We publish below excerpts from Friedrich Engels’ 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In explaining scientific socialism, Engels makes clear that only through the conquest of power by the working class and the expropriation of the capitalist class can the benefits of science, technology and education be available to all, laying the material basis for the full liberation of humanity. The excerpts below are taken from the Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers, 1976).
This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Thursday, February 01, 2018
From the Archives of Marxism-Friedrich Engels' “From the Kingdom of Necessity to the Kingdom of Freedom”
We publish below excerpts from Friedrich Engels’ 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In explaining scientific socialism, Engels makes clear that only through the conquest of power by the working class and the expropriation of the capitalist class can the benefits of science, technology and education be available to all, laying the material basis for the full liberation of humanity. The excerpts below are taken from the Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers, 1976).
For Black History Month-Artists’ Corner-The Work Of Jacob Lawrence
For Black History Month-Artists’ Corner-The Work Of Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence first came to widespread public attention for his series of paintings chronicling the historically significant migration of blacks out of the Mister James Crow South toward the north which became a flood after World War I-mainly the industrial towns of the Midwest then. Going up the Mississippi. Later Lawrence came to evoke the northern urban scene of the black diaspora. Those later paintings evoke in a dramatic manner the visual search via iconic Jazz among the folk for the high white note that every musician worth his or her salt was looking for. Pictured are the workman, the hipster, the street persona and the respectable too. Thanks Brother Lawrence-there is a very strong reason that some of your work is enshrined in the Afro-American History Museum down in Washington fast by the Washington Monument.
from the migration series
Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- With One-Easy Boogle In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
February is Black History Month
One-Easy Boogle
… he, all six feet two, one hundred and ninety-five lanky pounds, brown- skinned brother of him dressed in his Saturday night finery nothing flashy but a couple of guys, a couple of guys not skimpy in the fashion plate set-up looked the look that they thought he made the cool grade, better some brown sugar gave sets of big eyes his way (truth to tell the finery stuff had been bought at Wal-Mart’s or cadged from an older brother not using the material since said brother had long ago given up Saturday night roaming, Saturday night hungers but in the half-light the look looked), had spied her, all that brown sugar of her not giving a set of big eye glances his way across the room the minute he came in the door. Came into Brother Earl’s High Hat Lounge ready for some low-key jazz and maybe some jam too, came into his what did the white folks call it, yeah, his watering hole (funny white-bread name for bars but those white folks were always coming with up weird words, had been coming up with weird crap ever since they hung “nigger” and “high yella” on his people).
So he gave her his full eyes up and down, and then down and up, practically unclothing her slinky frilly white dress low cut the way he liked them in order to see what baubles a gal had. While he was too much of a gentleman to lick his chops, he also knew if she had seen him in such a foolish schoolboy on a lark pose he would be sleeping alone that night. Or more likely given his luck lately with some cheap pick-up floozy like Sarah Lou or Betty Buck ready to roll over for a guy, a guy like him in his finery (they too not able to tell the difference or maybe he mused they were looking at other stuff, looking down his well-creased pants), with some dough, some good liquor and reefer, and a line of patter to get her out of her panties (not hard when it came to floozy time, midnight hour time, he knew, knew only too well not being able to shake either of those two whores when they got their walking daddy habits on). She not so much beautiful as fetching, all high yella like Mr. Whitey said, knowing she had plenty of blood coursing through her veins from some long ago indignity ravaged on his great-grandmother, maybe before. Yeah, fetching in the long haul which was usually preferable unlike Sarah Lou who after he had had his way with her and he woke up the next morning her beside him would scamper out of bed and out the door before she opened her blood-shot eyes.
Yes, one look at her, one look at that light brown sugar, one once-over (really twice over) told him that, told him too that he needed to be cool, cool enough to stay a little aloof while she was up at the stand in front of that band singing, singing some faggy Cole Porter tune that Billie made pop, sounded like Night and Day as he came in, some god-struck angel face now that he had stopped looking up and down and started to figure out what he needed to do when intermission time came.
He knew for instance, that she would require scotch, high-shelf scotch, to soothe those tender vocal cords like some magic elixir. He liked to speculate on the brand; here it seemed to require Haig &Haig Royal Bonded to aid his cause. (He was right when he asked the waitress what the torch singer was drinking when he sent a drink over to her table at intermission, and plenty of it too, judging by the way she drank the drink in front of her and later that one he had sent up to the stage so she would not be dry between songs). He thought about whether she would want to be complimented on her clothes. (She did, talking for a little too long about it, about how tough it was to keep herself in slinky dresses which guys wanted to look at her in, the boss too, until he moved the subject on to her music that blues jazz mix that she had down pat, very pat). Or whether telling her that she had a fine body (nice shoulders, slim waist, etc.), nice legs, nice well-turned ankles, nice hair, nice, fill in the blank, or any combination of nices, would get him any place. (It did, as she gave him even more meaningful looks as they talked, only be stopped by the call for the next set from Sammy, the combo leader). Thought whether he should ask right then whether she wanted a nightcap with him elsewhere later or ask her ask her at the end of the evening. (End of the evening, a wise choice since she kept giving him meaningful little smiles along with the drinks to keep the mood up throughout that last performance.)
Preliminaries over he once again listened to that angel-voice, listened to her phrasing, listened for the pause between the phrasing, and then that slight little snarl of the upper lip as she went into her own blues-drenched version of Rock Me Baby, and looking right at him, right directly at him, when she sang long drawn out phrasing sang, “rock me all night long.”(He did, rocked her sore, and she did too, rocked him sore as hell.)
… and hence this be-bop poem in celebration
Easy Boogie
Down in the bass
That steady beat
Walking walking walking
Like marching feet.
