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

 

 

 

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

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

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

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

Chorus Line From The Monster

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

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

Musically much of that stuff was ephemeral, merely background music, and has not survived (except in lonely YouTube cyberspace). Yeah, Neal Young, the Airplane, the Doors, the Byrds still sound good but a lot of it is wha-wha music now you know Ten Years After, a lot of Rod Stewart, even the acid-etched albums by the Beatles and Stones, it is no wonder that they do not have any tunes from Their Satanic Majesties on their playlists). [CL1]  Others, flash pan “music is the revolution,” period exclamation point, end of conversation bands assumed a few pithy lyrics would carry the day and dirty old bourgeois society would run and hide in horror leaving the field open, open for, uh, us. That music too, except for gems like The Ballad Of Easy Rider, is safely ensconced in vast cyberspace.

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

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

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

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

(Monster)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary

Chasing the promise of freedom and hope

Came to this country to build a new vision

Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope

Like good Christians, some would burn the witches

Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken

Westward in saddle and wagon it went

And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean

Many the lives which had come to an end

While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland

We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America

They came by thousands to court the wild

And she just patiently smiled and bore a child

To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it

They kicked it just like a dog

And when the war over

They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice

Kind was the spirit in many a way

But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping

Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)

The spirit was freedom and justice

And it's keepers seem generous and kind

It's leaders were supposed to serve the country

But now they won't pay it no mind

'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy

And now their vote is a meaningless joke

They babble about law and order

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

Yeah, there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles

And corruption is stranglin' the land

The police force is watching the people

And the people just can't understand

We don't know how to mind our own business

'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us

Now we are fighting a war over there

No matter who's the winner

We can't pay the cost

'Cause there's a monster on the loose

It's got our heads into a noose

And it just sits there watching

(America)

America where are you now?

Don't you care about your sons and daughters?

Don't you know we need you now

We can't fight alone against the monster

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

--Used with permission--

Born To Be Wild

Words and music by Mars Bonfire

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning

Heavy metal thunder

Racin' with the wind

And the feelin' that I'm under

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

Like a true nature's child

We were born, born to be wild

We can climb so high

I never wanna die

Born to be wild

Born to be wild

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

--Used with permission--

THE PUSHER

From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"

Words and music by Hoyt Axton

You know I've smoked a lot of grass

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

But I never touched nothin'

That my spirit could kill

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

With tombstones in their eyes

But the pusher don't care

Ah, if you live or if you die

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, I say The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man

With the love grass in his hand

Oh but the pusher is a monster

Good God, he's not a natural man

The dealer for a nickel

Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams

Ah, but the pusher ruin your body

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

God damn, The Pusher

God damn, God damn the Pusher

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

Well, now if I were the president of this land

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

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

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

God damn The Pusher

Gad damn The Pusher

I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man\

© Irving Music Inc. (BMI)

--Used with permission--

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Writers’ Corner  

In say 1912, 1913, hell, even the beginning of 1914, the first few months anyway, before the war clouds got a full head of steam in the summer they all profusely professed their unmitigated horror at the thought of war, thought of the old way of doing business in the world. Yes the artists of every school but the Cubist/Fauvists/Futurists and  Surrealists or those who would come to speak for those movements, those who saw the disjointedness of modern industrial society and put the pieces to paint, sculptors who put twisted pieces of metal juxtaposed to each other saw that building a mighty machine from which you had to run created many problems; writers of serious history books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress,  humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument of policy and the diplomats and high and mighty would put the brakes on in time, not realizing that they were all squabbling cousins; writers of serious and not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden gabezo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that man and woman had too much to do, too much sex to harness to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s cry and by having half-virgin, neat trick, maidens strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets; musicians whose muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos, not the stress and strife of the tattoos of war marches with their tinny conceits; and poets, ah, those constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack of seven sealed bibles, that they would go to the hells before touching the hair of another man. They all professed loudly (and those few who did not profess, could not profess because they were happily getting their blood rising, kept their own consul until the summer), that come the war drums they would resist the siren call, would stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist worlds and blast the war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels. They would stay the course.  

And then the war drums intensified, the people, their clients, patrons and buyers, cried out their lusts and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, poets, artists, sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went to the trenches to die deathless deaths in their thousands for, well, for humankind, of course, their always fate  ….            

