Friday, February 28, 2014


Heroic Wikileaks Whistleblower Private Chelsea Manning ‘s Fight For Freedom Will Again Be Remembered At The Fourth Annual Veterans For Peace-Led Saint Patrick’s Peace Parade in South Boston On March 16, 2014

 

 



We will be forming up at the corner of D Street and West Fourth in South Boston (take Redline MBTA to Broadway Station-walk up four blocks and then left) at 1 PM for a 2 PM step-off (note time change). Supporters of Chelsea Manning will be out in force distributing informational leaflets and stickers as well as encouraging participants to sign the Amnesty International and Private Manning Support Network petitions calling on President Barack Obama to pardon her. We will not leave our sister behind        
********
President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning

Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.

We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.

We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.

Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.

“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”

Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”

Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:

Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.

Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.

Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but  the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.

Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.

She has been:

Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.
• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.
Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.
• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.
Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.
We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.
FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________
STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________

CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________
EMAIL& PHONE _____________________________________________________________
Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org
Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

 

Note that this image is PVT Manning's preferred photo.


Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
 
 
 
***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-
In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night-Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel"


Markin comment:


This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
************
MARK DINNING
"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

Thursday, February 27, 2014


***A 50th Anniversary Of Sorts -Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For A Brother Who Did Not Make It, Jimmy J., North Adamsville Class Of 1966

 

 

Peter Paul Markin North Adamsville High School- Class of 1964 comment:

 

Make no mistake, despite the lightly- dusted change of names and places to protect the innocent, and the guilty too now that I think about the matter, this honor sketch is about our old town, no question.    

 

Go to this link for the sketch since this site only allows 5000 character messages.  

 

http://talesfromoldnorthquincy.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-50-th-anniversary-of-sorts-out-in.html

 

 

***A 50th Anniversary Of Sorts -Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For A Brother Who Did Not Make It, Jimmy J., North Adamsville Class Of 1966

Peter Paul Markin North Adamsville High School- Class of 1964 comment:

Make no mistake, despite the lightly- dusted change of names and places to protect the innocent, and the guilty too now that I think about the matter, this honor sketch is about our old town, no question.

Scene: Around and inside the old North Adamsville High School gym entrance on the Hunt Street side the night before the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross- town arch-rival Adamsville High in 1963. For those who are not familiar with North Adamsville or who through the ravages of time, too much booze, too many drugs, or too many, well just too many Hunt Street is the street that had the Merit gas station, now Hess, on the corner. A place where we filled up, we who owned such treasures, that dream 1957 Chevy that had everybody turning their heads, every girl, or more likely our father’s Plymouth on pretty please loan, just be careful with the damn thing and, yes, fill ‘em up before you bring it home, home by midnight, no later and no arguments.

The street itself is fairly non-descript, filled, like most streets in the Atlantic section with double and triple-decker houses, mostly two unlike kindred, Irish kindred, Dorchester (Dot, okay) and South Boston (Jesus, Southie, okay) and small lot single family houses, cottages really all packed closely together against the unimproved land behind the street. Houses representing, those small lot cottages too closely packed together representing, that nagging hunger of our parents to have a small piece of the American pie after the turmoils of the want-filled Great Depression 1930s. And after slogging through World War II during the heart of the 1940s, short-cutting their youth, carrying a rifle on the shoulder, or home fires waiting, waiting for Johnny and Jimmy to come back, come back in one piece, please. And their broods, their spawn (nice word, huh), like their brethren on Billings Road , Faxon Road, Hancock Street, East Squantum Street, Young Street, Newbury Street, the seven tree-named streets, the five ocean- signified streets, fill, over-fill, the four grades of the high school that the baby-boomer explosion, their explosions, has created. That motley will be well-represented this pre-game rally night. No question.

[By the way thinking about that Atlantic section of the old townevery grandmother, every second or third generation resident grandmother, calling, no, cursing, under their breathe cursing the place, cursing “one-horse Atlantic” from the days when one needed to “go up the Downs” to get family provisions and services, or go without.]

Of course the time of which I speak is a time before they built what is apparently, that apparently due to many years away from the old school and not up on changes until recently, a significant addition to the school on that side of the building modeled on the office buildings across the street behind the MBTA stop and a tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination. Then though only a recently constructed new gym, an American Standard gym, also reflecting concrete construction and lowest bidder imagination, anchored that part of the building.