Down in the bass
They easy roll,
Rolling like I like it
In my soul.
Riffs, smears, breaks.
Hey, Lawdy Mama!
Do you hear what I said?
Easy like I rock it
In my bed!
The101stAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-LessonsForToday-The Bolshevik Revolution Versus The State Church
From The Marxist Archives-The Bolshevik Revolution Versus The State Church
Frank Jackman comment:
Usually when I post something from some other source, mostly articles and other materials that may be of interest to the radical public that I am trying to address I place the words “ A View From The Left” in the headline and let the subject of the article speak for itself, or let the writer speak for him or herself without further comment whether I agree with the gist of what is said or not. After all I can write my own piece if some pressing issue is at hand. Occasionally, and the sentiments expressed in this article is one such time, I can stand in solidarity with the remarks made. I do so here.
February is Black History Month-Honor Historian Carter G. Woodson
February is Black History
Month-Honor Historian Carter G. Woodson
By Sam Eaton
Normally, unlike guys
like Sam Lowell and Frank Jackman that write here about politics and history, I
am not interested in the fate of historians dead or alive. They provide
valuable material, mostly, but I just am not attuned to history enough to go
crazy over any particular one, or any particular morsel they have to serve up.
Not so the man we are honoring here Carter G. Woodson (and on Google’s home
page doodle as well which is where I got my prompt from). The reason I am more
than happy to make an exception is that the good Doctor did yeoman’s work, no
more than that, to bring us young white kids who were involved in the black
civil rights movement in the early 1960s plenty of information about the history
of early black struggles and personalities. Started journals and programs to study
the subject. Stuff that we were clueless about despite our avidity to help in
the black liberation struggle. Stuff that was not taught in any high school
course, hell, any college courses until well after Black/Afro-American study
programs were established. So, yes, hats off to the good Doctor.
I Accuse-Unmasking The Sherlock Holmes Legend, Part II-Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s “The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes” (1939)-A Film Review
I Accuse-Unmasking The
Sherlock Holmes Legend, Part II-Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s “The
Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes” (1939)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Danny Moriarty
(Once again as I did in
my initial offering on the bogus Sherlock Holmes legend Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, hah!, in the interest of transparency
which has become more of an issue these days when every medium is under
scrutiny Danny Moriarty is not my real name. As then and will be discussed again
below in my research about the “fake news” legend of Mr. Holmes I have run into
a notorious cult-like band of desperadoes known as “The Baker Street
Irregulars,” why that name I do not know. This clot of criminals, who I am told
have very stylized rituals involving illegal drugs and human blood, and are the
bane of the London Bobbies, have been connected with the disappearance of many
people who questioned the Sherlock myth, and not a few unsolved murders of
people who have washed up on the Thames over the years.
This need for an alias,
for cover, is no joke since that first review I have been threatened,
threatened with I won’t death, death threats, but some nasty actions which
necessitate my keeping very close tabs on my security apparatus as I attempt to
deflate this miserable excuse for a detective, a parlor detective at that. I
will not be stopped by hoodlums and blood-splattered junkies.)
The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone (if that is his real name which is doubtful
although unlike myself he has never been transparent enough to say that he is
using an alias), Nigel Bruce (a name which has been confirmed as a British National
active in the 1930s and 1940s), 1939
We live in an age of
debunking. An age perhaps borne aloft by cynicism, hubris, sarcasm and above
all “fake news,” not the fake news denying some reality that you hear so
much about these days, but by the elaborate strategy of public relations cranks
and flacks who will put out any swill as long as they are paid and not a minute
longer. That hardly started today but has a long pedigree, a pedigree which has
included the target of today’s debunking one James Sherlock Holmes out of
London, out of the Baker Street section of that town. From the cutesy
“elementary my dear Watson” to that condescending attitude toward everybody he
encounters, friend or foe, including the hapless Doctor Watson this guy Holmes is
nothing but a pure creation of the public relations industrial complex. As I
have noted above I have paid the price for exposing this chameleon, this
so-called master detective, this dead end junkie, with a barrage of hate mail
and threats from his insidious devotees.
Maybe I better refresh
for those who may not have read the first review, may be shocked to find their
paragon of a private detective has feet of clay, and an addiction problem no
twelve step program could curtail in a million years. Here are some excerpts of
what I said in that review which I stand by this day no matter the
consequences:
“Today is the day. Today
is the day I have been waiting for since I was a kid. Today we tear off the
veneer, tear off the mask of the reputation of one Sherlock Holmes as a master
detective. Funny how things happen. Greg Green assigned me this film out of the
blue, at random he said when I asked him. However this assignment after viewing
this film, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (of course he doesn’t
face, hadn’t been anywhere near any danger that would put death in his way but
that can wait until I finish out defanging the legend) set off many bells, many
memories of my childhood when I first instinctively discovered this guy was a
fraud, a con artist.
Back then my
grandparents and parents hushed me up about the matter when I told them what I
thought of the mighty Sherlock. They went nutty and told me never to speak of
it again when I mentioned that a hard-boiled real private detective, a guy who
did this kind of work for a living, a guy named Sam Spade who worked out in San
Francisco and solved, really solved, the case of the missing black bird which
people in the profession still talk about, which is still taught in those
correspondence course private detection in ten easy lesson things you used to
see advertised on matchbook covers when smoking cigarettes was okay, who could
run circles around a parlor so-called detective like Mr. Holmes.
