Saturday, October 10, 2015

Maine Peace Walk Pot Luck Supper & Program Schedule -October 9 to 24

Maine Peace Walk Pot Luck Supper & Program Schedule -October 9 to 24 

peacewalk banner
                                                                                                                                 Art work by Russell Wray
 
  • Day 1 (Ellsworth) Friday, October 9 -   Ellsworth Unitarian Church (121 Bucksport Rd) Evening potluck and kick-off program at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed.    Host: Starr Gilmartin 667-2421
  • Day 2 (Orland) Saturday, October 10 - Potluck supper 6:00 pm and program at H.O.M.E (90 School House Rd.) Sleep at H.O.M.E.  Host: Starr Gilmartin 667-2421 or Lawrence 415-565-9867
  • Day 3 (Belfast) Sunday, October 11 - First Church UCC (104 Church St) Pot luck supper (unadvertised) 6:00 pm, public program 7:00 pm.    Home stays needed & sleep at church: Cathy Mink 323-5160 & Bev Roxby 669-2903.      Host: Joel 338-2282 or 323-0940 at the UCC Church
  • Day 4 (Camden) Monday, October 12 - Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church (7 Union St) Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Home stays needed. Host: Maureen Kehoe-Ostensen 763-4062
  • Day 5 (Rockland) Tuesday, October 13 - Potluck supper and program at Unitarian church (345 Broadway) at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed.  Host: Midcoast Citizens for P & J (Steve Burke 691-0322)
  • Day 6 (Damariscotta) Wednesday, October 14 - Friends Meeting House (77 Belvedere Rd) Potluck Supper and program at 6:00 pm. Sleep at Meeting House.  Host: Friends Meeting (Sue Rockwood 570-854-4458)
  • Day 7 (Bath) Thursday, October 15 - UCC Neighborhood Church (corner of Washington & Centre) Potluck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Homestays needed.  Host: Bruce Gagnon 904-501-4494 & Karen Wainberg 371-8190
  • Day 8 (Day off) in Bath Friday, October 16 - Stay at same homestays again this night. Potluck supper at Addams-Melman House (212 Centre St) at 6:00 pm. Host: Bruce Gagnon 904-501-4494 & Karen Wainberg 371-8190
  • Day 9 (Brunswick) Saturday, October 17 - Pot luck supper at Sternlieb home (21 McKeen St) at 6:00 pm. Walker music program. Home stays needed in Brunswick. Host: Selma Sternlieb 725-7675
  • Day 10 (Freeport) Sunday, October 18 - Pot luck supper at First Parish Congregation Church (on US 1) at 6:00 pm and program. Sleep at church. Host: Paula O’Brien 865-6022 & Sukie Rice 318-8531 & Cheryl Avery 865-0916
  • Day 11 ( Portland) Monday, October 19 - State Street Church-UCC (159 State St.) Pot luck supper & program at 6:00 pm.  Homestays needed. Host: Grace Braley 774-1995
  • Day 12 (Saco) Tuesday, October 20 - First Parish Congregation Church on corner of Beech & Maine. Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Home stays needed.  Host: Tom Kircher 282-7530
  • Day 13 (Kennebunk) Wednesday, Oct 21 - New School (38 York Street). Pot luck supper and program at 6:00 pm. Sleep at school.  Host: Olive Hight 207-590-9505
  • Day 14  (York Beach) Thursday, October 22 - York Beach (52 Freeman St) Supper, music program & sleeping spot at 6:00 pm. Host: Pat Scanlon 978-474-9195 & Smedley Butler Brigade of Boston-area VFP
  • Day 15 (Portsmouth) Friday, October 23 - Supper and program at St. John’s Episcopal Church (100 Chapel St) at 6:00 pm.  Home stays needed, Host: Doug Bogen 603-617-6243
  • Day 16 (Finale in Portsmouth) Saturday, October 24 - Meet at Market Square 10:00 am. Walk thru downtown and back over bridge to Kittery. Rally & speakers at shipyard gate (deliver letter). Walk back to Market Square for final closing circle around noon. Host: Doug Bogen 603-617-6243
 
~ The walk is being sponsored by Maine Veterans for Peace; PeaceWorks; CodePink Maine; Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST); Peace Action Maine; Veterans for Peace Smedley Butler Brigade (Greater Boston); Seacoast Peace Response (Portsmouth); Maine Green Independent Party; and Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
 
For full walk route schedule details see http://vfpmaine.org/walk%20for%20peace%202015.html 

From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

What VFP Stands For - 

 
 
 
 
 

