“Wasn’t That A Mighty Flood, Lord, That Blew All The People All Away”-The The Galveston Flood Of 1900 In Mind

“Wasn’t That A Mighty Flood, Lord, That Blew All The People All Away”-The The Galveston Flood Of 1900 In Mind

By Greg Green

[Greg Green has come over from a similar job at the on-line American Film Gazette website to act as administrator of the American Left History and its associated blog sites. Welcome aboard.]

After a 2017 summer season of extraordinary hurricane actions and destruction in the Southeastern part of the United States, the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, one would at least think, that those who do not see anything in this overwhelming climate change evidence would give pause. Those events have brought other earlier massive floods and storms in the Americas to the fore if only by comparison. On can think of the famous Johnston flood of 1927 and of the big bad one that blew over Galveston town 1900 that literally blew all the people all away, over 6000 of them. In those days there were climate deniers of a different sort, people in Galveston who did not believe that because they lived a little bit upland, a few feet above sea level that they would not get swept away. Just like the people and the Army Corps of Engineers believed that the levees would hold along the Mississippi when the big blow Hurricane Katrina came through in 2005 and turned them to sink mud.    

We all now know plenty about individual stories during these modern horrific storms from acts of heroism to acts of ingenuity to dastardly acts of cowards taking advantage of the chaos to loot and create mayhem but I would have assumed that we would not be able to know what happened first hand in that 1900 Galveston. But I would have been fortunately wrong because the Rosenberg Library in Galveston commissioned an oral history of the survivors not at the time since there was no way to record such information but later when most of the survivors who had been young children in 1900 were themselves in old age.

Recently NPR’s Morning Edition had a segment highlighting that oral history and I provide a link here:   

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/566950355/the-tempest-at-galveston-we-knew-there-was-a-storm-coming-but-we-had-no-idea

Not every person around today except maybe those in the Galveston area would be aware of the fury of that storm but I have known about its destruction for about thirty years now although not from an expected history source. I learned about it from a song, a folk song. My parents were both very early folkies in the late 1950s just a shade bit before the folk music revival exploded onto the scene in certain towns and on many college campuses. (My parents actually meet at a small folk concert in a small coffeehouse in Boston, Bailey’s, where they heard the legendary folk singer/songwriter Eric Saint Jean, who has been mentioned on this site on  occasion when that folk minute comes up, strut his stuff.) I, like a lot of kids rebelling against their parents hated folk music with a passion.

My parents as long as they lived they were strong devotees of folk singer/songwriter Tom Rush whom they knew from his Club 47 days in Harvard Square. One of his signature songs from the time was his robust cover of Wasn’t That A Mighty Flood a tradition folk song. I first hear the song, kicking and screaming, when I was young and well after Tom Rush’s big folk time when he started doing yearly concerts around New Year at Symphony Hall in Boston. The rousing song now is one of the few that I actually know all the words too and can bear to listen to. Here are the lyrics and they express very concisely what went down in that terrible time:

WASN'T THAT A MIGHTY STORM

Chorus:
Wasn't that a mighty storm
Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning, well
Wasn't that a mighty storm
That blew all the people all away.

You know, the year of 1900, children,
Many years ago
Death came howling on the ocean
Death calls, you got to go
Now Galveston had a seawall
To keep the water down,
And a high tide from the ocean
Spread the water all over the town.

You know the trumpets give them warning
You'd better leave this place
Now, no one thought of leaving
'til death stared them in the face
And the trains they all were loaded
The people were all leaving town
The trestle gave way to the water
And the trains they went on down.

Rain it was a-falling
thunder began to roll
Lightning flashed like hellfire
The wind began to blow
Death, the cruel master
When the wind began to blow
Rode in on a team of horses
I cried, "Death, won't you let me go"

Hey, now trees fell on the island
And the houses give away
Some they strained and drowned
Some died in most every way
And the sea began to rolling
And the ships they could not stand
And I heard a captain crying
"God save a drowning man."

Death, your hands are clammy
You got them on my knee
You come and took my mother
Won't you come back after me
And the flood it took my neighbor
Took my brother, too
I thought I heard my father calling
And I watched my mother go.

You know, the year of 1900, children,
Many years ago
Death came howling on the ocean
Death calls, you got to go

"Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm" / "Galveston Flood"

It was the year of 1900
that was 80 years ago
Death come'd a howling on the ocean
and when death calls you've got to go

Galveston had a sea wall
just to keep the water down
But a high tide from the ocean
blew the water all over the town

Chorus
Wasn't that a mighty storm
Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning
Wasn't that a mighty storm
It blew all the people away

The sea began to rolling
the ships they could not land
I heard a captain crying
Oh God save a drowning man

The rain it was a falling
and the thunder began to roll
The lightning flashed like Hell-fire
and the wind began to blow

The trees fell on the island
and the houses gave away
Some they strived and drowned
others died every way

The trains at the station were loaded
with the people all leaving town
But the trestle gave way with the water
and the trains they went on down

Old death the cruel master
when the winds began to blow
Rode in on a team of horses
and cried death won't you let me go

The flood it took my mother
it took my brother too
I thought I heard my father cry
as I watched my mother go

Old death your hands are clammy
when you've got them on my knee
You come and took my mother
won't you come back after me?