This night the spawn (still nice, huh) I spoke of, a generous proportion of them seniors taking one last memory home before the deluge of a candid world hits them come June. Others too are present some at some ghostly sufferance from lowly and despised frosh, barely passable sophomores, and presentable juniors, some of their parents taking a minute out from festive next day preparations. More, a gentle sprinkling of teachers, mostly teachers who had half a heart and maybe tossed a kind word once. the hard-assed don’t mix with the rabble that sit before them day after day, a motley of alumni recent and ancient, ancient seemingly from founder Adams’ time. More still a selection of the town waywards looking for warmth before a warm furnace-fueled gym for a couple of hours usually closed against the night, and some boosters, alumni or not, who have for their own reasons decided to cast their fates and bleed red and black like true Red Raiders whatever high school they might have graduated from before landing in old North Adamsville. All are milling in the front door of the gym waiting to purchase booster tickets, pompoms, red and black naturally to be waved, endlessly waved that evening at the slightest prompting, three for a dollar raffle tickets to support some senior class project, most likely that trip to Mexico that Miss Pratt was trying to put together, in the foyer inside making stealthy preliminary observations about who and who was not present, and with whom if present, or the forlorn, the luckless or just plain woe-begotten are already in the bleachers trying to put on a brave front against the hard fact, the hard school social fact that they do not fit in.

And that is our scene in those long last moments before the annual rally is to begin. But, frankly, it could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. A time when the social cohesion of the whole North Adamsville village glued the community around a common ritual, a rite of passage if you like. A time when the denizens of the Dublin Grille over on Sagamore Street (or the Irish Pub on Billings Road, Guido’s on Atlantic Avenue, Patty’s Pub on Wollaston Boulevard, I know, I know Adamsville Shore Drive, Bruno’s on East Squantum it was all the same except the locations), mostly working-class Irishmen and a scattering of Italians abandoned their cherished bar stools and cozy booths, including my father and other kindred, and hiked the five blocks to the high school to root the latest edition of the gridiron's goliaths on. A time too when such endeavors as football (and fast cars, “watching the submarine races” with your honey down at Adamsville Beach, HoJo’s ice cream, Fourth of July celebrations, your first drink of alcohol) were cultural ornaments of that second or third generation of immigrants, European immigrants. And I am willing to bet six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers that this story “speaks”, except for the names, to those who dwell in the town today as well. Listen up:

Sure the air was cold, you could see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and the night felt cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England night. I could too as I joined the mob trying to run the gauntlet in the foyer and see what is what, see what they evening may bring, stealthy observation bring. A mass of humanity was moving, bundled up against the weathers, toward that gym entrance front door quickly from automobiles parked helter-skelter on the several streets adjacent to the high school. Others have short- haul walked from the tree-named streets, maybe the ocean-named streets too probably quicker that night than driving except for those who will meander down toward frosty Adamsville Beach after the rally to join the other fogged-windowed cars to do, well to do in case there are grandkids around, okay. Still others took that old fume -filled Eastern Mass bus that never seemed to show on time, never when you were in a hurry or it was cold, cold like that night and waiting in some half-baked lean-too for shelter froze the toes.

It was also starless, as the weather report was projecting rain, maybe freezing rain if the temperature dipped for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I was worried about, or cared about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that matter. Faced gales coming out of hell Bay of Fundy around Maine shorelines, watched, watched in horror, and candidly fear, as double-seawalls could not hold Mother Nature back when a big blow came through Marblehead Neck one time, got drowned, soaked to the bone, in pelting rain Newport, really Block Island so a little sleet would not have bothered me then. No, this damn, was for the possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field would slow up our vaunted offensive attack. And good as that attack was guided by Tim Riley and rambling wreck Bullwinkle (no further name need be given for that moniker says it all about the rambling wreck who thrilled us with his dogged forward, ever forward slashes and thrusts against mere mortals and who is rightly immortalized in the old school’s hall of fame), a little rain, and a little mud, can be the great equalizer.

This after all is class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and his boys talk about, you know the workers who produce whatever needs to be produced and the bosses grabbing a big share, a big wad of dough, from that production, although now that I think of it there might be something to that theory here as well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but just then I was worried, worried to perdition, about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle was Class A (more boys) Adamsville against Class B (fewer boys) North and we needed every advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football was played for keeps and honor simpler designations like A and B worked just fine.)

Do I have to describe the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing is any high school gym, any public high school gym, anywhere. Foldaway bleachers, foldaway divider (to separate boys for girls in gym class, if you can believe that), waxed and polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, maybe) with various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court. If you have not been in a high school gym in a while or you want to invoke memory lane check out the school dance scene in the baby-boomer coming -of –age- in- the-early- 1960s classic film, American Graffiti, where you will see what I mean. (Yeah, I know car-crazed, souped-up hot-rod valley boys and girls Modesto was not our pristine ocean-swell shoreline borrow your father’s car, some Nash Rambler or something, with the usual caveats about fueling the thing up, not crashing the thing into some wall and bring it home early but the gyms were the same, the dreams were the same, and the awkward boy-girl-dance thing, jesus, you know that was the same, and maybe still is.)