Prose & Poetry - Ivor Gurney

The Gloucestershire poet and composer Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) was born on 28 August 1890 and educated as a chorister at King's School, Gloucester, where he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music.  Gurney wrote both poetry and music from an early age, 14.

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At the outbreak of the war he volunteered as a private for the Gloucester Regiment, although he was initially rejected on account of poor eyesight; he finally succeeded in joining the 2nd and 5th Gloucestershire Regiment in 1915.
First wounded in April and then gassed in September 1917 whilst serving in France, Gurney was sent home.
In 1917 his successful collection Severn and Somme went into a second edition.  He continued to write music however, whilst occupied in a variety of jobs.  War's Embers was published in 1919, with To His Love being published in this latter collection.
Always highly sensitive and moody, Gurney had developed signs of serious mental disturbance by 1918, although his mental condition was already strained by 1912.  He was subsequently committed by his family to a Gloucester asylum in 1922 and later transferred to Dartford.
He never subsequently left hospital, although the popular myth that he continued to relive the war was not in fact true: he himself admitted lying - claiming he had suffered from shell shock - simply in order to gain a better pension.
Ivor Gurney, who never married, died on 26 December 1937 at the City of London mental hospital.  During his life he had written hundreds of poems as well as approximately 300 songs in addition to instrumental music.
While his reputation during his own lifetime was primarily based around the quality of his music, his poetical talents have subsequently gained recognition (and were championed by Edmund Blunden).

The Silent One
Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two -
Who for his hours of life had chattered through
Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent:
Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went
A noble fool, faithful to his stripes - and ended.
But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance
Of line - to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken
Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken,
Till the politest voice - a finicking accent, said:
"Do you think you might crawl through, there: there's a hole"
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied -
"I'm afraid not, Sir." There was no hole no way to be seen
Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes
Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing -
And thought of music - and swore deep heart's deep oaths
(Polite to God) and retreated and came on again,
Again retreated - and a second time faced the screen.

 

 

 

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Fighters Of The International Working Class Today-The International Working Class Anthem The Internationale

 

A YouTube film clip of a performance of the classic international working class song of struggle, The Internationale.

Markin comment:

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our socialist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

The Struggle For The Labor Party In The United States-Workers' Action- Winter 1969-1970

 I am not familiar with the Riazanov Library as a source, although the choice of the name of a famous Russian Bolshevik intellectual, archivist, and early head of the Marx-Engels Institute there, as well as being a friend and , at various points a political confederate of the great Bolshevik leader, Leon Trotsky, sits well with me.
*******
Thanks to the Riazanov Library for their efforts in digitizing Workers Action. The works provided by the Riazanov Library are © copyrighted by the Riazanov Library in 2010 for the document formatting and editing as they appear here in their PDF format, on the ETOL. The actual content itself remains in the public domain pursuant to US and International copyright conventions.
*****
Markin comment on this series:

Obviously, for a Marxist, the question of working class political power is central to the possibilities for the main thrust of his or her politics- the quest for that socialist revolution that initiates the socialist reconstruction of society. But working class politics, no less than any other kinds of political expressions has to take an organization form, a disciplined organizational form in the end, but organization nevertheless. In that sense every Marxist worth his or her salt, from individual labor militants to leagues, tendencies, and whatever other formations are out there these days on the left, struggles to built a revolutionary labor party, a Bolshevik-style party.

Glaringly, in the United States there is no such party, nor even a politically independent reformist labor party, as exists in Great Britain. And no, the Democratic Party, imperialist commander-in-chief Obama's Democratic Party is not a labor party. Although plenty of people believe it is an adequate substitute, including some avowed socialists. But they are just flat-out wrong. This series is thus predicated on providing information about, analysis of, and acting as a spur to a close look at the history of the labor party question in America by those who have actually attempted to create one, or at to propagandize for one.