          

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days

Click below to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/

Greg Green comment:

The foundation article by Marx or Engels listed in the headline goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space. Just below is a thumbnail sketch of the first tentative proceedings to form a communist organization that would become a way-station on the road to building a Bolshevik-type organization in order fight for the socialist revolution we so desperately need and have since Marx and Engels first put pen to ink.

*************

Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League

A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)

Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"

Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."

The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.

Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."

The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.

The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.

The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.

Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress.Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."

The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.

Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.

************

Markin comment on this series:

No question that today at least the figures of 19th century communist revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are honored more for their “academic” work than their efforts to build political organizations to fight for democratic and socialist revolutions, respectively, as part of their new worldview. Titles like Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The Peasants Wars In Germany, and the like are more likely to be linked to their names than Cologne Communist League or Workingmen’s International (First International).

While the theoretical and historical materialist works have their honored place in the pantheon of revolutionary literature it would be wrong to neglect that hard fact that both Marx and Engels for most of their lives were not “arm chair" revolutionaries or, in Engels case, merely smitten by late Victorian fox hunts with the upper crust. These men were revolutionary politicians who worked at revolution in high times and low. Those of us who follow their traditions can, or should, understand that sometimes, a frustratingly long sometimes, the objective circumstances do not allow for fruitful revolutionary work. We push on as we can. Part of that pushing on is to become immersed in the work of our predecessors and in this series specifically the work of Marx and Engels to create a new form of revolutionary organization to fight the fights of their time, the time from about the Revolutions of 1848 to the founding of various socialist parties in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.

History of the Paris Commune, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, translated by Eleanor Marx, Black and Red Press, St. Petersburg, Florida, 2007

When one studies the history of the Paris Commune of 1871 one learns something new from it even though from the perspective of revolutionary strategy the Communards made virtually every mistake in the book. This book by a participant and survivor of the Commune has historically been the starting point for any pro-Commune analysis. The original English translation by Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx, has given the imprimatur of the Marx family to that view.

Through a close study of the Paris Commune one learn its lessons and measure it against the experience acquired by later revolutionary struggles and above all by later revolutions, not only the successful Russian Revolution of October 1917 but the failed German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Chinese and Spanish revolutions in the immediate aftermath of World War I. More contemporaneously we have the experiences of the partial victories of the later Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions.

Notwithstanding the contradictory nature of these later experiences, as if to show that history is not always totally a history of horrors against the fate of the masses we honor the Paris Commune as a beacon of the coming world proletarian revolution. It is just for that reason that Karl Marx fought tooth and nail in the First International to defend it against the rage of capitalist Europe. It is one of our peaks. The Commune also presented in embryo the first post-1848 Revolution instance of what was later characterized by Lenin at the beginning of World War I as the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international labor movement. So this question that after Lenin’s death preoccupied Trotsky for much of the later part of his life really has a much longer lineage that I had previously recognized. Unfortunately, as we are too painfully aware that question is still to be resolved. Therefore, even at this great remove, it is necessary to learn the lessons of that experience in facing today’s crisis of leadership in the international labor movement.

As a final thought, I note that in the preface to this edition that the editors have given their own view about the lessons to be learned from the experience of the Paris Commune. Although virtually every page of Lissagaray’s account drips with examples of the necessity of a vanguard party their view negates that necessity. While we can argue until hell freezes over, and should, about the form that a future socialist state will take one would think that there should be no dispute on that necessity at this late date in history. In any case read this important work (including the above-mentioned provocative preface) as it tells the tale of an important part of our working class history. 

In Commemoration Of The 50th Anniversary Of The Passing Of Legendary Soul Singer Otis Redding (2017)

In Commemoration Of The 50^th Anniversary Of The Passing Of Legendary Soul Singer Otis Redding (2017)

By Zack James (with serious help from oldest brother Alex)

I have been this year, the year of the 50^th anniversary of the famous Summer Of Love, centered mainly in and around San Francisco, probably the number one writer in this space commemorating that event. Prodded unto perdition by my oldest brother Alex who had actually taken part in many aspects of the Summer of Love, 1967 and a couple of years beyond before he settled down to his quiet and lucrative law practice. Quickly the genesis of that prodding and the subsequent over-the-top commemoration of that event was Alex’s business trip out to San Francisco in the spring combined with his viewing of a special exhibition The Summer of Love Experience put on by the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park the scene of much of the activity during that time. When Alex got back he gathered his old high school friends together who had also gone out that year and they commissioned me to write, edit and see to the publication of a small collective memoir book on their experiences.

