***The Face (book) Photo That Launched A Thousand Clicks- Or “Foul-Mouth” Phil Hits Pay-Dirt-Finally

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Facebook for those three or four people who have not gotten the word about this new form of "social-networking" yet.

Peter Paul Markin comment:

Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).

Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.

But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.

Phil Larkin comment:

Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.

You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.

Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.

Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?

Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.

Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.

Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:


“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”

The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.

Markin comment:

Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.

***Just Before The Sea-Change- On The 50th Anniversary Of The Freedom Riders- All Honor To Those Who Took To The Buses "Heading South"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights workers who valiantly tried, by example, to integrate interstate transportation in the South. We are not so far removed from those events even today, North or South.



Markin comment:

I was in high school at the time of the freedom rides and was part of a support group sponsored by the Americans For Democratic Action (ADA), then an anti-Soviet Cold War left-liberal organization but very pro-civil rights (in the South) that was raising money in order to sent more civil rights workers "heading South." Heading toward the danger not away from it. Honor those black liberation fighters, black and white.
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The following comment, although we are labelling it anonymous to honor the writer's personal preference(he is no longer political, is an opponent of almost everything communistic about this blog, and has a job now that places him on the other side of the barricades, is that enough?), is from a person known to me, and in the old days quite well-known as a fellow North Adamsville corner boy. I am posting it for the sole purpose of showing that even those, some of them anyway, on the other side of the class line at one time showed "the better angels of their natures."
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Anonymous comment:

It’s funny how things work out. I was recently thinking about the old time “freedom riders” who, black and white, from the South and North, tried to integrate the local and interstate buses in 1961 down in the Deep South. And some not so deep parts like North Carolina where Markin wound up, I think, some fifty years ago now, stuff that should have never been segregated in the first place. Then, shortly thereafter I was “surfing” the Internet for material on the subject to check my own remembrances and way down in the “match” list for what I Googled was a blog entry, get this, entitled Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1964-Just Before The Sea Change - With The Rolling Stone’s In Mind.

Now hold on before you start sending for the padded wagon for me. Yes, the blog entry was a review of an “oldies but goodies” CD about some of the popular non-Beatles, non-Rolling Stones songs that got us through that tough senior year in high school. But it also contained a story about the trials and tribulations of some kids in my old home town, North Adamsville, a strictly white working class suburb just outside of Boston, trying to get swept up in one of the great social movements of their generation, and mine. That, of course, in those pre-Vietnam War escalation times was the black freedom struggle down South in this country. See, I knew those kids, Edward Rowley, Judy Jackson, and Peter Paul Markin featured in the review. Christ, for a while in senior year I hung out with Edward and Peter Paul (“The Scribe,” to one and all in those days, christened so by head honcho Frankie Riley, a mad man if I ever saw one) in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” for a while so I know the stuff (the guff really) that those guys were going through in trying to be “different.” I also know that Frankie, and most of the school (North Adamsville High School, if I forgot to mention it before) didn’t like what they were doing one bit. And Edward and Judy were getting serious grief at home about it as well.

As for Edward's grief, I was at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor sitting right along side Peter Paul when Edward came rushing in all fluttered, all red-faced too, and related the story of what had just happened at his house that Peter Paul already told you about in that CD review I mentioned Googling above. Peter and I decided that we would just repeat that story here to get you caught up in case you didn’t get a chance to read it. If it sounds all too familiar under any circumstances from back then, or now for that matter (except now it is us giving the guff, right?), then that is just about right:

“Isn’t that hair of yours a little long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you know what is good for you.” That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in North Adamsville households (and not just North Adamsville household either) ever since the British invasion brought longer hair (and a little less so, beards) into style. Of course when one thinks of the British invasion in the year 1964 one is not thinking about the American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock night, the 1964 parent world was getting up in arms.

And not just about hair styles either. But about trips to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both), sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements). “Why can’t Eddie (he hated that name by the way) be like he was when he listened to Bobby Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX,” mused Mrs. Rowley to herself. “Now it’s the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention. And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirts and her, well her… "

Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the neighbors, was getting worked up it anyway we might as well continue with her tirade, “What about all the talk about doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And Eddie and that damn Peter Paul Markin, who used to be so nice when they all hung around together at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor and you at least knew they were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If Eddie’s father ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and, maybe, a strap coming out of the closet big as Eddie is. Worst though, worst that worrying about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country, leaving North Adamsville, defenseless against the Communists with his talk of nuclear disarmament. Why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone and stuck with his idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody upset.”

That mother-madness, however, as we shall see didn’t stop Edward Rowley, Junior once he got his Irish up but that was what he was up against on a daily, maybe on some days, an hourly basis. Judy’s story was more of the same-old, same-old but again we decided to let it rest as is like with Edward’s story. Her story I got second-hand anyway one night when Edward and I were sitting down at the seawall in front of old Adamsville Beach trying to figure things out, not big things, just things. Here's what happened:

“Young lady, that dress is too short for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on another one or you are not going out of this house,” barked Mrs. James Jackson, echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling (and not just North Adamsville mothers either) about their daughters dressing too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head. And that Eddie (“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs. Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie), and his new found friends like Peter Paul Markin taking her to those strange coffeehouses instead of the high school dances on Saturday night. And endless talk about the n-----s down South and other trash talk. Commie trash about peace and getting rid of our nuclear weapons. They should draft the whole bunch of them and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall. Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America.”

So you see how hard Judy Jackson’s break-out was when all was said and done.

