little one million dollar funding proposal (since killed in the Senate) that would have partially funded a museum at Woodstock, site of the famous 1969 counter-cultural festival. His view is that the federal government should not be funding projects that commemorate drug, sex and rock and roll. Well so be it. However, the topper is this. In order to sharply draw the cultural war line in the sand he mentioned (just in passing, I’m sure) to the Republican audience that he was speaking to that he did not attend that event as he was ‘tied up’ elsewhere.

Unlike his draft dodging fellows, like Bush Cheney, Wolfowitz, et. al in the Bush Administration McCain saw action in Vietnam. Of course that action was as a naval pilot whose job it was to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age, a task in which they very nearly succeeded. Through the fortunes of war he was shot down and spent several years in a POW camp. That comes with the territory. In the summer of 1969 this writer also had other commitments. He was under orders to report to Fort Lewis, Washington in order to head to Vietnam as a foot soldier. That too comes with the territory. The point is why rain on someone else’s parade just because you want to be a hero. Moreover, it is somewhat less than candid to almost forty years later belly ache about it.


A note on Woodstock as an icon of the 1960’s. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. We liked that idea then, even those of us who were rank and file soldiers. Not everyone made it through that experience . Others recoiled in horror later, including some of those today on the right wing of the culture wars. And others who did not 'inhale' or hang around with people who did formed another reaction to those events. Those experiments and others like communal living, alternative lifestyles and ‘dropping out’, however, were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a fundamental political change in society proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

Note this well. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, and today by John McCain spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, the minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. Forty years of ‘cultural wars’ in revenge by them and their protégés is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.

Woodstock lyrics-Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
Im going on down to yasgurs farm
Im going to join in a rock n roll band
Im going to camp out on the land
Im going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
I dont know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

The Summer Of Love, 1967 -Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere- Neil Young

DVD REVIEW

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young With Crazy Horse, Reprise Records, 1970


I have mentioned elsewhere in this space that, on any given night in the 1960’s, Jim Morrison and the Doors were pound for pound the best rock and roll band in the world. I would stand by that remark as a general proposition but only add that for quality over the long haul the Rolling Stones would edge the Doors out. However, somewhere, somehow into this mix one must place Neil Young’s work with Crazy Horse in the early 1970’s. Young himself has gone through many transformations including grunge bandleader and lately sort of a soulful folk-rock elder statesman. But back in the day he could rock with the best of them-first with Buffalo Springfield and then the various combinations with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

So what makes Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere special? Easy. Young on lead vocals and guitar and the band play the kind of acid-inspired rock that has withstood the test of time. That is not true for most of the work of that era. Some Jefferson
Airplane, some The Who yes but most of it is rather grating on the ear these days. And the aging of this reviewer is only one of the factors for that belief. Neil and the guys knew how to work the riffs as they related to any particular song. Take, for example, Down By The River, it is simply powerful without being overdone. Or the title song mentioned above, for that matter.

I think that Young, as experienced musician by that point in his career, had something in the back of his mind about doing music for the long haul. The quality of this album reflects that decision. Look, electricity will take virtually anything that an instrument has to offer. The history of rock and roll proves that. If you want to get a slice of what the best use of that electricity was like when men and women played rock and roll for keeps listen here.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Push For The Great 1960s Breakout- “Harold and Maude”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) performing Where Do The Children Play?

DVD Review

Harold and Maude, Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, directed by Hal Ashby, 1971


Some films, especially coming of age films of either the political or social kind, do not age well. That is the fate of the early 1970s cult classic of sorts, Harold and Maude. This was a film that some friends of mine in Cambridge would queue up for on a weekly basis, and gladly, at one particular theater that played the film and only that film for about a year. See, that was the time of the great attempted late 1960s break-out from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path by all kinds of people and Harold seemed a kindred spirit, and was then. Maude, needless to say was everybody’s grandmother dream, if only compared to harsh mother reality, and if you liked little old ladies in tennis sneakers. And you should.

The premise of the film certainly had appeal, teen angst, big time teen angst by the distraught Harold (Bud Cort) trying to, against his class background and his monster mother’s well-laid plans for his future, fight for his place in the world (or the next world in his faux fascination with death and funerals) and old age angst (happy angst, if that is not an oxymoron) by the bubbly Maude (Ruth Gordon). By the end of the film old Ruth is able to bring Bud around to seeing that life, his life, is worth living. Well, ho hum for the premise now, now that some of us are approaching old Maude’s age.

What is false here, maybe not as false as some things we have learned along the way but false nevertheless, is Maude’s aged wisdom. The truth, the bitter truth, is that the wisdom we acquired was done so in our youth and we have been living off that, chipping away at the edges, ever since. What still holds up, and holds well, is the sound track of Cat Stevens’ (now Yusuf Islam) great songs like Wild World and Where Do The Children Play? Wordsworth had it right- to be young was very heaven.
********
Where Do The Children Play? Lyrics
Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)


Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off.

