"America, Where Are You Now...."- Steppenwolf’s The Monster-Take Three

 

 

A YouTube Film Clip Of Steppenwolf Performing Monster. Ah, Those Were The Days

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Steppenwolf: 16 Greatest Hits, Steppenwolf, Digital Sound, 1990

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

Chorus Line From The Monster

The heavy rock band Steppenwolf (maybe acid rock is better signifying that the band started in the American dream gone awry 1960s night when the likes of the Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Byrds and groups like the transformed from muppet Beatles and Stones held forth, rather than in the ebb-tide 1970s when the harder sounds of groups like Aerosmith and Black Sabbath were  needed to drown out the fact that  we were in decisive retreat),  one of many that was thrown up by the musical counter-culture of the mid to late 1960's was a cut above and apart from some of the others due to their scorching lyrics provided mainly, but not solely, by gravelly-voiced lead singer John Kay. That musical counter-culture not only put a premium on band-written materials, as against the old Tin Pan Alley somebody wrote the lyrics, somebody else sang the song division before Bob Dylan and the Beatles made singer-songwriters fashionable) but also was a serious reaction to the vanilla-ization of rock and popular music in the earlier part of the decade that drove many of us from the AM radio dials and into “exotic” stuff like electric blues (country too, come to think of it) and the various strands of folk music.    

Some bands played, consciously played, to the “drop out” notion popular at the times. “Drop out” of rat-race bourgeois society and its money imperative, its “white picket fence with little white house attached” visions. That is the place where many of the young, the post-World War II baby-boomer young, now sadly older, had grown up and were in the process of repudiating for a grander vision of the world, the “world turned upside down” as an old time British folk tune had it. Drop out and create a niche somewhere (a commune maybe out away from the rat-race places which did spring up in the likes of Taos, Oregon, and the hills of old Vermont which if you care to see what hellish thing happened to that old vision once the seers got older you can go to and witness first hand these days), so some physical somewhere perhaps but certainly some other mental somewhere and the music reflected that disenchantment. That mental somewhere involved liberal use of drugs to induce, well, who knows what it induced but it felt like a new state of consciousness so make of that what you will. The drugs used, in retrospect, to make you less “uptight” not a bad thing then, or today. The whole underlying premise though whether well thought out or not was that music, the music of the shamans of the youth tribe, was the revolution. An idea that for a short while before all hell broke loose with the criminal antics of Lyndon Johnson and one Richard M. Nixon, all hell broke loose with Tet, with May 1968, with Chicago 1968, with the “days of rage,” with Altamont and with a hundred other lesser downers I subscribed to. Before those events and a draft notice made me get “religion” on the need for “in-their-face” political struggle.        

Musically much of that stuff was ephemeral, merely background music, and has not survived (except in lonely YouTube cyberspace). Yeah, Neal Young, the Airplane, the Doors, the Byrds still sound good but a lot of it is wha-wha music now you know Ten Years After, a lot of Rod Stewart, even the acid-etched albums by the Beatles and Stones, it is no wonder that the latter do not have any tunes from Their Satanic Majesties on their playlists).   Others, flash pan “music is the revolution,” period exclamation point, end of conversation bands assumed a few pithy lyrics would carry the day and dirty old bourgeois society would run and hide in horror leaving the field open, open for, uh, us. That music too, except for gems like The Ballad Of Easy Rider, is safely ensconced in vast cyberspace.

Steppenwolf was different, was political from the get-go taking on the deadliness of bourgeois culture, worse the chewing up of their young in unwinnable wars with no apologies or second thoughts, the pusher man, the draft resister and lots of other subjects (and a few traditional songs too about the love that got away, things like that).  Not all the lyrics worked, then or now. (See below for some that do). Not all the words are now some forty plus years later memorable. After all every song is written with some current audience in mind, and notions of immortality as the fate of most songs are displaced. Certainly some of the less political lyrics seem entirely forgettable. As does some of the heavy decibel rock sound that seems to wander at times like, as was the case more often than not, and more often that we, deep in some a then hermetic drug thrall, would have acknowledged, or worried about. But know this- when you think today about trying to escape from the rat-race of daily living then you have an enduring anthem Born To Be Wild that still stirs the young (and not so young). If Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone was one musical pillar of the youth revolt of the 1960's then Born To Be Wild was the other.