That should do it on the architecture of the gym. I will not, I swear I will not, go on and on like some latter day Marcel Proust about the decorations that festooned the walls and rafters, except they were strewn hither and yon throughout the gym. A few hand-make posters seemingly drawn by somebody’s younger brother or sister before nap time urging Go Raiders, Beat Adamsville, or some team member designated by shirt number to do those things. But mainly the place was filled with black and red little cheap crepe throw-away banners. Not just black and red though Red Raider black and red, black signifying who knows what but red, blood red signifying that we bled Raider red, or we had better that night.

The most important thing though was that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and just plan townies were milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the Red Raider clan, those who had bled, have bled, bleed or wanted to bleed Raider red, and even those oddballs that didn’t. This upcoming battle, as always, stirred the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town. That night of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition to performing his patriotic duty, was looking around, and looking around frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she had come for the festivities, and every unattached red-blooded girl student, ditto on the duty, for that certain he. Don’t tell you didn’t take a peek, or at least give a stealthy glance.

Among this throng are a couple of fervent quasi-jock male students, one of them who is writing this sketch, the other, great track man, Bill Brady, was busy getting in his glances, both members of the Class of 1964, with a vested interest in seeing their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross- town rival. And also, in the interest of full disclosure, were both in the hunt for those elusive shes. I did not see the certain she that I was looking for, that classmate Dora, a girl as crazy for politics, history, modern literature, and poetry, yes, poetry what of it, who had told me earlier in the day before the close of school for the first long weekend of the year that she would come, if she could, and who I often dreamed of then. But, as was my perfidious nature then, I had also taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate prospects.

This, the final football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, had us bringing extra energy to our night’s performance, including purchase of those tacky crepe pompom shakers. Jesus, all because some girl Bill was interested in was on the Boosters Club table as we came in. We were on the prowl and ready to do everything in our power to bring home victory. ....Well, almost everything except donning a football uniform to face the opposing monstrous goliaths of the gridiron. We fancied ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits like running around the streets of the old town in shorts in all weathers almost getting run over by irate drivers and sidewalk walkers as trackmen, those just mentioned stealthy glances, and that sort of thing.

Finally, after much hubbub (and, as I observed the scene, more coy and meaningful looks all around the place than one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally began. At first somewhat subdued due to the very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the dastardly murder of one of our own, Jack, down in cowboy wild west heathen Texas, especially for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd. I had been particularly hard-hit since I had walked the streets of the old town putting campaign literature in every doorway and had bought, bought heavily into the fresh green dream of a “newer world” that his election had heralded. We all remember where we were that previous week, and although we have forgotten much some fifty years later not that.  Most of us were in class when the announcement that the President had been mortally wounded was made over the P.A. system. We had lost some of our innocent, and, worse, that promise for the young heralded by his election, that making and doing good in the world, whether you bought into the New Frontier or not seemed an unlikely promise. But everyone, including me, seemingly, had tacitly agreed that for that little window of time the outside world and its horrors would not intrude.

A few obligatory (and forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by Mr. Jim Walsh, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty uniformly stressed good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not mattering about victory but how you played the game droned away. Of course, no self-respecting “true” Red Raider had anything but thoughts of mayhem, maybe murder too if it could have been gotten away with, and of casting the cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying was so much wasted wind. This “bummer” prelude, obligatory or not, was followed with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly, taking the floor and twirling red and black things in the air, and the like. Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types for all I knew. Certainly they were not in the same league as the majorettes, who I would not hear a word against, and who certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I was saving one of my sly, coy glances for one of them just then, sweet Rita Givens.

What every red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, was looking forward to by then was the cheer-leading to get things moving led by the senior girls like the vivacious Ruth Goward, the spunky Jenny Weinfeld, and the plucky Laura Pratt. They did not fail us with their flips, dips, double something stuff, gymnastic stuff that I don’t remember the names of except I couldn’t do in gym class, not even close, and hearty rah-rahs. Strangely, the band, a motley of brass-players, drummers and clangers led by that bevy of majorettes when it was their turn, with one exception and you know the exception, did not inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those girls could twirl.

But all this spectacle was so much, too much, introduction. For what was wanted, what was demanded of the situation, up close and personal, was a view of the Goliaths that will run over the cross- town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell ourselves silly. The season had been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to a bigger area team on their home field, and our team was highly regarded by lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike.

Naturally, in the spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and non-seniors were introduced first by Coach Lion. Then came the drum roll of the senior starters, some of whom had been playing for an eternity it seemed. Names like guiding hand Tim Riley, speedy Will Simmons, husky Len Munson, beefy Peter Duchamp, steady Jack Zona, reliable Dick McNally, redoubtable ( don’t ask him what that means, please) Jeff Fallon, wily Carl McDonald, dingbat Stewart Chase, mad dog "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget him. I don't need that kind of madness coming down on my face, even now.), and on and on.

