Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out In The Corner Boy Night- Rock “Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing a sassy, sexy, alternate version of One Night, One Night Of Sin.

CD Review

Rockin’ Bones, Four CD set with booklet, various artists, Rhino Records, 2006

This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame (locally known as the Acre school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway), and now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High, wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a “pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.

John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, by the way, politely asked or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.

The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.

And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the “boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.

And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.

Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.

Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her. Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend, “Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.

Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up. Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).

After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping here through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life while we are listening to One Night of Sin by Elvis Presley; Boppin’ High School Baby by Don Willis; Long Blonde Hair, Rose Red Lips by Johnny Powers (watch out Johnny); Sunglasses After Dark by Lo Lou Darrell Rhodes (Clintondale's pizza parlor max daddy Frankie Doyle’s favorite song); Red Hot by Bob Luman (yes, red hot); Long Gone Daddy by Pat Cupp; Put Your Cat Clothes On by Carl Perkins; Duck Tail by Joe Clay; Switch Blade Sam by Jeff Daniels (maybe not); Susie-Q by Dale Hawkins; Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins; Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran; Rumble Rock by Kip Taylor, Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On by Jerry Lee Lewis; and, Get Hot Or Go Home by John Kerby on the old car radio. What do you think?

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check-The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- “The Wild One” A Film Review-And More

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check

By Bart Webber

I had been, strangely enough, in La Jolla out in California attending yet another writers’ conference which seems to be the makings of my days these days, attending writers’ conferences that is instead of taking pen to paper or rather fingers to word processor keyboard, when I heard Tom Wolfe had cashed his check. “Cashed his check” a term (along with synonymous “cashed his ticket”) grabbed from memory bank as a term used when I was “on the bum” hanging out in hobo jungle camps and the whole trail of flop houses and Salvation Army digs to signify that a kindred had passed to the great beyond. Was now resting in some better place that a stinking stew-bitten, flea –bitten, foul-aired and foul-person place. No more worries about the next flop, the next jug of cheapjack wine, the next run-in with vicious coppers and railroad bulls, and the next guy who was ready to rip whatever you had off to feed his own sullen addiction.

By the way this is not Thomas Wolfe of You Can’t Go Home Again, Look Homeward, Angels, etc. but the writer, maybe journalist is a better way to put the matter of tons of interesting stuff from acid trips in the 1960s hanging with Ken Kesey and his various tribes of merry pranksters, the Hell’s Angels, drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, to marveled space flights in the 1970s to Wall Street in the reckless 1980 and back who had cashed his check. The strange part of the “strangely enough” mentioned above was that on Monday May 14^th 2018, the day he died, I was walking along La Jolla Cove and commenting to my companion without knowing his fate that Tom Wolfe had made the La Jolla surfing scene in the early 1960s come alive with his tale of the Pump House Gang and related stories about the restless California tribes, you know those Hell’s Angels, Valley hot-rod freaks and the like who parents had migrated west from dustbowl Okies and Arkies to start a new life out in Eden. These next generation though lost in a thousand angsts and alienation not having to fight for every breath of fresh air (with the exception of the Angels who might as well have stayed in the Okies and McAllister Prison which would have been their fate.   

I don’t know how Tom Wolfe did at the end as a writer, or toward the end, when things seemed to glaze over and became very homogenized, lacked the verve of hard ass 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s times. Although I do note that he did a very although I note he did an interesting take on the cultural life at the Army base at Fort Bragg down in North Carolina in a book of essays around the theme of hooking up. That hooking up angle a sign that social cohesiveness in the age of the Internet was creating some strange rituals. Know this those pound for pound in his prime he along with Hunter Thompson could write the sociology of the land with simple flair and kept this guy, me, flipping the pages in the wee hours of the morning. RIP, Tom Wolfe, RIP.  

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- “The Wild One” A Film Review-And More

Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet, and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.

After completing that project, or maybe while completing it I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.

The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.           

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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017                

Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion, photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful expression.

That project subsequently got me started thinking about the late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of 1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.     

Here is what is important today though, about how the dots get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today. Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are you when we need, desperately need, you.       