Revelations-From The Sam Eaton-Ralph Morris Series

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

Ralph Morris had always considered himself a straight-up guy. Straight up when he dealt with customers in his high-precision electrical shop in Troy, New York inherited from his father after he retired before he himself recently retired and turned it over to his youngest son, James, who would bring the operation into the 21st century with the high tech equipment precision electrical work needs nowadays. Straight up when he confronted the trials and tribulations of parenthood and told the kids that due to his political obligations (of which more in a minute) he would be away and perhaps seem somewhat pre-occupied at times he would answer any questions they had about anything as best he could (and the kids in turn when characterizing their father to me, told me that he was hard-working, distant but had been straight up with them although those sentiments said in a wistful, wondering, wishing more manner like there was something missing in the whole exchange and Ralph agreed when I mentioned that feeling to him that I was probably right but that he did the best he could). Straight up after sowing his wild oats along with Sam Eaton, Pete Markin, Frankie Riley and a bunch of other guys from the working class corners who dived into that 1960s counter-cultural moment and hit the roads, for a short time after the stress of eighteen months in the bush in Vietnam. Meaning sleeping with any young woman who would have him in those care-free days when we were all experimenting with new ways to deal with that fretting sexual issue and getting only slightly less confused that when we got all that god-awful and usually wrong information in the streets where most of us, for good or evil learned to separate our Ps and Qs. After which he promised his high school sweetheart, Lara Peters, who had waited for him to settle down to be her forever man. And straight up with what concerns us here his attitude toward his military service in the Army during the height of the Vietnam War where he did his time, did not cause waves while in the service but raised, and is still raising seven kinds of holy hell, once he became totally disillusioned with the war, with the military brass and with the American government (no “our government” his way of saying it not mine) who did nothing but make thoughtless animals out of him and his buddies.             

Giving this “straight up” character business is important here because Ralph several years ago along with Sam Eaton, a non-Vietnam veteran having been exempted from military duty due to being the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his ne’er-do-well father died of a massive heart attack in 1965, joined a peace organization, Veterans For Peace (VFP), in order to work with others doing the same kind of work (Ralph as a  full member, Sam an associate member in the way membership works in that organization although both have full right to participate and discuss the aims and projects going forward) once they decided to push hard against the endless wars of the American government (both Ralph and Sam’s way of putting the matter). Without going into great detail Sam and Ralph had met down in Washington, D.C. on May Day 1971 when they with their respective groups (Sam with a radical collective from Cambridge and Ralph with Vietnam Veterans Against the War) attempted to as the slogan went-“shut down the government if it did not shut down the war.” Unfortunately they failed but the several days they spent together in detention in RFK Stadium then being used as the main detention area cemented a life-time friendship, and a life-time commitment to work for peace. (Sam’s impetus the loss of his best corner boy high school friend, Jeff Mullins, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1968 who begged him to tell everybody what was really going on with war if he did not make it back to tell them himself.)        

That brings us to the Ralph straight up part. He and Sam had worked closely with or been member of for several years in the 1970s VVAW and other organizations to promote peace. But as the decade ended and the energy of the 1960s faded and ebbed they like many others went on with their lives, build up their businesses, had their families to consider and generally prospered. Oh sure, when warm bodies were needed for this or that good old cause they were there but until the fall of 2002 their actions were helter-skelter and of an ad hoc nature. Patch work they called it. Of course the hell-broth of the senseless, futile and about six other negative descriptions of that 2003 Iraq war disaster, disaster not so much for the American government (Sam and Ralph’s now familiar term) as for the Iraqi people and others under the cross-fires of the American military juggernaut (my term). So they, having fewer family and work responsibilities were getting the old time anti-war “religion” fires stoked in their brains once again to give one more big push against the machine before they passed on. They started working with VFP in various marches, vigils, civil disobedience actions and whatever other projects the organization was about (more recently the case of getting a presidential pardon and freedom for the heroic Wiki-leaks whistle –blower soldier Chelsea Manning sentenced to a thirty-five year sentence at Fort Leavenworth for telling the truth about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan). Did that for a couple of years before they joined. And here is really where that straight up business comes into play. See they both had been around peace organizations enough to know that membership means certain obligation beyond paying dues and reading whatever materials an organization puts out-they did not want to be, had never been mere “paper members” So after that couple of years of working with VFP in about 2008 they joined up, joined up and have been active members ever since.        

Now that would be neither here nor there but Ralph had recently been thinking about stepping up his commitment even further by running for the Executive Committee of his local Mohawk Valley  chapter, the Kenny Johnson Chapter. (Sam as an associate member of his local chapter, the James Jencks Brigade is precluded as a non-veterans from holding such offices the only distinction between the two types of membership.) He ran and won a seat on the committee. But straight up again since he was committed to helping lead the organization locally and perhaps take another step up at some point he decided this year to go to the National Convention in San Diego (the geographic location of that site a definitive draw) and learn more about the overall workings of the organization and those most dedicated to its success.

So Ralph went and immersed himself in the details of what is going on with the organization. More importantly he got to hear the details of how guys (and it is mostly guys reflecting the origins of the organization in 1985 a time when women were not encouraged to go into the service), mostly guys from his Vietnam War generation as the older World War II and Korea vets pass on and the Iraq and Afghan war vets are still finding their “voice” came to join the organization. What amazed him was how many of the stories centered on various objections that his fellow members had developed while in whatever branch of the military they were in. See Ralph had kept his “nose clean” despite his growing disenchantment with the war while serving his eighteen months in country. He had been by no means a gung-ho soldier although he had imbibed all the social and political attitudes of his working class background that he had been exposed to concerning doing service, fighting evil commies and crushing anything that got in the way of the American government. He certainly was not a model soldier either but he went along, got along by getting along. These other guys didn’t.