[Even Sam Spade has come
in for some debunking of late right here in this space as Phil Larkin and Kenny
Jacobs have gone round and round about how little Spade deserved his “rep,” his
classic rep for a guy who was picked by some bimbo out of the phone book and
who couldn’t even keep his partner alive against that same femme he was
skirt-addled over. Kept digging that low-shelf whiskey bottle in the bottom
desk drawer out too much when the deal went down. The only guy who is safe is
Phillip Marlowe since nobody can call him a “one solved murder wonder” after
the string of cold as ice, maybe colder, cases he wrapped up with a bow over
the years. They still talk about the Sherwood case out on the Coast even today,
talk in hushed tones too. You notice nobody has tried to go after him, not even
close. D.M.]
That was then. Now after
some serious research as a result of this film’s impact on my memory I have
proof to back up my childhood smothered assertions. Sherlock Holmes (if that is
his name which is doubtful since I went to the London telephone directories
going back the first ones in the late 1800s and found no such name on Baker
Street-ever) was nothing but a stone-cold junkie, cocaine, morphine, lanadum
and other exotic concoctions which is the reason that he had a doctor at his
side at all times in case he needed “scripts” written up. A doctor who a guy
like Sam Spade would have sat on his ass a long time before as so dead weight.
That junkie business
would not amount to much if it did not mean that high and mighty Sherlock
didn’t have to run his own gang of pimps, hookers, con men, fellow junkies,
drag queens, rough trade sailors and the flotsam and jetsam of London, high
society and low, to keep him in dough for that nasty set of habits that kept
him high as a kite. There are sworn statements (suppressed at the time) by the
few felons whom the Bobbies were able to pick up that Sherlock was the guy
behind half the burglaries, heists and kidnappings in London. And you wonder
why the Baker Street Irregulars want to silence me, show me the silence of the
grave….
Of course the Bobbies,
looking to wrap up a few cold file cases which Sherlock handed them to keep
them off the trail, looked the other way and/or took the graft so who really
knows how extensive the whole operation was. In a great sleight of hand he gave
them Doctor Moriarty who as it turned out dear Sherlock had framed when one
wave of police heat was on and who only got out of prison after Holmes died and
one of Holmes’ flunkies told the real story about how Holmes needed a “fall
guy” and the wily Doctor took the fall.”
This The
Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes cover-up is a classic example of police
collision to cover their own dirty tracks. Everybody knows that Sherlock made
his name after he beat down some poor mistreated dog who should have been
reported as abused to whatever they call the humane animal treatment society in
merry old England.
You don’t have to be one
of those correspondence course private detection in ten easy lessons that you
used to see on matchbook covers when cigarette smoking was okay like I said
before to know that these high society cases are inside
jobs. Naturally the
luckless and clueless Holmes has his fall guy all set up. A guy like I
mentioned before named Professor Moriarty (no relative since if you remember
this is my alias) who is a salt of the earth type but whom Holmes has a deep
hatred for ever since the good doctor stopped feeding him his drugs, told him
to go cold turkey. That good advice and good cheer despite the obvious fact
that no twelve step program was going to do anything but drive Holmes to who
knows what paranoid delusions. All the good professor did was to clue in a guy
whose father had been bamboozled by this high society young woman’s father. Had
been murdered by the dame’s old man.
The dispute had been
over dough money which the guy should have gotten as inheritance but didn’t and
wound up on skid road. While this young heiress and her ne’er do well a con artist
and card shark from the word around town brother lived high off the hog. The
stuff you heard about the good professor trying to take the Crown jewels is
nothing but fake news. They were never in danger of being stolen but our man
Sherlock raised a big hue and cry after smoking too much hashish and thought he
saw them floating over the Thames. Called copper for them to nab favorite fall
guy the hapless professor. You never hear about this of course since the
coppers kept it hush-hush but that was the night in a drug frenzy Sherlock tried
to murder the good professor. Kill him dead. RIP, Professor, RIP. Didn’t happen
but the good professor got the slammer anyway and it was only Sherlock’s
overdose death that sprung him after “Five Fingers” Benny Boren gave the real
story.
Like I said last time, a
fake, fake all the way. Unless that Irregular crowd of thugs and blood-stained
aficionados get to me this is not the last you will hear about this campaign of
mine to dethrone this pompous junked-up imposter. I am just getting into second
gear now.
For Black History Month-Artists’ Corner-The Work Of Jacob Lawrence
For Black History Month-Artists’ Corner-The Work Of Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence first came to widespread public attention for his series of paintings chronicling the historically significant migration of blacks out of the Mister James Crow South toward the north which became a flood after World War I-mainly the industrial towns of the Midwest then. Going up the Mississippi. Later Lawrence came to evoke the northern urban scene of the black diaspora. Those later paintings evoke in a dramatic manner the visual search via iconic Jazz among the folk for the high white note that every musician worth his or her salt was looking for. Pictured are the workman, the hipster, the street persona and the respectable too. Thanks Brother Lawrence-there is a very strong reason that some of your work is enshrined in the Afro-American History Museum down in Washington fast by the Washington Monument.
from the migration series
Will The Real James Bond Stand Up –Part VI-Timothy Dalton’s “License To Kill” (1989)-A Film Review
Will The Real James Bond
Stand Up –Part VI-Timothy Dalton’s “License To Kill” (1989)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Alden Riley and Sandy
Salmon
License to Kill, Timothy
Dalton, Cary Lowell, 1989
The knowledgeable reader
is probably wondering what the hell is going on when two film reviewers who are
allegedly fighting a “mock heroic” battle over the merits their chosen “real”
James Bonds, Sean Connery for Sandy Salmon and Pierce Brosnan for Alden Riley
are jointly contributing to a review of yet a third Bond, James Bond player
Timothy Dalton in License To Kill. But
perhaps that knowledgeable reader missed something a while back when this
“fight to the death” started after Sandy had given Sean Connery top billing as
the “real” James Bond and Alden had asked the new site manager Greg Green to
give him space to tout Pierce Brosnan. Both reviewers agreed that those two
were the only real candidates for number one and so they agreed, half-heartedly
agreed since they are in another dispute over what is happening to the site
currently now that any talk about the internal struggle that roiled the blog
last year and mention of the previous leadership is verboten, to collectively
trash Timothy Dalton’s pathetic excuse of a Bond player.