And if you needed (or need) a quick history lesson about the nature of American society in the 1960's, what it was doing to its young, where it had been and where it was heading (and seemingly still is as we finish up the Afghan wars and the war signals for deep intervention into the Syria civil war or another war in Iraq get louder, or both are beating the war drums fiercely) then the trilogy under the title "The Monster" (the chorus which I have posted above and lyrics below) said it all.

Then there were songs like The Pusher Man a song that could be usefully used as an argument in favor of decriminalization of drugs today and get our people the hell out of jail and moving on with their lives and others then more topical songs like Draft Resister to fill out their playlist. The group did not have the staying power of others like The Rolling Stones but if you want to know, approximately, what it was like for rock groups to seriously put rock and roll and a hard political edge together give a listen to the group sometime.

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary

Chasing the promise of freedom and hope

Came to this country to build a new vision

Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope

Like good Christians, some would burn the witches

Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken

Westward in saddle and wagon it went

And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean

Many the lives which had come to an end

While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland

We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it

They kicked it just like a dog

And when the war over

They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice

Kind was the spirit in many a way

But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping

Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)

The spirit was freedom and justice

And it's keepers seem generous and kind

It's leaders were supposed to serve the country

But now they won't pay it no mind

'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy

And now their vote is a meaningless joke

They babble about law and order

But it's all just an echo of what they've been told

Yeah, there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles

And corruption is stranglin' the land

The police force is watching the people

And the people just can't understand

We don't know how to mind our own business

'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us

Now we are fighting a war over there

No matter who's the winner

We can't pay the cost

'Cause there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watching

(America)

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--

Born To Be Wild

Words and music by Mars Bonfire

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning

Heavy metal thunder

Racin' with the wind

And the feelin' that I'm under

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

Like a true nature's child

We were born, born to be wild

We can climb so high

I never wanna die

Born to be wild

Born to be wild

© MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--

THE PUSHER

From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"

Words and music by Hoyt Axton

You know I've smoked a lot of grass

O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills

But I never touched nothin'

That my spirit could kill

You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round

With tombstones in their eyes

But the pusher don't care

Ah, if you live or if you die

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, I say The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man

With the love grass in his hand

Oh but the pusher is a monster

Good God, he's not a natural man

The dealer for a nickel

Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams

Ah, but the pusher ruin your body

Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, God damn the Pusher

I said God damn, God, God damn The Pusher man

Well, now if I were the president of this land

You know, I'd declare total war on The Pusher man

I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run

Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun

God damn The Pusher

Gad damn The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man\

© Irving Music Inc. (BMI)

--Used with permission--

From The Marxist Archives On The Communist International (1919-1943) -A View From The Left 

In Honor Of The 144^th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-All Honor To The Communards

 

Some events can be honorably commemorated every five, ten, twenty-five years or so like the French Revolution. Other events, and here I include the uprising which went on to form the Paris Commune, established on March 18, 1871, the first time the working class as such took power if only for a short time and only in one city, need to be honorably commemorated yearly. We can, those of us in what now is a remnant who still believe in the old time verities and who still fight for such things as working-class led revolution, socialism and a fairer shake in the appropriation of the world’s good, still draw lessons from that experience. (Sadly the bulk of the world’s working classes have either dismissed socialist solutions out of hand these days when the situation in places like Greece, Spain and lots of East Europe countries cry out for such solutions or the links to such previous socialist ideas has become so attenuated that the ideas are not even in play.) Draw lessons that might help us in the one-sided fight against the human logjam that the international capitalist system, complete with its imperial coterie at the top, has bequeathed us almost a century and one half later and that is ripe, no overripe to be replaced by a more human scale way of producing the good of this wicked world. Hence the commemoration in this the 144^th anniversary year.