As usual, I will start this series with the work of the International Communist League/Spartacist League/U.S. as I have been mining their archival materials of late. I am most familiar with the history of their work on this question, although on this question the Socialist Workers Party's efforts runs a close second, especially in their revolutionary period. Lastly, and most importantly, I am comfortable starting with the ICL/SL efforts on the labor party question since after having reviewed in this space in previous series their G.I. work and youth work (Campus Spartacist and the Revolutionary Marxist Caucus Newsletter inside SDS) I noted that throughout their history they have consistently called for the creation of such a party in the various social arenas in which they have worked. Other organizational and independent efforts, most notably by the Socialist Workers Party and the American Communist Party will follow.
******
Markin comment on this issue:
Obviously a propagandistic left-wing, pro-labor newspaper from 1969, driven by current events, is going to contain a lot of material now of just historic interest like the struggle around the effects of containerization of shipping on the West Coast docks, a question that we now know costs many union jobs by the failure of longshoremen’ union to tie in technological improvement with unionized labor employment. And, of course, the union bureaucracy’s penchant for making “sweetheart” deals rather than a class struggle fight over the issue.

This issue does pose the question of questions centered on the labor movement and war that is currently very much with us with the Iraq, Afghan and whatever other hellish wars the American imperialist are raising around the world. For the anti-war movement, after trying everything but labor action in the previous period, 1969 represented a turning point where even the working class was getting fed up with the Vietnam War. No only by providing the mass base of “cannon fodder” but taking a beating on the economic front as well. The call for labor strikes against the war would later, in 1970, take on a more than propagandistic possibility when important sections of the working class began to take strike action over economic issues. While today, and maybe just today, the slogan has purely propaganda value it is always part of the arsenal of left-wing anti-war work.

The other section that still bears reading for today’s audience is the last article on, well, union caucus organizing. The point about standing on a left-wing militant program is the most important and dovetails with the struggle for the labor party to take state power when the time comes. Once again this says to me that we had better be getting a move on about the business of creating that revolutionary labor party-enough is enough. Break with the Democrats! Build a workers party that fights for our communist future.  

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-HONOR ROSA LUXEMBURG-THE ROSE OF THE REVOLUTION

 

 Every January leftists honor three revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in 1924, Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin. Lenin needs no special commendation.  I will make my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I in this space tomorrow so I would like to make some points here about the life of Rosa Luxemburg. These comments come at a time when the question of a woman President is the buzz in the political atmosphere in the United States in the lead up to the upcoming 2016 elections. Rosa, who died almost a century ago, puts all such pretenders to so-called ‘progressive’ political leadership in the shade.   

The early Marxist movement, like virtually all progressive political movements in the past, was heavily dominated by men. I say this as a statement of fact and not as something that was necessarily intentional or good. It is only fairly late in the 20^th century that the political emancipation of women, mainly through the granting of the vote earlier in the century, led to mass participation of women in politics as voters or politicians. Although, socialists, particularly revolutionary socialists, have placed the social, political and economic emancipation of women at the center of their various programs from the early days that fact had been honored more in the breech than the observance.

All of this is by way of saying that the political career of the physically frail but intellectually robust Rosa Luxemburg was all the more remarkable because she had the capacity to hold her own politically and theoretically with the male leadership of the international social democratic movement in the pre-World War I period. While the writings of the likes of then leading German Social Democratic theoretician Karl Kautsky are safely left in the basket Rosa’s writings today still retain a freshness, insightfulness and vigor that anti-imperialist militants can benefit from by reading. Her book Accumulation of Capital , whatever its shortfalls alone would place her in the select company of important Marxist thinkers.

But Rosa Luxemburg was more than a Marxist thinker. She was also deeply involved in the daily political struggles pushing for left-wing solutions. Yes, the more bureaucratic types, comfortable in their party and trade union niches, hated her for it (and she, in turn, hated them) but she fought hard for her positions on an anti-class collaborationist, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist left-wing of the International of the social democratic movement throughout this period. And she did this not merely as an adjunct leader of a women’s section of a social democratic party but as a fully established leader of left-wing men and women, as a fully socialist leader. One of the interesting facts about her life is how little she wrote on the women question as a separate issue from the broader socialist question of the emancipation of women. Militant leftist, socialist and feminist women today take note.