Oh, yes and “Bullwinkle,” a behemoth of a run-over fullback, a night train wreaking havoc over many a solid defensive line even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something was missing. A sullen collective pout filled the room. After the intros were over the suddenly restless crowd needed verbal reassurances from their warriors that the enemy was done for. And as he ambled up to the microphone and said just a couple of words we got just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. He grunted the words “Victory over Adamsville.” That was all we needed. Boys and girls, this one was in the bag. And as we shortly thereafter headed for the exits to dream our second-hand dreams of glory the band, a little less subdued then, played the school fight song, On North Adamsville to the well-known tune of On Wisconsin.

Yes, those were the days when boys and girls, the young and old, the wise or ignorance bled Raider red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those furtive glances at certain hes and shes? I hope so.

 
***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- When Billie Fought To Be Church Hall Dance Champ



From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Recently I read a short CD review by my old high school times friend, Peter Paul Markin (actually just after high school graduation friend where we met at a dance club pursuing the same young woman who in the end went off with somebody else) who, seemingly, has endlessly gone back to his early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. His central premise was that while time and ear had eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seemed obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for his/our generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music. I have no quarrel with that premise and we have discussed it subsequently over many a cold winter drink. 

Those conversations got me thinking though about my own separate road to rock at a time when we, we small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word), we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Peter Paul who I did not know then but another who I will talk about some other time later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery-operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household (Markin's too when we later laughed about the similarities of our early teenage household existences) not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.

And that pious, quietist, chase the devil and his (or her) devil’s music away, say a million Acts of Contrition, church-bent, Roman Catholic church-bent, part formed a great deal of the backdrop for how we related to that break-out rock music. And why we had to practically form a secret cult to enjoy it. Now you all know, since you all went to elementary school just like I did, although maybe you didn’t attend in the Cold War, red scare, we-could-all-be-bombed-dead tomorrow 1950s like I did, that those mandatory elementary school dances where we rough-hewn boys learned, maybe we learned, our first social graces were nothing but cream puff affairs. Lots of red-faced guys and giggling girls. Big deal, right?

What you maybe don’t’ know, especially if you were not from a working-class neighborhood (or a pubic housing project) made up of mainly Irish and Italian Roman Catholic families like I was is that “cream puff” school stuff was seen by the Church (need I add any more identifying words?) as the devil’s playground. Later, I found out from some Protestant friends that their church leaders felt the same way. No, not those Universalist-Unitarian types who think everything humankind does that is not hurtful is okay but real hard-nosed Protestants, like Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. So to counter that secular godlessness, at least in our area, the Church sponsored Friday night dances. Chaste, very chaste, or that was the intention, Friday night dances.

Now these dances from the outward look would look just like those devil-sponsored secular school dances. They were, for example, held in the basement of the church (St. whoever, Our Lady of the wherever, The Sacred whatever, or fill in the blank), a basement, given the norms of public architecture, was an almost exact rectangular, windowless, linoleum-floored, folding chairs and tables, raised stage replica of the elementary school auditorium. That church locale, moreover, when dressed up like on those Friday nights with the usual crepe, handmade signs of welcome, and refreshment offerings also looked the same.

And just so that you don’t think I am going overboard they played the same damn (oops) music as at school, except the sound system (donated, naturally, by some pious parishioner, looking for good conduct points from the fiery-eyed "fire and brimstone" pastor) was usually barely audible. The real difference then, and maybe now, for all I know, was that rather than a few embarrassed public school teacher-chaperones drafted against their wills, I hope, or like to hope, every stick-in-the-mud person (or so it seemed) over the age of eighteen was drafted into the lord’s army for the evening. Purpose: to make sure there was no untoward, unnatural, unexpected, or unwanted touching of anything, by anyone, for any reason. So, now that I think about it, this was really the Friday night prison dance. But not always.

Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. The Billie who wanted fame and fortune (or at least girls) so bad that he could almost taste it. The Billie who entered a teenage talent show dressed up like Bill Haley and whose mother-made suit jacket arms fell off during the performance and he wound up with all the girls in schools as a consolation prize. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or, maybe, almost best friend we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music, rock music that is.

During the summer, and here I am speaking of the summer of 1958, these church-held dances started a little earlier and finished a little later. That was fine by us. But part of the reason was that during July (starting after the Fourth Of July, if I recall) and August there was a weekly dance-off elimination contest. Now these things were meant to be to show off partner-type dancing skills so I never even dreamed of participating, although I was now hip to the girl thing (or at least twelve-year old hip to it), and gladly. Not so Billie. You know, or if you don’t then I will tell you so you know now, that Billie was a pretty good singer, and a pretty good shaker as a dancer. Needless to say these skills were not on the official papal list of ways to prove you had some Fred Astaire-like talent. What you needed to demonstrate, with a partner, a girl partner, was waltz-like, fox-trot stuff. Stuff you were glad to know when last, slow dance time came around but not before, please, not before.

