Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Eddie Cochran performing “Sitting In The Balcony.”
SITTIN' IN THE BALCONY
By Johnny Dee
©1957 Cedarwood Publ.
Just a-sittin' in the balcony
Just a-watchin' a movie
Or maybe it's a symphony
I wouldn't know
Don't care about the symphonies
Those cymbales and tympanies
Just a-sittin' in the balcony
On the very last row
I hold your hand and I kiss you, too
The feature's over, but we're not through!
Mmmm, just a-sittin' in the balcony
Holdin' hands in the balcony
Just a-sittin' in the balcony
On the very last row
We may stop lovin' to watch Bugs Bunny
But he can't take the place of my honey!
Just a-sittin' in the balcony
Just a-snootchin' in the balcony
Just a-sittin' in the balcony
On the very last row
Just a-huggin' and a-kissin'
With my baby in the very last row
(source: Standard Songs Pop/ Country/ Blues/ Folk/ Instumentals/ Novelty, Acuff-Rose Publications Inc. 1956-1973)
Two un-star-crossed youth, or let’s hope they are un-star-crossed, one an emerging boy-man the other a girl-woman, emerging too, strictly junior high school kids, fresh from some morning chores are walking close together, although not touching. Jesus. Not touching in public. What if somebody had seen them? Jesus floats again in both their minds. He, having just finished cleaning his room to earn nickels and quarters to take in the weekly Saturday double- feature movie at the Strand. She, helping mother dear, to do the weekly laundry before heading out to that very same double feature at the Strand. No money changed hands between mother and daughter though.
They are walking, if not closely, together, one, because he, boy-man had gotten up the nerve after several weeks of hid and seek talk between them to ask her to the movies, a special place for him (and her too). And, she, as she told her girlfriends at the mandatory Monday morning before school girls’“lav” session where all the latest talk gathered, almost answered yes before he asked she was so impatient, and thrilled. And two, times are hard just then in old North Adamsville, and while he, boy-man, really likes her, girl-woman, he cannot swing bus fare, two movie tickets, AND popcorn on the nickels and quarters made from the half-ass way he cleaned his room. She understood she said and she LIKED to walk. Can you believe that, she liked to walk?
So they walked, walked not very closely, but walked and were jabbering like two blue-jays, the mile, or mile and one half, uptown to the Strand. They had started at noon to be sure to make the one o’clock start of the first show, "The Son Of Big Blob," a monster film (the other was a “romance,” kids-style, “Jenny Belinda"). But, truth, if anybody had bothered to notice the pair as he paid for two tickets at the ticket window (two children’s tickets, not adult’s, as the looking askance cashier questioned them about their ages, fortunately they looked, if they did not feel, under twelve), it could have been an old people’s Humphrey Bogart/Katherine Hepburn double feature. Especially as she was standing somewhat closer to him now that they had moved out of the public spotlight of the streets. So close he could smell, drive him crazy smell, the bath soap she had bathed in or perfume she had put on. Ya, drove him crazy.
Inside the theater two decisions needed pressing resolution, one, popcorn now, popcorn between the two films. Resolved: later. Two, down in the orchestra pit, or in the balcony. No big deal, right. Wrong, where have you been? Orchestra meant nothing but sitting and watching the movies, maybe holding sweating hands like goofs and old people did. The balcony meant, well, it meant the possibility of adventure, of, well, or more than holding hands. Jesus, where have you been, petting, heavy petting, okay. So he, boy-man gulped, and asked which place, and she, girl-woman answered, gulp, balcony. So they climbed the stairs, fought for a conveniently isolated spot and sat down waiting for the previews to start that would bring the lights down low. And they did. And I am willing to bet six-two-and even on two propositions. One, neither of them could, in twenty-five words or less, give the plots of either of the films. Two, she, girl-woman, would have plenty to mandatory tell come Monday pre-school girls’ “lav” session. Oh ya, and he will still be swimmingly intoxicated by that perfume (not bath soap, that’s kid’s stuff) she copped from her mother’s bureau and that wore just for him on Saturday. Growing up absurd in the 1950s, or anytime, maybe.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Out In The 1960s Psychedelic Night- The Byrds-Fifth Dimension - A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Byrds performing Eight Miles High.
