***Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- The Times Were Out Of Joint

 

Susie Roberts, Rick’s youngest sister, Rick Roberts the legendary Clintondale High School football and almost as legendary “lady’s man,” was stuck. No, not stuck in some car stuck place on some desolate road looking for Sir Galahad to show up and rescue the fair damsel, pulling might and main to win her favors after she had stalled out forgetting to put the clutch of her father’s Dodge in at the appropriate time, a task that she had not quite mastered yet. Or car stuck down in some Adamsville Beach parking lot late at night in some other father’s car, maybe a borrowed Buick, holding off some eager, too eager, non-Galahad looking for more than to win her favors. And decidedly not stuck on some Clintondale High Math Class Pythagorean Theorem problem looking for the square root of some distance from point A to point B. She had Lenny Linsky for that, and for any other mathsciencehistoryenglish problem that she needed resolved. Yes, Lenny was that way about her. Had been since about seventh grade when they had worked on a science project together and she nearly blew the chemistry lab where they were working up and he decided then and there that she needed some protection, and some study help as little good as it did him except a seventh grade midnight kiss.

And she had a few others on her string as well, a few hopeless others, not hopelessly willing however to join Lenny in the slave- quarters. Everyone, hopeless or hopeful, agreed that while Susie was not up to speed in the mechanical or smarts departments she was cute (no knock-down drag-out beautiful but pretty enough, pretty enough not to have to worry about mechanics or math now, and probably ever), tall, blonde, real blonde if you can believe that in this day, this 1966 day in age, pert, and Miss Personality. And in the final analysis isn’t that what you wanted in a high school honey?

That though was exactly where Susie’s stuck problem came in. See she was stuck on a soda jerk over at Doc’s Drugstore in North Adamsville. And not just any of Doc’s five jerks (yes, I know soda jerks, but let’s just shorthand this thing as jerks, no slander intended, okay) but Jeff Brigham. Yes, Jeff Brigham the big time politico, student body version, who had his picture taken with Robert Kennedy at some Northeast anti-war student conference where they were mapping out ways to end the war in Vietnam. And that was really where the problem came in. Jeff, bright, agile, good-looking Jeff, those days has no time for Susie, well, Susie no brains, although not really no brains but more no political brains. And why Susie had continually asked herself should a sophomore, a good-looking sophomore girl in the year of our lord, 1966, have to care about war, a war in some place she could not locate on a map and couldn’t pronoun, about black civil rights in the far-off south (and which Mr. Roberts had decidedly retro positions on which he freely imparted over the dinner table about uppity n----rs), about whether Red China or some China, she never got that clear, should be in the United Nations or not, or about which way America should be going in the world just to keep up to speed with a jerk. Even Doc’s top jerk with that heavenly smile that he once sent her way. Once before he got the bug, before he wanted to tilt windmills for the world and not for her.

Something was out of whack and Susie couldn’t figure out an angle to get to Jeff. Hey, any other time, say a couple of years before in 1964 when he could hardly keep his eyes off of her, Jeff would be so much putty in her hands. Would have been jerk proud, like the others at Doc’s, just to have Susie come in and talk to him. But, damn, Susie muttered under her breath they weren’t Jeff. And as many signals as she had given Jeff when she played Doc’s juke box, played it to perdition, and tried to interest him in talking about songs like The Temptations’ crooning My Girl; Otis Redding’s be-bopping I’ve Been Loving You Too Long; Barbara Lewis practically begging her man to take what he wants on Baby, I’m Yours; and when she turned the volume up for Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman he just smiled his non-committal smile and started talking about whether Robert Kennedy should, or should not, run for President in 1968, or some such thing. And then Susie fumed under her breath, the times were damn well out of joint.

***Plainsong For Private Bradley Manning-Take Three

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He came drowsily awake with a start at about 11:20 that night, that last day of May Friday night, of his long awaited journey, his journey to put paid to his past. He, Pete Markin (he had long ago, back in his late twenties after the hell of Vietnam, given up his appellation of choice, Peter Paul Markin, which he had used since childhood when he thought three name monikers were “cool” in his shabby growing up Adamsville “projects” working poor world), was within the hour to begin to make the journey south from Boston, south to Maryland, to Fort Meade, to stand in long awaited physical solidarity with Private Bradley Manning. Manning,the well-known whistle-blower soldier, was to stand on trial for his life the following Monday for what the government has charged were acts ofaiding the enemy and giving indirect material support to terrorism by releasing a slew of documents under his control to Wikileaks. Just then though he was sleepy and a little cranky having caught just a cat nap of sleep during the evening to fend off the tiredness that would come early the next morning after a night of lonesome thought travel .