But see, if you didn’t know before, I will remind you, Billie was a fiend to win a talent contest, a contest that, the way he figured it, was his ticket out of "the projects" and into all the cars he wanted, all the girls, and half of everything else in the world. Yah, I know, but poor boys have dreams too. And I don’t suppose it is too early to remind you, like I did with the lost sleeve teenage talent show, that Billie later spent those pent-up energies less productively, much less productively once he knew the score, his score about life. Today though, this night, this Friday night, at the start of the contest Billie is going for the brass ring. See, Billie, secretly, at least secretly from me, was taking dance lessons, slow dance lessons with Rosalie, Christ Rosalie, the prettiest girl in our class, the girl that if I had known the word then I would have called fetching, very fetching. That was, and is, high praise from me. And, see also, teaching the pair the ropes was none other than Rosalie’s mother who before she became a mother was some kind of dance queen (I don’t know, or don’t remember, if I knew the details of that woman’s prior life before then). It was almost like the fix was in.

Now you know just as well as I do that I have no story, or at least no story worth telling, if Billie and Rosalie don’t make it out of the box, if they just get eliminated quickly. Sure they made it, and now they are standing there getting ready to do battle against the final pair for the sainted dance championship of the christian world, projects branch. Now my take on the dancing all summer was there wasn’t much difference, at least noticeable difference, between the pairs. I think the judges thought so too, the junior priest, a priest that the pastor threw into this dance thing because he was closer to our ages than the old-timer "fire and brimstone" pastor was, and four ladies from the Ladies' Sodality usually took quite a bit of time before deciding who was eliminated. Rosalie’s mother (and my mother, as well) thought the same thing when we compared notes. See, now with Billie under contract (oh, yah, naturally I was his manager, or something like that) I had developed into an ace dance critic. Mainly though, I was downplaying the opposition to boost my pair's chances, and, incidentally, falling, falling big, for Rosalie. And not just for her dancing.

So here we were at the finals. It was a wickedly hot night in that dungeon basement so the jackets and ties, if wore (and that needed to be worn by the contestant males), were off. Also, by the rules, each finalist couple got to choose its own music and form of dancing. The first couple did this dreamy Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers all hands flailing and quick-movement thing that even impressed me. After than performance, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billie talking to Rosalie, talking fast and talking furiously. Something was up, definitely, something was up.

Well, something was up. Billie, old sweet boy Billie, old get out of the projects at any cost Billie, old take no prisoners Billie decided that he was going to stretch the rules and play to his strength by doing a Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock jitterbug thing to show the judges his “moves” and what we would now call going "outside the box." And he had gotten Rosalie, sweet, fetching, deserves better Rosalie, to go along with him on it. See, Rosalie, during all those dance lesson things had fallen for old Billie and his words were like gold. Damn.

I will say that Billie and Rosalie tore the place up, at least I guess Billie did because I was, exclusively, looking at Rosalie who really danced her head off. Who won? Let me put it this way, this time the judges, that priest and his coterie of do-gooders didn’t take much time deciding that the other couple won. Rosalie was crushed. Billie, like always Billie, chalked it up to the "fix" being in for the other couple. Life was against the free spirits, he said, something it took me a lot longer to figure out. Rosalie's family moved away not long after that contest, like a lot of people just keeping time at the projects until their ships to better days came in, and I heard that she was later still furious at Billie for crossing her up with that fast-dancing. Yah, but, boy, she could twirl that thing.
Markin comment:

Recently I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we, we small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word), we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie whom I will talk about later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery-operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Ya right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.

And that pious, quietist, chase the devil and his (or her) devil’s music away, say a million Acts of Contrition, church-bent, Roman Catholic church-bent, part formed a great deal of the backdrop for how we related to that break-out rock music. And why we had to practically form a secret cult to enjoy it. Now you all know, since you all went to elementary school just like I did, although maybe you didn’t attend in the Cold War, red scare, we could-all-be-bombed-dead tomorrow 1950s like I did, that those mandatory elementary school dances where we rough-hewn boys learned, maybe we learned, our first social graces were nothing but cream puff affairs. Lots of red-faced guys and giggling girls. Big deal, right? What you maybe don’t’ know, especially if you were not from a working class neighborhood (or a pubic housing project) made up of mainly Irish and Italian Roman Catholic families like I was is that “cream puff” school stuff was seen by the Church (need I add any more identifying words?) as the devil’s playground. Later, I found out from some Protestant friends that their church leaders felt the same way. No, not those Universalist-Unitarian types who think everything humankind does that is not hurtful is okay but real hard-nosed Protestants, like Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. So to counter that secular godlessness, at least in our area, the Church sponsored Friday night dances. Chaste, very chaste, or that was the intention, Friday night dances.