As for the Scribe, Peter Paul Markin, his people were torn a different way. They, on his mother’s side, were Catholic Worker movement people so they knew the political score. But they also knew Peter Paul could be god-awful righteous when he got his dander up. Who knows what he would say down there, or where he might wind up for saying it to the wrong person, meaning just about anybody not black. Ya, I guess if I was his parents I would have been worried too.

This is how it figured though for me if you really want to know.

Old time North Adamsville was strictly for white working class people, and a few middle class types, period. No blacks, no browns, no yellows, no red, no nothing color except white, period. So nobody could figure why three pretty smart kids, with plenty going for them, would risk their necks “heading” South for some, well, let me put it the way it was really said on the streets, some “n-----s.” Now you get it. But see here is what you didn’t know, what Gary, Judy and Peter Paul didn’t know either. I wanted to go with them. I never said much about it, one way or the other, but every day on the television I saw what they, the cops and white vigilantes were doing to kids, black kids, ya, but still just kids who were trying to change a world that they had not made, but sure in hell, unlike most of their parents, were not going to put up with the old way. The “we did it this way for generations so we will continue to do it for generations” routine. That is a big reason that I was rooting for them (like at some football game that I was addicted to in those days, cheering on the under-dog who eventually was ground under by the over-dog).

Still I never went, and you know why. Sure my mother threatened to throw me out of the house if I dared to cross the Mason-Dixon Line. After all my father was a proud, if beaten, son of the South who, no matter how humbled and humiliated he was by the Yankee ethos that condemned him, always thought of himself as a good-ole Southern boy. And a man who we (my brothers and sisters) could, in later years, never get to say anything better that “nigra” when talking about black people. So there was that. And then there was my ambivalence about whether a boy, me, who had never been south of New York City, and that just barely, and whether I could navigate the “different ways” down South, especially in regard to the idea that white people actually liked/tolerated or were deep friends with black people and wanted to do something about their condition.

Those are, maybe, good and just reasons to take a dive but here is the real reason. I just did not want to get my young butt “fried-Southern-style” by those nasty bastards down in places like Philadelphia, Mississippi (although Philadelphia, Pa, was a tough spot as well, as it turned out). We had all heard about the three civil rights workers who were slain by persons unknown (officially) in the sweat-drenched Southern summer night. We had heard further of beatings, jailings ands other forms of harassment. Yes, I was scared and I let my scared-ness get the better of me, period. That’s why I say hats off to the “freedom riders” in that 1961 hard night. Hats off, indeed.

***Shoot ‘Em Up, Bang “Em Up- Johnny Depp’s (Antonio Banderas And Salma Hayek Too)-“One Upon A Time In Mexico"- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

DVD Review

Once Upon A Time In Mexico, starring Johnny Depp, Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, 2004

This one may be a little too close for comfort these days what with the almost daily carnage reported from the drug wars in Mexico but anything that has Johnny Depp in it will at least get my attention. Although Johnny is not always up to par, Sweeney Todd seemed, well, too bizarre even for him, he is not afraid to take on quirky roles in the interest of making some memorable characters. Here he plays an upfront (literally) CIA agent down in Mexico to help defuse what looks like an attempt by the bad guys to knock off what passes for a good guy el presidente there and take over the government. To do, whatever. Yes, I know the plot sounds very familiar. Also familiar in this third part of the trilogy is the Angel-Diablo avenger of the people’s wrongs, and his own personal wrongs (wife, played by Salma Hayek, in flash-backs killed by the bad guys), Antonio Banderas. Of course that means plenty of shoot ‘em up, bang ‘em up as the two sides fire every thing they have at each other. And equally true, of course, the bad guys get their just desserts. Johnny will get a citation from the bosses at Langley for this one for sure.

P.S. Here is one thing that has always intrigued about shoot 'em up movies and it was really obvious here. Now I am no expert of weaponry, although I know how to handle a gun but Antonio Banderas’ shooting from every hip at random would seem to be foolhardy. Not only that but his chances of hitting anybody in the real world that way would seem minimal. On the other hand even the elite forces of the opponent seem, always, to be something out of the gang that could not shoot straight. The good guys must have the angels on their side, right?

***The "Projects" Boys... And Girls-For Denny And All The Other Adamsville Housing Authority Survivors From The Class Of 1964-With Tom Waits In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing Jersey Girl

"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise"- The first line from Tom Waits classic working class love song, Jersey Girl. The best version of the song by Tom Waits is the one that you can link to on YouTube above.
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Peter Paul Markin, Adamsville Housing Authority Alumnus and North Adamsville, Class Of 1964, (although most AHA alumni graduated from cross-town rival, Adamsville High) comment:

Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so not through this site but through one of those looking for old high school graduate-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.

Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boy, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them. Here is the odd part though. Ya, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my “homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
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Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Germantown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.

Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.

Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.

The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached in Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)

And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.

I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first "clip" in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks. The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.

Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day). He needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held” the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.

That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.

Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...

Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you. And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.

Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?


Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics

Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.

'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.

Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.

You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.

So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.

And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.