Some “talking head” commentator in the lead-up to the celebration of the French Revolution on July 14^th, brought in for the occasion I presume, I heard recently on a television talk show reflecting the same sentiment I have heard elsewhere from other academic and ideological sources, had declared the French Revolution dead. By that he meant that the lessons to be learned from that experience has been exhausted, that in the post-modern world that event over two hundred years ago had become passé, passé in the whirlwind of the American century now in full bloom (an American century that we thought had run its course in the wake of the Vietnam defeat but drew new life, if only by default, with the demise of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence). While not arguing here with the validity of that statement on the French revolution, a classic bourgeois revolution when the bourgeoisie was a progressive movement in human history and actually drew some connections between the Enlightenment philosophies that gave it inspiration and the tasks of the risen people, there are still lessons to be drawn from the Commune. If for no other reason than we still await that international working class society that such luminaries as the communist Karl Marx expanded upon in the 19^th century.          

Obviously like the subsequent Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Chinese revolutions of the 1920s and 1940s, the Vietnamese which took up a great deal of the middle third of the twentieth century, and others the Paris Commune was formed in the crucible of war, or threat of war. Karl Marx, among others, the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky for one, had noted that war is the mother of revolution and the defeat of the French armies and the virtual occupation by the victorious German armies around Paris certainly conformed to that idea that the then current government was in disarray and the social fabric after a near starvation situation required more. Classic pre-revolutionary phenomena. Moreover the Commune had been thrust upon the working masses of Paris by the usual treachery of the bourgeois government thrown up after Louis Bonaparte lost control. That had not been the most promising start to any new society. But you work with what you have to work with and defend as Marx, the First International, and precious few others did the best you can despite the odds, and the disarray. So no hard and fast blueprint on revolutionary upheavals could come ready-made from that experience.  

To my mind, and this is influenced by the subsequent Russian revolutions of 1905 and February and October 1917, no question the decisive problem of the Commune was what later became to be known as the crisis of revolutionary leadership. Of course they should have expropriated the banks and centered their efforts around strengthening the authority of the Central Committee of the National   Guard and not let lots of windbags and weirdos have their say based on barely deserved reputations but the result of those failures were that no serious party or parties were available to take charge and create a strong government to defend against the Thiers counter-attack from Versailles. (Also no appeals to other communes to come to the defense of Paris and no work among the Versailles soldiers.) It is problematic whether given the small weight of the industrial proletariat (masses factory workers like at Putilov in Petrograd rather than the small shop artisans and workman which dominated the Paris landscape), the lack of weaponry to fend off both the Germans and the Versailles armies, and food supply whether even if such a revolutionary leadership had existed that the Commune could have continued to exist in such isolated circumstances but the contours for the future of working class revolution would have been much different. The central and critical role of a revolutionary leadership which got fudged around in places like Germany where the working class party for all intents and purposes was barely a parliamentary party in the struggle against capitalism would have been clarified and at least a few revolutions, including those in Germany between 1918 and 1924. That is the bitter lesson we still before us today.   

Howling At The Moon-When Howlin’ Wolf Held Forth  

 

 

Some music you acquired naturally, you know like kids’ songs learned in school (The Farmer in the Dell, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill and their ill-fated hill adventure, etc. in case you have forgotten) and embedded in the back of your mind even fifty years later. Or as in the case of junior high, with Mr. Dasher, the mad monk music teacher, who wanted his charges to have a well-versed knowledge of the American and world songbook you were forced to remember such songs as The Mexican Hat Dance and Home On The Range under penalty of being sent up to the front of the room songbook in hand and sing the damn things. Yes, you will remember such songs unto death. (We found out later that he was in a desperate rear-guard action to wean us away from rock and roll, a struggle in which he was both woefully overmatched by Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Bo, and the crowd and wasting his breathe as we lived for rock and roll at Doc’s Drugstore after school where he had a jukebox at his soda fountain.)  

