***On “Now” Photos For The AARP Generation- For Robert Flatley, North Adamsville Class Of 1964

A YouTube film clip of Iris Dement performing  After You're Gone.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)

Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.

A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.

I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]

In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.

Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music

There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.

I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.

There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
************

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1960-61, Take Two- In The Time Of Donna Blanchard’s Time- With Elvis Presley In Mind


CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61-Take Two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series.

Doc’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain(not shown), located in the heart of the North Adamsville shopping streets, and most importantly, just a few minutes walk from North Adamsville High School. The soda fountain counter area is complete with a dozen single stools, a speckled faux-marble formica countertop with assorted pastry trays, candy boxes, pie cabinets and various condiment combinations for Doc’s ‘greasy spoon” hamburgers and hot dogs. Said single stools are strictly for losers, girl friend-less guys (or once in a great while a girl just trying catch a quick soda on the way home) or old people waiting for Doc to fill their ancient medicines prescriptions. They are no factor, no factor at all in this teen-worthy world. No, less than no factor. Every once in a while, however, one of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys takes his foot off the wall in front of Doc’s and enters to get a take out Cherry Coke, the de riguer drink of Fritz’s boyos.

But the fountain is strictly for food and drink, food and drink that is also strictly secondary to why Doc’s is a teen-worthy heaven. The real draw is the quiet booths that line both corner walls and are only for after school boy-girl couples, four-some girls looking for guys to dance with, and at night, mainly school year weekend and summer every nights, Fritz’s Cullen’s corner boys when they tire of holding up Doc’s wall out front (or more realistically when the hour is late and the girl prospects have dimmed). But the booths mean nothing by themselves except as “resting” areas after some fast dance coming from Doc’s super-charged juke box, complete with the very latest records straight from Pete’ Platters Record Shop so you know the are hot.

Right now, just this very teen ear minute, one can hear the sassy sound of The Drifters This Magic Moment in the background as we fix on a boy and girl taking a break from deep conversation (deep conversation related in teen world to either sex, setting up dates, analyzing the state of their eternal relationship, or some combination of all three) and taking a straw sip from their shared Cherry Coke. The Cherry Coke automatically means that rank and file Doc’s corner boy Harry “Red” Radley is present on one of the straws. On the other Donna Blanchard, one of the hottest sixteen year old sophomore girls at North Adamsville High, with a nice shape, a sweet smile, and a “come hither” look that has had more than one boy moony-eyed for her affections. But no dice, no dice at all. In this autumn of the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty Miss Donna Blanchard only has eyes, and whatever else she has to give, for one Red Radley. Let’s listen in as the eminently forgettable Booby Vee is droning on in the background about some lost love (and rightfully so, if the truth be known) on Take Good Care Of My Baby.
*********

“What the matter, honey, don’t you want me like that, “ murmered Donna Blanchard after being told for the fifth or sixth time by our corner boy Red Radley that, if you can believe this, no he was not ready for heavy sex (meaning of course, in the language of the young, some variety of “going all the way”). It seems that last Saturday night down at Adamsville Beach, the local “parking” heaven where one and all went to see the ”submarine races” in the local teen code parlance Donna, making no bones that she was ready, more than ready, to go all the way with Red got turned down. Turned down flat. Fortunately for Red Donna, embarrassed by such a fool for a boy friend, had “neglected” to mention this hard fact of life when the obligatory Monday morning Girls’ “Lav” talk got around to the subject of the weekend scorecard. In short, who did, and didn’t do it. Right now Red and Donna are trying to sort things out as a strangely ironic song by Cathy Jean and the Roommates, Please Love Me Forever, spins on the juke box.

What? A member in good standing of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys, corner boys who have, publicly anyway, notched up (went all they way with) more North Adamsville girls than maybe there were girls in North Adamsville turned down a chance at paradise. And turned down a certified fox like Donna Blanchard. No way. Moreover, Red, displaying he not uncommon teen male bravado had lied to his fellow corner boys and said that he had had already “gone all the way” with Donna. Jesus. Did our Red have a medical problem? No. Did he have some religious scruples about pre-martial sex? Hell, no. Our Red, as it turns out was a virgin and was terrified when Donna, a virgin herself but ready for the time of her time, came on so strong. Especially when she went wild on Saturday night when the local 24/7 rock and roll station, WMEX, played a medley of Elvis tunes including his latest, Surrender.

Some times things end right in the teen universe, sometimes they don’t. This time they didn’t. Well, at least for Red. After their little conversation at Doc’s Red and Donna agreed, but mostly Donna agreed, that they should see other people. That’s teen code, and maybe universal code, for “breaking up.” So now one sees the fetching Donna Blanchard riding around in Jimmy Jakes '59 cherry Chevy, and sitting very close indeed. Moreover she has that look, that certain look like she now knows a thing or two about ways of the world. Well, after all it was the time of her time, wasn’t it? As for Red, well, Red is seen more and more occupying one of those single stools at Doc’s counter sipping a Cherry Coke and endlessly throwing nickels, dimes and quarters in the juke box playing Elvis’ It’s Now or Never. Enough said.

***Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Hard Times In Babylon"

Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Absurd in the 1950's

Markin comment:

For regular readers of this space the following first few paragraphs will constitute something of a broken record. For those who are not familiar this commentary constitutes an introduction to the politics of class struggle as it gets practiced down as the base of society-away from the headlines of the day. As I have mentioned elsewhere, and also in the purpose section of this space, I am trying to impart some lessons about how to push the struggle for working class solidarity forward so that, to put it briefly, those who labor rule.

My political grounding as I have evolved as a communist over the years speaks for itself in my commentaries. The prospective that had been lacking, and which has probably plagued my efforts over the years, since I long ago first started out on my political journey is a somewhat too strong attachment to the theoretical side of the need for socialist solutions. Oddly, perhaps, although I now proclaim proudly that I am a son of the working-class I came to an understanding of the need for the working-class to take power without taking my being part of the class into consideration. One of the tasks that I have tried to undertake in this space over the past year, as a corrective, is to make some commentary about various events in my life that reflect my evolving understanding of class society and the class struggle. I am actually well qualified to undertake that chore.

The impetus for undertaking this task, as may also now be well known to readers, was an unplanned trip back to the old working-class neighborhood of my teenage years. That led to a series of stories about the trials and tribulations of a neighborhood family and can be found in this space under the title History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga (Yes, I know, that is a rather bulky title for a prosaic story but, dear reader, that is the price for my being a ‘political junkie’. If I were a literary type I would probably have entitled it Sense and Sensibility or something like that, oops, that one is taken- but you get the point.).

I have also started another series here, one that indirectly came to life through that trip back to the old neighborhood, entitled Tales From The ‘Hood" going back to my early childhood days as a product of a housing project. However, in that effort I consider myself merely the medium, as the narrator is really a woman named Sherry whom I consider the "the projects" historian. This present series will center on my personal experiences both about the things that formed and malformed me and that contributed to my development as a conscious political activist. The closest I have ever come to articulating that idea through examination of my personal experiences was a commentary written in this space several years ago entitled Hard Times in Babylon (and hence the genesis for the current series title). Even at that, this was more an effort to understand the problems of my parents’ generation, the generation that came of age in the Great Depression and World War II. That, my friends, nevertheless, is probably a good place to take off from here.

The gist of the commentary in Hard Times in Babylon centered on the intersection of two events. One was the above-mentioned trip back to the old neighborhood and the other was a then recent re-reading of famed journalist David Halberstam’s book The Fifties, which covered that same period. His take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age’, rekindled some memories. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon for the Markin family. My parents reacted to those events one way, one of their sons, this writer another. The whys of that are what I am attempting to bring before the radical public. I think the last lines from Babylon state the proposition as clearly as I can put it. “And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.”

There are many myths about the 1950’s, to be sure. One was that the rising tide of the pre-eminent capitalist economy in the world here in America would cause all boats to rise with it. Despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide’. The experience of my parents is proof of that. I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship, and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near famed "bloody" Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and by Michael Harrington in his 1960’s book The Other America. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these "hillbillies" were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

I have related in Tales From The ‘Hood’ some details that my "the projects" historian, Sherry, told me about her relationships with some of the girls from the wealthier part of town with whom we went to elementary school. She spend her whole time there being snubbed, insulted and, apparently, on more than one occasion physically threatened by the prissy girls from the other peninsula for her poor clothing, her poor manners, and for being from the "projects". I will spare you the details here. Moreover, she faced this barrage all the way through to high school graduation. It was painful for her to retell her story, and not without a few tears.

Moreover, it was hard for me to hear because, although I did not face that barrage then, I faced it later when my family moved to the other side of town and kids knew I was from the "projects." I faced that same kind of humiliation on a near daily basis from the boys, mainly. I will, again, spare the details. I can, however, distinctly remember being turned down for a date by an upscale girl in class because, as she made clear to all within shouting distance, although she thought I was personally okay (such nobility) my clothes were "raggedy" and, besides, I did not have a car. That is the face of the class struggle, junior varsity division.

