This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- Maliki Shakur Latine
http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners.html
A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.
Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month
Markin comment (reposted from 2010)
In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.
That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.
Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!
*On The 10th Anniversary Of Folk's Appleseed Records (2007)- A Tribute Album
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Bruce Springsteen performing his "Ghost Of Tom Joad".
CD Review
Sowing The Seeds-The Tenth Anniversary, Pete Seeger and various artists, Appleseed Records, 2007
Most of the musical reviews in this space center on individual and group performers or particular musical genres, especially folk, blues and classic rock and roll. Very occasionally this space salutes record labels like Chess, Sun, Rounder, Smithsonian/Folkway, Red House, and here, Appleseed Records. On those occasions the record label may be as important to the genre as the performances of the artists because they established a genre, drove it forward, keep it alive or acted as a repository, or all of the above. That is the case here with a CD salute to the 10th Anniversary of Appleseed Records (2007).
For the history of the label there is a more than informative booklet that comes with the 2-disc CD set, including plenty of discology–type information about each track. I want to concentrate here on the performers and the performances to give the reader who may not be familiar with any of this some sense of what the label has tried to do. I will just drop the name Pete Seeger in first place here because it is his spirit that has driven this project, his sense of the desperate necessity of preserving and continuing the folk and political protest traditions and because many of the songs here are performed by him, or are covered by other artists. Beyond that the litany of performers range from “born again” folkie Bruce Springsteen, actor and activist Tim Robbins, Pete’s half-sister , Peggy, a folk legend in her own right, old time folkies like Eric Andersen and Tom Paxton, and some newer folkies like Ani DiFranco. A nice mix.
Of course, that description begs the question of what is good here. What do you need to listen to get the essence of the Appleseed tradition? Well, Pete and Bruce on Bruce’s “Ghost Of Tom Joad” that evokes the original Great Depression “Grapes Of Wrath” pathos (and very timely today when such messages are needed). A patriotic (too patriotic for my tastes) Pete on “Bring Them Home”. Tom Paxton’s heartfelt and fully justified tribute to the fallen New York 9/11 fire fighters, “The Bravest”. David Bromberg’s rousing, bluesy “Try Me One More Time”. And today very appropriate, as well, Pete Seeger tune's, “The Emperor Is Naked Today-O”.
*********
THE EMPEROR IS NAKED TODAY-O!
As the sun Rose on the rim of eastern sky And this one World that we love was trying to die We said stand! And sing out for a great hooray-o! Your child may be the one to exclaim The emperor is naked today-o!
Four winds that blow Four thousand tongues, with the word: survive Four billion souls Striving today to stay alive We say stand! And sing out for a great hooray-o! Why don't we be the ones to exclaim The emperor is naked today-o!
Men - have failed Power has failed, with papered gold. Shalom - salaam Will yet be a word where slaves were sold We say stand! And sing out for a great hooray-o! We yet may find the way to exclaim The emperor is naked today-o!
Originally titled "As the Sun" Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1970) (c) 1977, 1979 by Fall River Music Inc.
In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"99 Year Blues" — Julius Daniels (1927)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
99 YEAR BLUES Hot Tuna
Well now give me my pistol man and three round balls I'm gonna shoot everybody that I don't like at all Like at all, Like at all Like at all, Like at all
Gotta .38 special man and .45 frame You know the thing don't miss 'cause I got dead aim Got dead aim, got dead aim Got dead aim, got dead aim
Well the world is a drag and my friends can't vote Gonna make me a connection and score some dope Go get high, go get high
Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Feather Bed" — Cannon's Jug Stompers (1928)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
*In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Poor Boy Blues" — Ramblin' Thomas (1929)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
Poor Boy Blues
Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy long ways from home.
I was down in Louisiana, doing as I please, Now I'm in Texas I got to work or leave.
Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy long ways from home.
If your home's in Louisiana, what you doing over here? Say my home ain't in Texas and I sure don't care.
Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy long ways from home.
I don't care if the boat don't never land, I'd like to stay on water as long as any man.
Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy long ways from home.
Poor boy, poor boy, poor boy long ways from home.
And my boat come a rockin', just like a drunkard man, And my home's on the water and I sure don't like land.
In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Expressman Blues" — Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell (1930)
This year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Rabbit Foot Blues" — Blind Lemon Jefferson (1927)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Le Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme" — Cleoma Breaux and Joseph Falcon (1928)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Single Girl, Married Girl" — The Carter Family (1927)
The year has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure. "Single Girl Married Girl" Well, the single girl, yeah, the single girl The single girl, she always dresses so fine She dresses so fine She always dresses so fine But the married girl, oh, the married girl The married girl, she wears just any old kind Just any old kind Oh, she wears just any old kind Well, the single girl, yeah, the single girl The single girl, she goes anywhere she please Goes where she please Oh, she goes anywhere she please But the married girl, yeah, the married girl She got a baby on her knees, baby on her knees Oh, she got a baby on her knees Baby on her knees
A YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.
Markin comment:
This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.
An American Werewolf In
London-No-A British Werewolf In Spain-Hammer Productions’ “The Curse Of The
Werewolf” (1961)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Sarah Lemoyne
The Curse Of The
Werewolf, starring Oliver Reed, 1961
No, I am not going to use this space to further the
“dispute,” the piddle that I can see old wise and wizen Sam Lowell calling his
classic “tempest in a teapot” with Seth Garth over my so-called indiscretion,
my faux pas if you will, about snitches, finks, you know guys and gals who
squeak to the law for some reason usually to save their own asses, my
expression from stir, from jail. Jesus with that “stir” I am starting to write like
Seth. That came about when as I saw it Angela DeMarco in my review of Married To The Mob was ready to play
ball with the law to get out from under the mob which was crowding in. I said
it was in the interest of love as well since Angela had a thing for Mike the
FBI guy who was following the mob and following her. That was then and this is
now when I am on a different crusade and if Seth wants to make something of it,
wants to wonder why I am defending who I am defending then bring it on, just
bring it on. Hell, you’re the one who said I such be more assertive so live
with it.
This is the real deal I
care about today. I am here to tell you that werewolves like some other furry
animals like ferrets, weasels and coyotes, have taken some terrible public
relations beating in novels and on the screen and I going all out to defend
these poor creatures who have been misshapen by situations not of their own
making. Case number one, the case before us which will serve as a not gentle
reminder of what humans, what you and I have don’t to make werewolves even more
hated by the general population than Frankenstein who at least had the defense that
he was created by some evil genius as we celebrate the 200th
anniversary of his creation, of his first publication.
Take the poor werewolf
Leon, played by a very young and hungry actor Oliver Reed before he hit
Hollywood and the glamour rounds, in the film under review The Curse Of The Werewolf. A few things different here or there,
maybe a mother who could have nurtured him rather than dying in his time of
need or have not been so mesmerized by a wretched prisoner in milord’s castle
where her own mother worked like a slave to provide for that bastard duke.
Naturally though, or it
seems natural now after I have a few reviews under my belt, a story goes with
it as the short story writer and gadabout Damon Runyon used to say as a lead in
to some of his work, about how I wound up doing this review, this review in defense
of werewolves which before I delved into the matter I could have not given a
damn about (my expression although when my editor saw where I was going with the
review his said the same thing. A review which will be one of eight in this
Hammer Production series which is what that studio made its nut on. When I was
hired on here as a stringer by site manager Greg Green I was given the six-
part Hammer Production series of psychological thrillers which the studio produced
in the late 1950s, early 1960s. I had done two which were subsequently published,
and which Greg said were good for a new hire.