Some reflected the time period when you were growing up but were too young to call the music your own like the music that ran around in the background of your growing up house on the mother housewife radio or evening record player which in my case was the music that got my parents through my father’s slogging on unpronounceable Pacific islands kicking ass and mother anxiously waiting at home for the other shoe to fall or the dreaded military officer coming up to your door telling you the bad news World War II. You know, Frank (Sinatra, the chairman of the board, that all the bobbysoxer girls, the future mothers of my generation swooned over), The Andrew Sisters  and their rums and coca colas, Peggy Lee fronting for Benny Goodman and looking, looking hard for some Johnny to do right, finally do right by her, etc. Other music, the music of my generation, classic rock and rock came more naturally since that is what I wanted to hear when I had my transistor radio to my ear up in my bedroom. This transistor thing for the young was small enough to put in your pocket and put up to your ear like iPod except you couldn’t download or anything like that. Just flip the dial although the only station that mattered was WJDA, the local rock station (which had previously before the rock break-out played the music that got our parents through their war). Oh yeah, and the beauty of the transistor you could take it up to your bedroom and shut out that aforementioned parents’ music without hassles. Nice, right. So yeah, we could hear Elvis sounding all sexy according to one girl I knew even over the radio and who drove all the girls crazy once they got a look at him on television, Chuck telling our parents’ world that Mr. Beethoven and his crowd, Frank’s too, that they all had to roll over, Bo asking a very candid question about who put the rock in rock and roll and offering himself up as a candidate, Buddy crooning against all hope for his Peggy Sue (or was it Betty Lou), Jerry Lee inflaming us with his raucous High School Confidential  from the back of a flatbed truck, etc. again.

The blues though, the rarified country and electric urban blues of the likes of Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, and Howlin’ Wolf was an acquired taste. Acquired through listening to folk music programs on that very same transistor radio in the early 1960s after flipping the dial one Sunday night once I got tired of what they claimed was rock music on WJDA and caught a Boston station. The main focus was on other types of roots music but when the show would take a break from down home mountain music, western swing ballads, and urban protest music the DJ would play some cuts of country or electric blues. See all the big folkies, Dylan, Tom Rush, Dave Van Ronk, people like that were wild to cover the blues in the search for serious roots music from the American songbook. So somebody, I don’t know who, figured if everybody who was anybody was covering the blues in that folk minute then it made sense to play the real stuff.

The real stuff having been around for a while, having been produced by the likes of Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf going back to the 1940s big time black migration to the industrial plants of the Midwest during World War II when there were plenty of jobs just waiting. But also having been pushed to the background, way to the background with the rise of rock and roll (although parts of rock make no sense, don’t without kudos to blues chords, check it out). So it took that combination of folk minute and that well-hidden from view electric blues some time to filter through my brain.

What did not take a long time once I got “religion” was going crazy over Howlin’ Wolf when I saw him perform. Once I saw him practically eat that harmonica when he was playing that instrument on How Many More Years. There he was all sweating, running to high form and serious professionalism (just ask the Stones about that when he showed them how to really play Little Red Rooster which they had covered as they had many Chess Records blues numbers) and moving that big body to and fro to beat the band and playing like god’s own angel, if those angels played the harmonica, and if they could play as well as he did. Yes, that blues calling is an acquired taste and a lasting one.    
 

Mumia's condition grave: Take Action

Dateline: Friday April 24th, 8:45pm Dear friend, Mumia Abu-Jamal was seen today by his wife and his condition has worsened. He, is gravely ill.  We are asking everyone to call the prison. Right now. It may be late, but call whenever you get this.  Mumia needs 24 hour care and supervision. He can not be in this condition in general population. In this state he may not be able ask for help, he may lose consciousness. He is too weak. (He was released from the infirmary two days ago). His condtiion: He is extremely swollen in his neck, chest, legs, and his skin is worse than ever, with open sores. He was not in a wheelchair, but can only take baby steps. He is very weak. He was nodding off during the visit. He was not able to eat- he was fed with a spoon. These are symptoms that could be associated with hyper glucose levels, diabetic shock, diabetic coma, and with kidney stress and failure.  Please call these numbers, and any other numbers you have for the Prison and the Governor. Demand that Mumia Abu-Jamal see a doctor ASAP. Right Now! Demand that the prison officials call his wife Wadiya Jamal and his lawyer Bret Grote immediately. Demand that he be seen immediately, and the not be left to go into a diabetic coma.     John Kerestes, Superintendent SCI Mahanoy: 570-773-2158 x8102 | 570-783-2008 Fax | 301 Morea Road, Frackville PA 17932 Tom Wolf, PA Gvrnr: 717-787-2500 | governor@PA.gov | 508 Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg PA 17120 John Wetzel, PA DOC: 717-728-4109 | 717-728-4178 Fax | ra-contactdoc@poc.gov | 1920 Technology Pkwy, Mechanicsburg PA 17050 Susan McNaughton, DOC Press secretary 717-728-4025.  PA Doc smcnaughton@pa.gov   We need your help right now.  Please forward this far and wide. We need more phone numbers to call inside SCI Mahanoy. If you have one send them to us info@prisonradio.org. Every call matters.  Every action matters.  We need to be in the streets. Call your friends, your neighbors. Take action. freemumia.com   prisonradio.org   bringmumiahome.com Noelle Hanrahan Prison Radio   Rise For Mumia >>     Share   Tweet   Forward