One of the easy ways for leftists, particularly later leftists influenced by Stalinist ideology, to denigrate the importance of Rosa Luxemburg’s thought and theoretical contributions to Marxism was to write her off as too soft on the question of the necessity of a hard vanguard revolutionary organization to lead the socialist revolution. Underpinning that theme was the accusation that she relied too much on the spontaneous upsurge of the masses as a corrective to the lack of hard organization or the impediments that  reformist socialist elements threw up to derail the revolutionary process. A close examination of her own organization, The Socialist Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, shows that this was not the case; this was a small replica of a Bolshevik-type organization. That organization, moreover, made several important political blocs with the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the defeat of the Russian revolution of 1905. Yes, there were political differences between the organizations, particularly over the critical question for both the Polish and Russian parties of the correct approach to the right of national self-determination, but the need for a hard organization does not appear to be one of them.

Furthermore, no less a stalwart Bolshevik revolutionary than Leon Trotsky, writing in her defense in the 1930’s, dismissed charges of Rosa’s supposed ‘spontaneous uprising’ fetish as so much hot air. Her tragic fate, murdered with the complicity of her former Social Democratic comrades, after the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin in 1919 (at the same time as her comrade, Karl Liebknecht), had causes related to the smallness of the group, its  political immaturity and indecisiveness than in its spontaneousness. If one is to accuse Rosa Luxemburg of any political mistake it is in not pulling the Spartacist group out of Kautsky’s Independent Social Democrats (itself a split from the main Social Democratic party during the war, over the war issue) sooner than late 1918. However, as the future history of the communist movement would painfully demonstrate revolutionaries have to take advantage of the revolutionary opportunities that come their way, even if not the most opportune or of their own making.

All of the above controversies aside, let me be clear, Rosa Luxemburg did not then need nor does she now need a certificate of revolutionary good conduct from today’s leftists, from any  reader of this space or from this writer. For her revolutionary opposition to World War I when it counted, at a time when many supposed socialists had capitulated to their respective ruling classes including her comrades in the German Social Democratic Party, she holds a place of honor. Today, as we face the endless wars of imperialist intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere in Iraq we could use a few more Rosas, and a few less tepid, timid parliamentary opponents.  For this revolutionary opposition she went to jail like her comrade Karl Liebknecht. For revolutionaries it goes with the territory. And in jail she wrote, she always wrote, about the fight against the ongoing imperialist war (especially in the Junius pamphlets about the need for a Third International).  Yes, Rosa was at her post then. And she died at her post later in the Spartacist fight doing her internationalist duty trying to lead the German socialist revolution the success of which would have  gone a long way to saving the Russian Revolution. This is a woman leader I could follow who, moreover, places today’s bourgeois women parliamentary politicians in the shade. As the political atmosphere gets heated up over the next couple years, remember what a real fighting revolutionary woman politician looked like. Remember Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the Revolution.      

In The Twilight Of The Folk Minute- Peter Seeger And Arlo Guthrie In Concert

“Jesus, they charged me fourteen dollars each for these tickets to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Remember Laura when we saw Pete for five bucks (and the price of an expresso coffee for two people and maybe a shared piece of carrot since he had been on a date, a cheap date when he didn’t have much cash and the guy was expected, expected on a heavy date anyway to pay) at the Café Nana over Harvard Square and Arlo gave a free concert out on Concord Common back in the day,” said Sam Lowell to his date Laura Peters and the couple they were standing in line with, Patrick Darling and Julia James, in front of Symphony Hall in Boston waiting for the doors to open for the concert that evening. Sam continued along that line saying “things sure were cheaper then and people, folkies for sure, did their gigs for the love of it as much as for the money, maybe more.

And that reference got Julia thinking back the early 1960s when she and Sam went “dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue (Sam and Julia had despite dorm Julia BU dorm roommate rumors had never been lovers). Club Blue located in that same Harvard Square that Sam mentioned also had the Café Nana and about five or six other coffeehouses. Coffeehouses then where you could see Bob, Joan, Eric (Von Schmidt), Tom (Rush), Phil (Ochs) and lots of lean and hungry performers working for the “basket” passed among the patrons and be glad, at least according to Van Ronk when she had asked him about the “take” during one intermission, to get twenty bucks for your efforts that night. Coffeehouses where for the price of a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry, shared, you could wallow in the fluff of the folk minute that swept America, maybe the world, and hear the music that was the leading edge then toward that new breeze that everybody that she and Sam knew was bound to come what with all the things going on in the world. Black civil rights, mainly down in the police state South, nuclear disarmament, the Pill to open up sexual possibilities previously too dangerous or forbidden, and music too, not just the folk music that she had been addicted to but something coming from England paying tribute to old-time blues with a rock upbeat that was now a standard part of the folk scene ever since they “discovered” blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James. All the mix to turn the world upside down. All of which as well was grist to the mill for the budding folk troubadours to write songs about.