After washing his face, splashing some extra water to revive himself, he began to make some last minute adjustments to the luggage that he was to take with him, To fiddle with that luggage in order to stave off thinking about that other idea that was on his mind, that idea that had driven him to make this late hour trip south. To avoid that idea he also thought of other midnight trips down south to Washington, D.C. for some anti-war demonstration or other related cause in the early 1970s and about the ways he had gotten there after he had found “religion”on the war issue, after he had become a winter soldier. Thought about the times that he and his then new flame Joyell (whom he later married but that was not a story he was turning over just then) had hitchhiked down picking up rides from road-weary bennie-eating truckers looking for company on their lonesome long- haul runs, picking them up maybe just to hear the sound of human voices above the din of engines and highway noises. Of rides with assorted stoned mini-van freaks, Volkwagen denizens, that word really was the only way to describe the rainbow-etched hippie crowds riding the roads in those blessed days. And thought too of the occasional stray regular driver, usually male, who maybe had had some fantasy about taking Joyell off into the night leaving her scraggly bearded boyfriend behind to hitch himself to oblivion. Yah, she had that look about her then, not beautiful not in the classic way, but rather fetching, fetching in the classic way. Then those roads got too dangerous, too hitchhike dangerous, once the ardor of the new age a-borning had turned to dust and the creeps and cranks began to mess up the clanky roads. (And the bloom of Joyell love had been strewn as well along some dusty back road, although she still held her fetching fantasy sway.)

Sometimes there would be quick runs, almost as seamless as if taking their own car. Other times they were stuck on dusty, dirty roads as if there were no such thing as cars. Of course it wasn’t always the hitchhike road, sometimes it was cramped buses provided by some anti-war organization or coalition, cheap rented buses with poor shocks, poor restroom facilities, bad air and hubris. Other times, later times, flush times, it would be a quick flight airline (usually the Eastern shuttle), although then Joyell-less. As he thought about those long gone times he couldn’t though quite dismiss that gnawing feeling that had been eating at him since the Manning case came on his horizon in September 2010.

That gnawing feeling had come to this- the accusations lodged against Private Manning concerning leaked information about American troop atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan had driven him back to his own soldier days, dog soldier days, dog soldier days in Vietnam and his own response to things he had witnessed, and later to information that he was privy to about American atrocities in that mist of war, that fog of war. He had dogged it, had kept his head down, had kept it way down. Then, in the back of his mind he heard, or half heard, the echo of some basic training drill sergeant telling his raw recruits to just follow orders and keep their heads down or else they would wind up doing some hard time in dreaded Fort Leavenworth. So he didn’t do a damn thing about what he knew and lived with that for a long time. It had taken a long time, too long, before he realized that there were worse fates than jail, than the Leavenworth’s of the world. Now he was to be redeemed, to settle accounts with his past, redeemed by a dog soldier two generation removed, a soldier who had held his head up high, had acted against the monster wars. Yah, his brother.

Pete once again thought back to those dark days when his unit spear-headed assaults on villages out in the Vietnam boondocks, mainly around Kontum, burned everything in sight, declared every villager an agent of Hanoi, declared that the proper role of a soldierwas to let God separate out the innocent from the guiltyand though nothing of it. Later he had seen official reports, classified, of fistfuls of atrocities against civilians, and kept his head down, kept it way down. Reliving those scenes in his head this night was too much and after a while he could not think more in that vein and switched his thoughts forward to the solidarity rally down at Fort Meade scheduled for early Saturday afternoon. He expected to be tired after the long ride, expected to be faded by the heat of the day which would be well up in the high numbers and would be nothing but a chore to survive. He thought too, as he chuckled about it to himself, that he would rather go to the gates of hell and back than not be there, not be there to stand with his newfound brother, not be there for redemption day.

As Pete heard the honk from a car outside his house that indicated that the young man and his other two passengers that would be his companions on the long ride had arrived he thought about his brother Bradley Manning, about how that young man’s life story on the face of it had been a very unlikely source to be the agent of his own fate, and that he would spent his energies, every energy to gain freedom for that valiant winter soldier. As he left the house he yelled up to his wife goodbye, and yelled too “Free Bradley Manning” and asked her if it sounded okay, sounded energetic enough. “Yah, it sounded just fine,” came the reply.