***Hats Off To 50 for The North Adamsville Class Of ’63- Ouch!-With The Catholic Workers’ Dorothy Day In Mind

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1966, comment:

Recently I have been getting a stream of “guestbook” and “add to friends” visits from members of the North Adamsville Class of 1963 at my profile page here. I am not altogether sure why this is so since the members of this class would have been preparing to go out the door and entering the “New Frontier” (although that word was not widely in usage at the time even though we all were, at least those of us who had a strain of Kennedy Irish Catholic brethren in us and they were legion in this old suburban Boston working-class stronghold, charter members) while I was entering the sophmore at North from Adamsville Central Junior High (now Middle School). The only thing that I can think of, off-hand, which connects us, is that those members and I are marking the same year anniversaries, their 50th anniversary graduation from North and my 50th from one of the feeder junior high schools.

Moreover I am befuddled by the get on my bandwagon response from those lofty and fear-inducing now senior seniors since back in day, back in the real light of day back in the day, those of us who entered North in 1963 were seen as, used as, or forgotten as mere sophomores and therefore subject to the whims of any upperclassmen (or women) who needed a convenient mat to wipe their shoes on, literally at times. Now I am not one to harbor a grudge, not a fifty years later grudge anyway, but here are a few things that make me wonder if maybe those now senior seniors are not a bit, well, forgetful.

On Day One, at freshman/sophomore orientation (some students had entered North in 1962 from another junior high school that only had room for seventh and eighth-graders and then pushed them out in the hard, cruel high school social world, “the bigs,” before their time, their knowing what was what real world time), it was made very clear to us freshmen/sophomores by said seniors who “guided” us around the school that we were only, boys or girls as the case may have been, to use certain “designated” lavatories under penalties of extreme harassment, abuse, and possible physical duress. Needless to say the second floor boys’ lav, the one that was out back, had several huge windows to release the smoke from quick between classes cigarettes, and was the repository of local folklore about who was “hot,” who was not, and, most importantly, importantly to the seniors anyway, who was “doing it,” or could be coaxed into “doing it.” Of course that meant the subject was girls in all those categories of hotness and doing-ness and no freshmen/sophomore wimp boys need apply.

This I do know. I will never forget the time one Homer Bigelow, by mistake no question, because Homer was just stupid enough to do this, walked into the second floor boys’ lav on some dismal Monday morning before school when the talk was heated about who "did," or did not do what, or some other lies or half-lies over the weekend, just to “take a leak.” Two minutes later, maybe less, one Homer Bigelow, Class of 1966, was “escorted” by Jack Winn and Bill Callahan, Class of 1963, minus his pants (in other words, in his underwear) through the second floor corridor, down the back stairway and out in the frosty November day for his troubles. Of course, when some twerp named Joe Reilly, Class of 1969, tried that same stunt, tried using the second floor boys’ lav stunt that is, a few years later one Francis X. Riley and one Peter Paul Markin, both members in good standing of the Class of 1966, “escorted" said victim minus his pants (in other words, in his underwear) out that same second floor corridor and down that same back stairway and out into the not so cold April morning (see we were more “humane” than those savage ‘63ers).

And, christ, the senior girls were worst. See, the tradition, meaning that the practice went on so far back nobody remembered when it started, was that they, junior and senior girls, had their own special “lounge” to “make their faces,” or whatever the term was in use then to look school day schoolgirl beautiful and get the guys so tongue-tied and “hopped-up” that, of course, the guys would jump at the chance to take them out on weekend dates and spend dough (allowance dough, or hard shoulder-to-the-wheel working part-time dough, it did not matter as long as it was there to be spent). Of course, just like the guys the place was useful for a quick “puff” (strictly tobacco cigarettes in those days, I think) out those huge back hall windows, and, most importantly, on Monday mornings for who was “cute” (read: sexy), who was not, who tried every trick in the book to get who to “do it,” who did or didn’t, and other assorted lies and half-lies.

Naturally, in a school with a few hundred students, some girl, some non-junior or senior girl, in this case Penny Smith, by mistake I am sure because Penny was nothing but a whiz at Math and English, walked in one morning (I don’t remember the day of the week and that is not important here because, as I found out later, the girls talked every morning before school about who was cute, and who was not, not just on Monday morning) because she desperately needed to use the bathroom. No problem, Penny. Except that poor Penny, Class of 1966 Math and English whiz or not, was locked into a bathroom stall for most of the day before someone took pity on her and let her out. No guy would ever do anything so cruel. Needless to say when Penny’s day came and some unsuspecting underclass woman, Bessie Kiley, made a similar “error” Penny became the “high sheriff" of the bathroom stalls and locked her in. I think, and someone can refresh my memory on this, Bessie was in that stall all day and only got out when the janitress was cleaning up at the end of the day.

I won’t even go into the details of the other “off-limits” first floor boys’ lav where the “bikies, bad-ass corner boys, and their slutty “mamas” hung out across from the woodworking shop (christ, let’s call it a mens’ lav-some of those guys were maybe twenty-somethings, or maybe were getting ready to go on Social Security or something like that). The hoary story there was even regular-guy second floor corner boy seniors and flinty girls’ lounge girls didn’t go near that place, period. The legend was that once, in the dead-of-nights early 1950s some square boy, or anyway no be-bop boy, tried to go in, again to “take a leak” and for his efforts got thrown through one of those wood-working shop windows for his troubles.

But rigid class segregation on the bathroom question was maybe the least of it. At every school dance, whether you were cute or not for a boy, schoolgirl beautiful or not for a girl, we did all the leg work to get the place in order for the big Saturday night school dance and then were not invited. Well not invited until junior year when, of course, every thing was different. Or at the Thanksgiving rally we were used as the "platform” on which the football team stood, literally. (There was a sophomore exception here for exceptional sophomore football players a couple of them who, as we later found out with a couple of winning seasons, could “eat” most of the senior boys for lunch, maybe even a couple of those bad-ass corner boys down in wood-working).