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Zack James comment, Summer of 2017 

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

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

DVD Review

The Wild One, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, produced by Stanley Kramer,1954

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis. But, before I get to that let me make about seventy–six disclaimers. First, the whys and wherefores of the motorcycle culture, except on those occasions when they become subject to governmental investigation or impact some cultural phenomena, is outside the purview of the leftist politics that dominate the commentary in this space. There is no Marxoid political line, as a rule, on such activity, nor should there be. Those exceptions include when motorcyclists, usually under the rubric of “bad actor” motorcycle clubs, like the famous (or infamous) Oakland, California-based Hell’s Angels are generally harassed by the cops and we have to defend their right to be left alone (you know, those "helmet laws", and the never-failing pull-over for "driving while biker") or, like when the Angels were used by the Rolling Stones at Altamont and that ill-advised decision represented a watershed in the 1960s counter-cultural movement. Or, more ominously, from another angle when such lumpen formations form the core hell-raisers of anti-immigrant, anti-communist, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black liberation fascistic demonstrations and we are compelled, and rightly so, to go toe to toe with them. Scary yes, necessary yes, bikes or no bikes.

Second, in the interest of full disclosure I own no stock, or have any other interest, in Harley-Davidson, or any other motorcycle company. Third, I do not now, or have I ever belonged to a motorcycle club or owned a motorcycle, although I have driven them, or, more often, on back of them on occasion. Fourth, I do not now, knowingly or unknowingly, although I grew up in working class neighborhoods where bikes and bikers were plentiful, hang with such types. Fifth, the damn things and their riders are too noisy, despite the glamour and “freedom” of the road associated with them. Sixth, and here is the “kicker”, I have been, endlessly, fascinated by bikes and bike culture as least since early high school, if not before, and had several friends who “rode”. Well that is not seventy-six but that is enough for disclaimers.

Okay, as to genesis, motorcycle genesis. Let’s connect the dots. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances, high school hi-jinks, high school dances, high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, is on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working class town, a seen better days town at that, my growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, one could call our own, our working class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song by written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. (See lyrics below.) Without belaboring the point the gist of this song is the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James leads to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term “little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeaths his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His bike, man. His bike. Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His bike, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Thompson.

Needless to say that exploration was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Thus, readers of this space were treated to reviews of such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and other, later Rolling Stone magazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-linked wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot. Old Johnny and his fellow “outlaw” motorcycle club members are out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(They are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

And naturally, when the boys (and they are all boys here, except for couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, naturally, after sizing up the local law, head for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working, trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, (yes, and hard-working, its tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere) Johnny trap comes into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Natch. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, off-handedly, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amount to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “C” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, casualities, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside bikerdom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the weren't we buddies in the war Red Army , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, ya, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers” were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his early essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally). Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers”, the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hellbend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East. Now I lived, as a teenager in a working class, really marginally working poor, neighborhood that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that, I think it was Deathheads, or something like that). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran” through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our Marxist politics, and other such weapons.

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ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /
/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check -In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- “The Wild One” A Film Review-And More

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check

By Bart Webber

I had been, strangely enough, in La Jolla out in California attending yet another writers’ conference which seems to be the makings of my days these days when I heard Tom Wolfe (not Thomas Wolfe of Look Homeward, Angels, etc.) the writer of tons of interesting stuff from acid trips in the 1960s to space flights in the 1970 to Wall Street in the reckless 1980 and back had cashed his check. The strange part of the “strangely enough” was that on Monday May 14^th 2018, the day he died,  I was walking along La Jolla Cove and commenting to my companion that Tom Wolfe had made the La Jolla surfing scene in the early 1960s come alive with his tale of the Pump House Gang and related stories without knowing he had passed.

I don’t know how he did at the end as a writer, or toward the end although I note he did an interesting take on the cultural life at the Army base at Fort Bragg down in North Carolina but pound for pound in his prime he could write the sociology of the land with simple flair and kept this guy flipping the pages in the wee hours of the morning. RIP, Tom Wolfe, RIP.   

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the classic Marlon Brando film, The Wild One.

DVD Review

The Wild One, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, produced by Stanley Kramer,1954

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis. But, before I get to that let me make about seventy–six disclaimers. First, the whys and wherefores of the motorcycle culture, except on those occasions when they become subject to governmental investigation or impact some cultural phenomena, is outside the purview of the leftist politics that dominate the commentary in this space. There is no Marxoid political line, as a rule, on such activity, nor should there be. Those exceptions include when motorcyclists, usually under the rubric of “bad actor” motorcycle clubs, like the famous (or infamous) Oakland, California-based Hell’s Angels are generally harassed by the cops and we have to defend their right to be left alone (you know, those "helmet laws", and the never-failing pull-over for "driving while biker") or, like when the Angels were used by the Rolling Stones at Altamont and that ill-advised decision represented a watershed in the 1960s counter-cultural movement. Or, more ominously, from another angle when such lumpen formations form the core hell-raisers of anti-immigrant, anti-communist, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black liberation fascistic demonstrations and we are compelled, and rightly so, to go toe to toe with them. Scary yes, necessary yes, bikes or no bikes.