Alden had put that Brosnan
request in the form of “blackmail” of a new kind when he threatened a “vote of
confidence” showdown among the writers when Greg first balked at the request. That
vote of no confidence doing in the previous unmentionable leadership. Greg the
beneficiary of Alden’s leadership of the purge of the previous site manager in
order to gain his job took the hint immediately and granted Alden’s wish. Initially
Greg’s idea in resurrecting the seemingly never-ending Bond series for review at
this site was the great success that such reviews had among the younger readers
over at his previous job as site manager at American
Film Gazette when the films came out. He thought such efforts might help
stem the declining youth readership here as well. (That was the basis for the
ill-fated although not completely abandoned run of comic book-derived
super-heroes as well.) Greg had only expected to have Sandy, formerly the
Senior Film Critic under the old regime, do a quick run through of the Connery
films to see what would happen. Alden, formerly the Associate Film Critic under
that same old regime then threw his complaint in the mix and the “battle” was
joined.
That “battle” a little
heated at times, at around the “water cooler” times, not necessarily reflected
in the reviews themselves got a boost when Alden started to complain out loud
about his “demotion” along with everybody else to just writer status and about
the new rule that the old site manager should essentially become a non-person
after that internal struggle purge. Sandy, who had actually supported the old
regime manager tried to cool Alden down. Greg stepped in with the Dalton
suggestion as a means to lower the temperature. We shall see.
********
No question that the
long running seemingly never-ending series of Bond films are run by a very
defined formula from the opening camera eye agent shooting at us scene through
the inevitable song reflecting the film title through the obligatory “Bond,
James Bond” tip of the hat and through the equally obligatory Cold War-tinged
thrilling action a minute involving improbable feats and almost equally
implausible high tech gadgetry. And of course the inevitable string of foxy
women ready to get down under the silky sheets with a Bond merely at the sight of
him. Although there has been a welcome trend, reflecting the reality of the
women’s movement in the Western world at least, away from that passive foxy
female role and a more active role, for good or evil, along with that downy
billows stuff (“downy billows” courtesy of the writer Tom Wolfe). So the real
comparison is between the attributes and demerits of the stable of Bond
players. As demonstrated in this his last film as Bond young Timothy Dalton did
not make the cut.
Here’s why. The bad guys
in this one are south of the border, meaning Hispanic, Latino drug dealers (the
Cold War tip being their working at least in transit via Cuba). Meaning they
are serious bad asses lead by psychotic sadist Sanchez in the world of high end
drug trade. A thorn in the side of DEA and maybe the CIA if not exactly MI6
material which is to knock out high tech blow up the world stuff by some evil
forces and save the West or at least Britain. Way out of mission statement
sluggard seriously understated and poker-faced Timothy Dalton’s starts off his
cinematic journey on the way to a wedding where he is to be best man or
something. WTF neither Connery or Brosnan would be caught dead within a hundred
miles of a wedding chapel except maybe to exercise some lordly feudal right of
first night with the bride, blushing or not.
Not so Timmy boy. See he
is buddy-buddy with the local CIA chief and his lovely bride. Shortly after the
wedding those bad ass drug traffickers throw the agent through the grinder, the
shark tank grinder to show how sadistic that crowd is and kill his bride for
kicks. So Timmy is on a mission not for Queen and country but personal revenge.
How the mighty have fallen. So despite being warned off by M, and later loaded
up with gizmos by Q also Bond series standard stuff Timmy is off to kill bad
guys- no prisoners here, after all he has a license to kill in case you have
not been paying attention to all this secret agent stuff of late.
He starts working his
way up the food chain and along the way while trying to see how the cartel
operates he comes across the head bad guy Sanchez’s mistress who is on a boat
used to transfer drugs for cash. Naturally a drop dead beauty, a hot-blooded
Spanish beauty whom he does not go under the sheets with right there and then.
Connery or Brosnan would have had her for lunch and had time for a nap
afterward. Maybe Timmy, is as they used to say in Sandy’s old neighborhood
before everybody got okay with having gay guys out of the closet, ‘light on his
feet” or something. They crossed paths a couple of times and no go. Something
is definitely wrong here.
As Timmy gets to the top
of the food chain, gets to the country (fake named but based on real drug route
Panama in the old days maybe now too) where the bad hombres are headquartered
he runs into a dish, a good looking young woman, Pam, played by Cary Lowell, who
also has abilities like being able to fly a plane (and later drive a heavy duty
truck). They hit the sheets quickly after a little repartee so that question
about Timmy sexual preferences gets answered seemingly he is just a shy boy or
something. Working together they start moving in on the bad guys, start taking
names and numbers and not asking questions until the big finale when after blowing
up the bad guys’ cocaine laboratory among other things the bad guys head on the
road to deliver their goods via oil trucks (through the marvels of modern chemistry
cocaine could be dissolved in oil for easy and safe delivery-nice ploy). The
final confrontation shows a lot of trucks being blown up and the bulk of the
bad guys including the head bad guy Sanchez burned-literally.
Work finished, revenge
taken, Timmy and Pam go to a party where the head bad guy’s now ex-girlfriend although
not dressed in mourning black courtesy of Timmy makes a play for him leaving
Pam blue, very blue. Except Timmy, and this will tell the tale as well as any
about why this James Bond is not up to snuff, rebuts the senorita and goes to
that very blue Pam. Yeah, true blue Timmy that kind of says it all about this
fake news Bond, James Bond. Fortunately Pierce will follow Timmy in the role
and all will be back to jump street again.