Ya, I could spill the beans on plenty of injustices, including when a couple of guys, maybe non-Irish Protestant guys for all I know, but definitely 1963 seniors, waylaid me and threw me in the showers in the boys’ gym locker room just because they heard that I had gone to a nuclear disarmament demonstration (a small one, by the way) on Boston Common sponsored by the Catholic Worker movement (you know, Dorothy Day and the social gospel message that appealed to me then and that I have written about elsewhere). They called me a Bolshevik and they damn well knew I wasn’t one, then. They said Coach Doyle (the football coach) sent them.But see, that was then and now we are all together under the big Raider red tent oneness. At least long enough to wish the North Adamsville Class of 1963 well, except maybe those crazy guys who threw me in the showers.

....and a trip down memory lane.

MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Corner Boys Grow Up- Richard Widmark’s "The Street With No Name."

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1940s crime noir The Street With No Name.

DVD Review

The Street With No Name, starring Richard Widmark, 1948

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip-synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.).

Some, like the film reviewed here, The Street With No Name, starring well-regarded bad guy character actor Richrad Widmark, while classified as crime noir are no more than propaganda films. In this case a paean to the FBI, to its so-called scientific effectiveness, and gritty no-nonsense crime fighting personnel, and to its unlamented (for civil libertarians, anti-fascists, and just plain, garden variety believers that the cops, local, state and federal need to be reined in) founder and long time chief, J. Edgar Hoover. Interspersed throughout the film, including an introduction that had an early docu-drama quality to it, are various pieces of footage touting the efficiencies of the organization in the battle against crime, in this case street crime, not the more notorious “red scare” political crimes that it was infamous for, and that its efforts helped cause a political ice age in America in the 1950s

Without addressing the propaganda aspect of the film further, after all in the end every crime noir is about some aspect of how crime does not pay, this one is saved by three things, Richard Widmark’s performance as a tough post-World War II gangster on the make trying to parlay those organizational skills learned in the war-time military. You know, standing around and waiting, here for the next criminal caper, acknowledgement of hierarchy, here Widmark is the max-daddy boss, and, oh yes, how to use weapons, and use them to deadly purpose.

The long and short of it was that just after World War II there was no shortage of corner boys looking to make a score. I know of corner boys from back in my own working class neighborhood later, in the 1950s, but their stuff was penny-ante compared to the serious massed armed robberies (of the Mayfair swells, mainly) that Widmark planned and executed. The plot thus evolves around a cat and mouse game to break up this gang after a spree of murder and mayhem that draws the FBI in. Of course bringing in an agent-informer, having him win Widmark’s confidence (for a while), putting him in right in the center of harm’s way, and also, in the end, winning against the mob finishes the story. Oh, except, crime does not pay. Yes, we get it.

***I Fall To Pieces Each Time I Hear Her Sing- Pasty Cline-Live At The Cimarron Ballroom (Oklahoma)-A CD Review

CD Review

Pasty Cline-Live At The Cimarron Ballroom (1961), Patsy Cline, MCA Records, 1997

For those of us of a certain age (growing up in the early 1960’s) the timeless voice of Patsy Cline, whether we were aware of it or not, formed the backdrop to many a school dance or other romantic endeavor. I was not a fan of Cline’s, at least not consciously, growing up but have come to appreciate her talent and her amazing voice. In another review in this space I have called her the “country torch singer,” par excellence. And she does not fail here. At least musically. On such classics as I Fall To Pieces (twice, the second being better than the first, ah, “warm up”), Walking After Midnight, Stupid Cupid, Foolin’ Round, and some twangy Cline dialogue between songs she is up to par.

However, thematically this CD, while of some value as a historic document (her first concert after a near fatal car accident), is another question. While it was interesting (and a little disconcerting live, circa 1961) to hear her work from the 1950's and early 1960s and covers of others I do not believe that this compilation does justice to her work. Patsy, like many another torch singer like Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday, needs to grow on you. The best way to do that is grab a Greatest Hits (or a Gold Definitive) album and sit back. You won’t want to turn the damn thing off. As for this one, if you have time to listen do so as an appetizer.

"Crazy"

Written by willie nelson
(as performed by willie nelson)
Also performed by patsy cline and ray price*

Crazy
Crazy for feeling so lonely
Im crazy
Crazy for feeling so blue

I knew
Youd love me as long as you wanted
And then someday
Youd leave me for somebody new

Worry
Why do I let myself worry
Wondrin
What in the world did I do

Crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
Im crazy for tryin
Crazy for cryin
And Im crazy
For lovin you

(repeat last verse)


Patsy Cline, She's Got You Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: She's Got You

“She's Got You”

I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed "with love," just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you

I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new,
I've got the records, she's got you

I've got your memory, or has it got me?
I really don't know, but I know it won't let me be

I've got your class ring; that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you

Patsy Cline, Why Can't He Be You Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: Why Can't He Be You


“Why Can't He Be You”

He takes me to the places you and I used to go
He tells me over and over that he loves me so
He gives me love that I never got from you
He loves me too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

He never fails to call and tell me I'm on his mind
And I'm lucky to have such a guy; I hear it all the time
And he does all the things that you would never do
He loves me, too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

He's not the one who dominates my mind and soul
And I should love him so, 'cause he loves me, I know
But his kisses leave me cold

He sends me flowers, calls on the hour, just to prove his love
And my friends say when he's around, I'm all he speaks of
And he does all the things that you would never do
He loves me too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: Sweet Dreams

“Sweet Dreams”

Sweet dreams of you
Every night I go through
Why can't I forget you and start my life anew
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

You don't love me, it's plain
I should know I'll never wear your ring
I should hate you the whole night through
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

Sweet dreams of you
Things I know can't come true
Why can't I forget the past, start loving someone new
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

***An Exercise In Historical Materialism- E. P. Thompson’s “The Making Of The English Working Class”- A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the British Marxist historian E.P. Thompson.