Then office politics,
the “good old boy” tradition which Greg was brought in to break up according to
Leslie Dumont came to the fore when old time critic Sam Lowell saw the reviews
and complained to Greg that he should have given the assignment since he had
previous done a six- part film noir series that Hammer produced in the early
1950s. I was kicked off of that series unceremoniously and Sam was given the
assignment. Not only that but he had the right, the effrontery really, to give
his slant on the two film reviews I did to in what he called “the interest of
completeness.” Worse, worse by far, was that whatever Sam’s reputation in the
industry half the time he has some stringer do the review under his name again
according to Leslie Dumont and that is what he wanted, wants me to do,
including essentially to trash my own reviews. I complained very loudly and to
“buy me off” I was assigned by Greg to do this series. (I will say as well as further
ammunition since this is also well known in some circles, and I will name names
if I get any blowback on this, that many times in the old days Sam would if he had
some weekend tryst planned or wanted to get drunk with the boys he would just
grab whatever the studio publicity department put out on a film, cut the top
off and submit that as his masterpiece. Things must have been pretty lax since according
to my sources they were all published here under his name.)
So here goes.
Of course as a kid I was
afraid of horror movies, afraid of Freddie Kruger on Nightmare On Elm Street and Jason in the ten million Halloween productions. I don’t remember
if beyond American Werewolf in London
I had seen any classic werewolf movies and that is not germane to my defense
anyway. What is germane, what we all have to think through a bit is how to
treat sentient creatures who have been abused and screwed up by human endeavor.
The new model has come to us recently via the love affair between a mute young
woman, a human, and a creature from the Amazon in The Shape Of Water. So whatever “crimes” a “monster,” a creature, a
werewolf commit they cannot be held to the same standards as human beings who
after all created the bad situation in the first place. I think in this film it
was mainly a question of misunderstandings and spite which produced the ill
effects.
Aside from some
religious, apparently Catholic teachings about the sad fates of those humans
who lose their souls and hence are prime candidates for werewolf-dom, beautiful
Leon really never had a chance to grow up and be somewhat normal. What can you
expect when some damn Spanish nobleman showing the degeneracy of his class a
couple of hundred years ago when he did some poor beggar wrong and kept him
captive in his private prison and forgot about him. Forgot about him except the
guy had to be fed and one of the feeders who was a young mute girl who didn’t
flinch at his condition. Then as the young girl grew to womanhood the damn
nobleman decided he want to take the “right of the first night with her.” She
refused and found herself in the private prison with that crazed and apparently
sex-starved mad man. The poor bugger died after having his way with her and
when she decided to go to the nobleman to seek her revenge she killed him
brutally out of hand. Good riddance.
Good riddance except,
and here there is a strain of credibility, that poor girl after running away
from the crime scene was found by a river by a kindly gentleman who took her in
along with his wife and thereafter found that she was with child. The portents
were not good when she died in childbirth and the gentleman and his wife raised
Leon who exhibited some strange and bloody quirks even when young. Not
good
That was where the good
gentleman went to the Church to see what could be done and was told the tale
about soul lost and about the power of romantic love to conquer this beastly
behavior. And it almost worked once Leon became smitten by the daughter of the
guy he was working for in a winery when he came of working age. Almost but the
power of evil was too strong and everything came to a head one horrible night
after Leon had gone on a mad man killing spree and the towns people sought
vengeance. Poor bedeviled Leon cornered, that kindly gentleman put the required
by tradition silver bullet in the lad and that was the end of that poor
misbegotten werewolf.
Except for one last
comment that Hammer Productions known far and wide for its low- cost films must
have spent about three dollars turning beautiful Leon into a raggedly werewolf
that even I was not afraid of, not at all. That sentient being deserved better.
And maybe Seth Garth does too but don’t tell him that.
In Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60th Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)- “The King Of The Beats”-Jack Kerouac- The Road Down Hill After “On The Road”-“Big Sur”
In Honor Of Jean Bon Kerouac On The 60th Anniversary Of “On The Road” (1957)
By Book Critic Zack James
To be honest I know about On The Road Jack Kerouac’s epic tale of his generation’s search for something, maybe the truth, maybe just kicks, stuff, important stuff has happened or some such happening strictly second-hand. His generation’s search looking for a name, found what he, or someone associated with him, maybe the bandit poet Gregory Corso, king of the mean New York streets, mean, very mean indeed in a junkie-hang-out world around Times Square when that place was up to its neck in flea-bit hotels, all night Joe and Nemo’s and the trail of the “fixer” man on every corner, con men coming out your ass too, called the “beat” generation. Beat, beat of the jazzed up drum line backing some sax player searching for the high white note, what somebody told me, maybe my older brother Alex thy called “blowing to the China seas” out in West Coast jazz and blues circles, dead beat, run out on money, women, life, leaving, and this is important no forwarding address for the desolate repo man to hang onto, dread beat, nine to five, 24/7/365 that you will get caught back up in the spire wind up like your freaking staid, stay at home parents, beaten down, ground down like dust puffed away just for being, hell, let’s just call it being, beatified beat like saintly and all high holy Catholic incense and a story goes with it about a young man caught up in a dream, like there were not ten thousand other religions in the world to feast on- you can take your pick of the meanings, beat time meanings. Hell, join the club they all did, the guys, and it was mostly guys who hung out on the mean streets of New York, Chi town, North Beach in Frisco town cadging twenty-five cents a night flea-bag sleeps, half stirred left on corner coffees and cigarette stubs when the Bull Durham ran out).
I was too young to have had anything but a vague passing reference to the thing, to that “beat” thing since I was probably just pulling out of diapers then, maybe a shade bit older but not much. I got my fill, my brim fill later through my oldest brother Alex. Alex, and his crowd, more about that in a minute, but even he was only washed clean by the “beat” experiment at a very low level, mostly through reading the book (need I say the book was On The Road) and having his mandatory two years of living on the road around the time of the Summer of Love, 1967 an event whose 50th anniversary is being commemorated this year as well. So even Alex and his crowd were really too young to have been washed by the beat wave that crashed the continent toward the end of the 1950s on the wings of Allan Ginsburg’s Howl and Jack’s travel book of a different kind. The kind that moves generations, or I like to think the best parts of those cohorts. These were the creation documents the latter which would drive Alex west before he finally settled down to his career life (and to my sorrow and anger never looked back).
Of course anytime you talk about books and poetry and then add my brother Alex’s name into the mix that automatically brings up memories of another name, the name of the late Peter Paul Markin. Markin, for whom Alex and the rest of the North Adamsville corner boys, Jack, Jimmy, Si, Josh, and a few others still alive recently had me put together a tribute book for in connection with that Summer of Love, 1967 just mentioned. Markin was the vanguard guy, the volunteer odd-ball unkempt mad monk seeker who got several of them off their asses and out to the West Coast to see what there was to see. To see some stuff that Markin had been speaking of for a number of years before (and which nobody in the crowd paid attention to, or dismissed out of hand what they called “could give a rat’s ass” about in the local jargon which I also inherited in those cold, hungry bleak 1950s cultural days in America) and which can be indirectly attributed to the activities of Jack, Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, that aforementioned bandit poet who ran wild on the mean streets among the hustlers, conmen and whores of the major towns of the continent, William Burroughs, the Harvard-trained junkie and a bunch of other guys who took a very different route for our parents who were of the same generation as them but of a very different world.
But it was above all Jack’s book, Jack’s book which had caused a big splash in 1957, and had ripple effects into the early 1960s (and even now certain “hip” kids acknowledge the power of attraction that book had for their own developments, especially that living simple, fast and hard part). Made the young, some of them anyway have to spend some time thinking through the path of life ahead by hitting the vagrant dusty sweaty road. Maybe not hitchhiking, maybe not going high speed high through the ocean, plains, mountain desert night but staying unsettled for a while anyway.