CD Review
Fifth Dimension, The Byrds, Warner Brothers, 1966
Eight miles high and when you touch down
You’ll find that it’s stranger than known
Signs in the street that say where you’re going
Are somewhere just being their own
Nowhere is there warmth to be found
Among those afraid of losing their ground
Rain gray town known for it’s sound
In places small faces unbound
Round the squares huddled in storms
Some laughing some just shapeless forms
Sidewalk scenes and black limousines
Some living some standing alone
Hari, hari, hari, rama, hari, hari came some hidden from view sound from the street, the street of street dreams and scores, or just the street outside Harvard Yard, just off Mount Auburn Street near Tommy’s Lunch, as music, stereo music, blared out from some fourth floor garret signaling the advent of the next day of the “new world.” Music, blaring night and day, and if anybody minded they kept it to themselves. More likely they craned their ears for a closer listen, listening until the notes meshed with their brains, and the slightest trance-like movement began to shake their bodies. Then the guitar sound high and shrill like no Bobby Darin flip or Percy Faith bong from a couple of years before when the music was s-q-u-a-r-e gave forth sounds that became you, man, became you. Dig it.
Just another mid-1960s Cambridge day, a day that had started fresh with a joint passed around by those fourth floor garret “squanders,” (not really, the guy whose name was on the lease was away in Europe for the summer trying to find himself and he had “sublet” the place to his hometown friend, some Cos Corner place in Connecticut, and that friend had multiplied his friends in his midnight crave wanderings around Cambridge Common), four refugees at this hour, jammed every which way on the floored mattresses that passed for sleeping quarters. Four refugees, two boys and two girls, trying to keep their heads attached, literally, against the hard war news, another seventy death casualties this week and no end in sight and one of the boys very, very draft ready.
Trying to keep their heads together, literally, against the crowding day, the do this and do that day, the day of work and more work for no real purpose in a world they did not make, and were scratching their heads to figure out. And not winning on that bet. Topped off, trying to keep their heads together, literally, against some hard drug news, hearing earlier that another comrade had been busted “for possession” down in death hole Texas. Adios amigo, there are not enough prisons for us though
That chant, that hidden from view chant, could only mean, that the Hari Krishnas, just then thick as thieves and growing in the incense, jingle-jangle bell, saffron, or whatever they called their silken sheet garb, in Harvard Square were getting ready to attend to their daily ministrations, meditations, and frankly irritating beggings. Then, like magic, The Byrds’ Eight Miles High started playing on the stereo. And another joint, or maybe just a bogart made the rounds and the four denizens of that new world started to, well, giggle, giggle that pretty soon they too would be eight miles high. And the daily bummers could wait a little longer to be figured out.
CD Review
Fifth Dimension, The Byrds, Warner Brothers, 1966
Eight miles high and when you touch down
You’ll find that it’s stranger than known
Signs in the street that say where you’re going
Are somewhere just being their own
Nowhere is there warmth to be found
Among those afraid of losing their ground
Rain gray town known for it’s sound
In places small faces unbound
Round the squares huddled in storms
Some laughing some just shapeless forms
Sidewalk scenes and black limousines
Some living some standing alone
Hari, hari, hari, rama, hari, hari came some hidden from view sound from the street, the street of street dreams and scores, or just the street outside Harvard Yard, just off Mount Auburn Street near Tommy’s Lunch, as music, stereo music, blared out from some fourth floor garret signaling the advent of the next day of the “new world.” Music, blaring night and day, and if anybody minded they kept it to themselves. More likely they craned their ears for a closer listen, listening until the notes meshed with their brains, and the slightest trance-like movement began to shake their bodies. Then the guitar sound high and shrill like no Bobby Darin flip or Percy Faith bong from a couple of years before when the music was s-q-u-a-r-e gave forth sounds that became you, man, became you. Dig it.