One of those high school friends was the site administrator here, the soon to be retired Pete Markin, who beyond contributing to the memoir went crazy to have his stable of writers, including me, young and old, acquainted with that time or not, to go all out to commemorate the event. That whirling dervish fury is the main reason that Pete lost a vote of confidence initiated by the so-called “Young Turks” (although all of us are thinking 50 something) and supported decisively by his old friend and colleague old-timer Sam Lowell which has ushered in his retirement and replacement by Greg Green from the on-line American Film Gazette website. (The details of that internal fight will be addressed by others in the future since I was not privy to most of what happened to give Peter the boot. And also not privy to whether the whole affair was not some purge like in the old radical days disguised as a retirement. If Peter goes to the Gulag we will know which one it was) But enough of genesis.         

One of the assignments that Pete in his frenzy ordered up was a review by film critic Sandy Salmon of a documentary by the famed filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker about the first Monterey Pops Festival in June of that same Summer of Love year. That review centered on the explosive appearance of Little Girl Blues Janis Joplin at the Festival. That subsequently led to a review by younger writer Alden Riley ordered by Peter over Sandy’s head when he found out that Alden did not know who Janis Joplin was. All well and good as Ms. Joplin deserved plenty of attention for her short burning star rise and fall too young. What got short shrift in all of this worthy commemoration was the equally explosive entrance of king the essence of soul Otis Redding on that same Monterey stage. Maybe it was that Otis’ music did not fit in with the “acid” rock very much associated with that Summer of Love stuff. Maybe it had something to do with a “white bread” lack of appreciation for the emergence of soul. Maybe a Martin Luther King passive resistance generational “post-racial” break from a serious understanding of the continuing racial sores that mark this country’s landscape.  Maybe it was combination.

Nevertheless not only was Otis Redding worthy of a better representation on this site but in his short, too short, appearance on the wider music stage he had an outsized influence on the subsequent evolution of soulful music. His most famous song, the lonesome hobo Sitting on the Dock of the Bay an instant classic released shortly before his death in a plane crash in the Midwest in late 1967 showed a glimmer of where he was going.

In this 50^th anniversary year for the song and Otis’ death the well-known NPR commentator Christopher Lydon on his Open Source radio show featured the life, work and influence of the great recording artist on one program. Maybe a link here to that program makes up one tiny bit for the previous neglect on this site.

Click here to link to the Open Source program:

http://radioopensource.org/afterlife-otis-redding/

Honor Native American History Month-Once Again-The Trail Of 1000, No, 1,000, 000 Tear-The Little War On The Prairie-The Execution of 38 Dakota Warriors In Mankato, Minnesota in 1862

Honor Native American History Month-Once Again-The Trail Of 1000, No, 1,000, 000 Tear-The Little War On The Prairie-The Execution of 38 Dakota Warriors In Mankato, Minnesota in 1862

By Frank Jackman

Honor Native American History Month-Once Again-The Trail Of 1000, No, 1,000, 000 Tear-The Little War On The Prairie-The Execution of 38 Dakota Warriors In Mankato, Minnesota in 1862

Yes, I am well aware that the date of this piece is in December and Native American History Month was in November but this piece aired on December 1, 2018 around my way on NPR’s This American Life and so belongs along with other entries on the trail of tears, the endless trail of tears brothers and sisters.  

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/479/little-war-on-the-prairie

 

Little War on the Prairie

Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after.

What Goes Around Comes Around-The Coen Brothers’ Remake Of “The Ladykillers” (2004)-A Film Review

What Goes Around Comes Around-The Coen Brothers’ Remake Of “The Ladykillers” (2004)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

The Ladykillers, starring Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, based on the 1955 British film of the same name, produced and directed by the Coen Brothers, 2004

You never know why a particular film will spawn (nice word right) a retread at some later period. Maybe it is a classic like Jane Austen’s novels which have had several cinematic reincarnations reflecting different views of her work. Maybe some director or producer decides that his or her take on whatever the original subject was will put that beauty in the shade, will make people yawn even thinking about the old one. Maybe some production company is on the ropes and needs a quick boost with a plotline that can still speak to an audience. Who knows. In any case the Coen Brothers famous for hair-raising films like Raising Arizona and Blood Simple have gloomed out a 1955 British film Ladykillers which starred Alex Guinness and brought the story-line stateside and more up to date although with the same relentlessly fateful ending-bloody ending.

Here’s a quick scoop on what drove the Coens to revive this one. The Professor, played by Tom Hanks in one of his less satisfactory roles since he went over the top with his outer drawling gentile demeanor wants to rent a particular room in a particular house owned by an older religious widowed black woman Mrs. Munson played by Irma P. Hall for what appeared gentile but in reality nefarious activities. No, not some lustful sexual tryst which everybody could pardon but to use her basement as a holding area in order to dig a tunnel into a nearby river casino and grab the dough. Another example of what the famous, or infamous depending on your druthers, bank robber Willie Sutton is reported to have answered when asked why he robbed banks. That was where the money was. Ditto cash-rich riverboat casinos under the same principle.

Naturally since this black comedy as originally written by William Rose the gang of criminals the Professor recruits is something out of Jimmy Breslin’s gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Nevertheless by hook or by crook they were able to pull the caper off, grab the dough and easy street.  By that same hook or by crook Mrs. Munson catches on to the robbery and threatens the good professor with John Law unless he returns his ill-gotten gains.