Like I said above Alex was out two years and other guys, other corner boys for whatever else you wanted to call them that was their niche back in those days and were recognized as such in the town not always to their benefit, from a few months to a few years. Markin started first back in the spring of 1967 but was interrupted by his fateful induction into the Army and service, if you can call it that, in Vietnam and then several more years upon his return before his untimely end. With maybe this difference from today’s young who are seeking alternative roads away from what is frankly bourgeois society and was when Jack wrote although nobody except commies and pinkos called it that. Alex, Frankie Riley the acknowledged leader, Jack Callahan and the rest, Markin included, were strictly from hunger working class kids who when they hung around Tonio Pizza Parlor were as likely to be thinking up ways to grab money fast any way they could or of getting into some hot chick’s pants as anything else. Down at the base of society when you don’t have enough of life’s goods or have to struggle too much to get even that little “from hunger” takes a big toll on your life. I can testify to that part because Alex was not the only one in the James family to go toe to toe with the law, it was a close thing for all us boys as it had been with Jack when all is said and done. But back then dough and sex after all was what was what for corner boys, maybe now too although you don’t see many guys hanging on forlorn Friday night corners anymore.
What made this tribe different, the Tonio Pizza Parlor corner boys, was mad monk Markin. Markin called by Frankie Riley the “Scribe” from the time he came to North Adamsville from across town in junior high school and that stuck all through high school. The name stuck because although Markin was as larcenous and lovesick as the rest of them he was also crazy for books and poetry. Christ according to Alex, Markin was the guy who planned most of the “midnight creeps” they called then. Although nobody in their right minds would have the inept Markin actually execute the plan that was for smooth as silk Frankie to lead. That operational sense was why Frankie was the leader then (and maybe why he was a locally famous lawyer later who you definitely did not want to be on the other side against him). Markin was also the guy who all the girls for some strange reason would confide in and thus was the source of intelligence about who was who in the social pecking order, in other words, who was available, sexually or otherwise. That sexually much more important than otherwise. See Markin always had about ten billion facts running around his head in case anybody, boy or girl, asked him about anything so he was ready to do battle, for or against take your pick.
The books and the poetry is where Jack Kerouac and On The Road come into the corner boy life of the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor life. Markin was something like an antennae for anything that seemed like it might help create a jailbreak, help them get out from under. Later he would be the guy who introduced some of the guys to folk music when that was a big thing. (Alex never bought into that genre, still doesn’t, despite Markin’s desperate pleas for him to check it out. Hated whinny Dylan above all else) Others too like Kerouac’s friend Allen Ginsburg and his wooly homo poem Howl from 1956 which Markin would read sections out loud from on lowdown dough-less, girl-less Friday nights. And drive the strictly hetero guys crazy when he insisted that they read the poem, read what he called a new breeze was coming down the road. They could, using that term from the times again, have given a rat’s ass about some fucking homo faggot poem from some whacko Jewish guy who belonged in a mental hospital. (That is a direct quote from Frankie Riley at the time via my brother Alex’s memory bank.)
Markin flipped out when he found out that Kerouac had grown up in Lowell, a working class town very much like North Adamsville, and that he had broken out of the mold that had been set for him and gave the world some grand literature and something to spark the imagination of guys down at the base of society like his crowd with little chance of grabbing the brass ring. So Markin force-marched the crowd to read the book, especially putting pressure on my brother who was his closest friend then. Alex read it, read it several times and left the dog- eared copy around which I picked up one day when I was having one of my high school summertime blues. Read it through without stopping almost like he wrote the final version of the thing on a damn newspaper scroll. So it was through Markin via Alex that I got the Kerouac bug. And now on the 60th anniversary I am passing on the bug to you.
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Jack Kerouac reading from his work. Always a treat whatever his literary fate.