The early years of the Kennedy Administration were filled with hopes and expectations, none more so than by me. As I have noted elsewhere in this space I came of political age with the presidential elections of 1960. This, moreover, was a time where serious social issues such as how to eradicate poverty in America were seriously being discussed by mainstream politicians. I mentioned above the widespread popularity of Michael Harrington’s The Other America and its mention of quintessential other America, including Hazard, Kentucky. But, here is the personal side. One of the most mortifying experiences of my life was when the headmaster of my high school, North Adamsville High, came over the loudspeaker to announce that our high school was going to begin a fundraising drive in earnest to help those less fortunate in Other America. And that other America in this case had a specific name-Hazard, Kentucky. I froze in my seat. Then came the taunts from a couple of guys who knew my father was from there. That is the face of the class struggle, varsity edition

As I finished up my remarks in A Tale of Two Peninsulas trying to sum up the meaning of the events that Sherry had related about her brushes with the class struggle in her youth I asked a couple of rhetorical question. After what I have described here I ask those same questions. Were the snubs and other acts of class hatred due to our personalities? Maybe. Are these mere examples of childhood’s gratuitous cruelty? Perhaps. But the next time someone tells you that there are no classes in this society remember Sherry’s story. And mine. Then remember Sherry’s tears and my red-faced shame. Damn.

***Where Have The Girls Gone- When Young Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion, Circa 1964- Early Girls, Volume Four

A YouTube film clip of The Cookies performing Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby.

Early Girls, Volume Four, various singers, Ace Records , 2005

As I mentioned in a review of a two-volume set of, for lack of a better term, girl doo wop some of the songs which overlaps in this five-volume series, 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 that was 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 noted there that I had 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 would expand that observation here to include girls’ voices generally. As there, I make some amends for that omission here.

As I also noted in that earlier review one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.

And reviewing the material in this volume gave me the same flash-back feeling I felt listening to the girl doo wop sounds. I will give similar examples of that teen boy alienation for this volume, and this approach will drive the reviews of all five of these volumes in the series. Dum Dum leaves me with no choice but to be dumb dumb;Sincerely by the McGuire Sisters,hell I would have taken insincerely but just call; Sad Movies (Make Me Cry), alone in the dark, dungeon balcony; It Hurts To Be In Love, say that again; and The Cookies Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby), I wish I could have had that choice. I might add here that as we have, with volume four, gone over one hundred songs in this series not only have we worked over, and worked over hard, the “speak to” problem but have now run up against the limits of songs worthy of mention, mention at the time or fifty years later, your choice.

So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.

***As Father's Day  Approaches- Fritz John Taylor's Tribute- "I Hear My Father's Voice....I hear an early morning front door slam."

An entry for the D-Day Campaign, a campaign Fritz’s father participated in, during World War II.

One of my old North Adamsville classmates, Fritz John Taylor, Class of 1961, had some things, some father’s day things that he wanted to get off his chest so he asked me to help him write this belated tribute to his late father, Earl Jubal Taylor. The words may have been jointly written but, believe me, the sentiments and emotions expressed are strictly those of Fritz John Taylor. I do know that it took a lot of work for him to transfer them into written form.
******
In honor of Earl Taylor, 1920-1990, Sergeant, United States Army, World War II, European Theater and, perhaps, other North Adamsville fathers.

Fritz turned red, turned bluster, fluster, embarrassed, internal red, red with shame, red as he always did this time of the year, this father’s day time of the year, when he thought about his own father, the late Earl Jubal Taylor. And through those shades of red he thought, sometimes hard, sometimes just a flicker thought passing, too close, too red close to continue on, he thought about the things that he never said to Earl, about what never could be said to him, and above all, because when it came right down to it they might have been on different planets, what could not be comprehended said. But although death now separated them by twenty years he still turned red, more internal red these days, when he thought about the slivers of talk that could have been said, usefully said. And he, Fritz John Taylor, would go to his own grave having that hang over his father’s day thoughts.

But just this minute, just this pre-father’s day minute, Fritz Taylor, Fritz John, for those North Adamsville brethren who insisted on calling him Fritz John when he preferred plain old Fritz in those old-time 1960s high school days, wanted to call a truce to his red-faced shame, internal or otherwise, and pay public tribute, pay belated public tribute to Earl Taylor, and maybe it would rub off on others too. And just maybe cut the pain of the thought of having those unsaid things hang over him until the grave.

See, here’s the funny part, the funny part now, about speaking, publicly or privately, about his father, at least when Fritz thought about the millions of children around who were, warm-heartedly, preparing to put some little gift together for the “greatest dad in the world.” And of other millions, who were preparing, or better, fortifying themselves in preparation for that same task for dear old dad, although with their teeth grinding. Fritz could not remember, or refused to remember, a time for eons when he, warm-heartedly or grinding his teeth, prepared anything for his father’s father’s day, except occasional grief that might have coincided with that day’s celebration. No preparation was necessary for that. That was all in a Fritz’s day’s work, his hellish corner boy day’s work or, rather, night’s work, the sneak thief in the night work, later turned into more serious criminal enterprises. But the really funny part, ironic maybe, is grief-giving, hellish corner boy sneak thief, or not, one Earl Taylor, deserves honor, no, requires honor today because by some mysterious process, by some mysterious transference Fritz John, in the end, was deeply formed, formed for the better by that man.