Book Review

The Making Of The English Working Class, E.P. Thompson, Vintage Books, New York, 1966

One of the working premises of historical materialism, simply and hopefully not too simply put, is that it is necessary to see historical phenomena not merely in immediate observable isolation but also in reference to the past events that formed the “pre-history” of the event observed, the current strands that make up the phenomena, and some future projections of what those events mean as the next stage begins to unfold. The making, and unmaking of classes, especially of the modern industrial working class where there is enough written material to make some reasonably judgments is particularly suited to an analysis using the methodology of historical materialism. And old-time British Marxist (and former British Communist Party member) did just that feat in bringing the social, political, economic, and, hell, even military strands that helped form the English working class, a class that proved to be the key catalyst and fore-running model for the industrial revolution in the West. Building off the work of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s co-thinker, and others in the 19th century and early 20th century Thompson has looked to the other, more then current sources (1960s) to fill out a broader interpretation that Engels was able to provide.

Of course no subject as large as the making of a class in modern society is capable of being contained even in the eight hundred pages of Thompson’s work, a work that moreover concentrates on the late 18th century emergence of a genuine radical tradition in England and works it way through to the great Reform Bill of 1832. Nevertheless starting with the democratic plebeian response in England to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 Thompson brings to life the first stirrings of what Marx’s (and later Marxists like Lenin and Trotsky) termed the transformation of a variated, somewhat undifferentiated mass coming from many quarters of earlier rural society (farm hands, artisans, casual city laborers, lumpen elements, religious sects, etc), a class in itself, into a class for itself. A class with some class consciousness of “the other” to put it in neat sociological terms.

The key name to remember here is Thomas Paine who had his fingerprints over all kinds of plebeian political movements in Europe and America. The formation of pro-Jacobin clubs in England (the corresponding societies, of course, led by London’s) , their ups and downs, especially once one got outside of the major cities and at those time when the English government was actively confronting various stages of that French revolution militarily forms the first part of the book. A modern radical plebeian tradition is firmly entrenched, if sometimes of necessity forced underground, from that period.

In the second part of the book Thompson deals with the various social, political, economic and cultural trends from the late 18th century on which form the objective basis for the creation of a distinct working class as a result of the upheavals in the nature of work. What we call the Industrial Revolution with the coming of harnessing of steam power. One key point here is the role of Methodism (Wesleyism) and other fringe religious sects in gaining adherents who would be disciplined enough for the work, and sober enough too.

Naturally Thompson also takes up the intertwined issues of the great increase in capitalist farming for the market in the war years that left many “masterless” men (women and children too) available to form the factory labor pool. And from the other end the demise of small specialty shop-ownership and craft artisanship in the face of mass production, usually cheaper mass production, under the emerging factory system is given full coverage by Thompson. I might add that he also makes a useful corrective about the Luddite movement that raged for a short period in reaction to that factory system. It was not merely a machine-smashing retrograde reaction to downward mobility by those previously respected skilled artisans and displaced farm hands but a fight to maintain quality in the face of “shoddy” as well.

The final part of the book finds Thompson patching together the various post-Napoleonic movements toward working class organization once the “victory” of the factory system was apparent, particularly the struggles for trade union recognition and simple democratic rights like freedom of expression and of the press. The various responses by reformers, and so-called reformers, like the famous socialist-industrialist Robert Owens, also are given full play. The most important aspect addressed by Thompson in the period though was the on-going (and now neglected, or “hidden”) struggle between what we would today describe as “direct action” reformers (hell, revolutionaries) and “gradualists” (hell, reformers), most associated with the name of Corbett, who would leave the capitalist/monarchist system intact. Some things never change.

In any case this review is just a snapshot of all the important scholarship that E.P. Thompson provided under one cover. And since it has been some years since this work was first introduced in the 1960s I am sure that some young communist or other social activist could do some useful work bringing it even further up to date with the material uncovered since Thompson’s time.

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1964-Just Before The Sea Change - With The Rolling Stones In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Dixie Cups performing their 1960s classic (who brought the house down with this number about 15 years ago at the Newport Folk festival of all places to show an example of a song with staying power Chapel Of Love

CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1964, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1996

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

“Isn’t that hair of yours a little long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you know what is good for you.” That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in North Adamsville households (and not just North Adamsville household either) ever since the British invasion brought longer hair (and a little less so, beards) into style. Of course when one thinks of the British invasion in the year 1964 one is not thinking about the American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock night, the 1964 parent world was getting up in arms.

And not just about hair styles either. But about trips to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both), sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements). Why can’t Eddie (he hated that name by the way) be like he was when he listened to Bobby Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX, mused Mrs. Rowley to herself. Now it’s the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention. And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirt and her, well her…

Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the neighbors, was getting worked up it anyway, "What about all the talk about doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And Eddie and that damn Peter Paul Markin, who used to be so nice when they all hung around together at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor and you at least knew they were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If Eddie’s father ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and maybe a strap coming out of the closet big as Eddie is. Worst though, worst that worrying about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country, leaving North Adamsville, defenseless against the communists with his talk of nuclear disarmament. Why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone and stick with his idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody upset."