***Where The Dough Is- With The Film Noir Cash On Demand In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Frankly I always like my bank robbers straight up. You know guys like the famous Willie Sutton who when asked why he robbed banks stated the no-brainer obvious that that was where the money, kale, dinero, moola, or however you describe cash in your area was. Moreover I like my bank robbers working alone, working without an elaborate net, working without about fifteen guys who will rat you out for three bucks and a shortened jail sentence if things get dicey.

I remember once these guys, smart guys too, four or five of them, the mastermind who had the thing wired from jump street, had it worked up fine while he had time to while away in stir working off another matter, the fine-tooth safecracker, edgy and sharp, the whizz driver who was like some Indy racer behind the wheel, and the heavy work guy, the rootie-toot-toot guy, a little light upstairs but a stand-up guy and no snitch, no way, and maybe another guy, a lookout guy, I forget, for good luck planned this beautiful (on paper) caper of a high- end jewelry store. The night of the heist they were doing just fine, had it made until the last minute when one guy, maybe the look-out, accidently slipped since he had been sweating profusely in tight quarters and blew the whole caper to kingdom come. Blew some alarm and sent a covey of cops all over them in about two minutes flat. Naturally that crew, desperate at that point and not hip to any jail time, had to blast their way out killing a couple of off-hand coppers in the melee. After you waste a cop or two though you might as well walk to jail, walk to the big step off, after that since when a cop get killed in a caper then all bets are off, way off. Two and it is only fifty-fifty you will get to the big step off. You know the old “tried to escape” gag with about three slugs in your heart. So yah, I like my bank robbers to play it simple, play it by the numbers, and just take the money and run.

That is what bothered me about this guy Cecil I heard about recently, a sharp guy from all accounts over in England who had quite a record of success pulling off bank heists by himself, and without any bang-bang. A guy who took a big haul from some Bank of England vault while the clerk was making eyes at some dame (the dame proved to be his, the clerk’s, girlfriend so no foul on him, okay). Of course like every bank robber who has ever existed back to Adam and Eve time, maybe before, has done at least one jolt, done one stretch at uncle’s expense Or the queen’s). That comes with the territory. Cecil did his for an off-hand knockoff when he “forgot” that the alarm was reset after entry into some teller’s cage. He did a nickel for that one. They also say he never carried a gun, didn’t like them, didn’t know how to use one. That might have been an error on his last caper and as a general principle when you are in a tight spot in the bank robbery business, especially these days, but I will let the issue of guns pass. What bothered me was that his plan, and it was a good plan as far as such plans, go was kind of crazy, was way too wild in its application.

Cecil, who as a kid had been a carnival drifter, knew how to fake voices and that knowledge was the basis that he planned that last caper on. See what Cecil did was pick a Podunk branch of a big bank, something like Barclay’s, something like that and found out what the branch manager’s wife and kid’s voices sounded like and then he went into the branch and maneuvered his way into the manager’s office as an insurance inspector. Then he was off to the races. This manager, Basil I think his name was, a freaky kind of straight- laced, kind of a fussy sort, was afraid of losing his position, afraid of his own shadow really bought Cecil’s threat that he would kill his wife and child without compulsion if he didn’t follow his instructions to the letter. Cecil had faked the doom-struck wife and kid’s voices sending Basil into a panic. After that he was putty in Cecil’s hands. It must have been fun watching old Basil crack under the whip, carrying out each instruction, hell, begging to carry them out. Christ Cecil could have just sat in the manager’s office and let Basil pull the heist for him. Beautiful.

A great work of art, no question, as far it went. And that is my Cecil problem. He got too cute, had too many moving parts, had to ham it up a little too much like some low-rent midnight grafter rather than the potential hall of fame bank robber that he could have been. What happened was that one of the employees, a long- time employee sensed that old Mister Fussy boss wasn’t acting just right, seemed to be a little, well, nice, oh maybe not nice, but civil. That employee started to put two and two together with the combined actions of the two men not adding up and so he called the coppers and after some hi-jinx that doomed our man Cecil in the end. So he turned out to be just another number up in British stir, Darthmoor maybe. Just another of the endless examples that crime doesn’t pay. If he had only decide to just take the money and run ….