Now these dances from the outward look would look just like those devil-sponsored secular school dances. They were, for example, held in the basement of the church (St. whoever, Our Lady of the wherever, The Sacred whatever, or fill in the blank), a basement, given the norms of public architecture, was an almost exact rectangular, windowless, linoleum-floored, folding chairs and tables, raised stage replica of the elementary school auditorium. That church locale, moreover, when dressed up like on those Friday nights with the usual crepe, handmade signs of welcome, and refreshment offerings also looked the same. And just so that you don’t think I am going overboard they played the same damn (oops) music as at school, except the sound system (donated, naturally, by some pious parishioner, looking for good conduct points from the fiery-eyed "fire and brimstone" pastor) was usually barely audible. The real difference then, and maybe now, for all I know, was that rather than a few embarrassed public school teacher-chaperones drafted against their wills, I hope, or like to hope, every stick-in-the-mud person (or so it seemed) over the age of eighteen was drafted into the lord’s army for the evening. Purpose: to make sure there was no untoward, unnatural, unexpected, or unwanted touching of anything, by anyone, for any reason. So, now that I think about it, this was really the Friday night prison dance. But not always.

Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. The Billie who wanted fame and fortune (or at least girls) so bad that he could almost taste it. The Billie who entered a teenage talent show dressed up like Bill Haley and whose mother-made suit jacket arms fell off during the performance and he wound up with all the girls in schools as a consolation prize. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or, maybe, almost best friend we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music , rock music that is.

During the summer, and here I am speaking of the summer of 1958, these church-held dances started a little earlier and finished a little later. That was fine by us. But part of the reason was that during July (starting after the Fourth Of July, if I recall) and August there was a weekly dance-off elimination contest. Now these things were meant to be to show off partner-type dancing skills so I never even dreamed of participating, although I was now hip to the girl thing (or at least twelve year old hip to it), and gladly. Not so Billie.You know, or if you don’t then I will tell you so you know now, that Billie was a pretty good singer, and a pretty good shaker as a dancer. Needless to say these skills were not on the official papal list of ways to prove you had some Fred Astaire-like talent. What you needed to demonstrate, with a partner, a girl partner, was waltz-like, fox-trot stuff. Stuff you were glad to know when last, slow dance time came around but not before, please, not before.

But see, if you didn’t know before, I will remind you, Billie was a fiend to win a talent contest, a contest that, the way he figured it, was his ticket out of "the projects" and into all the cars he wanted, all the girls, and half of everything else in the world. Ya, I know, but poor boys have dreams too. And I don’t suppose it is too early to remind you, like I did with the lost sleeve teenage talent show, that Billie later spent those pent-up energies less productively, much less productively once he knew the score, his score about life. Today though, this night, this Friday night, at the start of the contest Billie is going for the brass ring. See, Billie, secretly, at least secretly from me, was taking dance lessons, slow dance lessons with Rosalie, Christ Rosalie, the prettiest girl in our class, the girl that if I had known the word then I would have called fetching, very fetching. That was, and is, high praise from me. And, see also, teaching the pair the ropes is none other than Rosalie’s mother who before she became a mother was some kind of dance queen (I don’t know, or don’t remember, if I knew the details of that woman’s prior life before then). It’s almost like the fix was in.

Now you know just as well as I do that I have no story, or at least no story worth telling, if Billie and Rosalie don’t make it out of the box, if they just get eliminated quickly. Sure they made it, and now they are standing there getting ready to do battle against the final pair for the sainted dance championship of the christian world, projects branch. Now my take on the dancing all summer was there wasn’t much difference, at least noticeable difference, between the pairs. I think the judges thought so too, the junior priest, a priest that the pastor threw into this dance thing because he was closer to our ages than the old-timer "fire and brimstone" pastor was, and four ladies from the Ladies' Sodality usually took quite a bit of time before deciding who was eliminated. Rosalie’s mother (and my mother, as well) thought the same thing when we compared notes. See, now with Billie under contract (oh, ya, naturally I was his manager, or something like that) I had developed into an ace dance critic. Mainly though, I was downplaying the opposition to boost my pair's chances, and, incidentally, falling, falling big, for Rosalie. And not just for her dancing.