Support Prison Radio   $35 to become a member.  $50 to become a member and receive a beautiful tote bag. Or call us to special order a yoga mat bag. $100 to become a member and receive the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary." $300 to become a member and bring one essay to the airwaves. $1,000 (or $88 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Thank you!     Support Prison Radio   To give by check:  PO Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141 Stock or legacy gifts: Noelle Hanrahan (415) 706 - 5222 unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

George Galloway Defeated in UK General Election

by Stephen Lendman

Parliamentarian, writer, broadcaster, anti-war activist, human rights supporter, Israeli critic, and champion of Palestinian rights among other credentials Respect Party member Galloway was defeated in Thursday's general election.

He lost his Bradford West constituency decisively to New Labour's Naz Shah - 19,977 to 8,557. Down but not out, he commented, saying:

I don't begrudge the Labour members here their moment of celebration, of course."

"But there will be others who are already celebrating: the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating." 

"The hyena can bounce on the lion’s grave but it can never be a lion and in any case, I’m not in my grave. As a matter of fact I’m going off now to plan the next campaign."

"Bradford West will always have a central place in my heart," he explained.

Shah thanked all her opponents in her victory speech "with the exception of one," she said - leaving no doubt who she meant.

She outrageously claimed Galloway "demean(ed) our democracy" while campaigning. He blasted Torries and New Labour for continuing business as usual.

Millions of Brits are suffering. Corrupt politicians don't care. Food banks are proliferating, Galloway explained. "Can you imagine what the country will look like by 2020 if these barbarians are returned" to power, he stressed.

Social justice is fast disappearing. Neoliberal harshness is official UK policy. So is partnering with Washington's endless wars. 

Galloway demands better. He was a marked man for championing what power brokers oppose.

Campaigning was rough and tumble. A Galloway spokesman denied his tactics were out of line. 

"Shah has made it personal from the beginning," he said. "She hasn't told the truth, and she's told untruths about George."

It didn't affect his core supporters, reports indicated. They were out in force. It wasn't enough.

In 2012, Galloway defeated New Labour's Imran Hussein overwhelmingly. This time was different.

In late April, Galloway said he'll run for mayor of London if his reelection campaign fails. He told Sky News:

"I won't run for London mayor if I am reelected on 7 May. If I am not reelected, I will run" in May 2016. 

He ruled out running as a sitting MP - suggesting it would be impossible to represent his constituents properly. A spokesman had no further comment.

Galloway remains one of politics most charismatic figures. Supporters and critics alike agree few can arouse a crowd the way he does.

It was an honor for this writer to be on air once with him as a guest. We had a rousing discussion not heard on major Western media outlets. 

Hard truths on issues mattering most are strictly verboten. Galloway features them on air and in parliament. Maybe as mayor of London next year.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

Family Secrets-Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Judge, starring Robert Downey,Jr., Robert Duvall, 2014  