One story stood out not because it was all that unusual in the organization but because Ralph had never run up against anything like it during his time of service from 1967-1970. Not in basic training AIT, not in Vietnam although he had heard stuff about disaffected soldiers toward the end of his enlistment. This guy, Frank Jefferson, he had met at one of the workshops on military resisters had told Ralph when he asked that he had served a year in an Army stockade for refusing to wear the uniform, refusing to do Army work of any kind. At least voluntarily. The rough details of Frank’s story went like this. He had been drafted in late 1968 and was inducted into the Army in early 1969 having had no particular reason not to go in since while he was vaguely anti-war like most college students he was not a conscientious objector (and still doesn’t since he believes wars of national liberation and the like are just and supportable, especially those who are facing down the barrel of American imperialism, was not interested in going to jail like some guys, some draft resisters, from his generation who refused to be inducted an did not even think about the option of Canada or some such exile. Moreover the ethos of his town, his family, his whole social circle was not one that would have welcomed resistance, would not have been understood as a sincere if different way of looking at the world. Add to that two guys had been killed in Vietnam from his neighborhood and the social pressure to conform was too great to buck even if he had had stronger convictions then. 

Three days, maybe less after Frank was deposited at Fort Jackson in South Carolina in January, 1969 for basic training he knew he had made a great mistake, had had stronger anti-war feelings, maybe better anti-military feelings than he suspected and was heading for a fall. This was a period when draftees, those fewer and fewer men who were allowing themselves to be drafted, were being channeled toward the infantry, the “grunts,” the cannon-fodder (words he learned later but not known as he came in) and that was his fate. He was trained as an 11 Bravo, killer soldier. Eventually he got orders to report to Fort Lewis in Washington for transport to Vietnam. On a short leave before he was requested to report Frank went back to Cambridge where he grew up and checked in with the Quakers which somebody had told him to do if he was going to challenge his fate in any way. The counsellor there advised him to put in a CO application at Fort Devens nearby. He did so, was turned down because as a Catholic objector he did not qualify under the doctrine of that church. (And he still held to his “just war” position mentioned above). He tried to appeal that decision through military then civilian channels with help from a lawyer provided by the Quakers (really their American Friends Service Committee) although that was dicey at best. Then, despite some counsel against such actions Frank had an epiphany, a day of reckoning, a day when he decided that enough was enough and showed up at parade field for the Monday morning report in civilian clothes carrying a “Bring The Troops Home” sign. Pandemonium ensued, he was man-handled by two beefy lifer-sergeants and was thrown in the stockade. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to six month under a special court-martial for disobeying orders which he served. He got out after during that stretch and continued to refuse to wear the uniform or do work. So back to the stockade and re-trial getting another six months, again for disobeying lawful orders. Fortunately that civilian lawyer had brought the CO denial case to the Federal Court in Boston on a writ of habeas corpus and the judge ruled that the Army had acted wrongly in denying the application. A few weeks later he was released. Frank said otherwise he still might forty plus years later be doing yet another six month sentence. So that was his story and there were probably others like that during that turbulent time when the Army was near mutiny.

Ralph said to himself after hearing the Jefferson story, yeah, these are the brethren I can work with, guys like Jefferson really won’t fold under pressure. Yeah, that’s right.           

Lowell Celebrates Jack Kerouac-October 8-12

Lowell Celebrates Jack Kerouac-October 8-12

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival

2015 LOWELL CELEBRATES KEROUAC FESTIVAL, OCTOBER 8-12, 2015
"October is always a great time for me (knock on wood),
's why I always talk about it so much..."
Jack Kerouac. Desolation Angels
"Everybody goes home in October"
Jack Kerouac. On the Road
Download a poster:

Pre-LCK Festival Events at UMass Lowell

Monday, October 5

3:30 pm: Readings by Beat Poet and Author Michael McClure. Allen House. UML South Campus 61 Wilder Street.

Thursday, October 8

3:00 p.m.: Exhibit Opening: "Kerouac Retrieved--Items from the John Sampas Collection. Allen House. UML South Campus
3:30 pm: Panel Discussion--Race, Ethnicity, and the American Hipster Panelists: Jean-Christophe Cloutier, Tim Z. Hernandez, D. Quentin Miller, Keith Mitchell. Allen House. UML South Campus

Friday, October 9

3:30 pm: Jean-Christophe Cloutier--A Discussion About Working in Literary Archives. Allen House. UML South Campus
For more details go to: UMass Lowell Kerouac Center Events, Fall 2015

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival

Thursday, October 8

6:00-8:00 pm: Traditional Kerouac Pubs Tour. Old Worthen, 141 Worthen St., to Ricardo’s to Ward Eight to Cappy’s Copper Kettle. Meet leaders at the Worthen.
8:30 pm: Traditional LCK Kick-off: Music-and-Readings. Cappy’s Copper Kettle, 245 Central St. Alan Crane, Colleen Nicholas, and friends, and local musicians will perform with David Amram. Hosted by John McDermott. Readers of Kerouac passages will do the interludes. Always a kick!