Here is where the lady killers of the title comes into play. This gang that couldn’t shoot straight collectively decided to kill the old hag, put her underground, six feet under. Apparently all that church-going and singing hosannas to the Lord put Mrs. Munson in good with the right deities and one by one, including the too clever professor, they bite the dust, they go that six feet under. But what about the dough. Well the good Mrs. Munson found it and tried to return it to John Law. No go. They didn’t believe her cock-eyed story and told her to keep it. Being a good Christian women she decided to donate the whole sum to her favorite charity Bob Jones University (a place which at one time did not and maybe still does not allow blacks in as students). End of story. Other than the excessive blood and gore I don’t know why the Coens remade this one, The original was better in every way, more cheeky as they say in England.            

Art As The Highest Accumulation Of Human Culture-With George Clooney’s “The Monument Men” (2014) In Mind

Art As The Highest Accumulation Of Human Culture-With George Clooney’s “The Monument Men” (2014) In Mind

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

The Monument Men, starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murry,  Cate Blanchett, 2014     

My old friend from back in the “from hunger” North Adamsville neighborhood days, the late James Jackson, was crazy for art, was crazy to see works of art in art museums large and small right up until his somewhat recent passing, a passing which left the world shorter by a lot more than a single individual passing. James (nobody ever called him Jim or Jimmy he was not that kind of guy) from very early on was fascinated by works of art probably at least from the time when in 5^th grade, maybe 6^th, grade we have her for two years, Miss Winot brought in photographs she had taken during summer vacation on a trip to Egypt to see the Pyramids and all of that.

One Saturday he and his brother Kenny took the bus over to Boston and spent the day at the Museum of Fine Arts looking at the extension collection of Pharaonic artifacts which several teams of Harvard University archeologists had uncovered. More importantly he went crazy for the Impressionists like Monet, the Renaissance artists like Bellini and such. (Kenny just went along because their mother would not have let James go alone at that age and James did not want to hassle with her over that and so Kenny tagged along although more than once when James would go on and on about some work of art “discovered” that day Kenny would say he “didn’t give a fuck about any of it.”

Here is the surprising part about James though. In those days he, along with the late Pete Markin, was knee-deep in every kind of scam, con, or midnight creep (you can figure out where that creep led) to make dough to survive on since he was (we were) not likely to get anything extra from hard-pressed parents. I asked him one time, a time when a Van Gogh had been sold at auction for several million dollars (yes, it was a long time ago at that price which seemed astronomical then) whether he would consider stealing a work of art to sell. Jesus did he rear up on his high horse and practically punch me for saying such a blasphemous thing. He said, and I paraphrase here, art, all of it from ancient drawing on caves to Pop Art (then emerging as the next big turn in the already saturated art world) represented the collective accumulation of human culture, something to gauge how far we have come from the slime and the caves. The next day I vividly recall he and Markin went into a department store and “clipped” a record player, two radios, a television, a set of golf clubs and a couple of  other items to sell to a “fence.” Yes, James had those build-in contradictions, hey, Markin too come to think of it although his thing was literature not art.                    

All of this as foreplay as to my purpose for grabbing a review of this film, Monument Men, from Alden Riley who would normally draw this assignment. These “monument men,” played by George Clooney, John Goodman, Matt Damon, Bill Murry and a couple of other guys were all professional artists or architects who were assigned, as soldiers during the later stages of World War II, the momentous task of retrieving the vast array of art treasures that Hitler and his minions vandalized and stole from every source in their Occupied European domains. Stole it from hapless Jewish private collector and other such collectors and whatever public museums they could loot. This to the ever larcenous James Jackson would have been unbelievable and cause enough if he had been alive then to have volunteered to run the rails right into Berlin to retrieve those ill-gotten gains. Moreover he would have gone apoplectic if he had known that the German’s as they were losing the war, as the Russians were coming from the East and the Allies from the West, had a scorched earth policy about all the art that they could not take with them. Burned, vandalized, and committed every other travesty to who knows how many great art works of European history. Moreover the Nazis were known, in fact made a public spectacle out of, destroying in those public places all “degenerate art” meaning almost all modern art during their regime.  Yes, James would have been chomping at the bit to get on the road to Germany to tell those bastards what was what.         

To their credit in dicey retreat and burn times while serious military actions were going on around them the Monument Men were able to save an extraordinary amount of art through perseverance, through pluck, through help from the French Resistance and through capturing some German officers who were charged with transporting and/or destroying those works. As in all wars though they were not able to escape casualties and deaths during the mission. So this was no cakewalk, especially when from high places in Washington to field commanders in Europe there was concern that military men should not be sacrificed for works of art no matter how valuable.      

James Jackson would have had a no holds bar answer to those parties- “art, all of it from ancient drawing on caves to modern masters represented the collective accumulation of human culture, something to gauge how far we have come from the slime and the caves.” I think after watching this film I finally agree with him.