And you see, and it will perhaps come as no surprise that Fritz John, hell everybody called him Fritz John in the old days so just so nobody will be confused we will use that name here, was estranged from his family for many years, many teenage to adult years and so that his father’s influence, the “better angel of his nature,” influence had to have come very early on. Fritz, even now, maybe especially now, since he had climbed a few mountains of pain, of hard-wall time served, and addictions to get here, did not want to go into the details of that fact, just call them ugly, as this memorial is not about Fritz John’s trials and tribulations in the world, but Earl’s.

Here is what needs to be told though because something in that mix, that Earl gene mix, is where the earth’s salts mingled to spine Fritz against his own follies when things turned ugly later in his life. Earl Jubal Taylor, that middle name almost declaring that here was a southern man, as Fritz John’s name was a declaration that he was a son of a southern man, came out of the foothills of Kentucky, Appalachian Kentucky. The hills and hollows of Hazard, Kentucky to be exact, in the next county over from famed, bloody coal wars, class struggle, which-side-are-you-on Harlan County, but all still hard-scrabble coal-mining country famous in story and song- the poorest of the poor of white Appalachia-the “hillbillies.” And the poorest of the poor there, or very close to it, was Earl Taylor’s family, his seven brothers and four sisters, his elderly father and his too young step-mother. Needless to say, but needing to be said anyway, Earl went to the mines early, had little formal schooling and was slated, like generations of Taylors before him, to live a short, brutish, and nasty life, scrabbling hard, hard for the coal, hard for the table food, hard for the roof over his head, hard to keep the black lung away, and harder still to keep the company wolves away from his shack door. And then the Great Depression came and thing got harder still, harder than younger ears could understand today, or need to hear just now.

At the start of World War II Earl jumped, jumped with both feet running once he landed, at the opportunity to join the Army in the wake of Pearl Harbor, fought his fair share of battles in the European Theater, including D-Day, although he, like many men of his generation, was extremely reticent to talk about his war experiences. By the vagaries of fate in those up-ending times Earl eventually was stationed at the huge Clintondale Depot before being discharged, a make-shift transport army base about twenty miles from Adamsville.

Fritz John, interrupted his train of thought as chuckled to himself when he thought about his father’s military service, thought about one of the few times when he and Earl had had a laugh together. Earl often recounted that things were so tough in Hazard, in the mines of Hazard, in the slag heap existence of Hazard, that in a “choice” between continuing in the mines and daily facing death at Hitler’s hands he picked the latter, gladly, and never looked back. Part of that never looking back, of course, was the attraction of Maude Callahan (North Adamsville Class of 1941), Fritz’s mother whom Earl met while stationed at Clintondale where she worked in the civilian section. They married shortly thereafter, had three sons, Fritz’s late brother, Jubal, killed many years ago while engaged in an attempted armed robbery, Fritz John, ex-sneak thief, ex-dope-dealer, ex-addict, ex-Vietnam wounded Marine, ex-, well, enough of ex’s, and a younger brother, Prescott, now serving time at one of the Massachusetts state correctional institutions as a repeat offender, and the rest is history. Well, not quite, whatever Earl might have later thought about his decision to leave the hellhole of the Appalachian hills. He was also a man, as that just mentioned family resume hints at, who never drew a break, not at work, not through his sons, not in anything.

Fritz John, not quite sure how to put it in words that were anything but spilled ashes since it would be put differently, much differently in 2011 than in, let’s say, 1971, or 1961 thought of it this way:

“My father was a good man, he was a hard working man when he had work, and he was a devoted family man. But go back to that paragraph about where he was from. He was also an uneducated man with no skills for the Boston labor market. There was no call for a coal miner's skills in Boston after World War II so he was reduced to unskilled, last hired, first fired jobs. This was, and is, not a pretty fate for a man with hungry mouths to feed. And stuck in the old Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, come on now let’s call a thing by its real name, real recognizable name, “the projects,” the place for the poorest of the poor, Adamsville version, to boot. To get out from under a little and to share in the dream, the high heaven dream, working poor post-World War II dream, of a little house, no matter how little, of one’s own if only to keep the neighbor’s loud business from one’s door Maude, proud, stiffly Irish 1930s Depression stable working class proud Maude, worked. Maude worked mother’s night shifts at one of the first Adamsville Dunkin’ Donuts filling jelly donuts for hungry travelers in order to scrap a few pennies together to buy an old, small, rundown house, on the wrong side of the tracks, on Maple Street for those who remember that locale, literally right next to the old Bay Lines railroad tracks. So the circle turned and the Taylor family returned back to the North Adamsville of Maude’s youth.”