So here we were at the finals. It was a wickedly hot night in that dungeon basement so the jackets and ties, if wore (and that needed to be worn by the contestant males), were off. Also, by the rules, each finalist couple got to choose its own music and form of dancing. The first couple did this dreamy Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers all hands flailing and quick-movement thing that even impressed me. After than performance, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billie talking to Rosalie, talking fast and talking furiously. Something was up, definitely, something was up.

Well, something was up. Billie, old sweet boy Billie, old get out of the projects at any cost Billie, old take no prisoners Billie decided that he was going to stretch the rules and play to his strength by doing a Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock jitterbug thing to show the judges his “moves” and what we would now call going "outside the box." And he had gotten Rosalie, sweet, fetching, deserves better Rosalie, to go along with him on it. See, Rosalie, during all those dance lesson things had fallen for old Billie and his words were like gold. Damn.

I will say that Billie and Rosalie tore the place up, at least I guess Billie did because I was, exclusively, looking at Rosalie who really danced her head off. Who won? Let me put it this way, this time the judges, that priest and his coterie of do-gooders didn’t take much time deciding that the other couple won. Rosalie was crushed. Billie, like always Billie, chalked it up to the "fix" being in for the other couple. Life was against the free spirits, he said, something it took me a lot longer to figure out. Rosalie's family moved away not long after that contest, like a lot of people just keeping time at the projects until their ships to better days came in, and I heard that she was later still furious at Billie for crossing her up. Yah, but, boy, she could twirl that thing.
***In Honor Of Phillip Sydney Hoffman

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die- British Style- “Pirate Radio”- A Film Review





DVD Review

Pirate Radio, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Richard Curtis, Focus Film, 2009

First Question: Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll? Well, of course, Bo Diddley (okay, okay others too). Second Question: Who brought rock ‘n’ roll to your double-locked bedroom, dank cellar, storage-filled garage, or other secret ear place back in old time battery-operated transistor radio (pre-iPod-MP3 times, fossil age alright) days? Well, of course, your local dee-jay who helped you while away your night, your dream-plagued rock ‘n’ roll night, with his (mainly) mile-a-minute-banter, selection of platters (records, pre-CD, DVD, iTune, YouTube, you’ve heard about them, right?-shiny black vinyl discs with grooves), and, yes, selected advertising targeted to the newly enriched (maybe) teenager with disposable dollars.

Rich enough to buy records, eat non-mother made burgers, fries, and pizza washed down with Coke or Pepsi at the Adventure Car-Hop, maybe moving up the scale your own radio, television set stuff like that. For the older set-older guys set all kinds of accessories for that souped-up Chevy that had all the girls going, well just call it going. Such names as Allan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Murry the K, and Arnie Ginsberg come quickly to mind. And although the music, praise be, outlasted the careers and remembrance of that lot this classic rock period is associated in my mind (and yours too, I bet) with that very dee-jay night. And that, my friends, is the premise behind this very nicely done trip down rock memory land- British version.

In many ways the British 1960s rock explosion paralleled the American classic rock scene, although later than that genre’s American 1950s heyday. The greatest difference, however, is the way that British audiences heard their rock- literally through the pirate radio of the title. Off-shore, out in the ocean depths, white waves splashing against some barnacled old tub of a ship, rock radio. Without getting into the ins and outs of British broadcasting traditions the battle, the age-old battle really, here is between those who wanted to listen to rock and not just in that double-locked bedroom mentioned above, and those nasty governmental officials and their hangers-on who wanted to outlaw it by shutting down this uncontrolled pirate method. That battle drives the tension and plot line to almost bizarre (by today’s cyberspace standards) ends. But what this film is about is a bunch of guys (mainly, again) who loved to play rock, who loved to present it in their own fashion, and who wanted the fame, fortune (and, incidental sex) that came with heroic dee-jay-dom.

This motley crew is ready to go down with the ship, literally, in order to keep rock freedom alive. Of course there are more than a few gag (British gag, ala Monty Python) scenes that are better left unmentioned but this is a feel good movie with plenty of drugs, sex, and rock and roll on the high seas. Jesus. You might ask what was wrong with that? Ah, come to think of it what was wrong with that? The cast includes the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman (a very versatile actor when you realize that he also played American novelist Truman Capote in the In Cold Blood execution-driven drama Tru) as the Count, the only American in the lot. But this whole mix of radio personalities is a good out in the seas rock night, late night, early morning and so on. So, here is the drill. Bo (and, yes, others) put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll but the Count and the boys put the bop in the be-bop pirate radio night. See this one.
***Out in the Crime Noir Night –Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe-Take Two   

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Oh yah, about Raymond Chandler, about the guy who wrote the Marlowe stories. Like I said in another review he, along with Brother Dashiell Hammett turned the dreary gentile drawing-room sleuth by-the-numbers crime novels that dominated the reading market back in the day on its head and gave us tough guy blood and guts detectives we could admire, could get behind, warts and all. Thanks, guys.