The Hills And Hollas Of Home- In Honor Of The Late Hazel Dickens-The “Queen” Of The Appalachia Hills And Saturday Night Red Barn Dance
The Hills And Hollas Of Home- In Honor Of The Late Hazel Dickens-The “Queen” Of The Appalachia Hills And Saturday Night Red Barn Dance
By Sam Lowell
This is the fourth and final installment (the first dated January 13, 2018, the second dated January 19, 2018, and the third January 24, 2018) set as an introduction to the history of the American Left History blog. Initially I believed that this would be a several part series and now it looks like with this final section about the massive internal in-fighting and resultant shake-up that brought the original leader of all of these publications down, brought in a new regime with my help and whatever direction the new leadership is heading we are finally done with a task a lot harder than I thought it would be. For a final time as I have been at pains to mention before this task came to me because I am one of the few people, more importantly one of the few writers, who has taken part in almost all of the key junctures in this forty something year history including the latest flare-up which has brought about a new regime, again partially with my help, so I am well-placed to tell the tale.
As part of the “truce” arranged with current site manager Greg Green I will tell the story and will elicit comments from a couple of other Editorial Board members. The first installment dealt with the genesis of this blog with hard copy predecessors going back to the late 1960s when a number of the older writers still standing came on board, many through long friendships with the previous site manager going back to high school days, those including myself. The second dealt with the dog days of the hard copy version of this blog and the greying of its staff. The third dealt with the transfer to the on-line version and some preliminary observations about how the just completed internal struggle came to such a fiery conclusion and explain how I became a member of the opposition. This final section as I said will deal with the food fight of 2017.
All four parts of the now completed project will appear as one unit on February 10th.
*********
In a sense this last section is a bit anti-climactic since I have laid out the history leading up to the split, my part in it, and the result with the removal of the former site manager Alan Jackson in what I have described truly as a purge. (Some “fragile” types on both sides have backed off from that designation saying it is too rough but Allan knows, just as well as I do both of us veterans of many old-time political struggles in radical circles, that he had been purged.) That elevated Greg Green who had originally come over from the American Film Gazette to run the day to day operations to site manager. As part of the post-Allan regime Greg decided that he would create an Editorial Board to oversee everything and back up his decisions. For transparency reasons I should note that I sit on that board. I should also note that although it has only been in existence the past few months that there has been gripping about it being a rubber-stamp, a group of Greg toadies, and other derogatory remarks from young and older writers alike. Greg has also hired a couple of younger writers, really twenty something out of journalism schools and English majors. Brought on Josh Breslin’s former companion, Leslie Dumont, who many years ago worked here as a stringer but getting nowhere with Alan’s regime left and finally wound up with a big by-line at New York Monthly. Brought on my long-time companion Laura Perkins who also worked as a stringer and got nowhere with Alan and left for an academic and high tech career. Still no soap on getting any black writers, or more generically “writers of color.”
Those are the results thus far not without controversy and some hard feelings especially by the older writers who have been stripped of their titles, younger writers too who had worked for titles. Worse and which almost caused another explosion every writer now can be assigned any topic on any subject to as Greg says “broaden their horizons.” But enough of the current doings and back to the spring of 2017 and the genesis of the in-fighting that has brought these changes.
It almost seems like some twisted kiss of fate that Alex James, Zack’s oldest brother (who by the way is about ten years older than Zack showing a good example of the relative sense of “younger” writers Allan was bringing in. Certainly nobody as young as twenty something Kenny Jacobs), an old friend of ours from the old neighborhood, who went on to become a successful lawyer, went on a business trip to San Francisco last spring (2017). While there out of the blue Alex saw an advertisement on the side of a bus for something called The Summer of Love Experience, 1967 at the de Young Museum in famous Golden Gate Park. Sneaking (according to Alex) out one afternoon he saw the exhibition and was positively floored by the experience. See, he, we, under the “guidance” of the late Peter Paul Markin had been in the thick of the “drugs, sex, and rock and roll” mantra which all of that experience went under. When he got back to Boston Alex called or e-mailed everybody he knew from back in the days who was still standing and who had gone out there to see what was happening, to see as Markin had called it “the world turned upside down.” He gathered a number of us, including Zack who had gone to journalism school and was a veteran of various workshop programs, together in order to propose that in honor of our fallen brother Markin each write our “memoirs” of those times with Zack as editor and publisher. Those who agreed included old friend Allan Jackson who had also gone out there with us. The venture was a great success and various portions were posted last summer on the ALH blog as well as in booklet form.
That seemingly small exercise in 1960s nostalgia apparently snapped something in Allan’s head. I have already mentioned the drift of the blog on the part of the older writers who were allowed by Allan to pick whatever subject they wanted (with the left-overs to the younger writers). Last summer right after the memorial booklet was published and articles posted Allan decided to do a massive blanket coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love by assigning a million topics related to that time. If you couldn’t link the Summer of Love, or the 1960s “hippie” experience, into your article he would red-pencil what you had written. (Allan liked to use a red pencil to “edit” something about his radical red youth he said when asked why he didn’t use the usual blue pencil.) This was no joke on Allan’s part. I was doing a little piece on figure skating after reviewing a Sonja Henny 1930s film. Allan asked me why I didn’t bring up the ice skating rink at Fillmore and Pacific where “hippies” would go to skate during 1967 when we were out there. WTF.