Just another mid-1960s Cambridge day, a day that had started fresh with a joint passed around by those fourth floor garret “squanders,” (not really, the guy whose name was on the lease was away in Europe for the summer trying to find himself and he had “sublet” the place to his hometown friend, some Cos Corner place in Connecticut, and that friend had multiplied his friends in his midnight crave wanderings around Cambridge Common), four refugees at this hour, jammed every which way on the floored mattresses that passed for sleeping quarters. Four refugees, two boys and two girls, trying to keep their heads attached, literally, against the hard war news, another seventy death casualties this week and no end in sight and one of the boys very, very draft ready.
Trying to keep their heads together, literally, against the crowding day, the do this and do that day, the day of work and more work for no real purpose in a world they did not make, and were scratching their heads to figure out. And not winning on that bet. Topped off, trying to keep their heads together, literally, against some hard drug news, hearing earlier that another comrade had been busted “for possession” down in death hole Texas. Adios amigo, there are not enough prisons for us though
That chant, that hidden from view chant, could only mean, that the Hari Krishnas, just then thick as thieves and growing in the incense, jingle-jangle bell, saffron, or whatever they called their silken sheet garb, in Harvard Square were getting ready to attend to their daily ministrations, meditations, and frankly irritating beggings. Then, like magic, The Byrds’ Eight Miles High started playing on the stereo. And another joint, or maybe just a bogart made the rounds and the four denizens of that new world started to, well, giggle, giggle that pretty soon they too would be eight miles high. And the daily bummers could wait a little longer to be figured out.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Song To While Away The Class Struggle By-Bruce Springsteen’s “Brothers Under The Bridge- With A Story From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bruce Springsteen performing Brothers Under The Bridge.
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
Recently in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to “burn” and download into my iPod I came across a song that stopped in my tracks, the one highlighted in the title to this entry Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (California, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a great depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramps camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles and created their own “society.”
The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me this assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.
After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A couple of weeks ago, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from a story that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round it into shape. The format of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to heard, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for language). I have reconstructed that story here as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said. This is Jeff and Zeb’s story as told by Jeff, probably one of the only stories that have ever driven home to me the hellishness of war and what it does to men’s souls.
For the record Jeffrey James Adams served in Vietnam from mid-1969 to-early 1970 and Zebulon Samuel Johnston from mid-1969 to late 1971. Zebulon Johnston’s name appears in no rededicated wall down in Washington but just maybe it should. Read below why. Josh Breslin
**********
This conversation took place one afternoon (date, unknown) in late October, 1977 under a massive concrete overpass along U.S. Interstate 5 just south of Inglewood near Los Angeles, California.
“Ya, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on, a guy you could count on, if you know what I mean. Who did you say you worked for, mister? Oh, ya, The East Bay Eye. I still miss the bastard, miss him for leaving me here without a guy I could count on, and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. A real brother, unlike my own brother who sometimes was a brother to me and sometimes just a same last name.
Zeb and I went back, went back to basic training in the Army down at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Jesus just remembering that hellhole place and that hellhole time and that hellhole way the good citizens outside in Augusta treated us the couple of times we had weekend passes just like the blacks just because I was a Yankee and old Zeb was from broken down Appalachia, some dink town called Hazard, a coal dust town from what he said about it. A town he always said was full of history and written up in song and in the books. But I had never heard of it, and truth, never have heard of it since so I think that was old Zeb just being old Zeb. Just so you know when you write this story his real name was Zebulon Samuel Johnston, named after his father, his pa-pa he said, simple as that. And don’t call him a Johnson, either. He was a Johnston, born and bred, he said.
But the big thing about how we hit it off right from the start was that first day when we got off that olive drab bus and hit the barracks and Jeb was bunked across from me and I had to show him how to tie his boots. See, he never had proper shoes from the way he told it and the way he tried to tie those boots before the boot camp sergeant snapped his neck back for him I can believe that and maybe that was the way things were down in broken down Hazard. All I know is that all through basic training, through rough woods stuff, Zeb paid me back, paid me back big time, for my minute kindness. See he knew more about the woods, and how to survive in them, and little tricks about how to use this and that to get stuff done than a city boy, a big time Boston city boy, Yankee to the core, and corner boy smart not woods smart could ever know.