Second, in the interest of full disclosure I own no stock, or have any other interest, in Harley-Davidson, or any other motorcycle company. Third, I do not now, or have I ever belonged to a motorcycle club or owned a motorcycle, although I have driven them, or, more often, on back of them on occasion. Fourth, I do not now, knowingly or unknowingly, although I grew up in working class neighborhoods where bikes and bikers were plentiful, hang with such types. Fifth, the damn things and their riders are too noisy, despite the glamour and “freedom” of the road associated with them. Sixth, and here is the “kicker”, I have been, endlessly, fascinated by bikes and bike culture as least since early high school, if not before, and had several friends who “rode”. Well that is not seventy-six but that is enough for disclaimers.

Okay, as to genesis, motorcycle genesis. Let’s connect the dots. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances, high school hi-jinks, high school dances, high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, is on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working class town, a seen better days town at that, my growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, one could call our own, our working class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song by written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. (See lyrics below.) Without belaboring the point the gist of this song is the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James leads to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term “little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeaths his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His bike, man. His bike. Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His bike, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Thompson.

Needless to say that exploration was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Thus, readers of this space were treated to reviews of such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and other, later Rolling Stone magazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-linked wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot. Old Johnny and his fellow “outlaw” motorcycle club members are out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(They are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

And naturally, when the boys (and they are all boys here, except for couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, naturally, after sizing up the local law, head for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working, trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, (yes, and hard-working, its tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere) Johnny trap comes into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Natch. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, off-handedly, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amount to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “C” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, casualities, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside bikerdom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the weren't we buddies in the war Red Army , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, ya, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers” were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his early essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally). Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers”, the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hellbend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East. Now I lived, as a teenager in a working class, really marginally working poor, neighborhood that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that, I think it was Deathheads, or something like that). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran” through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our Marxist politics, and other such weapons.

*************


ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /
/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride

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

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

Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

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

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

DVD Review

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

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

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

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

When Girls Doo-Wopped In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- "The Best Of The Girl Groups- Volume 1”- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Shangri-Las performing Leader Of The Pack.

CD Review

The Best Of The Girl Groups, Volume 1, various artists, Rhino Records, 1990

I have, of late, been running back over some rock material that formed my coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal, iPod, oops, battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and just fine, agreed), and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Naturally one had to pay homage to the blues influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Big Joe Turner. And, of course, the rockabilly influences from Elvis, Carl Perkins, Wanda Jackson, and Jerry Lee Lewis on. Additionally, I have spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (good question, right). I note that I have not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great ‘girl’ groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed our tastes in popular music. I make some amends for that omission here.

One problem with the girl groups for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, is that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy can a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks up with her boyfriend, a motorcycle guy, a sensitive motorcycle guy, on her parents’ demand because of his lower class upbringing as the lyrics in the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack attest to. Except that she should have stuck with her guy through thick and thin, and maybe, just maybe, he would not have skidded off that rainy road and gone to Harley heaven so young. And, maybe, just maybe, they could be in that little white house with the picket fence hosting the grandkids today.

Try this, the lyrics about some guy, some sensitive, shy, good-looking guy with the wavy hair who all the girls are going crazy over but who the singer is going make her very own in boy and girl love battle in the Cliftons’ He’s So Fine when this writer was nothing but a girl reject, mainly. Or how about this one, the one where the love bugs are going to be married and really get that white house picket fence thing in the Dixie Cups’ Chapel Of Love for a guy who, again, more often than not didn’t even have steady girlfriend. I, kiss-less youth, won’t even get into the part of the anatomy that Betty Everett harps on in It’s In His Kiss. Or, finally, how could I possibly relate to the teen girl angst problem posed in the Shirelles Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Ya, how would I know if it was the real thing, or just a moment’s pleasure, and what that dreaded tomorrow they sing about will bring.

So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Ya, but also get this you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop bopped into that good night voice out and listen to, and sing along with, the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was about our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth traumas and now, a distant now, this stuff sounds great.