“First Let’s Kill All The Lawyers”-Maybe Shakespeare Was On To Something Back In The Day-Ross MacDonald’s “The Galton Case” (1959) -A Book Review

“First Let’s Kill All The Lawyers”-Maybe Shakespeare Was On To Something Back In The Day-Ross MacDonald’s “The Galton Case” (1959) -A Book Review

Book Review

By Ronan Saint James

The Galton Case, written by Ross MacDonald, 1959

Lew Archer, the somewhat famous private eye out on the West Coast, was impotent. That is at least the opinion of a well-known lawyer who should know and whom I met when I was just starting out as a journalist at the East Bay Other, a place where a few other writers here did some free-lance work. Hell, it was all free-lance or free then since you never knew if you would get paid or not, paid enough at least to keep the wolves from your door. I had been sitting with that lawyer having drinks at the notorious KitKat Club in San Francisco in the days when “drag queen” culture was very much underground and I was on assignment to write about it for the Eye and he was defending the establishment and the entertainers against the city and against various violations of the health moral codes then existing. Somehow the subject of great private detectives came up, probably I brought it up since I knew that he had defended a number of famous private eyes, famous California ones anyway when they got into legal trouble.

Got Phillip Marlowe, yes that Phillip Marlowe from the Sternwood case P.I.s still talk about, still do case studies on in those matchbox cover ads touting how to be a detective in ten or so easy lessons-for hard cash and no refunds, buddy- out from under the big step off when they tried to wrap old-time gangster Eddie Mars’ murder, murder by his own bodyguards on Marlowe when he was allegedly doing a burglary of one of Eddie’s properties. Got Phil off in a million other cases too like the time he wasted some doctor, some pill-pusher who filled him ot up with junk to get him to spill where a guy named Moose Malone, no relation to Dorothy below, was to stop him from finding some femme who did not want to be found-by giant Moose anyway. From a million other cases and who I had found out at that time had been married to Dorothy Malone, the famous screenwriter who just died this year at 98 and was the last living link to the great Marlowe legacy. Got Nick Charles into a 12- Step program on the QT after a million DUIs without his wife Nora or any Frisco cops who had an interest knowing about it. Got one Samuel Spade out from under about six felonies and the loss of his license when some twist named Brigit, Mary, who knew in the end what her real name was pointed the finger at him. That was the one where that Brigit femme walked to the big house and took some gaff that she had attempted to tie to our boy Sam. So that lawyer and if you don’t know who he is by now then you just don’t lawyers who make their kale off the troubles of private detectives and giving the name would mean nothing to you knows from whence he speaks.

What would mean something, name or no name, was that lawyer’s theory about private detectives, and here he zeroed in specifically on Lew Archer and how he blew the Galton case, a few others too but the Galton case is pure fuck-up and makes his point. What that big-time lawyer said was that any P.I. who wasn’t half crazy trying to get under the silky sheets with some femme is strictly impotent, can’t get it up. Not gay, asexual, intersexual, bi-sexual or anything like that that stuff is okay, was okay for him back then since he was hanging around such people in the KitKat Club before Timmy Riley, aka Miss Judy Garland, took over and made the place a Mecca for tourists who wanted to take a quick walk on the wild side.

The funny thing as our lawyer described it was that Lew had about five opportunities to bed some dame starting when he first got on the case with Mrs. gallons of oil money Galton’s home companion, Ava, who was a knockout from the photos of her in a swimsuit when the case went to court (the case of officially adopting her lost grandson as her sole heir not the murder case of her son which some lawyer forced her to look into and which was a cold case, a frozen solid cold case when Lew put his grimy paws on the thing and screwed almost everything up before he was done and the public coppers had to come in and solve the damn thing, a rare occasion indeed). Then there was the guy who fingered Mrs. gallons of oil money son back in the 1930s whose wife, remarried, practically threw herself at him to avoid her second husband, a good man according to all parties including Lew, finding out she was married to a shiftless bum, a con artist and accessory to murder of that Galton son. Passed her by. We won’t even speak of the easy pickings he would have had, could have had if he had paid the least bit of attention to the wife, the second wife of the lawyer who hired Lew to find Mrs. Galton’s son (I won’t continue with that “gallons of oil money” gag you know who I mean now). Not only was she drugged to the gills, half naked at least half of the time in his presence at the nursing home she was placed in after she had a nervous breakdown over her role in the murder of that guy who fingered Galton’s son for the executioner’s ax back in the 1930s but she believed, when her lawyerly husband brainwashed her to perdition, she had killed that ex-lover. A piece of cake.

It doesn’t end there, and maybe I will miss a few other opportunities today when I think about the long ago case but I will give you enough examples that my lawyer friend gave me to condemn Lew to strictly third-rate private detective-dom. There was the grandson’s college time, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan girlfriend who had enough dough to sink a ship, was ready to give the kid cars, and whatever else he wanted. The kid walked way, went to greener pastures. When Lew interviewed the twist, trying to find out what she knew about the kid’s whereabouts, what made him tick, and why he was the pawn in some nefarious scheme to dupe Mrs. Galton into believing that he was really her grandson, she was as ready to have a soft shoulder to cry on as anybody in the world. Lew walked. Wouldn’t give her the time of day, made some excuse up about his time of the month, male version. (My lawyer checking into her fate just because he was interested, maybe grab her on the rebound told me she already had a new boyfriend about five days after Lew talked to her although he still was able to get a date with her since she and the new lover were not “exclusive,” whatever that meant.  