Oh, I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
'til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

***A Donovan Encore- "Catch The Wind"

CD REVIEW

Sunshine Superman, Donovan, Digimode, 1999

Elsewhere in this space I have reviewed a 2007 Donovan benefit concert in Los Angeles, “Donovan: Live In L.A.”, for the movie director David Lynch’s meditation center. As part of that review I noted that the now 60-something Donovan, my contemporary from the”Generation of ‘68”, had lost a step or two after viewing that performance. He kind of mailed it in there. I also noted that if one had a choice between that DVD, which I gave three stars to, and the five stars CD under review here then grab this one with both hands. Without getting all nostalgic about it these tracks, many of them covered in the documentary, jump with the spirit, naiveté, and hopes of the 1960’s. Donovan was, and is, an extraordinary songwriter. But more than that, in his prime he epitomized the hopes and dreams that we could create a “newer world”. That we failed in that important task does not negate that his music was part of that mix in trying to “turn the world upside down”.

Just listing his songs here evokes a whole youth of color, change, causes and clashes. That said, those who decide to get this CD will get a full cycle of Donovan’s early work, including the simple but strong melody of “Colors” and the wistfulness and yearning of “Catch The Wind” (recently used in an automobile commercial-not good) that first brought Donovan’s music to my attention. “Jennifer Juniper” (didn’t we all have dreams of our own Jennifer, or wanted to), the funky, funny sing-along “ Mellow Yellow” , the pacifically-inclined and strongly anti-war Buffy St. Marie song “The Universal Soldier” and Donovan’s theme song “Sunshine Superman” are also included. As are the mystical “Atlantis” and the semi-mystical “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. Ah, those were the days.

*The Bob Dylan Bootleg Legacy- The Royal Albert Hall Concert of 1966- You Do Need The Band To Play The Last Waltz- The Band's LeVon Healms Passes At 71

Click On Title To Link To A YouTube Film Clip Of Bob Dylan And The Band Performing Like A Rolling Stone.

CD REVIEW

Bob Dylan Live 1966: The Bootleg series, Volume 4, “The Royal Albert Hall” Concert, Bob Dylan and The Band, Columbia Records, 1966.

Of all the bootleg, genuine basement tapes, fake basement tapes, etc. that have come out of over the years detailing the career of the premier folk troubadour of his times, Bob Dylan, this volume that contains the bulk of the famous (or infamous, if you are one of those old folk traditionalists who never moved on) English "Royal Albert Hall" Concert of 1966 may be historically the most valuable. Certainly after Martin Scorsese used the concert as a central backdrop to his Dylan documentary "No Direction Home" the argument for its importance in the folk pantheon has been enhanced. The CD issued many years ago prior to Scorsese's effort only confirms that judgment.

Here, in a quick summary, is what the hullabaloo was all about. Many early 1960's folkies were looking for a new "king of the hill" to continue the tradition established by the likes of Woody Guthrie (an early Dylan hero, by the way) and Pete Seeger. Certainly off the first few years of Dylan's rise it looked to one and all, including this reviewer, that Dylan would fill the bill. Then, he switched gears and started to write more starkly personal songs (rather than quasi-political songs like "Blowing In The Wind") and, oh lord here it comes, to use the electric guitar as backup. And worst of all, an electric backup band (the now immortal The Band). You know, with drums and all. "Albert Hall" was one of the first major venues where he presented both concepts, acoustic and electric. The British traditionalists (or at least some of them) were not pleased. But as I have noted elsewhere in earlier reviews of Dylan's work everyone else should be glad, glad as hell, that he made that move.

Needless to say this concert is divided into an acoustic section where he plays some great numbers like "Visions Of Johanna", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the like. His highlight here is "Desolation Row" an incredible almost surreal use of words and phrases that read more like a poem than a mere song. If I had not been a Dylan fan before this song then the first time I hear "They are selling postcards of the hanging. They are painting the passports brown. The beauty parlor is filled with sailors. The circus is in town" would have caught my attention for life right then and there.

The second, more controversial electric part includes the 1960's semi-national anthem for the counter cultural generation "Like A Rolling Stone" and a good literary companion piece to "Desolation Row" the very fine "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.” Finally, as an extra bonus if you want to hear Dylan without the slurs that make understanding some of the lyrics in other albums hard this is one for you.

LIKE A ROLLING STONE

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

DESOLATION ROW

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

JUST LIKE TOM THUMB'S BLUES

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won't even say what it is I've got

Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you're so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And man they expect the same

Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough


BALLAD OF A THIN MAN

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1965 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel
To be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, "Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin' around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?