*In The Time Of Motorcycle Boy- S.E. Hinton’s "Rumblefish"- A Film Review

Click on the title to link to YouTube's film clip of a segment from "Rumblefish"

DVD Review

Rumblefish, starring Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper with Tom Waits, 1983

“The Wild Ones”, “Easy Rider” those are movies that come readily to mind when one thinks about the freedom of the road- riding high on a motorcycle, and raising hell with the 'squares' come what may. Those were films of desperate alienation and the search for meaning in an earlier, seemingly, simpler America. The truth of that last comment will not hold up under closer examination but at least in the realm of motorcycle movies that appears to be true, as least as compared with the angst of the film version of S.E. Hinton’s classic tale of teenage alienation, “Rumblefish”.

Here Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is trouble personified, he just rolls into it like magic as he tries to make his way in a world that he did not create and that he barely tolerates. Needless to say this "up yours" attitude doesn’t stop as the story unfolds even when big brother, Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke) comes back to town. From beginning to end Rusty is adrift and it is not at all clear whether he will “learn his lessons” about life, limits and staying the hell out of trouble. It is Hinton’s super-realism that drives the plot but it is director Coppola whose tight shots (using virtually all black and white, a nice touch), and seemingly surreal footage makes this thing visually interesting as well.

In the interest of full disclosure when I was a kid, a somewhat troubled kid to boot, for a minute, I was very, very interested in being a bad motorcycle boy. However, as I have written elsewhere, it seemed to me to take too much effort to truly affect that stance. Reading books was easier for a runt like me. However, during that minute of interest I ran into more than one Rusty James and more than one who, one way or another did not make it. That point is driven home in this film.

Note: For those who are interested in seeing the early work of the likes of Nick Cage, Diane Lane, Vincent Spano and others this film is packed with budding stars. Oh, and for the old fogies, motorcycle movies actor personified- Dennis Hopper- is present and accounted for.

***On The Nature of True Love-In Search Of The Great Working Class Love Song- With Donna Walker, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, In Mind,Take Two

This song is from YouTube performed by Thompson, although a stronger version is done on a cover by folk singer Greg Brown not there.

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike

A girl could feel special on any such like

Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you

It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952

And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems

Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme

And he pulled her on behind

And down to Box Hill they did ride

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand

But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man

I've fought with the law since I was seventeen

I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine

Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22

And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you

And if fate should break my stride

Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride


Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae

For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery

Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside

Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside

When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left

He was running out of road, he was running out of breath

But he smiled to see her cry

And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride



Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world

Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl

Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do

They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52

He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys

He said I've got no further use for these

I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

Swooping down from heaven to carry me home

And he gave her one last kiss and died

And he gave her his Vincent to ride

*********
The search, the everlasting search as it turned out, for the great working class love song, was prompted by a question that Peter Paul Markin had been asked about a few years before from some old North Adamsville high school classmates who had contacted him to cut up old torches via a circuitous route, hell, a byzantine route, or byzantine –worthy, that he would describe some other time since to stop for it then would have snagged the question to death - what music were you listening to back in the day? Back in the early 1960s day when the music was exhausted and they were waiting, waiting impatiently, or he was, for some fresh breeze to come from somewhere after Elvis died (or might as well have died, died army died, died Follywood movie died, squaresville died, when he retired his hips, his snarl, and his nerve and let Tin Pan Alley rather than the back street juke joint down in black night Clarksville or some honkytown, good old boy honkytown bar in back alley Memphis turn his head) , Jerry Lee was busted up with some second cousin(and the hoped for mantle-passing faded after the blast promise of High School Confidentialon the back of a flatbed truck turned to ashes and a corny reefer-free B-film, a premature jailbreak minute turned to ashes in our collective youthful mouths not then used to such mortalities), Chuck was out of circulation for messing with Mister’s women (a more serious lesson but what did we, white kids all, all, to a person, know of such race things, race divides, race records, miscegenation, lust , all we knew was Roll Over Beethoven and approved) , and we were stuck with a batch of songs and singers who made us want to head back to mother womb 1940s music, some Inkspots, pre-doo-wopping, some Lena Horne stormy weather , or some such, that at least had good melodies.