She made her companions laugh as they stood there when she said that if worse came to worse and you had no money like happened one time with a guy she had a date with you could always go to the Hayes-Bickford and as long as you were not rowdy like the drunks, winos, panhandlers and hoboes who drifted through there you could watch the scene for free and on any given night, maybe around midnight you could hear some next best thing guy or gal singing low some tune they wrote or some poem.                

…As they walked down the step of Symphony Hall having watched Pete work his banjo magic, work the string of his own Woody-inspired songs and of covers from the big sky American songbook and Arlo wowed with his City of New Orleans and some of his father’s stuff (no Alice’s Restaurant that night he was saving that for Thanksgiving) Sam told his companions that “fourteen dollars each for tickets was a steal for such performances, especially in that acoustically fantastic hall” and told the three that he would stand for coffees at the Blue Parrot if they liked. “And maybe share some pastry too.”     

No Justice, No Peace- Black Lives Matter- You Have Got That Right Brothers and Sisters-Speaking Truth To Power-The Struggle Continues-Drop The Charges Against The Boston U.S. 93 Highway Protestors   

Activists Shut Down Interstate Highway 93 North and South During Morning Rush Hour Traffic into Boston
by Boston Black Lives Matter	15 Jan 2015
Somerville/Milton/Boston -- Activists have shut down Interstate 93 Southbound and Northbound during morning rush hour commute into Boston to “disrupt business as usual” and protest police and state violence against Black people. Two different groups of activists linked their bodies together across the highway in coordinated actions north and south of Boston. This action was in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. This diverse non-Black group of Pan-Asians, Latinos, and white people, some of whom are queer and transgender, took this action to confront white complacency in the systemic oppression of Black people in Boston.
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Click on image for a larger version
“Today, our nonviolent direct action is meant to expose the reality that Boston is a city where white commuters and students use the city and leave, while Black and Brown communities are targeted by police, exploited, and displaced,” said Korean-American activist Katie Seitz. In the past 15 years, law enforcement officers in Boston have killed Remis M. Andrews, Darryl Dookhran, Denis Reynoso, Ross Baptista, Burrell “Bo” Ramsey-White, Mark Joseph McMullen, Manuel “Junior” DaVeiga, Marquis Barker, Stanley Seney, Luis Gonzalez, Bert W. Bowen, Eveline Barros-Cepeda, Daniel Furtado, LaVeta Jackson, Nelson Santiago, Willie L. Murray Jr., Rene Romain, Jose Pineda, Ricky Bodden, Carlos M. Garcia, and many more people of color. We mourn and honor all these lives. “We must remember, Ferguson is not a faraway Southern city. Black men, women, and gender-nonconforming people face disproportionately higher risk of profiling, unjust incarceration, and death. Police violence is everywhere in the United States,” said another protester Nguyen Thi Minh Thu. The two groups of activists organized these actions to use their collective voices to resist and disrupt the overarching system that oppresses Black people and to expressly accept the responsibility of white and non-Black people of color to organize and act to end racial profiling, unjust incarceration, and murder of Black people in the United States and beyond. Black lives matter, today and always. ***See below for more quotes from organizers and participants in the action.*** Quotes from Participants in the Action "As an Afro-Indigenous woman I feel the affects of white supremacy on my people. Being involved in this action has shown me where the participant's hearts are at in the movement. Without collaboration of all people, no one can be free." - Camille “As Pan-Asian people in the United States, we refuse to perpetuate anti-Black racism. We will not allow our communities to serve as a wedge to divide us and jeopardize our struggle to end racism and achieve our collective liberation,” said Nguyen Thi Minh Thu. “As non-Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people in the United States, we refuse to allow increasing acceptance of our sexuality and several marriage equality victories to end our commitment to advancing social justice. We recognize that this movement has been spearheaded by Black queer women and gender-nonconforming people.” said Monica Majewski. “As white people in the United States, we refuse to align ourselves with a state that carries out violence against Black people. We are taking direct action to challenge white complicity and amplify the demands for an end to the war on Black communities,” said Katie Martin Selcraig. "As a white person, my only options are to act against white supremacy or to be complicit in it. I'm here today because I refuse to be complicit" said Emily O. "As a white man, I know I benefit and am protected by a racist society. I am participating today because it is necessary for those who are the least vulnerable to step up and put our bodies on the line if we ever want to build a just world," said Eli C. "As a white feminist, I take part in this action because anyone who claims commitment to equality must take action to dismantle intersectional oppression. Idling is a privilege afforded only to those who genuinely do not care," said Nelli. “As non-Black undocumented immigrants in the United States, we refuse to perpetuate the erroneous idea of earned citizenship. We honor the path set before us by Harriet Tubman by advancing civil and human rights for everyone regardless of legal status,” said a protester involved in the action. “As non-Black women, including transgender and gender-nonconforming folks in the United States, we refuse to allow our commitment to gender justice to distract us from racial justice. We understand that gender and racial justice are intertwined,” said one of the organizers of the action. Contact Megan Collins at (617) 942-1867 or email january15action (at) gmail.com for more information, interviews, and photographs.