A couple of things that I learned from my cranky old Irish Catholic grandfather, cranky once he had a stroke and had to be invalided out of Carver Fire Department that he dearly loved, that came to my mind when watching the film under review, Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge. First, my grandfather, or rather my grandfather and his people had been kicked out of Irish from nothing more than they had run out of luck. Run out of luck in that case being when the absentee Anglo-Irish landlord owner of the midget farm they were trying to survive on decided to call in their debts and not having any money when they resisted foreclosure the landlord went to Her Majesty’s court (this was back in the 19^th century during benighted Queen Victoria’s time) about it the judge dismissed their concerns out of hand. Adding insult to injury that same judge when my grandfather and his kindred physically resisted eviction and wound up in gaol (jail) for some serious assault and battery charges the judge ordered them out of the country on penalty of a severe sentence. So the first lesson in life he told me was that while justice was blind, she was blind to injustice more often than not. I would translate that wisdom later to something the sardonic comedy Lenny Bruce, who had had a fistful of run-ins with Lady Justice, said after on such run-in-“in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.” After a lifetime of observations and my own run-ins that still seems about right. The second thing the old man told me, and that may be reflected from the first idea, was an ageless adage which seemed entirely right in our claustrophobic old heavily Irish working class neighborhood, especially when the “shawlie social network” was on the prowl –“don’t air the family’s dirty linen in public.” Sound familiar in your family history?          

Those two ideas come together in this film where a kid who made good as a big time, big city lawyer Hank (played by Robert Downey, Jr. of Ironman one million or whatever number have been produced and late of the now old time “brat pack”) is called back home to his estranged family after his mother died. While there his father, Judge Palmer, the longtime local district judge (played by seemingly ancient Robert Duvall which reminded me that to has been many moons since he first “loved the smell of napalm” in Apocalypse Now early in his career) who had meted out justice good and bad got into trouble, legal trouble, criminal trouble. The trouble was that a man whom the judge had originally lightly sentenced on an assault case against his girlfriend when released from that sentence went back and killed her and on the second trial the judge had thrown the book at him. That case had weighed heavily on his mind and so one night after the judge had buried his own wife he ran into that killer in a convenience store, followed him out and then ran over him. Simply justice.           

Well not so simple since the judge believed that he had committed no crime, did not remember the event pleading duress, approaching senility, and a losing bout with cancer. And that is where long estranged Hank, the big time, big city hardball lawyer had to come in and save the day by defending his dad in court. Naturally there is much friction before the trial, generational friction, estrangement friction, that above-mentioned not airing dirty linen in public, and the hard fact that only grudgingly did the judge offer information to help defend himself. Well, the long and short of it was that the judge was found not guilty on the murder charge but got a four year sentence on manslaughter charges. That sentence was later commuted as his health worsened and he died with Hank at his side at the end of the film. That whole episode got Hank thinking though about how much he was still a small town boy. And got me thinking about those two things my grandfather told me.   

In Honor Of International Workers’ Day- May Day 2015 -Ancient dreams, dreamed-The Risen People?-Frank Jackman’s War-Take Six  

 

From The American Left History Blog Archives –May Day 1971

 

Endless, dusty, truck heavy, asphalt steaming hitchhike roads travelled, Route 6, 66, maybe 666 and perdition for all I know, every back road, every Connecticut highway avoiding back road from Massachusetts south to the capital for one last winner-take-all, no prisoners taken show-down to end all show-downs. And maybe, just maybe, finally some peace and a new world a-borning, a world we had been talking about for at least a decade (clueless, as all youth nations are clueless, that that road was well-travelled, very well- travelled, before us). No Jack Kerouac dharma bum easy road (although there were dharma bums, or at least faux dharma bums, aplenty on those 1971 roads south, and west too) let- her-rip cosmic brakeman Neal Cassady at the wheel flying through some Iowa/Kansas wheat field night fantasy this trip.

No this trip was not about securing some cultural enclave in post-war America (post-World War II so as not to confuse the reader) in break-out factory town Lowell or cold water tenement Greenwich Village/Soho New Jack City or Shangri-La West out in the Bay area, east or west, but about mucking up the works, the whole freaking governmental/societal/economic/cultural/personal/godhead world (that last one, the godhead one, not thrown in just for show, no way) and maybe, just maybe sneaking away with the prize. But a total absolute, absolutist, big karma sky fight out, no question. And we, I, am ready. On that dusty road ready.