Well, for him at that point at least that subject was totally exhausted. He no longer wanted to hear about how his dear AARP-enrolled classmates (distaff side , he presumed) fainted over Teen Angel (the saga of some dippy frail who was so off-center that she flipped out when she found out her boy’s class ring was back in some railroad track stalled car-and she went back, RIP angel), Johnny Angel (just some hormonal hyperbole about some side-burn corner boy with tight white tee-shirt, tight jeans, tight, but don’t tell her that), orEarth Angel (ditto on the tight, but girl tight, the only girl tight that counted, cashmere sweater, skirt tight). Christ there were more angels around then than could fit on the head of a needle or fought it out to the death in John Milton’s epic revolutionary poem from the seventeenth century , Paradise Lost. Moreover, he had enough of You're Gonna Be Sorry, I'm Sorry, and Who's Sorry Now. What was there to be sorry about, except maybe some minute hurt feelings, some teenage awkward didn’t know how to deal with some such situation or, in tune with the theme here, some mistake that reflected their working class-derived lacks, mainly lacks of enough time, energy and space to think things over without seven thousand parents and siblings breaking the stream. And a little discretionary dough would have helped(dough for Saturday night drive-ins, drive-in movies, hell, even Saturday night dance night down by the shore everything’s all right) to take some teen angel somewhere other than the damn walk to the seawall down Adamsville Beach.

And no more of Tell Laura I Love Her, Oh Donna, and I Had A Girl Her Name Was Joanne, or whatever woman's name came to mind. Sweet woman, sweet mama. sweet outlaw mama, or just waiting to be an outlaw sweet mama in some forlorn midnight Edward Hooper coffee shop waiting for the next best thing to show up and get the hell out of Dudsville, USA (or universe) Red Molly, all dolled up in her black leather put them all to shame, yah, she put them all to shame. (and set off by her flaming red hair making every boy dream, dream restless night dreams, until James took over and then you had best not look, not if you wanted to keep your place in the sun, or breathe to find your own leather tight woman. Guys tried, guys tried and failed as guys will, so be forewarned. ) So it was time, boys and girls, to move on to other musical influences from more mature years, say from the post-traumatic stress high school years.

But why the search for the great working -class love song? Well, hello! The old town, old beloved North Adamsville, was (and is, as far as Peter Paul could tell from a recent trip back to the old place) a quintessential beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday working -class town (especially before the deindustrialization of America which for North Adamsville meant the closing of the shipyards that had left it as a basically low-end white collar service-oriented working -class town, dotted with ugly, faux-functional white collar office-style parks and malls to boot making a mockery of the granite origins of the place). The great majority of the tribe in those days came from working- class or working poor homes. Most songs, especially popular songs, then and now, reflected a kind of "one size fits all" lyric that could apply to anyone, anywhere. What he was looking for was songs that in some way reflected that working- class ethos that was still embedded in their bones, that caused their hunger even now, whether they recognized it or not.

Needless to say, since Peter Paul had had posed the question, he had his choice already prepared. As will become obvious, if the reader has read the lyrics above, this song reflected his take on the corner boy, live for today, be free for today, male angst in the age old love problem. However, any woman was more than free to choice songs that reflected her female angst angle (ouch, for that awkward formulation) on the working- class hit parade.

And a fellow North Adamsville female classmate did proposing Bruce Springsteen’s version of Jersey Girl and here was Peter Paul’s response to the interchange on this choice:

“Come on now, after reading these lyrics above is any mere verbal profession of undying love, any taking somebody on a ride at some two-bit carnival down on the Jersey shore going to make the cut. (Big deal, he was not going to hang with his corner boys, who he was heartily tired of anyway, or walk the streets looking for hookers to be with his honey. That was something for her to appreciate, she was better than some whore, Jesus.) I am thinking here of the working class song suggested to me by a female classmate , Bruce Springsteen's cover version of Tom Waits’ Jersey Girl where they go down to the Jersey seashore to some amusement park to while the night away in good working- class style, cotton candy, salt water taffy, win your lady a doll, ride the Ferris wheel, tunnel of love, hot dog, then sea breeze love , just like our Paragon Park nights, some buying of a one carat gold ring like every guy on the make is promising to do for his honey if she…, or some chintzy, faded flowers that melt away in the night, or with the morning dew going to mean anything? Hell, the guy here, the guy in Vincent Black Lightning 1952, bravo James, was giving her, his Red Molly, HIS bike, his bike, man. No Wild One, Easy Rider, no women need apply bike night. HIS bike. Case closed.”