 

Out In The Be-Bop Drive-In Movie Night– With Doris Troy’s Just One Look In Mind

Just One Look Lyrics

Just one look and I fell so hard
In love with you Oh Oh

I found out how good it feels
To have your love Oh Oh

Say you will, will be mine
Forever and always Oh Oh

Just one look and I knew
That you were my only one Oh Oh

I thought I was dreaming
But I was wrong Oh yeah yeah
Ah but I'm gonna keep on scheming
Till I make you, make you my own

So you see I really care
Without you I'm nothing Oh Oh
Just one look and I know
I'll get you someday Oh Oh

Just one look
That's all it took hah just one look
That's all it took woah just one look
That's all it woah baby you know I love you baby
I'll build my world around you come on baby

You know it’s funny how a kid, a guy kid I will let the gals speak for themselves, picked up the various signals, the various nods and looks relating to being cool back in the day, back in the late 1950s, early 1960s day. Cool with guys and cool with girls for they were two very different things. Probably each generation develops out of necessity, or self-defense, its own set of signals but while I was reviewing an “oldies but goodies” rock and roll compilation from the early 1960s I latched onto Doris Troy’s Just One Look to get me thinking about the ways we rather silently communicated what we were about.

The strange thing about the signals, let’s just call it that but I mean nods and looks, was early on when you were just a wet-behind-the-ears kid, say around elementary school no later, your signals tended to be straight up, you liked this or that, didn’t like this or that, thought he or she was a dope, etc. and that was the end of it. Or maybe not the end of it if in your honesty some bigger kid decided to take umbrage and box your ears to show his or her displeasure in a more visceral way. Then almost by osmosis, or maybe design, I am not sure which, you curbed your tongue a little and began with the silent signals.

The first one I clearly remember from down at the old Adamsville housing projects neighborhood was when my best friend in elementary school, Billy Bradley, stopped telling me I was his best friend but instead when we saw each other in the hallways during school he would just give me a slight nod of his head. At first I thought he was putting the freeze on me or something until I asked him about it after school one day. He said he had learned from his older brother, Prescott I think, that guys did not just keep going around saying they were friends when they got older but gave the nod to acknowledge that fact. And so the nod. Once I picked up on it that was that. All through school until graduation, maybe later, the nod became the way guys, guys who thought other guys were cool, addressed each other. Especially guys you did not know well, maybe just played pick-up ball with, maybe just hung around the soda fountain at the drugstore listening to the juke-box, maybe just saw walking down the street and maybe had nothing to say but giving the nod expressed your appreciation of other guy’s guy-ness.      