Friday, October 9

9:30 am: The Annual Jack Kerouac Poetry & Prose Competition. Held at Jack Kerouac’s alma mater, Lowell High School. Students will read their poems and prose entries. David Amram will share his memories of collaborating with Jack Kerouac. Note: This event is not open to the public--students and invited guests only. Lowell High School Theater, 50 Father Morissette Blvd.
2:30 pm: Talking Jack. Readings and discussion. The shop is open—come with whatever Kerouac related topic or idea you’d like to have some conversation about. UML Inn & Conference Center Lobby, 50 Warren Court. Look for the LCK group by the fireplace or on the patio, depending on the weather. Led by Kurt Phaneuf.
4:00-6:30 pm: Opening Art Reception: In My Own Words—Images from Kerouac Interviews. From the book "Safe in Heaven Dead", edited by Michael White. A solo exhibition by Barbara Gagel with black and white conceptual images in the encaustic medium. Using the early 1930s Underwood typeface Barbara evokes Kerouac’s meaning and mood, "tossing words into the void." Ayer Lofts Gallery, 172 Middle Street.
8:00 pm: Kerouac and Jazz. A chronological musical presentation of Kerouac’s favorite jazz compositions performed by musicians MIke Payette, Dan Webster, Chuck Langford, Steve Clements, and singer Lesley Richardson. Readings with music gives insight as to how jazz influenced Kerouac’s writings. The New Uncharted Gallery. 103 Market Street.

Saturday, October 10

9:30 am. Commemorative at the Commemorative. French and Bridge Streets. Topic: "Jack’s Bridges—Lowell and Beyond." Lowell’s many bridges, over the Merrimack and Concord Rivers, fare prominently in Kerouac’s Lowell-based novels. They also serve as a metaphor for the many bridges Jack created in his literary life. One example: His essay "I’m a Bippie in the Middle" in which he sees himself as a bridge between the Beats and the Hippies. This is the theme to be explored in this year’s Commemorative at the Commemorative.
10:15 am. "Kerouac’s Lowell" Birthplace-to-Gravesite Bus Tour. Visiting his homes and other important Kerouac sites, finishing at gravesite. Led by Roger Brunelle. Leaves from Commemorative. $10 Donation. Reservations at 978-970-5000.
11:00 am. Stories from the Road. An exhibition at the Zeitgeist Gallery. Selected artists have been asked to display creative works of art illustrating the stated theme. Artists will give a brief talk about their work, accompanied by David Amram. Hosted by Judith Bessette. The Zeitgeist Gallery is located at 167 Market Street.
2:00 pm. Annual Parker Lecture with Dr. Tim Z. Hernandez. "Searching for the Real Mexican Girl." In 2010 author Tim Z. Hernandez located the real woman behind Jack Kerouac’s "Terry" from On the Road. At age 92 Bea Franco (now deceased) was living in relative obscurity in Fresno, California. In this presentation Hernandez will share his journey from research to writing of his award winning book, Mañana Means Heaven (University of Arizona Press, 2013), as well as the choices one must make when writing a counter-narrative to Kerouac’s portrayal of California’s Mexican communities in the late 1940s.
Dr. Tim Z. Hernandez in an award winning author, research scholar, and performance artist. He is the recipient of an American Book Award for poetry, the Premio Aztlan Prize for fiction, the Colorado Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award for historical fiction. In 2011 the Poetry Society of America named him one of sixteen New American Poets; and he was a finalist for his work on locating the victims of the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon as recalled in Woody Guthrie’s song "Deportee." The Lowell National Historical Visitors Park Visitors Center Theater. 246 Market Street.
3:30 pm. Kerouac’s Library Haunts and Hooky Tour. Led by Bill Walsh, Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack St. Meet at the Merrimack Street entrance.
4:30 pm: Open Mike at the Old Worthen Upstairs. 141 Worthen Street. Poets, musicians, and readers are welcome! Emceed by Cliff Whalen.
6:00-8:00 Chamber Music Presentation with David Amram and Local Musicians. Classical saxophonist and soloist with the Boston Pops and New York Philharmonic Ken Radnofsky, pianist Damien Francoeur-Krzyzek, and violist Consuelo Sherba are confirmed for an evening performing Amram's classical chamber music, in addition to Amram speaking, reading from his three books and leading programs related to his collaborations with Jack Kerouac which will include locals artists all performing together. Cake will be served for David Amram's 85th birthday after the concert. Selections Include:
  • I. The Wind and the Rain for Viola and Piano (1964)
  • II. Finale from Ode to Lord Buckey A Concerto for Saxophone and Piano (1981)
  • III. Prologue for Scherzo for Unaccompanied Saxophone (1999)
  • IV. Greenwich Village Portraits for Saxophone and Piano (2014)
    • a. McDougal Street (for Arthur Miller)
    • b. Bleecker Street (for Odetta)
    • c. Christopher Street (for Frank McCourt)
St. Anne’s Church. Corner of Kirk and Merrimack Streets
8:30: Woodstock Poets Andy Clausen and Pamela Twinning Accompanied by Local Musicians. The Old Court Pub—Upstairs. 29-31 Central Street. A $10.00 dollar donation requested.