Scene: “Young lady, that dress is too short for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on another one or you are not going out of this house,” barked Mrs. James Jackson, echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling (and not just North Adamsville mothers either) about their daughters dressing too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head. "And that Eddie (“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs. Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie), and his new found friends like Peter Paul Markin taking her to those strange coffeehouses instead of the high school dances on Saturday night. And endless talk about the n-----s down South and other trash talk. Commie trash about peace and getting rid of weapons. They should draft the whole bunch and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall. Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America."

Scene: Edward, Judy and Peter Paul Markin sitting in the Club Nana in Harvard Square sipping coffee, maybe pecking at the one brownie between, and listening to a local wanna-be folk singing strumming his stuff (who turned out to be none other than Eric Von Schmidt). Beside them cartons of books that they are sorting to be taken along with them when head South this summer after graduation exercises at North Adamsville High School are completed in June. They have already purchased their tickets as far as New York’s Port Authority where they will meet other heading south. Pete Paul turns to Edward and says, “Have you heard that song, Popsicles and Icicles by the Mermaids, it has got great melodic sense.” Yes, we are still just before the sea change. Good luck, young travelers.

***Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Once Again, Hard Times In Babylon- Growing-Up Working Poor"

Click on title to link to my blog entry of September 27, 2007 reposted here in honor of the struggle in Kentucky coal country entitled Once Again, Hard Times In Babylon for a link to information from that period.

Once Again, Hard Times in Babylon-revised

Markin comment:

I had, several years ago, received a recent comment (not on this site) concerning my take on the labor movement these days. (See my entry at the American Left History blog, The AFL-CIO bureaucracy and the 2008 elections, dated September 25, 2007). The gist of the comment concerned my argument on the necessity of organizing (or rather, in effect, re-organizing) the coal miners, in the eastern and western sections of America (and elsewhere as well). As part of that comment I noted that one of the problems in such organization is the geographical and physical isolation of the mines. I also noted that the miners tend to be a parochial lot and mistrustful of outsiders, as a result. That seemed to have set the reader off. In short, that person questioned my ‘credentials’ to speak on the question. He or she, apparently, missed the sentences about my father’s experiences as a young coal-miner in Eastern Kentucky. That does not qualify me to be president of the United Mineworkers Union (which, I believe, at last look required five years in the mines before one could run for that office) but I know the ‘coal’ in an indirect way. Here’s a little bio sketch on that point.

GROWING UP DIRT POOR IN THE 1950’S



Several years ago I wrote a personal commentary about a childhood friend from back in the old neighborhood in North Adamsville where I grew up in the 1950’s who had passed away.(see An Uncounted Casualty of War,, May 8, 2007 archives). I had also at that time been re-reading the then recently deceased investigative journalist David Halberstam’s book, The Fifties, that covers that same basic period. Halberstam’s take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age,’ rekindled some memories, a few painful. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon. Not so much for individual lacks like a steady (and reliable) family car to break out of the cramped quarters, house on house, where we lived once in a while. Or the inevitable hand-me-down clothes (all the way through high school, almost), or worst the Bargain Center bargains that were no bargains (the local “Wal-Mart” of the day to give you an idea of what I mean). Or even the always house coldness in winter (to save on precious fuel even in those cheap-priced heating oil times) and hotness in summer (ditto, save on electricity so no A/C, or fans).

They, and other such lacks, all had their place in the poor man’s pantheon, no question. No, what, in the end, turned things out badly was the sense of defeat that hung, hung heavily and almost daily over the household, the street, the neighborhood at a time when others, visibly and not so far away, were getting ahead. Some sociologist, some academic sociologist, for, sure, would call it the death of “rising expectations.” And for once they would be right, or at least on the right track. Thinking back on those times has also made me reflect on how the hard anti-communist politics of the period, the “red scare” left people like my parents high and dry, although they were as prone to support it as any American Legionaire. The defeat and destruction of the left-wing movement, principally pro-communist organizations, of that period has continued to leave a mark, and a gaping vacuum on today’s political landscape, and on this writer.

There are many myths about the 1950’s to be sure. However, one cannot deny that the key public myth was that those who had fought World War II and were afterwards enlisted in the anti-Soviet Cold War fight against communism were entitled to some breaks. The overwhelming desire for personal security and comfort on the part of those who had survived the Great Depression and fought the war (World War II just so there is no question about which in the long line of wars we are talking about) was not therefore totally irrational. That it came at the expense of other things like a more just and equitable society is a separate matter. Moreover, despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide.' The experience of my parents is proof of that. Thus this commentary is really about what happened to those, like my parents, who did not make it and were left to their personal fates without a rudder to get them through the rough spots. Yes, my parents were of the now much ballyhooed and misnamed ‘greatest generation’ but they were not in it.