Fritz John grew pensive when he thought, or rather re-thought, about the toll that the inability to be the sole breadwinner (no big deal now with an almost mandatory two working-parents existence- but important for a man of his generation) took on the man's pride. A wife filling damn jelly donuts, jesus.

He continued:

“And it never really got better for Earl from there as his three boys grew to manhood, got into more trouble, got involved with more shady deals, acquired more addictions, and showered more shame on the Earl Taylor name than needs to be detailed here. Let’s just say it had to have caused him more than his fair share of heartache. He never said much about it though, in the days when Fritz John and he were still in touch. Never much about why three boys who had more food, more shelter, more education, more prospects, more everything that a Hazard po’ boy couldn’t see straight if their lives depended on it, who led the corner boy life for all it was worth and in the end had nothing but ashes, and a father’s broken heart to show for it. No, he never said much, and Fritz John hadn’t heard from other sources that he ever said much (Maude was a different story, but this is Earl’s story so enough of that). Why? Damn, they were his boys and although they broke his heart they were his boys. That is all that mattered to him and so that, in the end, is how Fritz John knew, whatever he would carry to his own grave, that Earl must have forgiven him.”

Fritz John, getting internal red again, decided that it was time to close this tribute. To go on in this vein would be rather maudlin. Although the old man was unlike Fritz John, never a Marine, he was closer to the old Marine Corps slogan than Fritz John, despite his fistful of medals, ever could be- Semper Fi- "always faithful." Yes, Fritz John thought, as if some historic justice had finally been done, that is a good way to end this. Except to say something that should have been shouted from the North Adamsville rooftops long ago- “Thanks Dad, you did the best you could.”
 

That High White Note

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Every guy, maybe every gal too, who has ever picked up some raw-boned trumpet, some hammered sax, or some runaway trombone, some brass thing, dreams in his deepest dreams, the ones that count, about blowing that high white note. The one that says that guy is one with the instrument. Some guys, some guys like hard-nosed private eye Philip Marlowe, maybe picked up the blow as a kid but could never quite get the hang of it, could never dream about that high white note. And so Marlowe wound up picking up brass of a different sort, empty slug shells from a wayward gun out in the sullen steamy Los Angeles night after some maddened episode that he had no control over either. Still Philip Marlowe, tone deaf to the music grift always loved to listen to The Bill Baxter Be-Bop Hour featuring artists live, guys who would come in on an off-night or after a gig out of WJDA in the high desert night around Riverside midnight until dawn. Loved to listen to see if some guy just for a minute could hit that damn high white note.    

John “King” Leonard hit that high white note, hit it a number of times like maybe he owned it or something. Marlowe heard it one night and knew exactly what it meant then when heaven beckoned. Marlowe also heard that the King was to be playing at Jack Reed’s Club Lola over near the Santa Monica Pier for the next several weeks and knew he would make time to catch the King live and in person. Strangely Marlowe got to meet the King in person well before that club date opening although it had nothing to do with high white notes but rather too much noise.

Times, like for everybody else, were hard in the 1937 private eye market and so Marlowe the never work nine- to- five- for- another- guy king had to lower his standards and work the graveyard shift as the house peeper for John Reed’s low rent hotel (a no tell hotel), the Taft (which hadn’t been fixed up since about that fat man’s presidential administration). Since everybody was trying to save dough in 1937 Reed had the King stay in his hotel rather than five-star digs like he expected providing him with plenty of female company. That kind of trade-off appealed to the King because if he craved anything besides seeking that high white note it was diving under those silky sheets with women, lots of women.

The King with his angel- blown horn as a lure had no want for female companionship, lots of it, and no want either of one- night stands and then off to some other twist in some other town. You know the routine. In any case one night, or rather one morning about three o’clock, some of the hotel guests were squawking that the King and his entourage were raising holy hell, loud holy hell and please somebody stop it.  And newly-minted graveyard shift house peeper Marlowe was the stopper no questions asked and no quarter given. He unceremoniously booted the King out the door.          

Of course a big ego guy like the King squawked to Jake Reed and Marlowe in turn was out on his ear. But that was not the end of Marlowe’s relationship with one King Leonard. See the King had an opening act, a honey his for the asking or so he thought opening act, a torch singer, good too, named Delia Day, who it turned out would not give him the time of day. Nada, nothing. But the King was a hard guy to say no to or to take no for an answer and so he headed to Delia’s digs one night to wait for her to come home after a gig over at the hot spot Café  Florian. When Delia got home and went into her bedroom to change there was the King laid out in his splendor on her bed. Laid out and very dead with a couple of slugs through the heart, if he had a heart. Through the heart with her gun that she kept in her night stand for protection. And the King was positioned in such a way that it looked, well, like some lovers’ quarrel, a domestic dispute. Naturally nobody believed that Delia juts walked in and found the King in his very dead condition and so they threw her in the jailhouse to make her sweat out a confession.