Sunday, October 11

10:30 am: Mystic Jack Tour. Led by Roger Brunelle. Visit the church, school, and home that were so important in his early years as described in "Visions of Gerard." Meet in front of St. Louis Church, 221 W. 6th St. $10.00 donation requested.
1:30-4:00 pm: Annual Amram Jam! Our annual event featuring David Amram performing with a cast of many volunteer readers, poets, and musicians. You can feel the spirit of Kerouac moving here! Cake will be served for David Amram's 85th birthday after the event at 4:30. Lowell Beerworks, 203 Cabot St.
5:00-6:00 pm: Saxophonist Jeff Robinson and Musicians. Reading San Francisco Blues. Lowell Beer Works.
6:30-8:00 pm: Michele and Bernie Choiniere. French Canadian Traditional Folk Music. Lowell Beer Works.
8:30 pm: Ghosts of the Pawtucketville Night Tour. Led by Roger Brunelle. Visit Kerouac sites in Pawtucketville neighborhood and possibly the mystical Grotto. Group leaves from Cumnock Hall—University of Massachusetts, Lowell, North Campus. 1 University Avenue. $10.00 donation requested.

Monday, October 12

10:00 am: LCK Kerouac Loop Walk from the Kerouac Commemorative. Bridge St., to St. Louis church, W. 6th St., Centralville.
12-4 pm: Walking Jack: Continuing the Kerouac Loop Walk. From St. Louis School past Kerouac homes and landmarks in Centralville and Pawtucketville, finishing at Old Worthen Tavern for toasting to Jack.

Thanks to Our Supporters

The Enterprise Bank of Lowell
The Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series
The University of Massachusetts at Lowell English Department
The Annual Donors to Lowell Celebrates Kerouac
The Old Worthen Tavern and the Lowell Telecommunications Corp. for providing LCK with meeting space throughout the year.
Our thanks to Darrell’s Music Hall of Nashua, New Hampshire for providing the keyboard for David Amram.
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac offers a very special thanks and appreciation to Mr. James Irsay of Indianapolis, Indiana for his generous support of LCK!
A big “LCK Thank You” as well to all the Lowell venues hosting our 2015 Events:
Cappy’s Copper Kettle, The Ward Eight Pub, Ricardo’s Cafe Trattoria, The Old Worthen, Lowell High School, The New UnchARTed Gallery, The Lowell National Historical Park, The Pollard Memorial Library, St. Anne’s Church, The Old Court Pub, St. Louis de France Church, The Lowell Beer Works, The University of Massachusetts at Lowell

Friday, October 09, 2015

The Young Women With Long-Ironed Hair- With Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, And Judy Collins In Mind

The Young Women With Long-Ironed Hair- With Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, And Judy Collins In Mind
 




The Young Women With Long-Ironed Hair- With Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, And Judy Collins In Mind
 

Laura Perkins was talking to her daughter, Emily Andrews one afternoon in April when she went to visit her and the grandkids after returning from Florida where she had spent the winter. (Emily the first born girl from her first of three marriages who now had a couple of kids of her own although she has retained as is the “new style,” post-‘60s new style anyway, of women retaining their maiden name kept  Andrews in the bargain although Laura gave that name up minute one after the divorce which was messy and still a source of hatred when Emily’s father’s name is mentioned and thereafter kept her maiden name through the subsequent two marriages and divorces). During the conversation Laura commented to Emily having not seen her for a while on how long and straight she was keeping her hair these days which reminded her of the old days back in the romantic early 1960s when she used to hang around the Village in New York at the coffeehouses and folk clubs listening to lots of women folksingers like Carolyn Hester, Jean Redpath, Thelma Gordon, Joan Baez, Sissy Dubois and a bunch of others whose names she could just then not remember but whose hair was done in the same style including her own hair then.

Laura looked wistfully away just then touching her own now much shortened hair (and colored, how much and for how long only her hairdresser knew and she was sworn to a secret oath even the CIA and Mafia could admire in the interest of not giving  into age too much) while Emily explained how she came to let her hair grow longer and straighter (and her own efforts to keep it straighter) against all good reason what with two kids, a part-time accounting job and six thousand other young motherhood things demanded of her that would dictate that one needed a hair-do that one could just run a comb through.       