All of this came to a head when young Alden Riley, a new hire for the film department to help Sandy Salmon out with the increased load of films that were projected by Greg on the site. He was “assigned” by Allan, over Sandy’s head, to do a review on a bio/pic about Janis Joplin, a key musical figure in the heady days of the Monterey Pops Festival. Reason? After Sandy had done a review of D. A Pennebaker’s documentary about the first Monterey Festival he mentioned Ms. Joplin’s name and Alan said he did not know who she was. Allan heard about that blunder and ordered the assignment as “punishment’ is what he told Si Lannon, another of our old friends. Things only got worse from there as Allan double-downed on the Summer of Love connection for each article.
I am not quite sure who called the first meeting of essentially the whole rank of younger writers (average age somebody figured out about forty-five years old) to see what they would do about Allan’s manic behavior and their dubious assignments which to a man they could give f - -k about to quote Zack. Maybe it was Zack since he Lance Lawrence and Bradley Fox were the three ringleaders of the uprising who in water cooler legend were dubbed the “Young Turks.” They decided to go to Allan and put their cards on the table. He rebuffed them out of hand. That is when I came in, came to one of their meetings being invited by Alden, to see if I could reason with Allan. I proposed to Allan that we get Greg Green from American Film Gazette to come in to do the day to day operations leaving Allan time to write some stuff on his own or think about future assignments. He bought my argument once I explained that we might lose the whole cohort if things didn’t change. They didn’t as Allan pressed Greg to hand out these never-ending freaking 1960s world assignments.
To make a long story short the “Young Turks” (and me) had another meeting, an ultimatum meeting with me as the emissary to Allan again. The proposal of the group was either Allan “retire” or they collectively would quit. The decision to be determined by a majority vote-for or against. For some reason even I don’t understand to this day Allan agreed. You know the rest including my “traitorous” vote with the “Young Turks.” My decisive vote since we won by one vote. What you may not know is that while the split was almost directly along generational lines there were several abstentions among the older writers from the tallies. Any one of them casting a vote for Allan would have shifted the totals the other way and I would have been the one “purged” and working in Kansas someplace. So some of the older guys had also doubts about the wisdom of going back to the past. Now that you have the whole story this episode should be at rest. (With the exception of any articles still in the pipeline before the truce with Greg was negotiated.)
Kenny Jackman heard the late Hazel Dickens (d. 2011) for the very first time on her CD album It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song some years back, maybe 2005, when he was in thrall to mountain music after being hit hard by Reese Witherspoon’s role as June Carter in the film Walk The Line. At that time he got into all things Carter Family unto the nth generation. A friend, a Vermont mountain boy, hipped him to Hazel during his frenzy and he picked up the CD second-hand in Harvard Square. (Really at Sandy’s located between Harvard and Central Squares, a folk institution around town where until recently Sandy had held forth since the early 1960s folk minute when everybody was desperately looking for roots music and that was the place to look first. Hazel’s You’ll Get No More Of Me, A Few Old Memories and the classic Hills of Home knocked him out. The latter, moreover, seemed kind of familiar and later, a couple of months later, he finally figured out why. He had really first heard Hazel back in 1970 when he was down in the those very hills and hollows that are a constant theme in her work, and that of the mountain mist winds music coming down the crevices. What was going on though? Was it 2005 when he first heard Hazel or that 1970 time? Let me go back and tell that 1970 story.
Kenny Jackman like many of his generation of ’68 was feeling foot loose and fancy free, especially after he had been mercifully declared 4-F by his friendly neighbors at the local draft board in old hometown North Adamsville (declared 4-F in those high draft days because he had a seriously abnormal foot problem which precluded walking very far, a skill that the army likes its soldiers to be able to do). So Kenny, every now and again, took to the hitchhike road, not like his mad man friend Peter Paul Markin with some heavy message purpose a la Jack Kerouac and his beat brothers (and a few sisters) but just to see the country while he, and it, were still in one piece no pun intended Kenny told me since the country was in about fifteen pieces then).
On one of these trips he found himself stranded just outside Norfolk, Virginia at a road-side campsite. Feeling kind of hungry one afternoon, and tired, tired unto death of camp-side gruel and stews he stopped at a diner, Billy Bob McGee’s, an old-time truck stop diner a few hundred yards up the road from his camp for some real food, maybe meatloaf or some pot roast like grandma used to make or that was how it was advertised. When he entered the mid-afternoon half-empty diner he sat down at one of the single stool counter seats that always accompany the vinyl-covered side booths in such places. But all of this was so much descriptive noise that could describe a million, maybe more, such eateries. What really caught his attention though was a waitress serving them “off the arm” that he knew immediately he had to “hit” on (although that is not the word used in those days but “hit on” conveys what he was up to in the universal boy meets girl world). As it turned out she, sweetly named Fiona Fay, and, well let’s just call her fetching, Kenny weary-eyed fetching, was young, footloose and fancy free herself and had drawn a bead on him as he entered the place, and, …well this story is about Hazel, so let us just leave it as one thing led to another and let it go at that.
Well, not quite let’s let it go at that because when Kenny left Norfolk a few days later one ex-waitress Fiona Fay was standing by his side on the road south. And the road south was leading nowhere, nowhere at all except to Podunk, really Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and really, really a dink town named Pottsville, just down the road from big town Prestonsburg, down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, wind-swept green, green, mountain mist, time forgotten . And the reason two footloose and fancy free young people were heading to Podunk is that a close cousin of Fiona’s lived there with her husband and child and wanted Fiona to come visit (visit “for a spell” is how she put it but I will spare the reader the localisms). So they were on that hell-bend road but Kenny, Kenny was dreading this trip and only doing it because, well because Fiona was the kind of young woman, footloose and fancy free or not, that you followed, at least you followed if you were Kenny Jackson and hoped things would work out okay.