Of course guy-girl signals were in another universe. No way you gave a girl, I think any girl whether you liked her or not, whether you cared whether she lived or died or not, the nod. No way, first they would not be privy to what that nod meant probably thinking you had some neck problem but as usual with girls you needed a much more elaborate signal system whether you were trying to score or not. Here too there was a shift around late elementary school, right around the time girls went from being nuisance sticks to, well, interesting. Before that time you would just say something unkind and they would do the same in turn, or they would beat you up depending on their mood. But thereafter to show your interest you had to develop your best furtive glance. There were variations on this but the basic idea was that if you were trying to hone in on some lovely say hanging around that drugstore listening to the jukebox with everybody else you casually shot a slight glance her way, enough for her to see that you had glanced her way but not enough to think that you were so uncool as to stare at her with your tongue open. The trick though was to see if she was also going to take a peek your way. If so then the game was on, if not then if you were called on it, although this rarely happened, you could use that neck problem thing to bail you out. Such were the ways of young love. However the older you got the more signals you developed which one Doris Troy, blessed Doris Troy gave us the ABCs on. 

See here is how it worked out in the trenches. Out in the drive-in movie night once those furtive glances paid off, or promised to pay off. A whole galaxy of options opened up. I remember being struck by the appropriateness of the cover artwork on that CD that I reviewed one time that “spoke” exactly to this drive-in night. I had been on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in an extensive commercial rock and roll series called Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die. The artwork which graced the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may be, to the themes of those artwork scenes. The one for the 1963 CD compilation was a case of the former, of the fitting in. On that cover, a summer scene (always a nice touch since that was the time when we had at least the feel of our generational break-out) we are placed at the drive-in, the drive-in movies for those of the Internet/Netflicks/YouTube generations who have not gotten around to checking out this bit of Americana on Wikipedia, with the obligatory 1950s-early 1960s B-movie monster movie (outer space aliens, creatures from the black lagoon, blobs, DNA-damaged dinosaurs, foreign-bred behemoths a specialty) prominent on the screen.

Oh sure, everyone of a certain age, a certain baby-boomer age, a generation of ’68 age, has plenty of stories to tell of being bundled up as kids, maybe pre-set with a full set pajamas on to defend against the late sleepy-eyed night, the sleepy-drowsy late movie night, placed in the car backseats and taken by adventurous parents (or so it seemed) to the local open air drive-in for the double feature. That usually also happened on a friendly summer night when school did not interfere with staying up late (hopefully keeping awake through both films). And to top it all off you got to play in the inevitable jungle jim, see-saw, slide, swing set-laden playground during intermission between the films while waiting, waiting against all hope, for that skewered, shriveled hot dog, rusty, dusty hamburger, or stale, over-the-top buttered popcorn that was the real reason that you “consented” to stay out late with the parents. Yah, we all have variations on that basic theme to tell, although I challenge anyone, seriously challenge anyone, to name five films that you saw at the drive-in that you remembered from then-especially those droopy-eyed second films.

In any case, frankly, I don’t give a damn about that kid stuff family adventure drive-in experience. Come on, that was all, well, just kids' stuff. The “real” drive-in, as pictured on that cover art just mentioned is what I want to address. The time of our time in that awkward teen alienation, teen angst thing that only got abated by things like a teenage night at the drive-in. Yeah, that was not, or at least I hope it was not, you father’s drive-in. That might have been in the next planet over, for all I know. For starters our planet involved girls (girls, ah, women, just reverse the genders here to tell your side of the experience), looking for girls, or want to be looking for girls, preferably a stray car-full to compliment your guy car-full and let god sort it out at intermission.

Wait a minute. I am getting ahead of myself in this story. First you needed that car, because no walkers or bus riders need apply for the drive-in movies like this was some kind of lame, low-rent, downtown matinee last picture show adventure. For this writer that was a problem, a personal problem, as I had no car and my family had cars only sporadically. Fortunately we early baby-boomers lived in the golden age of the automobile and could depend on a friend to either have a car (praise be teenage disposable income/allowances) or could use the family car. Once the car issue was clarified then it was simply a matter of getting a car-full of guys (or sometimes guys and gals) in for the price of two (maybe three) admissions.

What? Okay, I think that I can safely tell the story now because the statute of limitations must have surely passed. See, what you did was put a couple (or three guys) in the trunk of that old car (or in a pinch one guy on the backseat floor) as you entered the drive-thru admissions booth. The driver paid for the two (or three tickets) and took off to your parking spot (complete with ramp speaker just in case you wanted to actually listen to the film shown on that big wide white screen). Neat trick, right?