I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and story and by Michael Harrington in his 1960s book The Other America. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these “hillbillies” were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left the mines to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

By all rights my father should have been able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and enjoyed home and hearth like the denizens of Levittown (New York and elsewhere) described in Halberstam’s book and shown on such classic 1950s television shows as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It To Beaver. But life did not go that way. Why? He had virtually no formal education. And moreover had three young sons born close together in the immediate post-war period. Furthermore he had no marketable skills usable in the Boston labor market. There was (and is) no call for coal-miners here. My father was a good man. He was a hard-working man; when he was able find work. He was an upright man. But he never drew a break. Unskilled labor, to which he was reduced, is notoriously unstable, and so his work life was one of barely making ends meet. Thus, well before the age when the two-parent working family became the necessary standard to get ahead, my mother went to work to supplement the family income. She too was an unskilled laborer. Thus, even with two people working we were always “dirt poor.” I have already run through enough of the litany of lacks to give an idea of what dirt poor meant in those hard times so we need not retrace those steps.

Our little family started life in the Adamsville housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell-holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the Valhalla of the newly emerging suburbs. By clawing and scratching my parents saved enough money to buy an extremely modest single-family house. Hell, why pussyfoot about it, a shack. The house, moreover, was in a neighborhood that was, and is, one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped, and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950’s, my parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off into decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. This is social progress?

But enough of all that. Where in this story though is there a place for militant left-wing political class-consciousness to break the trap? Not the sense of social inferiority of the poor before the rich (or the merely middle class). Damn, there was plenty of that kind of consciousness in our house. A phrase from the time, and maybe today although I don’t hear it much, said it all “keeping up with the Jones.’” Or else. But where was there an avenue in the 1950’s, when it could have made a difference, for a man like my father to have his hurts explained and have something done about them? No where. So instead it went internally into the life of the family and it never got resolved. One of his sons, this writer, has had luxury of being able to fight essentially exemplary propaganda battles in small left-wing socialist circles and felt he has done good work in his life. My father’s hurts needed much more. The "red scare" aimed mainly against the American Communist Party but affecting wider layers of society decimated any possibility that he could get the kind of redress he needed. That dear reader, in a nutshell, is why I proudly bear the name communist today. And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.

***Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-Hard Times In Babylon-Growing Up Working Poor In The 1950s

Click on title to link to my original post of Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Working Poor In The 1950s for a link to some "golden age" facts of life

Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Among The Working Poor In The 1950s-revised

Markin comment:

GROWING UP DIRT POOR IN THE 1950’S



Several years ago I wrote a personal commentary about a childhood friend from back in the old neighborhood in North Adamsville where I grew up in the 1950’s who had passed away.(see An Uncounted Casualty of War,, May 8, 2007 archives). I had also at that time been re-reading the then recently deceased investigative journalist David Halberstam’s book, The Fifties, that covers that same basic period. Halberstam’s take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age,’ rekindled some memories, a few painful. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon. Not so much for individual lacks like a steady (and reliable) family car to break out of the cramped quarters, house on house, where we lived once in a while. Or the inevitable hand-me-down clothes (all the way through high school, almost), or worst the Bargain Center bargains that were no bargains (the local “Wal-Mart” of the day to give you an idea of what I mean). Or even the always house coldness in winter (to save on precious fuel even in those cheap-priced heating oil times) and hotness in summer (ditto, save on electricity so no A/C, or fans).

They, and other such lacks, all had their place in the poor man’s pantheon, no question. No, what, in the end, turned things out badly was the sense of defeat that hung, hung heavily and almost daily over the household, the street, the neighborhood at a time when others, visibly and not so far away, were getting ahead. Some sociologist, some academic sociologist, for, sure, would call it the death of “rising expectations.” And for once they would be right, or at least on the right track. Thinking back on those times has also made me reflect on how the hard anti-communist politics of the period, the “red scare” left people like my parents high and dry, although they were as prone to support it as any American Legionaire. The defeat and destruction of the left-wing movement, principally pro-communist organizations, of that period has continued to leave a mark, and a gaping vacuum on today’s political landscape, and on this writer.

There are many myths about the 1950’s to be sure. However, one cannot deny that the key public myth was that those who had fought World War II and were afterwards enlisted in the anti-Soviet Cold War fight against communism were entitled to some breaks. The overwhelming desire for personal security and comfort on the part of those who had survived the Great Depression and fought the war (World War II just so there is no question about which in the long line of wars we are talking about) was not therefore totally irrational. That it came at the expense of other things like a more just and equitable society is a separate matter. Moreover, despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide.' The experience of my parents is proof of that. Thus this commentary is really about what happened to those, like my parents, who did not make it and were left to their personal fates without a rudder to get them through the rough spots. Yes, my parents were of the now much ballyhooed and misnamed ‘greatest generation’ but they were not in it.

I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and story and by Michael Harrington in his 1960s book The Other America. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these “hillbillies” were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left the mines to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

By all rights my father should have been able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and enjoyed home and hearth like the denizens of Levittown (New York and elsewhere) described in Halberstam’s book and shown on such classic 1950s television shows as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It To Beaver. But life did not go that way. Why? He had virtually no formal education. And moreover had three young sons born close together in the immediate post-war period. Furthermore he had no marketable skills usable in the Boston labor market. There was (and is) no call for coal-miners here. My father was a good man. He was a hard-working man; when he was able find work. He was an upright man. But he never drew a break. Unskilled labor, to which he was reduced, is notoriously unstable, and so his work life was one of barely making ends meet. Thus, well before the age when the two-parent working family became the necessary standard to get ahead, my mother went to work to supplement the family income. She too was an unskilled laborer. Thus, even with two people working we were always “dirt poor.” I have already run through enough of the litany of lacks to give an idea of what dirt poor meant in those hard times so we need not retrace those steps.