“Ma, you know how you are always talking about the old folk days, about the days in the Village and later in Harvard Square after you moved up here to go to graduate school at BU, minus Dad’s part which I know you don’t like to talk about for obvious reasons. You also know, and we damn made it plain enough although you two never took it seriously, back when we were kids all of us hated the very sound of folk music, stuff that sounded like something out of the Middle Ages [which actually some of it was, at least the rudiments] and would run to our rooms when you guys played the stuff in you constant nostalgia moments. Well one day I was in Whole Foods and I hear this song over their PA system or whatever they call it, you know those CDs they play to get you through the hard-ass shopping you need to do to keep the renegade kids from starvation’s door. The song seemed slightly familiar, folkie familiar, so I asked at the customer service desk who was singing the song and its name which I couldn’t quite remember. Of course the young clerk knew from nothing but a grey-haired guy, an old Cambridge radical type, a professor-type not that I think about probably teaching English Lit, a guy you see in droves when you are in Harvard Square these doddering along looking down at the ground like they have been doing for fifty years, standing in the same line said it was Judy Collins doing Both Sides Now.  

That information, and that tune stuck in my head, got me thinking about checking out the song on YouTube which I did after I got home, unpacked the groceries and unpacked the kids. The version I caught was one of her on a Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest series that was on television back then which I am sure you and Dad knew about and she had this great looking long straight hair. I was envious. Then I kind of got the bug, wanted to check out some other folkie women whose names I know by heart, thank you, and noticed that Joan Baez in one clip taken at the Newport Folk Festival along with Bob Dylan singing With God On Our Side, God-awful if you remember me saying that every time you put it on the record-player, had even longer and straighter hair than Judy Collins. There she was all young, beautiful and dark-skinned Spanish exotic, something out of a Cervantes dream with that great hair. So I let mine grow and unlike what I heard Joan Baez, and about six zillion other young women did, including I think you, to keep it straight using an iron I went to Delores over at Flip Cuts in the mall and she does this thing to it every couple of months. And no I don’t want you to give me your folk albums, please, to complete the picture because the stuff still sounds like it was from the Middle Ages.”        

Laura laughed a little at that as Emily went out the door to do some inevitable pressing shopping. After dutifully playing with Nick and Nana for a couple of hours while Emily went to get some chores done at the mall sans the kids who really are a drag on those kinds of tasks and after having stayed for supper when Sean got home from work she headed to her own home in Cambridge (a condo really shared with her partner, Sam Lowell, whom she knew in college, lost track of and then reunited with after three husbands at a class reunion). When she got home Sam, working on some paper of his, something about once again saving the world which was his holy mantra these days now that he was semi-retired from his law practice was waiting, waiting to hear the latest Nick and Nana stories instead she told him Emily’s story. Then they started talking about those old days in the 1960s when both she and he (he in Harvard Square having grown up in Carver about thirty miles south of Boston) imbibed in that now historic folk minute which promised, along with a few other things, to change the world a bit. Laura, as Sam was talking, walked to a closet and brought out a black and white photograph from some folk festival in 1967 which featured Joan Baez, her sister Mimi Farina, who had married Richard Farina, the folk-singer/song-writer and Judy Collins on stage at the same time. All three competing with each other for the long straight hair championship. Here’s part of what was said that night, here’s how Laura put it:    

“Funny how trends get started, how one person, or a few start something and it seems like the whole world follows, or the part of the world that hears about the new dispensation anyway, the part you want to connect with. Remember Sam how we all called folk the “new dispensation” for our generation which had begun back in the late 1950s, early 1960s, slightly before our times when we caught up with it in college in 1964. So maybe it started in reaction to the trend when older guys started to lock-step in gray flannel suits. That funny Mad Men, retro-cool today look, which is okay if you pay attention to who was watching the show. In the days before Jack and Bobby Kennedy put the whammy on that fashion and broke many a haberdasher’s heart topped off by not wearing a soft felt hat like Uncle Ike and the older guys.”

“Funny too it would be deep into the 1960s before open-necks and colors other than white for shirts worked in but by then a lot of us were strictly denims and flannel shirts or some such non-suit or dress combination. Remember even earlier when the hula-hoop fad went crazy when one kid goofing off threw a hard plastic circle thing around his or her waist and every kid from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon had to have one, to be tossed aside in some dank corner of the garage after a few weeks when everybody got into yo-yos or Davey Crockett coonskin caps. Or maybe, and this might be closer to the herd instinct truth, it was after Elvis exploded onto the scene and every guy from twelve to two hundred in the world had to, whether they looked right with it or not, wear their sideburns just a little longer, even if they were kind of wispy and girls laughed at you for trying to out-king the “king” who they were waiting for not you. I know I did with Jasper James King who tried like hell to imitate Elvis and I just stepped on his toes all dance when he asked me to dance with him on It’s Alright, Mama.”  

“But maybe it was, and this is a truth which we can testify to when some girls, probably college girls like me, now called young women but then still girls no matter how old except mothers or grandmothers, having seen Joan Baez on the cover of Time (or perhaps her sister Mimi on some Mimi and Richard Farina folk album cover)got out the ironing board at home or in her dorm and tried to iron their own hair whatever condition it was in, curly, twisty, or flippy like mine, whatever  don’t hold me to all the different hairstyles to long and straight strands. Surely as strong as the folk minute was just then say 1962, 63, 64, they did not see the photo of Joan on some grainy Arise and Sing folk magazine cover, the folk scene was too young and small back in the early days to cause such a sea-change.”