Now I think that the next women Lew passed on maybe he wasn’t wrong to not take a run at although my lawyer was infuriated that I would say such a stupid journalist kind of thing. This was a dame, an older dame but not that old who frankly didn’t keep up her appearances as they used to say in the days before body-shaming became taboo, vert taboo whether for good or evil. She would have been easy pickings too, maybe a one-night stand but here is what she was about. She had actually been married to Mrs. Galton’s son, has seen him killed out on the coast south of Frisco where they were staying, had had an affair or two with the finger man and her husband’s murderer before under threat of murder to her son, that Galton heir grandson she had married the guy and fled to Canada with him. Stayed with him trying to protect her son she said-likely story. No go for Lew though.

Here is the one I don’t figure, the one he should have taken a run at with all hands. Once Mrs. Galton found out that her son had been murdered but that she had a grandson who had been missing for years and who turned up during Lew’s tenure as her private investigator that case was over. Still there were plenty of people who for their own reasons believed the kid, John was the name he used but as usual any name will do since they are all aliases, was an impostor, was in it for the big payoff when Granny croaked. One was Mrs. Galton’s doctor who had a young daughter whose was at just that age when she was as flirtatious to older guys as young guys. The doctor wasn’t happy when he found out that said daughter was having an affair with John after Lew basically frosted up on her. Jesus how many chances can a guy have and flub everyone.

My lawyer friend also had a theory about the cause of Lew’s impotency which led to his royally screwing up the case so badly. It is tough being third or fourth fiddle in the private detective game (and that was only in California we won’t even discuss the whole country). Lew tried I think, maybe to be a lady’s man but it didn’t work, so he tried a different route, the no sex with clients or persons of interest. It didn’t work but that is that. It now makes perfect sense that he didn’t believe John was the real deal, that the lawyer who hired him played him like a yo-yo. That everybody lied through their teeth to him and he bought it, or at least followed more false flag leads than you could shake a stick at. The funny thing was that all the loose ends got collected up without him. The Galton son murderer hung himself rather than going back to jail. The finger-man’s ex-wife got redemption from her second husband. John got his girl and his mother’s forgiveness. Mrs. Galton got her real heir, despite the murderous machinations of her scoundrel lawyer and his bedazzled wife got a clear conscience. Lew, well, Lew got egg on his face, lots of egg and a lonely roll-away bed in his low rent rooming house.                     

“Put Out The Fire In Your Head”- With Patti Griffin’s Not Alone In Mind

“Put Out The Fire In Your Head”- With Patti Griffin’s Not Alone In Mind 

By Bradley Fox, Junior

[Sometimes this generational divide between parent and child that occurs naturally once the younger generation comes of age and begins to make its own way, make its own mistakes, and have its own problems grappling with day to day life in a hectic, dangerous world can only be deciphered by someone from that generation. That is the case here with the story of Sam Lowell’s youngest son, Justin. Sam told me his side of the story, really his take on Justin’s story since Sam had had little directly to do with what got Justin into his difficulties. I tried to write it up as a cautionary tale of sorts to help inform Sam’s, my generation, the generation that the late Peter Paul Markin, forever known as the Scribe as our mutual friend who passed on under mysterious circumstances down in Mexico after the 1960s had ebbed and we had lost the cultural battles, called the Generation of ’68 about what was troubling our children. I failed in that effort.

I told my son, Bradley, Junior (with Sam’s permission), who knew Justin when they were younger, the details to see if he could write something that would make sense to Sam and me about what makes their generation tick. As for the grandkids, forget it between the Internet and its subset social media and the trials and tribulations they confront in an extremely dangerous world going forward it would take, as young Bradley told me, the minds of Freud, Einstein, and Rapper Rocco combined to even know what subliminal language they were speaking. Here’s my Bradley’s take on the whole mess [BF, Senior]:     

**********

Justin Lowell had been a late love child of Sam and his third wife since divorced, Rebecca, and as such, with eight years between him and the next youngest child, Brenda, and hence eight years of being the only child at home after she left for college, was pampered by Rebecca her, cocooned Sam said.  And frankly had been by Sam as well although the number one thing all of his children from his three failed marriages said of him was that he was a good and generous father but he that was a distant figure always off doing some lawyerly business and not around enough to get rid of that foggy picture of him. But enough of Sam Lowell’s failings since this is about how Justin navigated the world not Sam. 

Of course Justin had all the advantages that accrued to a financially successful small town lawyer’s son from living in a nice large house with his own room (and later own rooms since he took over Brenda’s as well), a good if not great college education (good since Justin was not a particularly studious type like myself and was unlike sister Brenda who gained entrance to Harvard with no problem), and all the diversions that leafy suburban life in Riverdale could bring. All through high school at Riverdale High we were very close buddies so I knew a lot about his make-up, knew too that he resented his mother’s overweening attentions (and as already mentioned Sam’ distance which Justin called indifference unlike my father who went out of his way to be attentive and was a reason why we would spent much more time at my house than his). Many nights out with hot dates we would go wherever we went together, tried out and failed to make the championship Riverdale High School football team, things like that. Mostly though we talked serious stuff about dreams and what we would do when we flew the coop, when we had what Sam and my father always called when they got together and regaled us with their stories the “great jail-break.”         