The reader might think, well, big deal he gave her his bike as a dying declaration, taking such an action as so-so and just a guy trinket love thing, not the stuff of eternity. No way. He knew of at least one female, Donna, Donna of the tight cashmere sweater and tight, tight black skirt, of the raven black hair, noted above in the dedication, who might relate to this song. Who knew that her Johnny, Johnny Shine, when he came up and scooped her away from tough guy corner boy Red Radley one cloudy night and roared off into the world on his Indian that he would play the gallant for her, and when he fell he became a local legend. And she kept his bike as a shrine to his memory. Peter Paul also knew at least one male, who shall remain nameless, who snuck out the back door of old North Adamsville High with another classmate, a female classmate, to ride his bike, and a few others things, down by the secluded beach things, during school hours back in the day. It was in the air in those heroic days. So don't think Peter Paul had forgotten his medication, or something, when he called this a great working class love song. Romeo and Juliet by what’s his name, Shakespeare, was nothing but down in the ditch straight punk stuff compared to this. And as Peter Paul insisted on repeating for the slow learners here, the guy, his boy, his universal corner boy James, in the song gave her HIS bike, man. That is love, no question.

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman- With Roger McGuinn’s“Ballad Of Easy Rider” In Mind, Take Two

This is the way Doug Powers told the story, Jeff’s story, the way he got it from Little Peach mostly, the road stuff, straight up, and then later when he checked up …

He, the ghost of… Peter Fonda he, Captain America he , Dennis Hooper, Bill The Kid he, Hunter Thompson he, Doctor Gonzo on an Indian he, James Ardie he, Vincent Black Lightning he, hell, Sonny Barger or one of one hundred grunge, nasty mothers keep your daughters indoors under lock and key Hell's Angels brethren he (as if that would help, help once she, the daughter, saw that shiny silver sleek Indian , Harley, Vincent, name it, whatever and did some fancy footwork midnight creep out that unlocked suburban death house ranchero house back door), Jeff Crawford he, Norton he, just wanted to drive down that late night Pacific coast highway. Where else in the American world could you have the hair-raising blown warm wind at your back and the sometimes hard-hearted, but mainly user-friendly, ocean at your right. Somehow Maine icy stretch Ellsworth Point did not make its case against that scenario. He knew those forlorn streets and back roads like the back of his hand but there was no going back, and no reason to since his divorce and his Ma dying.

Drive, ride really, motorcycle ride just in case you were clueless and thought that this was to be some sedan buggy family, dad and mom, three kids and Rover, car saga. Maybe with his new sweet mama behind holding on to her easy rider in back, holding tight, her breasts rising and falling hard against his waiting back, and riding, laughing every once in a while at the square world, his old square world (and hers too, she used to serve then off the arm while attending some dink college when he fell into her at the local breakfast place), against the pounding surf heading south heading Seals Rock, Pacifica, Monterrey, Big Sur, Xanadu, Point Magoo, Malibu, Laguna, Carlsbad, LaJolla, Diego, south right to the mex border, riding down to the see, sea. Riding down to the washed sea, the sea to wash him clean. Her, she had nothing to be washed, hadn’t been out in life long enough to build up soul dirts, except maybe a little off-hand kinky sex she picked up somewhere and had curled his toes doing one night, and that didn’t count in the soul-washing department . Not in his book. Not some big old poet- wrangled washed clean either, some what did old ‘Nam Brad call it, some metaphor, if that was right, if that was how he remembered it, not for him, just washed clean.

Easy, Jeff thought, just an easy rider and his sweet, sweet mama, her hair, her flaming red hair, or whatever color it was that week (he didn’t care what color really just as long as it was long. He had had enough of short- haired women all boyish bobbed, all snarling every which way, all kind of boyish do it this way and that way, all tense, and making him tense. He liked the swish of a woman’s hair in his face all snarly and flowing and letting things take their course easy. A ‘Nam lesson.) blowing against the weathers, against the thrust of that big old Norton engine, all tight tee-shirt showing her tiny breasts in outline that a shirt or sweater made invisible (he didn’t care, like a lot of guys around the bar, the biker hang-out, where he hung out over in Richmond, the Angel Tavern, the one run by Red Riley, about big breasts, or small), tight jeans (covering long legs which he did care about), tight. Maybe a quick stop off at Railroad Jim’s over on Geary before heading to ‘Frisco land’s end Seals Rock and the trip south (and if he wasn’t in then Saigon Pappy’s, Billy Blast or Sunshine Sue’s) to cope some dope (weed, reefer, a little cousin cocaine to ease that ‘Nam pain, the one Charley kissed his way one night through his thigh when he decided to prove, prove for the nth time that he, Charley, was king of the night) to handle those sharp curves around Big Sur, and get her in the mood (she, ever since that midnight creep out Ma’s back door over in Albany a few months before when he had challenged her to do so when he wanted to test her to see if she was really his sweet mama, craved her cousin, craved it to get her into the mood, and just to be his outlaw girl).