More. See all roads head south as we, my girlfriend of the day, maybe more, maybe more than a day, Joyell, but along this time more for ease of travelling for those blessed truck driver eye rides, than lust or dream wish and my sainted wise-guy amigo (and shades of Gregory Corso, sainted, okay), Matty, who had more than a passing love or dream wish in her and if you had seen her you would not have wondered why. Not have wondered why if your “type” was Botticelli painted and thoughts of butterfly swirls just then or were all-type sleepy-eyed benny-addled teamster half-visioned out of some forlorn rear view mirror.

Yah, head south, in ones, twos, and threes (no more, too menacing even for hefty ex-crack back truckers to stop for) travelling down to D.C. for what many of us figure will be the last, finally, push back against the war, the Vietnam War, for those who have forgotten, or stopped watching television and the news, but THEY, and you knew (know) who they were (are), had their antennae out too, they KNEW we were coming, even high-ball fixed (or whiskey neat she had the face for them) looking out from lonely balconies Martha Mitchell knew that much. They were, especially in mad max robot-cop Connecticut, out to pick off the stray or seven who got into their mitts as a contribution to law and order, law and order one Richard Milhous Nixon-style (and in front of him, leading some off-key, off-human key chorus some banshee guy from Maryland, another watch out hitchhike trail spot, although not as bad as Ct, nothing except Arizona is). And thus those dusty, steamy, truck heavy (remind me to tell you about hitchhiking stuff, and the good guy truckers you wanted, desperately wanted, to ride with in those days, if I ever get a chance sometime).

The idea behind this hitchhiked road, or maybe, better, the why. Simple, too simple when you, I, thought about it later in lonely celled night but those were hard trying times, desperate times really, and just free, free from another set of steel-barred rooms this jailbird was ready to bring down heaven, hell, hell if it came down to it to stop that furious war (Vietnam, for the later reader) and start creating something recognizable for humans to live in. So youth nation, then somewhat long in the tooth, and long on bad karma-driven bloody defeats too, decided to risk all with the throw of the dice and bring a massive presence to D.C. on May Day 1971.

And not just any massed presence like the then familiar seasonal peace crawl that nobody paid attention too anymore except the organizers, although the May Day action was wrapped around that year’s spring peace crawl, (wrapped up, cozily wrapped up, in their utopian reformist dream that more and more passive masses, more and more suburban housewives from New Jersey, okay, okay not just Jersey, more and more high school freshman, more and more barbers, more and more truck driver stop waitresses, for that matter, would bring the b-o-u-r-g-e-o-i-s-i-e (just in case there are sensitive souls in the room) to their knees. No, we were going to stop the government, flat. Big scheme, big scheme no question and if anybody, any “real” youth nation refugee, excepting, of course, always infernal always, those cozy peace crawl organizers, tried to interject that perhaps there were wiser courses nobody mentioned them out loud in my presence and I was at every meeting, high or low. Moreover I had my ears closed, flapped shut closed, to any lesser argument. I, rightly or wrongly, silly me thought “cop.”

So onward anti-war soldiers from late night too little sleep Sunday night before Monday May Day dawn in some vagrant student apartment around DuPont Circle (I think) but it may have been further up off 14th Street, Christ after eight million marches for seven million causes who can remember that much. No question though on the student ghetto apartment locale; bed helter-skelter on the floor, telephone wire spool for a table, orange crates for book shelves, unmistakably, and the clincher, seventeen posters, mainly Che, Mao, Ho, Malcolm etc., the first name only necessary for identification pantheon just then, a smattering of Lenin and Trotsky but they were old guys from old revolutions and so, well, discounted to early rise (or early stay up cigarette chain-smoking and coffee slurping to keep the juices flowing). Out into the streets, out into the small collectives coming out of other vagrant apartments streets (filled with other posters of Huey Newton , George Jackson, Frantz Fanon, etc. from the two names needed pantheon) joining up to make a cohorted mass (nice way to put it, right?). And then dawn darkness surrounded, coffee spilled out, cigarette bogarted, AND out of nowhere, or everywhere, bang, bang, bang of governmental steel, of baton, of chemical dust, of whatever latest technology they had come up with they came at us (pre-tested in Vietnam, naturally, as I found out later). Jesus, bedlam, mad house, insane asylum, beat, beat like gongs, defeated.