Naturally after high school, members in good standing of the Riverdale High Class of 1992, when Justin went to State U and I went to NYU since I was desperate to live in New York City and breath the air there as part of my becoming a commercial artist we drew apart. Maybe we would call, see each other at Vinny’s Pizza in town and cut up old touches. That was mainly freshman year when everything was new and we were “free.” Then Justin kind of fell off my map as I got involved in some school projects and Justin from what he told me one time at Vinny’s got involved in the furious social life that dominates lots of school out in the boondocks and where kids are away from  home for the first time. That was when Justin, who had hated even the idea of liquor when we were in high school and wouldn’t speak me for a while after l got Kathy Callahan drunk (and horny you can figure the rest out yourselves) on a double date, started doing drugs.

Started first I had heard on easy stuff marijuana to be sociable (Justin, me too, as much as we got along with girls were both kind of shy and inward at times which is probably why we gravitated toward each other beyond our fathers knowing each other since their youth) and bennies to stay up and study for those finals at the last moment. Later senior year I heard from Jack Jamison who had gone to high school with us and was also at State U Justin had graduated to cocaine, serious cocaine, serious enough to have to begin to do some small time dealing to keep up. He did graduate but it was a close thing, very close.        

After college Justin moved to Boston to take a job in a bank, work his way up in the banking industry to make lots of money. In any case in Boston is where he met Melissa, Melissa I won’t give her last name because now she is a big deal in the college administration of an Ivy League college. He met Melissa at the Wild Rose nightclub, the one just outside of Kenmore Square. Met her and quickly came under her spell (a lot of guys had, did, would do that before she was through). Melissa, not a beauty but fetching was one of those women who loved kicks, loved the attention her desire for kicks brought. Her kick at that time was heroin which some previous lover had turned her on to. She, something of a manic-depressive as it turned out, said grass, coke, pills didn’t do it for her, didn’t put out the fire in her head, the feeling that she could never get close to anybody. (Later it also turned out that she had been sexually abused by her drunken father and had had plenty of reason to want to put the fire out in her head.) She turned a very willing Justin to smack (it goes by several names, H, snow, the lid, sweet baby, and the like we will just call it smack). See he had been having trouble adjusting to having to actually work his ass off to get ahead in the banking industry and he too needed something to put out the fire in his head.

Melissa, as far as anybody ever knew, never got seriously addicted to the smack, maybe cut it enough to keep from going to junkie heaven. Justin of course got himself a jones, a big sleep on his shoulders. He before too long got fired from his job, went on the bum, started muling down to sunny Mexico for the hard boys to maintain his habit, went back on the bum and finally got picked up by the cops on Commonwealth Avenue trying to break and enter some Mayfair swell condo. All he would tell them beside his name was that he “had to put the fire out in his head,” needed to get well or he was going to jump into the Charles River. At that point, Sam, who was clueless about his son’s drug problems as most parents are until some tripwire turns the lights on had to come into the action, had to defend his youngest son on a damn B&E charge. Got him into a “detox” program too. Did what he could without recrimination, or just a little other than bewilderment that his son would succumb to drugs.                       

Well I wish that I could say that Justin turned it around after that first “detox,” effort but that was not the case. He went through programs for five years before he sobered up for good, or what Sam and Rebecca thought was for good. One night I was home to see my father and to attend our twentieth anniversary class reunion when I ran into Justin on the street who said he would rather not go to the reunion since he would have to explain too many things about his life. He suggested we go into Vinny’s a few blocks up the street and have a couple of slices of pizza and a soda for old times’ sake. We did so and while we were munching away Justin explained as best he could what had happened to him. He reminded me of that night senior year when we were sitting down by the river and he had told me how much he hated his father, hated Sam, since he was such a pious bastard, was almost non-existent in his life, yet tried to be cool about his own bogus jailbreak youth like they had changed the world, like his youthful coolness made everything alright. I had forgotten about that night, had had my own small (compared to him) troubles adjusting to my own father’s whims. Then Justin said he had spent all that time since that night trying to put out the fire in his head.          

Here comes the sad part, about a year later Justin met a woman, Selina, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he went to live to get a fresh start. They fell in love, planned to be married, and had made all the arrangements, the church, reception and all. The night before the wedding when he was out with some guys celebrating he went off the bus. Somehow he had made a connection, and before the night was over he was sitting in Prescott Park by himself as the cops came by responding to a neighbor’s disturbance call yelling “I‘ve got to put the fire in my head out, I’ve got to put the fire in my head out.”                