Our little family started life in the Adamsville housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell-holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the Valhalla of the newly emerging suburbs. By clawing and scratching my parents saved enough money to buy an extremely modest single-family house. Hell, why pussyfoot about it, a shack. The house, moreover, was in a neighborhood that was, and is, one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped, and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950’s, my parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off into decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. This is social progress?

But enough of all that. Where in this story though is there a place for militant left-wing political class-consciousness to break the trap? Not the sense of social inferiority of the poor before the rich (or the merely middle class). Damn, there was plenty of that kind of consciousness in our house. A phrase from the time, and maybe today although I don’t hear it much, said it all “keeping up with the Jones.’” Or else. But where was there an avenue in the 1950’s, when it could have made a difference, for a man like my father to have his hurts explained and have something done about them? No where. So instead it went internally into the life of the family and it never got resolved. One of his sons, this writer, has had luxury of being able to fight essentially exemplary propaganda battles in small left-wing socialist circles and felt he has done good work in his life. My father’s hurts needed much more. The "red scare" aimed mainly against the American Communist Party but affecting wider layers of society decimated any possibility that he could get the kind of redress he needed. That dear reader, in a nutshell, is why I proudly bear the name communist today. And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Rock ‘n’ Rock Era: 1961-When Gary Ladd Danced The North Adamsville High School Dance Night Away- Not-With Chubby Checker In Mind

CD Review

The Rock ‘n’ Rock Era: 1961, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the pieces of teen life-driven artwork that graces each CD in this series.

Saturday night, any third Saturday of the month from September to May, when every red-blooded teen boy and girl in the 1961 North Adamsville High School be-bop,be-bop night could only be in one locale, or want to be. That was the night of the monthly seasonally-themed high school hop where anyone, even freshmen and sophomores, could ante up the dollar admission and dance the night away. Well, almost dance the night away. And that is the dilemma confronting one freshman, Gary Ladd (he is the “wallflower” way off to the side of the gym almost into the wall if you didn’t think you saw him on one of the nights in question).

Gary, well, we might as well have our moment of truth right up front, can’t dance. Can’t dance a damn, to hell, heaven or any place in between. Two- left feet. Two left-feet despite the best efforts of one Agnes Ladd, North Adamsville Class of 1961 Vice President, whose own feet have taken a terrible beating trying to teach little brother Gary the elements of the waltz, the fox trot, and hell, even the twist to no avail. But Gary, no twerp under his two left-footed exterior, has always, as he put it, exercised his democratic right to be at these universal dances, come hell or high water.

But this night, this warm April Springfest Dance night, things might just be a little different as Gary takes his place against the far wall (the wall farthest away from the girl “wallflowers” just in case you wanted an exact location. Mostly wallflowers, boy or girl, are keeping their respective distances on the odd chance that someone may actually come up and ask them to dance). First off this month the local craze rock band sensations, The Rockin’ Ramrods, are here live on the makeshift bandstand. And just this minute they are tuning up with the appropriately named Please Stay by the Drifters. Secondly, a new girl in town, Elsie Mae Horton, is here. Naturally the mere fact that she is here is added reason why Gary is here (and why he tortured his sister Agnes to try, try in vain, to teach him some dance steps). See Gary has the “bug” for Elsie Mae, yah, he is smitten.

Now this Elsie Mae is maybe, on a scale of one to ten, about a six so it is not looks that have Gary (and about six other guys), well, smitten. But what Elsie Mae has is nothing but smarts, book smarts, idea smarts, talk smarts you name it smarts and one of the sweetest smiles this side of heaven. And, as Gary found out early on in one of their shared classes, very easy to talk to about anything. Yes, he is smitten; the only unknown is whether she can dance good enough to stay out of his way. That is if he gets up the nerve to ask her. And as the Ramrods start their first set with Gary Bonds’ School Is Out (praise be) he notices her coming in the door. Heart pounding he starts sinking into the wall again.

As they finish with Brother Bonds the Ramrods start in on The Impressions’ Gypsy Woman before Gary realizes that Elsie Mae has drawn a bee-line straight for him and is standing right in front of him, turning a little red. “Oh, my god,” Gary whispers under his breathe, “she is going to ask me to dance. No way.” The usually easy to talk to Elsie Mae though says nothing, nothing but turns a little redder as the Ramrods cover the Pips' Every Beat Of My Heart (nicely done too). She is waiting for Gary to ask her, if you can believe that. Well, two-left feet or not, he does ask her. And she smiles a little smile as she “accepts.” Relief.

Needless to say when they did their dance, The Edsels’ Rama Lama Ding Dong, it was nothing but a disaster. A Gary disaster? Yes. But here is the funny part. Elsie Mae Horton, formerly of Gloversville and new to North Adamsville so of unknown dance quality, had two-left feet too. Get this though. When the dance was mercifully finished, and the two had actually survived, Elsie Mae thanked Gary and told him that he was a wonderful dancer and she wished that she could dance like him. Whee! Here is the real kicker though. Elsie Mae had also been taking dancing lessons, unsuccessfully. Dancing lessons so that two-left feet Elsie Mae Horton could dance with Gary Ladd. See, she was “smitten” too. And so if you did not see Gary or Elsie Mae at the Mayfair Dance you have now solved that mystery. They were sitting, sitting very close to each other, on the seawall down at Adamsville Beach laughing about starting a “Two-Left Feet” Club. With just two members.