Now, of course, the purpose of all of this, as mentioned above, was to get that convoy of guys, trunk guys, backseat guys, backseat floor guys, whatever, to mix and moon with that elusive car-full of girls who did the very same thing (except easier because they were smaller) at the intermission stand or maybe just hanging around the unofficially designated teen hang-out area. No family sedans with those pajama-clad kids need apply (nor would any sane, responsible parent get within fifty paces of said teens). And occasionally, very occasionally as it turned out, some “boss” car would show up complete with one guy (the driver) and one honey (girl, ah, woman) closely seated beside him for what one and all knew was going to be a very window-fogged night. And that was, secretly thought or not, the guy drive-in dream. As for the movies. Did they show movies there? Enough said. And enough too of furtive glances…for now.  

In Boston Friday January 16, 2014- Support The Pakistani People's  Resistance To The Taliban

Frank Jackman comment;

The Obama government (and other imperial powers and their hangers-on) have their way of fighting the ISIS-Taliban-Al Queda menace Islamic fundamentalist threat to the world-bombs, drones, more bombs, and increased troops on the ground while propping up governments, or agencies within the government, like the Pakistani with aid and other resources while some of those agencies protect these vicious enemies of the peoples of the world. The following is one event where average citizens of the world can show solidarity with those in and from Pakistan who are fighting the menace right on their doorstep. Stand in solidarity with the benighted peoples of Pakistan.         

 

UFPJ URGENT UPDATE: Challenges for the Peace Movement: Update on US policy towards Iran and ISIS

Dear UJP Activist, As the new year begins, the American war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq escalates, while nuclear negotiations with Iran face dangerous opposition in Congress. Join us for a briefing by two leading experts, Jamal Abdi (NIAC) and Raed Jarrar (AFSC). They will bring us up to date on recent developments in US policy, the situation on the ground, alternatives to war, and opportunities for peace activists. Date: Wednesday, January 14 Time: 8 PM EST; 5 PM PST Call-in Number 712-432-1212 Meeting ID 446-724-667#  Please RSVP: Send email to info.ufpj@gmail.com Jamal Abdi is Policy Director for the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) in Washington DC. He previously worked as Policy Advisor to Congressman Brian Baird. (D-Washington). Raed Jarrar is American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC's) Policy Impact Coordinator at the Office of Public Policy and Advocacy in Washington DC. Raed was born in Baghdad and since coming to the United States in 2005 has worked on political and cultural issues pertaining to US engagement in the Arab and Muslim worlds. We hope you will join us. This is a great opportunity to get caught up on recent developments and to discuss opportunities for action. Conference Call Co-sponsored by PDA Please make a donation to UFPJ so that we can continue to keep our member groups and dedicated activists linked together for effective action and impact!

Help us continue to do this critical work: Make a donation to UFPJ today. UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICEwww.unitedforpeace.org To subscribe, visit www.unitedforpeace.org/email

Free Chelsea Manning-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Now! 

Manning featured in Alcatraz art exhibit

January 7, 2015 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

Top: Alcatraz Island, Bottom: Chelsea Manning’s lego portrait in @Large

Chelsea Manning is featured in a new art exhibit, @Large, currently on display at Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, CA.  @Large was created by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and features Trace, 176 portraits of people who have been imprisoned or exiled due to their beliefs, affiliations, or actions.
Ai Weiwei has called the featured prisoners of conscience “heroes of our time,” and the exhibit includes individuals from around the world.  Those in the United States section include Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Martin Luther King Jr, John Kiriakou, Shakir Hamoodi, and Shaker Aamer.
Each portrait in Trace was hand-made and crafted out of legos, both in Ai Weiwei’s studio in China and in San Francisco with the assistance of 70 volunteers. @Large also includes an interactive section, allowing visitors to write & send post cards of support to the individuals, many of whom are still imprisoned.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is known for his art & activism. Trace and his other exhibits were created specifically for Alacatraz, commenting on the Island’s history as a prison & fortress and raising questions on freedom of expression and human rights.
@Large is on display at Alcatraz Island through April 26,2015.

Portraits in Ai Weiwei’s art exhibit @Large