What Kenny dreaded that day was that he was afraid to confront his past. And that past just then entailed having to go to his father’s home territory just up the road in Hazard. See Kenny saw himself as strictly a Yankee, a hard “we fought to free the slaves and incidentally save the union” Yankee for one and all to see back in old North Adamsville. And denied, denied to the high heavens, that he had any connection with the south, especially the hillbilly south that everybody was making a fuse about trying to bring into the 20th century around that time. And here he was with a father with Hazard, Kentucky, the poorest of the poor hillbillies, right on his birth certificate although Kenny had never been there before. Yeah, Fiona had better be worth it.
Kenny had to admit, as they picked up one lonely truck driver ride after another (it did not hurt in those days to have a comely lass standing on the road with you in the back road South, or anywhere else, especially if you had longish hair and a wisp of a beard), that the country was beautiful. As they entered coal country though and the shacks got crummier and crummier he got caught up in that 1960s Michael Harrington Other America no running water, outhouse, open door, one window and a million kids and dogs running around half-naked, the kids that is vision. But they got to Pottsville okay and Fiona’s cousin and husband (Laura and Stu) turned out to be good hosts. So good that they made sure that Kenny and Fiona stayed in town long enough to attend the weekly dance at the old town barn (red of course, run down and in need of paint to keep red of course) that had seen such dances going back to the 1920s when the Carter Family had actually come through Pottsville on their way back to Clinch Mountain.
Kenny buckled at the thought, the mere thought, of going to some Podunk Saturday night “hoe-down” and tried to convince Fiona that they should leave before Saturday. Fiona would have none of it and so Kenny was stuck. Actually the dance started out pretty well, helped tremendously by some local “white lightning” that Stu provided and which he failed to mention should be sipped, sipped sparingly. Not only that but the several fiddles, mandolins, guitars, washboards and whatnot made pretty good music. Music like Anchored in Love and Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, stuff that he had heard in the folk clubs in Harvard Square when he used to hang out there in the early 1960s. And music that even Kenny, old two left-feet, one way out of whack, draft-free out of whack, Kenny, could dance to with Fiona.
So Kenny was sipping, well more than sipping, and dancing and all until maybe about midnight when this woman, this local woman came out of nowhere and began to sing, sing like some quick, rushing wind sound coming down from the hills and hollas (hollows for Yankees, okay, please). Kenny began to toss and turn a little, not from the liquor but from some strange feeling, some strange womb-like feeling that this woman’s voice was a call from up on top of these deep green hills, now mist-filled awaiting day. And then she started into a long, mournful version of Hills of Home, and he sensed, sensed strongly if not anything he could articulate that he was home. Yes, Kenny Jackson, Yankee, city boy, corner boy-bred was “home,” hillbilly home. So Kenny did really hear Hazel Dickens for first time in 1970, see.
[As for Fiona Fay she stayed on the road with Kenny until they headed toward the Midwest where she veered off home to Valparaiso in Indiana, her hometown as Kenny headed west to California, to Big Sur and a different mountain ethos. They were supposed to meet out there a couple of months later after she finished up some family business. They never did, a not unusual occurrence of the time when people met and faded along the way, but Kenny thought about her and that wind-swept mountain dance night for a long time after that.]
*On His 200th Birthday Anniversary -Those Black Militants Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits-Revolutionary Abolitionist Frederick Douglass
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Frederick Douglass.
February Is Black History Month
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. February is Black History Month and is a time for reflection on our black forebears who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this February , and in future Februarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (Labor’s Untold Story, Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, the black liberation struggle here and elsewhere, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
February Is Black History Month
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. February is Black History Month and is a time for reflection on our black forebears who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this February , and in future Februarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (Labor’s Untold Story, Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, the black liberation struggle here and elsewhere, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Frankie Riley’s Theory- With Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep” In Mind –Take Two
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Frankie
Riley’s Theory- With Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep” In Mind –Take Two
JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin'
down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere
around
Traced her footsteps down to the
shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to
say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless
sleep.
Why did we quarrel, why did we
fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into
the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to
say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless
sleep.
Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to
me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to
say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to
keep
I saved my baby from an endless
sleep.
[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
**********
I want the iPhone number and e-mail
address of the person who wrote this one, wrote these death-dealing lyrics
above. Of course I would not touch a hair on the head of well-side-burned
pretty boy Jody Reynolds since I may need to use his song sometime myself so I
will reserve my fury for Delores Nance for leading Jody astray on this one. As
far as getting her iPhone number and e-mail, well, okay since this song goes
back a way I will give some choices just to show I am not a guy hung on being
very, very up-to-date with the latest communications technology and don’t
realize that not everybody has made their mark on the information superhighway.
Hell I won’t be particular and will be old-fashioned enough to just request the
landline number and street address of Ms. Nance. She, in any case should be
made to run the gauntlet, or put on a lonely desert isle, or, and this would be
real justice in this case made to follow Socrates, who also corrupted the
morals of the youth of his time. Yeah, the more I think about the matter before
us that latter choice seems most fitting.