[Hammett, the author of The Thin Man, and creator of The Maltese Falcon’sSam Spade, maybe the most famous tough guy detective of them all. Sam, who come to think of it like Marlowe, also had a judgment problem when it came to women, women wearing that damn perfume that stops a man, even a hard-boiled detective man cold, although not an assortment of Hollywood women but one up north in Frisco town.]

In Chandler’s case he drew strength from his startling use of language to describe Marlowe’s environment much in the way a detective would use his heightened powers of observation during an investigation, missing nothing. Marlowe was able to size up, let’s say, a sizzling blonde, as a statuesque, full-bodied and ravishing dame and then pick her apart as nothing but a low-rent gold-digger. Of course that never stopped him from taking a run at one or two of them himself and then sending them off into the night, or to the clink, to fend for themselves. He also knew how to blow off a small time chiseler, a grifter, as so much flamboyance and hot air not neglecting to notice that said grifter had moisture above his upper lip indicating that he stood in fear of something if only his shadow as he attempted to pull some caper, or tried to pull the wool over Marlowe’s eyes. Or noticing a frayed collar or a misshapen dress that indicated that a guy or gal was on cheap street and just maybe not on the level, maybe scratching like crazy for his or her coffee and cakes.

The list of such descriptive language goes on and on -sullen bartenders wiping a random whisky glass, flighty chorus girls arm in arm with wrong gee gangsters, Hollywood starlet wannabes displaying their wares a little too openly, old time geezers, toothless, melting away in some thankless no account job, guys working out of small-time airless no front cheap jack offices in rundown building s on the wrong side of town doing, well, doing the best they can. And cops, good cops, bad cops, all with that cop air about them of seen it all, done it all blasé, and by the way spill your guts before the billy- club comes down on your fragile head. (That spill your guts thing, by the way a trait that our Marlowe seems organically incapable of doing, except when it suited his purposes. No cop or gangster could force anything out of him, and they tried, believe me they tried. ) He had come from them, from the cops, from the D.A.s office in the old days, had worked with them on plenty of cases but generally he tried to treat them like one might a snake not quite sure whether it is poisonous or not.

At the same time Chandler was a master of setting the details of the space Marlowe had to work in- the high hill mansions and the back alley rooming houses (although usually not the burgeoning ranchero middle class locales since apparently that segment of society has not need of his services and therefore no need of a description of their endless sameness and faux gentility). He had a fix on the museum-like quality of the big houses, the places like General Sternwood’s in The Big Sleep or Mrs. Murdock’s in The High Window reflecting old wealth California. And he has a razor sharp sense of the arrivisite, the new blood all splash and glitter, all high-ceiling bungalow, swimming pools, and landscaped gardens.

But where Chandler made his mark was in his descriptions of the gentile seedy places, the mansions of old time Los Angeles Bunker Hill turned to rooming houses with that faint smell of urine, that strong smell of liquor, that loud noise that comes with people living too close together, too close to breath their simple dreams. Or the descriptions of the back alley offices in the rundown buildings that had seen better days populated by the failed dentists, the sly repo men, the penny- ante insurance brokers, the con artists, the flotsam and jetsam of the losers in the great American West night just trying to hang on from rent payment to rent payment. Those denizens of these quarters usually had a walk on role, or wound up with two slugs to the head, but Chandler knew the type, had the type down solid.

Nor was Chandler above putting a little social commentary in Marlowe’s mouth. Reflections on such topics as that very real change after World War II in the kind of swarms that were heading west to populate the American Western shore night. The rise of the corner boys hanging, just hanging, around blasted storefronts, a few breaking off into the cranked up hot rod hell’s highway night. The restless mobsters for broken back east looking to bake out in the southern California sun while taking over the vast crime markets. The wannabe starlets ready to settle for less than stardom for the right price. The old California money (the gold rush, gold coast, golden era money) befuddled by the all new waves coming in. And above all a strong sense of the rootlessness, the living in the moment, the grabbing while the grabbing was good mentality that offended old Marlowe’s code of honor.

And of course over a series of books Chandler expanded the Marlowe character, expanded his range of emotions, detailed his growing world-weariness, his growing wariness, his small compromises with that code of honor that he had honed back in the 1930s. Yes, Marlowe the loner, the avenging angel , the righter of wrongs, maybe little wrongs but wrongs in this wicked old world. The guy who sometimes had to dig deep in his office desk drawer to grab a shot or six of whiskey to help him think things through. Marlowe the guy of a thousand punches, the guy of a hundred knocks on the head, the guy who had taken a more than one slug for the cause, the guy who was every insurance company’s nightmare and a guy who could have used some serious Obamacare health insurance no questions asked . Yah, Marlowe.