***Plainsong For Private Bradley Manning-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He came drowsily awake with a start at about 11:20 that night, that last day of May Friday night of his long awaited journey, his journey to put paid to his past. He, Pete Markin (he had long ago, back in his late twenties after the hell of Vietnam, given up his appellation of choice, Peter Paul Markin, used since childhood when he thought three name monikers were “cool” in his shabby working poor world), was within the hour to begin to make the journey south, south to Maryland, to Fort Meade, to stand in long delayed physical solidarity with Private Bradley Manning the well-known whistle-blower soldier who was to stand on trial for his life the following Monday for what the government has charged were acts of aiding the enemy and giving indirect material support to terrorism by releasing a slew of documents under his control to Wikileaks. Just then though he was sleepy and a little cranky having caught just a cat nap of sleep during the evening to fend off the tiredness that would come early the next morning after a night of lonesome thought travel .

After washing his face, splashing some extra water to revive himself, he began to make some last minute adjustments to the luggage that he was to take with him, To fiddle with that luggage in order to stave off thinking about that other idea that was on his mind, that idea that had driven him to make this late hour trip south. To avoid that idea he thought of other midnight trips down south to Washington, D.C. for some anti-war demonstration or other related cause in the early 1970s and about the ways he had gotten there after he had found “religion” on the war issue, after he had become a winter soldier. Thought about the times that he and his then new flame Joyell (whom he later married but that was not a story he was turning over just then) had hitchhiked down picking up rides from road-weary bennie-eating truckers looking for company on their lonesome long haul runs, picking them up maybe just to hear the sound of human voices above the din of engines and highway noises. Of rides with assorted stoned mini-van freaks, Volkwagen denizens, that really was the only way to describe the rainbow-etched hippie crowds riding the roads in those blessed days. And too of the occasional stray regular driver, usually male, who maybe had had some fantasy about taking Joyell off into the night leaving her scraggly bearded boyfriend behind to hitch himself to oblivion. Yah, she had that look about her then, not beautiful not in the classic way, but rather fetching, fetching in the classic way. Then those roads got too dangerous, too hitchhike dangerous, once the ardor of the new age had turned to dust and the creeps and cranks began to mess up the clanky roads. (And the bloom of Joyell love had been strewn as well along some dusty back road, although she still held her fetching fantasy sway.)

Sometimes there would be quick runs, almost as seamless as if taking their own car. Other times they were stuck on dusty, dirty roads as if there were no such thing as cars. Of course it wasn’t always the hitchhike road, sometimes it was cramped buses provided by some anti-war organization or coalition, cheap rented buses with poor shocks, poor restroom facilities, bad air and hubris. Other times, flush times, it would be a quick flight airline (usually the Eastern shuttle), although then Joyell-less. As he thought about those long gone times he couldn’t quite dismiss that gnawing feeling that had been eating at him since the Manning case came on his horizon in September 2010.

That gnawing feeling had come to this- the accusations lodged against Private Manning concerning leaked information about American troop atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan had driven him back to his own soldier days, dog soldier days, dog soldier days in Vietnam and his own response to things he had witnessed, and later to information that he was privy to about American atrocities in that mist of war, that fog of war. He had dogged it, had kept his head down, had kept it way down. In the back of his mind he heard, or half heard the echo of some basic training drill sergeant telling his raw recruits to just follow orders and keep their heads down or else they would wind up in dreaded Fort Leavenworth. So he didn’t do a damn thing about it and lived with that for a long time. It had taken a long time, too long, before he realized that there were worse fates than jail. Now he was to be redeemed, to settle accounts with his past, redeemed by a dog soldier two generation removed, a soldier who had held his head up high, had acted against the monster wars. Yah, his brother.

Pete thought back to those dark days when his unit spear-headed assaults on villages out in the Vietnam boondocks, mainly around Kontum, burned everything in sight, declared every villager an agent of Hanoi, declared that the proper role of a soldier was to let God separate out the innocent from the guilty and though nothing of it. Later he had seen official reports, classified, of fistfuls of atrocities against civilians, and kept his head down, kept it way down. Reliving those scenes in his head was too much and after a while he could not think more in that vein and switched his thoughts forward to the solidarity rally down at Fort Meade scheduled for early Saturday afternoon. He expected to be tired after the long ride, expected to be faded by the heat of the day which would be well up in the high numbers and would be nothing but a chore to survive. He thought too, as he chuckled about it to himself, that he would rather go to the gates of hell and back than not be there, not be there to stand with his newfound brother, not be there for redemption day.