Why all the hubbub? Why am I
insisting on deep Socratic measures for some poor Tin Pan Alley denizen? Well
read the heart-breaking teen angst lyrics printed above for your perusal on Endless
Sleep. Old Jesse Lee, let’s call him that, although as in most cases with
these 1950s teen lyrics, frustratingly, the parties are not named except things
like Johnny Angel, teen angel, earth angel, be-bopper, him, her, she, he, they,
etc. like giving names to angry anguished teens in the red scare cold war night
was akin to aiding and abetting the Russkies or was some grave matter of kinky
national security concerns, and his honey have had a spat, of unnamed origin so
we never get to figure out who had justice on his or her side. Okay, so maybe
it was a bigger one than usual but in the whole wide-world historic meaning of
things still just a spat. Laura, high-strung Laura, again name made up although
not the angst to give some personality to this sketch since we revealed Lee’s
name and nothing much has happened to him as a result. Judging from her
reaction thought whatever irked her was a world-historic dispute, and she just
flat-out flipped out. Nothing new to that phenomenon as teenagers have been flipping
out since they invented teenagers about a century maybe more ago although they
have not always called what said teenagers did “flipping out.” And, as
teenagers often will do in a moment of overreaction to some slight, Laura had gone
down to the seaside to end it all. Throw her young body, whether it was shapely
or not we never find out either but figure with a name like Laura she is, well,
“hot,” high school hot or Jesse Lee and his big ass ’57 Chevy would have no
truck with her to begin with, into the sea. Lee in desperation, once he heard
from some inevitably unnamed third party, I say apparently unnamed although
maybe it was from some more reliable source like Susie Darling, Laura’s best
friend since elementary school, what Laura had done, frantically tried to find
her out in the deep, dark, wave-splashed night. All the while the churning “sea”
is relentlessly, almost sexually cone hither calling out for him to join her.
Jesus what a scene.
And that last part, the part where
the sea, or Laura now acting as the ocean’s agent, practically begs for a joint
teen suicide pact is where every right thinking person, and not just enraged
parents either, should, or should have, put his or her foot down and gone after
the lyricist’s scalp, to speak nothing of the singer of such woe begotten lines
(although like I say not me, not me just in case that she I am eying right now
might have a crush on Jody, or actually like such deathly lyrics). Yeah, I know
old Jesse Lee saved his honey from the endless sleep but still we cannot have
this stuff filling the ears of impressionable teen-agers. Right?
Of course, from what I heard
third-hand from a friend of a friend who claims to have scoped out what really
happened, this quarrel that old Lee speaks of, and that Laura went ballistic
over, was about whether they were going to go bowling with Lee’s guy friends
and their girls down at old Jack Slack’s bowling alleys or whatever the name of
the bowling alleys were in there town to roll a few strings Saturday or to the
drive-in theater for the latest Elvis movie. (I have used Jack Slack’s bowling
establishment here since that is where me and my corner boys hung out, hung out
one night discussing the meaning of all of the acts in this very song so Jack
Slack’s will do nicely to fill in a name for what ailed our beloved couple.) Jesse
Lee, usually a mild-mannered kid despite his corner boy reputation and some
things said about his style around town, reared up at that thought of going to
another bogus Elvis film featuring him, the king. The king riding around in a
big old car, some pink Caddy, dressed in some gaudy Hawaiian shirt and white
beach pants attire, singing some lamo syrupy songs that in his Sun Records days
when he was young and hungry and talking about one night of sin and
jailbreak-out stuff he would have thrown out the studio door, having plenty of
dough in his pocket and plenty of luscious young girls ready and waiting to
help him spent that dough. Of such disputes the battle of the sexes abound, and
occasionally other battles, war battles as well. However, after hearing that
take on the dispute, which sounds reasonable to me, I think old Jesse Lee had
much the best of it. And, also off of that same take I am not altogether sure I
would have been all that frantic to go down to the seaside looking for dear,
sweet Laura. Just kidding.
Okay, okay I know what everybody is
going to say, or at least think now. What has this guy not at least given Laura
her say, her day in court to explain he dramatic behavior. This information was
harder to glean because I had to get it from a friend of Laura’s friend Susie
Darling. Susie sworn on a stack of seven bibles or something that she would not
reveal to anyone Laura’s motivation under penalty of death. Of course in the
ethos of the times and age that swearing unto death business just meant telling
only one other person, a girl person in this case, come Monday morning before
school girls’ “lav” talkfest. So according to this hearsay what Laura was
miffed about was that Jesse Lee had not been paying enough attention to her of
late, had been almost every night out with his corner boys doing wheelers with
his car or whatever guys do when their honeys are not on board. So the drive-in
movie idea was to get Jesse Lee to pay more serious attention to her was not
about the movie, not about Elvis although Laura, like every other girl in America
had her dreams about how she could tame Elvis in a flash if she could just get
close to him, but about “doing the do.” See Laura a few weeks before had let
Jesse Lee have his way with her but since then-no go. And she wanted to do it.
But here is the kicker the place where Laura went into the sea is exactly the
place where they had first made love. Jesus.
But that brings something up,
something that I am not kidding about. Now I love the sea more than a little
having grown up so near it that I could roll down a hill and take a splash.
Love the sea and its tranquility, of the effect that those waves, splashing
waves too, have on my temperament. But I also know about the power of the sea,
about old Uncle Neptune’s capacity to do some very bad things to anyone, anything,
any object that gets in his way. From old double-high storm-tossed seawalls
that crumble at the charging sea’s touch to rain-soaked, mast-toppled boats
lost down under in the briny deep whose only sin was to stir up the waves. And
Laura should have too, should have known on that dark rainy night the power of
the sea. So I am really ticked off, yes, ticked off, that Laura should tempt
the fates, and Lee’s fate, by pulling a bone-head water's edge stunt like that.
The whole scenario once I thought
about it reminded me, although I offer this observation in contrast, of the
time that old flame, old hitchhike road searching for the blue-pink great
American West night flame Angelica, old Indiana-bred, Mid-American naïve
Angelica, who got so excited the first time she saw the Pacific Ocean, out
there near Point Magoo in California never having seen the ocean before, leaped
right in and was almost carried away by a sudden riptide. It took all I had,
all I knew or remembered about how to ride out a riptide to pull her out. To
save her from the briny deep. And that Angelica error was out of sheer
ignorance. Laura had no excuse. When you look at it that way, and as much as I
personally do no care a fig about bowling, would it really have been that bad
to go bowl a couple of strings. Such are the ways of teen angst.
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