Through bloodless bloodied streets (this, after all, was not Chicago, hog butcher to the world), may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. One arrested, two, three, many, endless thousands as if there was an endless capacity to arrest, and be arrested, arrest the world, and put it all in one great big Robert F. Kennedy stadium home to autumn gladiators on Sunday and sacrificial lambs this spring maypole may day basket druid day.

And, as I was being led away by one of D.C.’s finest, I turned around and saw that some early Sunday morning voice, some “cop” voice who advised caution and went on and on about getting some workers out to join us before we perished in an isolated blast of arrests and bad hubris also being led away all trussed up, metal hand-cuffs seemingly entwined around her whole slight body. She said she would stick with us even though she disagreed with the strategy that day and I had scoffed, less than twenty-four hours before, that she made it sound like she had to protect her erring children from themselves. And she, maybe, the only hero of the day. Righteous anonymous sister, forgive me. (Not so anonymous actually since I saw her many times later in Boston, almost would have traded in lust for her but I was still painted Botticelli-bewitched and so I, we, let the moment passed, and worked on about six million marches for about five millions causes with her but that was later. I saw no more of her in D.C. that week.)

Stop. Brain start. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove, these were not such times even with all our unforced errors, and no flame-flecked phoenix raising but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva came a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ would take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart road tramp acting in god’s place could even dream of. But that was later. Just then, just that screwed-up martyr moment, I was longing for the hot, dusty, truck driver stop meat loaf special, dishwater coffee on the side, road back home even ready to chance Connecticut highway dragnets to get there.

*********

“Everybody in the Che May Day collective head to the house on 14^th Street near Dupont Circle for last minute instructions, some food, some sleep and some solidarity,” came a voice ringing through the air near the campfire on the National Mall around midnight where Frank Jackman, a spare blanket over his shoulders, was huddled to keep warm and awake. The guy who yelled in the direction of the campfire, a guy in long hair and beard looked like any of about five thousand other guys, except Frank Jackman knew the guy was Benjy Warren, the well-known organizer of the Harvard take-over a couple of years before. Frank, after some agonizing (he had just gotten out of an Army stockade after a year’s time) had decided to take part in the May Day 1971 actions. Yes, he wanted to participant in this action-as advertised-“if the government does not shut down the war, we will shut down the government” after seeing the too festive atmosphere of the Saturday mass rally. In his mind the ante had been upped.

The only question left was which contingent, what collective, he would adhere to and when he saw and heard Benjy he decided to drift over to Dupont Circle and join the Che contingent. Moreover he decided he could use some indoor sleep, a little food and maybe cadge a few butts since his stash had run out. Once he got to the location, a college apartment if he ever saw one, filled radical books and posters and not much in the way of furniture, he stood with about thirty others listening to Sherry Shaw from SDS fame call on the women to be particularly out front in the morning. The task of this collective, vaguely stated to throw off any cops or snitches, was to head down 14^th Street toward the White House and begin blocking intersections as soon as possible. Somebody naively asked if the police would be out in force and a few snickers ensued (in the event the police/military force was massive) from those who had been in direct actions before. After the obligatory pep talk everybody was encouraged to get a few hours’ sleep since they would be up at five to move out.             

 

The next morning (really later that morning by the time Frank dozed off) the collective was up and out by about five-fifteen. They began to march down 14^th Street, some in the streets some on the sidewalks, guerilla-style as was the fashion for street actions then. Before they hit M Street thought they were waylaid by a phalanx of cops who began busting heads, and making arrests immediately. Frank, in a rather rookie move, tried to cut through a back alley but Washington, D.C. that day was short on back alleys. He was arrested by a D.C. cop, placed in a paddy wagon, and transported to RFK stadium (the town’s professional football team’s field). And so ended Frank Jackman’s small effort to “shut down the government” with a bunch of students, radicals and other marginal people. He would spent a few days in that stadium before being released.

 

But see Frank did learn something that day, something that he would remember later. If you really want to shut down the government you better have some people who have the power and the skill to do so and not just the likes of some scraggily ex-soldier...