As Pete heard the honk from a car outside his house that indicated that the young man and his other two passengers that would be his companions on the long ride had arrived he thought about his brother Bradley Manning, about how that young man’s life story on the face of it had been a very unlikely source to be the agent of his own fate, and that he would spent his energies, every energy to gain freedom for that valiant winter soldier. As he left the house he yelled up to his wife goodbye, and yelled too “Free Bradley Manning” and asked her if it sounded okay, sounded energetic enough. Yah, it sounded just fine came the reply.

Write letters of solidarity to Private Bradley Manning

In political prisoner cases, and Bradley’s is a classic case, it is important that the brother or sister know that people outside the walls have his or her back. We have Bradley's back.

*Write letters of solidarity to Bradley Manning while he is being tried. Bradley’s mailing address: Commander, HHC, USAG, Attn: PFC Bradley Manning, 239 Sheridan Avenue, Bldg. 417, JBM-HH, VA 22211. Bradley Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum. Mail sent to the above address is forwarded to Bradley.

Boston Veterans For Peace In Pride Parade -June 8

Smedleys & Samanthas,

Some members poo poo our participation in parades thinking they are a waste of time. Well I for one firmly disagree. Not only do parades give our chapter great exposure and help with our brand recognition but it is a opportunity to put forth our message of peace.

This Saturday we will be in the Boston Pride Parade. Not only will we be supporting our LGBT members and the LGBT community at large who so wholeheartedly supported our efforts in the Saint Pats Peace Parade, but this is an opportunity for tens if not hundreds of thousands to see our message to FREE BRADLEY MANNING.

Bradley's trial began on Monday, this is an opportunity within just a couple of hours of marching on the streets of Boston to make thousands of people aware of the plight of this heroic whistle-blower. We have two huge banners, one being brought by the Stonewall Warriors and the other on loan by Dorchester People for Peace.

Please come and participate. We have turned the corner, the recognition we get when marching in the Honk Parade and the Dorchester Day Parade are so overwhelmingly positive. The Boston Pride Parade is the largest parade in Boston and I hope you join us so we have a great showing. It would be great to see "all" our flags in the air on Saturday in solidarity with our LGBT members and friends and in support of Bradley Manning.

Other VFP Chapters can join in our contingent and we encourage other chapters to come to Boston on Saturday with your chapter banners.

Thanks, hope to see you on Saturday, see information below

Pat

PS - The weather looks great for the parade!!!

Smedleys & Samanthas

Please join us for the Boston Pride Parade.

This is the biggest parade in Boston, let's have a great showing.

If you are free please come and join us. Several of our members (Smedleys) are also part of the LGBT community. Please come and stand with your gay, lesbian and transgendered VFP members.

We should be proud that VFP is an open and welcoming veterans organization. Hopefully we will have a great showing to show everyone we support our LGBT members and friends.

The LGBT community supported our Saint Pats Peace Parade in a big way.

Lets show them our support for the LGBT community.

Stonewall Warriors will be marching with us. This is a group of LGBT veterans.

They have a huge banner supporting Bradley Manning

For the first time the VA is actively encouraging veterans and staff from the VA hospitals to walk in the Pride Parade. We have met with the person from the VA who is coordinating the VA participation. We have both asked the parade organizers to place us adjacent to each other.

This is the last "BIG" thing we will do for a while, please join us.

Assemble location: We will assemble on the corner of Boyleston and Exeter streets. That is one block away from the Copley T Station.

Day: Saturday, June 8 (Rain or Shine)

Time: We will gather between 10:30 and 11:00 am, look for the flags

Parade steps off at 12:00 noon, rain or shine - lets hope for good weather

Rides: If you are unable to walk the distance and need a ride please let me know asap. We will order one or two convertibles for our members who need assistance.

Please bring your flags and VFP clothing and hats.

Hope to see you on Saturday.

Pat

***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-"Come On Now, Get With The Program- Crime, I Repeat, Crime Does Not Pay"- Richard Basehart’s “Tension"

DVD Review

Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film 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 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.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatalesthat is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).

A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noirpantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?

The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill Mr. Somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.

But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.

Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and“entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off.

Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these same slumming L.A. streets in those days. Often taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.