Marlowe who had also followed Delia’s career sensed that things did not add up, that somebody or somebodies had the frame fit right around her. So windmill-chasing Marlowe came to the rescue. It didn’t take long for him to figure the whole scheme out though since it had to be the work of amateurs, amateurs with some special grievance up their sleeves. And they did in the persons of two guys who worked at Jack Reed’s hotel. The King liked his women, no question, liked to love them and leave them after he had used them up. The two guys at the hotel happened to be the brothers of one of the King’s used ups, a young woman from the sticks who took what the King said as pure gold and when he dumped her committed suicide according to their story.

These brothers, something out of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, got everything wrong. They assumed that Delia was the one who took the King away from their sister when she in fact hated the King. So they set the frame for her by killing the King in her bedroom. They assumed that the King had abandoned their sister on her word when it was she who walked out on him and was looking to fix him for her own reasons.  Her suicide was related to the fact that she was pregnant be another man later who actually had abandoned her. The only thing they got right was their getaway. Marlowe was able to follow them as far as Portland and then lost their trail. They were never found. The King though, the King lived on in his records played over that radio on WJDA .  Every once in a while they would play the King on his signature song, Banana Blues, and Marlowe would ponder over the fact that even a rat like the King should go to heaven to blow that high white note that he owned.                

John Pilger_The Silent Military Coup That Took Over Washington

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/silent-military-coup-took-over-washington

 

This time it's Syria, last time it was Iraq. Obama chose to accept the entire Pentagon of the Bush era: its wars and war crimes

n my wall is the Daily Express front page of September 5 1945 and the words: "I write this as a warning to the world." So began Wilfred Burchett's report from Hiroshima. It was the scoop of the century. For his lone, perilous journey that defied the US occupation authorities, Burchett was pilloried, not least by his embedded colleagues. He warned that an act of premeditated mass murder on an epic scale had launched a new era of terror.

Almost every day now, he is vindicated. The intrinsic criminality of the atomic bombing is borne out in the US National Archives and by the subsequent decades of militarism camouflaged as democracy. The Syria psychodrama exemplifies this. Yet again we are held hostage by the prospect of a terrorism whose nature and history even the most liberal critics still deny. The great unmentionable is that humanity's most dangerous enemy resides across the Atlantic.

John Kerry's farce and Barack Obama's pirouettes are temporary. Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran. "This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

When the public is "psychologically scarred", as the Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Rugman described the British people's overwhelming hostility to an attack on Syria, suppressing the truth is made urgent. Whether or not Bashar al-Assad or the "rebels" used gas in the suburbs of Damascus, it is the US, not Syria, that is the world's most prolific user of these terrible weapons.

In 1970 the Senate reported: "The US has dumped on Vietnam a quantity of toxic chemical (dioxin) amounting to six pounds per head of population." This was Operation Hades, later renamed the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand – the source of what Vietnamese doctors call a "cycle of foetal catastrophe". I have seen generations of children with their familiar, monstrous deformities. John Kerry, with his own blood-soaked war record, will remember them. I have seen them in Iraq too, where the US used depleted uranium and white phosphorus, as did the Israelis in Gaza. No Obama "red line" for them. No showdown psychodrama for them.

The sterile repetitive debate about whether "we" should "take action" against selected dictators (ie cheer on the US and its acolytes in yet another aerial killing spree) is part of our brainwashing. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and UN special rapporteur on Palestine, describes it as "a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". This "is so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable".

It is the biggest lie: the product of "liberal realists" in Anglo-American politics, scholarship and media who ordain themselves as the world's crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. Stripping humanity from the study of nations and congealing it with jargon that serves western power designs, they mark "failed", "rogue" or "evil" states for "humanitarian intervention".

An attack on Syria or Iran or any other US "demon" would draw on a fashionable variant, "Responsibility to Protect", or R2P – whose lectern-trotting zealot is the former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, co-chair of a "global centre" based in New York. Evans and his generously funded lobbyists play a vital propaganda role in urging the "international community" to attack countries where "the security council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time".

Evans has form. He appeared in my 1994 film Death of a Nation, which revealed the scale of genocide in East Timor. Canberra's smiling man is raising his champagne glass in a toast to his Indonesian equivalent as they fly over East Timor in an Australian aircraft, having signed a treaty to pirate the oil and gas of the stricken country where the tyrant Suharto killed or starved a third of the population.

Under the "weak" Obama, militarism has risen perhaps as never before. With not a single tank on the White House lawn, a military coup has taken place in Washington. In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration. Behind their beribboned facade, more former US soldiers are killing themselves than are dying on battlefields. Last year 6,500 veterans took their own lives. Put out more flags.