 Sam piped up and after giving the photograph a closer look said, “Looking at that photograph you just pulled out of the closet now, culled I think from a calendar put out by the New England Folk Archive Society, made me think back to the time when I believe that I would not go out with a girl (young woman, okay) if she did not have the appropriate “hair,” in other words no bee-hive or flip thing that was the high school rage among the not folk set, actually the social butterfly, cheerleader, motorcycle mama cliques. Which may now explain why I had so few dates in high school and none from Carver High. But no question you could almost smell the singed hair at times, and every guy I knew liked the style, liked the style if they liked Joan Baez, maybe had some dreamy sexual desire thing about hopping in the hay, and that was that.”                   

“My old friend Bart Webber, a guy I met out in San Francisco  when I went out West with old Peter Markin in our hitchhike days with whom if you remember I re-connected with via the “magic” of the Internet a few years ago, told me a funny story when we met at the Sunnyville Grille in Boston one time about our friend Julie Peters who shared our love of folk music back then (and later too as we joined a few others in the folk aficionado world after the heyday of the folk minute got lost in the storm of the British invasion). He had first met her in Harvard Square one night at the Café Blanc when the place had their weekly folk night (before every night was folk night at the place when Eric Von Schmidt put the place on the map by writing Joshua Gone Barbados which he sang and which Tom Rush went big with) and they had a coffee together. That night she had her hair kind of, oh he didn’t know what they called it but he thought something like beehive or flip or something which highlighted and enhanced her long face. Bart thought she looked fine. Bart, like myself, was not then hip to the long straight hair thing and so he kind of let it pass without any comment.”

“Then one night a few weeks later after they had had a couple of dates she startled him when he picked her up at her dorm at Boston University to go over the Club Blue in the Square to see Dave Van Ronk hold forth in his folk historian gravelly-voiced way. She met him at the door with the mandatory straight hair although it was not much longer than when he first met her which he said frankly made her face even longer. When Bart asked her why the change Julie declared that she could not possibly go to Harvard Square looking like somebody from some suburban high school not after seeing her idol Joan Baez (and later Judy Collins too) with that great long hair which seemed very exotic, very Spanish.”

“Of course he compounded his troubles by making the serious mistake of asking if she had her hair done at the beauty parlor or something and she looked at him with burning hate eyes since no self-respecting folkie college girl would go to such a place where her mother would go. So she joined the crowd, Sam got used to it and after a while she did begin to look like a folkie girl, and started wearing the inevitable peasant blouses instead of those cashmere sweaters or starched Catholic school shirt things she used to wear.”     

“By the way Laura let’s be clear on that Julie thing with Bart back in the early 1960s since his Emma goes crazy every time anybody, me, you, Bart, Frankie Riley, Jack Callahan mentions any girl that Bart might have even looked at in those days. Yeah, even after almost forty years of marriage so keep this between us. She and Bart went “Dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue. They were thus by definition not on a heavy date, neither had been intrigued by the other enough to be more than very good friends after the first few dates but folk music was their bond. Just friends despite persistent Julie BU dorm roommate rumors what with Bart hanging around all the time listening to her albums on the record player they had never been lovers. A few years later she mentioned that Club Blue night to me since I had gone with them with my date, Joyell Danforth, as we waited to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie with us to see if I remembered Van Ronk’s performance and while I thought I remembered I was not sure.

I asked Julie, “Was that the night he played that haunting version of Fair and Tender Ladies with Eric Von Schmidt backing him up on the banjo?” Julie had replied yes and that she too had never forgotten that song and how the house which usually had a certain amount of chatter going on even when someone was performing had been dead silent once he started singing.”

As for the long-ironed haired women in the photograph their work in that folk minute and later speaks for itself. Joan Baez worked the Bob Dylan anointed “king and queen” of the folkies routine for a while for the time the folk minute lasted. Mimi (now passed on) teamed up with her husband, Richard Farina, who was tragically killed in a motorcycle crash in the mid-1960s, to write and sing some of the most haunting ballads of those new folk times (think Birmingham Sunday). Julie Collins, now coiffured like that mother Julie was beauty parlor running away from and that is okay, still produces beautiful sounds on her concert tours. But everyone should remember, every woman from that time anyway, should remember that burnt hair, and other sorrows, and know exactly who to blame. Yeah, we have the photo as proof.           

“What it’s like to live, and grow as a human being: transitioning in a military prison.” Chelsea shares her story on Medium

“What it’s like to live, and grow as a human being: transitioning in a military prison.” Chelsea shares her story on Medium

October 7th, 2015 by the Chelsea Manning Support Network

With her Guardian op-eds and Twitter account, Chelsea Manning has continued to find ways to speak out even while serving her 35-year prison sentence in Fort Leavenworth, KS. Today (Oct. 7), Chelsea expanded her presence onto the media platform, Medium, where she will continue to share more of her personal story. Discover Chelsea on Medium here.