The Gold-Digger Of 1934- Jean Harlow’s “The Girl From Missouri”-A Film Review

The Gold-Digger Of 1934- Jean Harlow’s “The Girl From Missouri”-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

The Girl From Missouri, starring Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, from a story by Anita Loos, 1934

You know sometimes it is refreshing when a story-line tells it like it is, tells exactly what the main character, or one of the main characters, is up to. Take the lead character in the film under review, The Girl From Missouri, Eadie played by very blonde in an age, maybe every age when very blonde got you many things a brunette, red-head, or black-haired beauty could only dream of Jean Harlow as she came up the Hollywood blonde ranks in the early 1930s. Once Eadie blows the “Show Me” state off after trying to hold off every guy who passed her by in her step-father and her mother’s dime-a-dance clip joint she is single-mindedly determined to marry some rich guy, any rich guy, and get off from hunger and cheap streets. She heads to the capital of the capitalists in New York City, a place she thinks should be easy picking for her to see what is what in that department.  

Practically from day one in the city with seven million stories (I know there are eight now but then, 1934, only seven and that may be on the high side) she is ready, willing and able to throw herself at any off-hand millionaire, bankers and stockbrokers a specialty, who looks her way for more than a few seconds. But a rookie gold-digger has to figure that she will strike out for a while before the next best thing comes along. And Eadie does strike out, does in the face of an intransigent old codger she tries to hook, one T.R. Paige, a high end banker played by Lionel Barrymore of the august acting dynasty last seen in this space holding off the likes of gangster Johnny Rocco down in Key Largo just as a “big blow” is coming through.

Never say the kid for Missouri wasn’t up for trying as she followed that old codger down to his digs in Palm Beach, then as now the wintering water hole of those with the serious kale and with its own set of mores and exclusions. Which no way Eadie fits into. This Paige, this up by the bootstraps Paige, has blonde as can be Eadie down as a tramp, as a fallen women, as a tart, well, as a gold-digger and makes that plain as day even when she tells whoever will listen that she is saving herself for marriage-for the golden apple marriage of her dreams.

Enter young Tom Paige, T.R.’s son, played by Franchot Tone who while he was the cat’s meow to movie audience women back in the day nevertheless has not been reviewed in this space by me. He makes a big play for Eadie and she has eyes for him but before they can tie that marriage knot she has been dreaming about the old man tries about six ways from Sunday to give her the heave-ho and Tom the kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth buys the old man’s story for a while. Goes back and forth before finding she is for him even if she hasn’t got three quarters to rub together. The thing that I learned from this little flick, a thing I probably knew but had kind of forgotten about of late, was that very blonde busty young women are going to get taken care of one way or another, going to have a soft landing in life. Make of that what you will.           

Dancing Cheek To Cheek- Again-Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s “Top Hat” (1935)- A Film Review

Dancing Cheek To Cheek- Again-Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s “Top Hat” (1935)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, music by Irving Berlin, 1935

No, I will not start this review of what even to me seems like a never-ending series of dance films by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire reminding me of the never-ending Bob Dylan concert tours (and bootleg CD volumes) or the William Powell and Myrna Loy Nick and Nora Charles The Thin Man series going on and on about the superiority of Mr. Astaire’s dancing and grace compared to Mr. Gene Kelly based on the latter’s performance in the Gershwin-etched An American In Paris. Doing so would be merely overkill since once again in this film Mr. Astaire shows what grace, style and athleticism (the one attribute in which Mr. Kelly has an edge over Mr. Astaire) combined looks like when the hammer goes down. My understanding is the film under review Top Hat was one of the ten that this well-known dance pair did together although it seems like I did many more reviews than that already rather large number.

Since the real deal in these Astaire-Rogers pairings is the dancing this review can be mercifully short and sweet. After all nobody has ever accused the screenwriters of these frilly things of writing Oscar-worthy material to back up the dancing and the music by the likes of Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter or as here Irving Berlin. Here is the “skinny,” very skinny as my old friend and colleague Sam Lowell is fond of saying. Top Broadway musical showman Jerry, Fred Astaire’s role, is in London to bail out some producer’s musical when along the way he meets, well who else, Dale, played by Ginger Rogers, who seems to be some kind of model for an upscale high society Italian fashion designer. Naturally Jerry goes bug-eyed when he spies Dale and makes his big play. She somewhat guardedly is intrigued by him (after out of nowhere doing a serious pair dance with him out in the park which either meant something was in the water or that the dance indicated in an unspoken way that they were kindred spirits-you figure it out).

   

All well and good although this would be an extremely short film with basically nothing else but dancing and singing if it was left to that. What keeps the thing moving along a bit is a case of mistaken identity. Dale is led to believe that Jerry is the producer who just so happens to be married and therefore nothing but a cad and ne’er-do-well even if he can dance up a storm. Moreover, supposedly married to a good friend of hers. This miscue business takes them eventually to Italy where the thing gets played out and resolved in Jerry’s favor after a few more songs and a few more dances. The dancing by Astaire making obvious that he was the one you could not keep your eyes off of with his moves and not Ms. Rogers. End of story as they go dancing into that good night. See this one mainly for the great dance scene when they go Dancing Cheek to Cheek.