The historian Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism": "For goose-steppers substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while." Every Tuesday the "humanitarian" Obama personally oversees a worldwide terror network of drones that "bugsplat" people, their rescuers and mourners. In the west's comfort zones, the first black leader of the land of slavery still feels good, as if his very existence represents a social advance, regardless of his trail of blood. This obeisance to a symbol has all but destroyed the US anti-war movement – Obama's singular achievement.

In Britain, the distractions of the fakery of image and identity politics have not quite succeeded. A stirring has begun, though people of conscience should hurry. The judges at Nuremberg were succinct: "Individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity." The ordinary people of Syria, and countless others, and our own self-respect, deserve nothing less now.

.

Fund Feminist History-Left On Pearl

 

Dear friends,

 

I am writing to tell you about a project I have been actively supporting for some time now. It's a film called Left on Pearl, which documents a lesser-known chapter of the women's liberation movement in the U.S.

 

In 1971, women took over a Harvard-owned building in Cambridge, MA and declared it a women's center. This event happened as a result of the spontaneous moment during Boston's 1971 International Women's Day March when, headed toward Harvard Square, marchers took an unexpected left on Pearl St. and headed toward the building at 888 Memorial Drive, where they began their feminist occupation. This story is the origin of the Women's Center in Cambridge, which still exists to this day.

 

You can watch the trailer for the film here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/left-on-pearl

 

The film is extraordinary. Filled with firsthand accounts from women who were there in the building, it gives you a sense of the powerful uncharted-ness of the action these women were taking and its raw political power. The film also gives you a sense of the times, a feeling for the radical-ness of the early 1970's in the U.S., as it connects the women's liberation movement with other people's movements happening at the time, at both local and national levels.

 

Left on Pearl is an important documentation of women's history, of feminist history, and of people's history. It is a living portrait of a movement for social justice that gives you a sense of immediacy and purpose that is nothing short of inspiring.

 

Finally, as I'm sure you're well aware, women's/feminist/people's history is rarely documented with any care, thoroughness, or accuracy - much less by those who were involved in the struggle firsthand. Left on Pearl is thus an important contribution to the ongoing project of preserving the history of people's movements for social justice.

I hope you will consider donating to this worthy film. No amount is too small - even $5 is a contribution that matters.

Feminism is a collective endeavor, and your participation only grows the number of people who support this film and care about preserving feminist history.

The link is here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/left-on-pearl

Many thanks,

H. C.

 

p.s. I also want to add that, if you are a teacher of any kind, this film is excellent for educational use. I have seen early versions of it, and can say with confidence that I will use it in multiple classes of mine, and imagine it would be useful in all sorts of courses, in all sorts of settings, with all kinds of students, in transmitting the importance of social movements and the history of U.S. radicalism.

President Obama Pardon Private Chelsea Manning Now- A Song From Graham Nash- Almost Gone  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ


 

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

Save the Date: November 22-24, 2013 - Converge on Fort Benning, GA - Justice Not Impunity

The weekend includes a rally with speakers and musicians from across the Americas, a solemn funeral procession to commemorate the martyrs, art, music and street theater to celebrate the resistance, a protest at a for-profit immigrant prison, nonviolent direct action, a conference with workshops, film screenings, trainings etc., concerts, community, grassroots movement building, and more.

Flyer Schedule of Events Hotel Information

Stand With Veterans For Peace In New York City -October 7th

September 19, 2013

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Brothers and Sisters,

Last Oct. 7, marking 11 years of devastating U.S. military involvement (war) in Afghanistan, a group of us gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at 55 Water St. (read some of the statements from vets who were there) in NYC to demand an end to that war, to expose the lies and betrayals connected with the Vietnam War and all subsequent wars, to soulfully remember the fallen with flowers and by reading their names and -- last but not least -- to god damn it, affirm our right, especially as veterans, to assemble peacefully at that place at any hour and do all of the above.
Twenty-five of us were arrested for being at the memorial after the arbitrary and seldom enforced 10 pm closing time (people usually are not bothered there at any hour). Subsequently 12 of us went to trial (read about it here) for five days and were found guilty, but the charges, amazingly, were dismissed. People were outraged and rightfully so that veterans were arrested at their own memorial while remembering the fallen. Even a number of the cops who followed orders and arrested us made a point of telling us later, very sincerely, that they were sorry and that they agreed with our right to be there.
Well, we are going back again, and again if we have to until that place is established as a 24/7 place of memory where we can gather to remember and to address issues that concern all of us.
This year we have a plan to be there with the morning light the following morning. At 9 am we will march out of there with VFP flags and banners flying and we are requesting the NYC Rude Mechanical Orchestra with drums and horns to lead us as we sing and march triumphantly through Wall Street and the financial district to Zuccotti Park, home of the Occupy movement. There we will be met enthusiastically by Occupy folks, who recently gave a beautiful award to Bill Perry in recognition of the veterans standing in solidarity with them.
We want you to join us. We will provide housing and help with logistics for those coming from out of town. Just get in touch. The struggle for the right to remember, to assemble and speak truth to power is not one we can afford to lose. Stand with us brothers and sisters.
For more information and to be involved, e-mail StopTheseWars@PopularResistance.org. or just contact me directly.