Military Haircuts

My first post about what it’s like to live, and grow as a human being: transitioning in a military prison.

by Chelsea E. Manning

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The last few weeks have been particularly challenging for me. For the first time in years, I felt like giving up… then, I found my “second wind” to be human.
I wasn’t sure I was ever going to write this article. Recently, on the evening of September 18, I finally decided that maybe I should quit, to give up on everything and everyone: my family, my friends, my supporters, my court-martial appeal, and my other legal battles — even my articles for the Guardian and my Medium debut. Basically, I nearly surrendered.
You see, that evening I found out that the military was going to force me to keep my hair cut very short, to the “male” hair standard.
I didn’t take the news well. I felt sick. I felt sad. I felt gross — like Frankenstein’s monster wandering around the countryside avoiding angry mobs with torches and pitch forks.
I wanted to run away. I wanted to close the door to my cell, turn out the lights, and shun the world outside. I did exactly that. And then I cried, and cried, sniffled a little bit, and then cried some more. This went on until around midnight.
I wanted to cry myself to sleep on the concrete floor, but a guard came by twice and started asking me if I was okay. “Yes, I’m fine,” I said. I was not okay, though. It wasn’t his fault; he was just a young guy, maybe 20 years old, I thought to myself.
Then I started to think really dark thoughts. You know, “emo”-goth stuff, like “black isn’t dark enough of a color for me.”
After five years — and more — of fighting for survival, I had to fight even more. I was out of energy.
I called Chase Strangio, my ACLU lawyer, and I cried. As my legal counsel, he represents me in this lawsuit to challenge the hair policy that makes and treats me like a monster or a problem. But I just wanted love and support, and someone to cry to when I was feeling alone. He did such a wonderful job just listening to me.
After feeling devastated, humiliated, hurt, and rejected — and after wanting to give up on the world — I found my “second wind” of sorts.
I can make it just a little longer. I just hope it’s not too much longer.

I hope to use this platform as a place to document my experience and share my story and, maybe even begin a conversation. Going through such a seismic, existential shift in my life — transitioning in a military prison —presents real, meaningful, and daily challenges. I want to hear your thoughts and questions so we can continue to have a dialogue. I also look forward to reading the stories you are brave enough to share with the world so we can understand each other and define ourselves on our own terms.

Chelsea Manning Defense Fund information

Chelsea Manning Defense Fund information

Your donation allows us to fight for Chelsea Manning
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Now that Chelsea’s legal appeals are finally underway, your support is needed more than ever. Our legal team of Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward are preparing to argue numerous issues before the military courts of appeal–issues that we fully expect can significantly reduce Manning’s 35 year prison sentence. However, it’s more challenging than ever to raise those needed funds without the high-profile media coverage of an upcoming trial. We are currently focusing on paying for Chelsea’s critical upcoming legal appeal hearing before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
How to donate to the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund
How to donate to Chelsea Manning’s legal expenses exclusively
  • Check or money order | sent via postal mail | not tax-deductible
    Payable to: “IOLTA/Manning”
    Mail to: Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610, USA
  • Online via the Freedom of the Press Foundation
    Limited time online campaign.


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Background and the various ways to donate

The Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning Defense Fund is hosted by Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org) in collaboration with the Chelsea Manning Support Network. Courage to Resist is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) non-profit organization.
Funding Chelsea Manning’s chosen legal defense team has always been our top priority. In the wake of the outrageous 35 year prison sentence decreed by military judge Colonel Denise Lind, we believe that the final outcome will depend on not only on legal arguments, but on public opinion as we enter into pardon and clemency petitions, as well as the appeals process.
The majority of donations are made to the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund either online via our primary credit card gateway (https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591), or postal mailed to us via check. In either of these situations, donors receive a tax-deduction for their contribution. However, when folks mail a check, we save credit card processing fees that amount to 2.75-4% of each online donation. Checks payable to “Courage to Resist/AFGJ” can be mailed to Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610, USA–please note “Chelsea Manning” on the check’s memo line.
PayPal
Some folks have problems with our primary donation gateway, especially friends trying to use credit cards outside of the USA. We encourage those folks to try donating via PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=VDTDZV62A23KW). However, these PayPal transactions are not tax-deductible. Our relationship with PayPal has been “complicated” to put it mildly. On January 29, 2011, PayPal restricted access to our account based on the “need for additional information.” After a month of trying to find a possible resolution with senior PayPal staff, we issued a statement on February 24, 2011, regarding the situation. After thousands of supporters signed a petition and contacted PayPal in protest, our account was restored without explanation.
The Chelsea Manning legal trust account is managed by her lead appeals attorney Nancy Hollander, under regulation of the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Program and the American Bar Association. 100% of contributions directly offset Chelsea’s ongoing legal expenses. Any funds remaining at the end of her legal jeopardy would become hers with interest. However, these IOLTA contributions are not tax-deductible. Checks payable to “IOLTA / Manning” can be mailed to Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610, USA. These checks are deposited into Chelsea’s IOLTA account at the Dubuque Bank & Trust, Dubuque, Iowa. We can provide wire transfer information upon request for larger contributions.