Book Review
Big Sur, Jack Kerouac, Penguin Books, New York, 1992
Some of the general points made below have been used in other reviews of books and materials by and about Jack Kerouac.
As I have explained in another entry in this space in a DVD review of the film documentary “The Life And Times Of Allen Ginsberg”, recently I have been in a “beat” generation literary frame of mind. I think it helps to set the mood for commenting on Jack Kerouac’s lesser work under review here, “Big Sur”, that it all started last summer when I happened to be in Lowell, Massachusetts on some personal business. Although I have more than a few old time connections with that now worn out mill town I had not been there for some time. While walking in the downtown area I found myself crossing a small park adjacent to the site of a well-known mill museum and restored textile factory space. Needless to say, at least for any reader with a sense of literary history, at that park I found some very interesting memorial stones inscribed with excerpts from a number of his better known works dedicated to Lowell’s ‘bad boy’, the “king of the 1950s beat writers”.
And, just as naturally, when one thinks of Kerouac then, “On The Road”, his classic modern physical and literary ‘search’ for the meaning of America for his generation which came of age in post-World War II , readily comes to mind. No so well known, however, is the fact that that famous youthful novel was merely part of a much grander project, an essentially autobiographical exposition by Kerouac in many volumes starting from his birth in 1922, to chart and vividly describe his relationship to the events, great and small, of his times. The series, of which the book under review, “Big Sur”, bears the general title “The Legend Of Duluoz”. So that is why we today, in the year of the forty anniversary of Kerouac’s death, are under the sign of “Big Sur”.
The action of this novel, a relatively short narrative expression of Kerouac’s now famous spontaneous writing style, takes place in San Francisco and along California’s central coastline at Big Sur. Kerouac was there as a self-imposed retreat by him after the whirlwind of ‘success” of his major work “On The Road” in 1957 and the media’s subsequent proclamation of him as “King of The Beats”. Along the way he talks about the trials and tribulations surrounding his losing fight against alcoholism, his paranoias, his attempts to dry out, and his patterned misadventures, with and without women, mainly as a desperate response to the pressures and other problems associated with his new found, but not necessarily wanted, fame,
I have mentioned, in a DVD review of the excellent film documentary “What Happened To Kerouac?” that part of Kerouac’s “fall from grace” was using so much youthful autobiographical material composed, in retrospect, of basically similar experiences that there was only so much that the market could bear, especially the volatile youth market that would make up the mass base of his audience. That factor and the intense media blitz to single out the ONE authentic voice of the “beats”, his (because he was articulate, at least in the beginning, and handsome in a very television camera-friendly way unlike some of the other wild boys), for which his whole prior personal history left him ill-equipped. In any case he came crashing down.
“Big Sur” is, to my mind, an almost tragically self-conscious literary expression of that fall. And here the points just made really come into play. Sure, there is plenty of Kerouac introspective, some of it very perceptive as always. Of course, there will be plenty of evocative word play, be-bop feeling and other literary tidbits that add to our stock of literary language (including as an addendum, a poem/ranting/ocean sound bite- “Sea” (Sounds Of The Pacific Ocean At Big Sur). Naturally,as well, the cast of characters include a round-up of the usual suspects like Neal Cassady (here under the name Cody), his wife, his mistress, assorted lumpen-proletarian types and the literary West Coast “beats” that have peopled his previous works. But that is exactly the problem. These are no longer the poster boys of the post-World War II cultural scene. Pranks, misadventures, pratfalls and, oh yes, their Kerouac literary presentation as the voice of the “beats” don’t age well as the characters age. Cassady, at least partially, was able to adjust to the new winds blowing in the 1960s. Kerouac could not, or would not. Here is the simplest way I can put it- “On The Road” I NEEDED to read at one long sitting, “Big Sur” I took at small samples over a few days. Jack, I think, knew that was where he was, I now know it and you will too.