Hurry and Order your "Free Chelsea Manning" Banner Today!

Total cost of banner - $61

VFP National will pay $25 towards the cost of the banner. This brings your out of pocket cost to $36 and includes s/h.

Order yours today!

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Vigil Still On - Monday!: No Government Shutdown! The Budget for All campaign issues a call for an….. Emergency Response to Threat of Congressional Republicans to Shut Down the Government on October 1: Unless a Federal Budget is passed by October 1:Tens of thousands will be thrown out of work; Payments to active duty soldiers will cease; No FHA mortgages would be approved; Federal loans to small businesses would be suspended; Federal research projects would be halted; and other vital services will be threatened. (Boston Globe, page 1, 9/20/13) But unless President Obama agrees to cancel the new universal health Insurance program Republican legislators have said they will do just that. Already the Sequester cuts have jeopardized the well-being of tens of thousands. But a government shut-down will have far more widespread impacts across the country and threaten the U.S. economy itself. Please Join us at this emergency action on: Monday, September 30 at noon Republican Party Headquarters 85 Merrimac Street, Boston (North Station T) Gather at the offices of the Republican State Committee for a vigil and press event. We will deliver a letter at this Republican Party headquarters urging that the Massachusetts Party urge Congressional Republicans to avert a shutdown. Speakers will include federal employees who will be furloughed and others directly affected by the threatened shutdown. We demand that the whole Congress stop stifling the voice of the American People who in measures of public opinion across the country – and in the referendum on the ballot in Massachusetts last November – have consistently called for a Federal Budget that: *Protects Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Benefits and other vital programs: *Invests in employment as the solution to our economic crisis; *And pays for these efforts and reduces the national debt by ending massive corporate tax loopholes, ending the war in Afghanistan, and redirecting money from the Pentagon budget to these projects that support our families. Congress must translate these demands into a budget, repeal the sequester which violates these demands, and keep public programs functioning. This vigil will only take place if there is no agreement by Monday to avert a shutdown. Sponsors include The Budget for All Campaign and MoveOn For more information contact 617-354-2169 or 617-623-5288 United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice. Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today. info@justicewithpeace.org 617-383-4857 www.justicewithpeace.org

From The Marxist Archives -In Honor Of The 75th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International-

Workers Vanguard No. 962 30 July 2010 TROTSKY LENIN Revolutionary Perspective for India (Quote of the Week) The founding document of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India (BLPI), written while India was under British rule, emphasized the proletariat’s unique capacity to lead all the exploited and oppressed in the struggle for their emancipation. Applying the Trotskyist perspective of permanent revolution, the BLPI program stressed the fight for the political independence of the proletariat from the Indian bourgeoisie, which is today, as under colonial rule, a counterrevolutionary force beholden to imperialism. The leadership of the revolution, which the peasantry cannot provide for itself, can come only from an urban class. But the Indian bourgeoisie cannot possibly provide this leadership, since in the first place, it is reactionary through and through on the land question itself, sharing as it does so largely in the parasitic exploitation of the peasantry. Above all, the bourgeoisie, on account of its inherent weakness and dependence on Imperialism itself, is destined to play a counter-revolutionary role in the coming struggle for power. The leadership of the peasantry in the coming petty bourgeois democratic agrarian revolution that is immediately posed can therefore come only from the industrial proletariat, and an alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry is [a] fundamental pre-requisite of the Indian revolution. This alliance cannot be conceived in the form of a “Workers’ and Peasants’ Party” or of a “democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants” in the revolution. It is impossible so to fuse within a single party or a dictatorship the policies of two classes whose interests only partially coincide and are bound to come into conflict sooner or later. The revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and peasantry can mean only proletarian leadership of the peasant struggle and, in case of revolutionary victory, the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship with the support of the peasantry.... Despite its subjective weakness in organization and consciousness, inevitable in a backward country and in the conditions of repression surrounding it, the working class is entirely capable of leading the Indian revolution. It is [the] only class objectively fitted for this role, not only in relation to the Indian situation, but in view of the decline of capitalism on [a] world scale, which opens the road to the international proletarian revolution. The proletariat needs above all to develop its own independent political party, free from the influence of the bourgeoisie, and armed with the weapons of revolutionary Marxism, to lead it not only in the day to day struggles but above all in the coming revolution. Without such a party the proletariat must fail in its historic task of leading the masses of India to revolutionary victory. —“Draft Programme of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India” (1942), reprinted in Charles Wesley Ervin, Tomorrow Is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon, 1935-48 (2006)