Yah, it was supposed to be easy, all shoreline washed clean (no metaphor stuff, remember, just ocean naked stuff), stop for some vista here (about a million choices, he would let her pick since this was her first run, her first working run), some dope there and then down to cheap Mexico, cheap dope, and a haul back norte and easy street, easy street, laying around with sweet mama, real name, Susan White, road moniker, Little Peach (an inside joke, a joke about a certain part of her anatomy that is all she would give out) until Red Riley needed another run, another run against the washed sea night.

Then it turned into one thing after another. He took a turn around Pacifica way too fast, went way over the edge with his right hand throttle (Little Peach so excited by this her first outlaw run she slipped her hands low, too low while he was making that maneuver, thinking, maybe, they were in bed and well you know things happen, distracting things, just bad timing) and skidded hair- pin twirl skidded off the on-coming road. Little Peach was hurt a little but the bike was dented enough to require some work at Loopy Lester’s (Red Riley had guys up, bike magic guys, up and down the coast) back in Daly City. So delay.

A couple of days delay too, they ran into rain down around Big Sur, pouring rain and Little Peach moaned about it and they had to shack up in a motel for a couple of days, days looking at that fierce ocean. More delay. Then he made his first serious mistake, short on funds he decided to rob a liquor store in Paseo Robles. Hell, not decided, he was hard-wired compelled to make that decision, hard –wired by his whole sorry, beautiful life, his father (a drunk) then mother (none too stable, a product of those too close Maine family relationships and those long, bad ass Maine winter nights) left him Maine dumped, his whore first wife from over in Richmond cheating on him with every blue jean guy in town while he was in ‘Nam, his very real ‘Nam pain (while saving Brad’s, metaphor Brad’s city boy, college boy sorry ass when Mister Charlie decided, probably hard-wired too to come prove who was boss of the night), and, a little his dope habit (picked up courtesy of ‘Nam too, he was strictly always a whisky and beer man before). Little Peach, gentle in some womanly ways, no question, and the eternal ocean, gentle, when it co-operated, his only rays.

Hard-wired to just take now, take it fast, and get out fast. Hell, it was easy he had been doing since he was about sixteen and just needed that first Harley some Ellsworth guy was selling, selling cheap, since was headed to Shawshank for a long stretch. That time he wasn’t even armed, easy. As so it went. Easy, except that time down in Rockland where the clerk flipped the alarm and the cops were just a block away. Yah, he didn’t figure that one right, not at any point. That was when he got the choice- three to five in county or ‘Nam. He hadn’t messed with that kind of thing in California since he hooked up with Red’s operation about a month after he got out of the VA hospital over in ‘Frisco.

Trouble this time, the night he tried to rob the Paseo Robles liquor store, was the owner, and he identified himself as the owner, must have thought he was Charley, shot at him, nicking him in the shoulder. He grabbed the owner’s gun in the tussle and bang, bang. Grabbed the dough (almost five thousand dollars in that two bit town), and the extra ammo under the counter and roared off, Little Peach trembling, into the Pacific highway night.

A serious mistake, for sure, one the cops kind of pressed the issue on. They caught up with him just outside Carlsbad, South Carlsbad down near the airport road, near the state park camp sites, where he was resting up a little (bleeding a little too). He had left Little Peach back in Laguna to keep her out of it and with most of the dough, telling her to get out of town on the quiet, to use the dough to go back to school, and have a nice life. He was okay that she didn’t argue a lot about staying, or getting all weepy about his fate. She had been his ray and that was enough, enough for what was ahead. So alone, not wanting to face some big step ahead, he wasn’t built for jails and chambers, not wanting to face another downer in his sorry, beautiful life, taking a long look at the heathered, rock strewn, smashing wave shoreline just below, he took out that damn gun, loaded the last of the ammo, doubled around to face the blockading police cars, and throttled –up his Norton. Varoom, varoom…