So he kept me on, as he said, as his mascot. And anytime he needed some fancy way to get out of something he would yell for me, and then he would be my mascot. Tight we were right from basic. Same tight, and you'd better be tight, or get our asses kicked when we took Advanced Infantry Training down at Fort McClellan down in Alabama where the civilians put Yankees and hillbillies below blacks in the pecking order they had established, or so it seemed every time we had town leave.
And then shipped out to ‘Nam. Ya, ‘Nam hellhole of all hellholes and I know, know for certain I never would have made it out alive if not for Zeb. See one time after we had a few days off from the line we hit Saigon and jesus, the place looked just like home, or somebody’s home if that home was Vegas or one of those glitter town, action night or day. I couldn’t leave the place, or want to. Zeb could take it or leave it so he went back first. Well one day, yes, day time he pulled me out of some brothel, some sweet Eurasian girl specialty house just in time to keep me from being locked up for about six months in Long Binh for being, well, a few days over my leave time.
But I am getting a little sidetracked and confused because that is not really the time he saved my young white ass. No that was when we were out in the boonies, out in the Central Highlands, near Pleiku just doing a routine patrol, keeping as far away from the enemy as we could and as close to this little river, a crick Zeb called it, but really a creek, a little low during the dry season. From out of nowhere we start taking fire from “Charlie,” or maybe NVA regulars because the field of fire was pretty concentrated like these guys had done it together for a while. In any case the fire was getting heavy and so I wasn’t paying enough attention to where I was heading. Next thing I know I am in the creek, water all around and muddy, big muddy, and I can’t get out, no way. I take a round in the shoulder; see that scar there, ya, that’s Purple Heart territory. I guess the hit made me crazy, crazy not with pain as with fear, animal fear, and that ain’t no lie. I could smell it and it wasn’t pretty.
I started crying out, started crying out like crazy “Zeb, don’t leave me here to die alone so far from home, please Zeb.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more about it because as you can see Jeb did not leave me in any 'Nam. Ya, he got the Bronze Star for that, and a Purple Heart to boot for his own wounds carrying me to the medivac area although I must have passed out because I don’t remember much after the screaming and that fear smell. My war was over, and I lost a little contact with Jeb as guys will do when they get split up in wartime.
Back in the real world and out, maybe 1972, I was doing okay, a little of this and that, nothing big and nothing that couldn’t be shoved aside like air if I wanted to take off. Then about a year later I heard through a mutual friend that Jeb had made it back to “the real world” after another tour of duty in ‘Nam and was out in Los Angeles. What that friend didn’t tell me, or didn’t know, was that second tour took the stuffing out of Zeb and he had started doing some girl. You know what that is right? Cocaine. Ya, drugs to ease the pain and erase the horror. And once girl couldn’t shake the dreams and the pain then boy, plenty of boy took you out of this world. Boy, since you didn’t know what girl was, is nothing but horse, heroin, sweet dreams, for a while heroin.
Ya, Jeb was in a bad way out there in L.A. living on the streets, knocking off drug stores and I don’t what else is what he told me later when he was sober a couple of times. Somehow our mutual friend gave Zeb my number and one night, one hellish stormy night up in Maine where I was staying working at a small shipyard, I got a phone call from Zeb saying, “Jeff, don’t leave me out here alone to die, please Jeff.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more because I did not leave Jeb to die alone in any L.A. Jesus, no, not a good old country no shoes boy like Zeb in L.A. They would eat him alive.
So, a few days, maybe a week later, we met in a Mission Of God house or some such place over on Wiltshire, not the good part, and I got him fixed up there for a while. He was shaky, very shaky. Then, after a few months, he decided that he had to get out of that mission house and live on the streets. Well not exactly the streets but in a place like this, near the railroad tracks, in case he wanted to head home he said, just a hobo jungle really. So I stayed with him naturally. Somehow he got some boy from god knows where and he went off to the races again. He wouldn’t even consider getting help or leaving the jungle. He said he felt at home under bridges, and along railroad tracks.
Well, somehow one day, I wasn’t around that day I was down at the pier looking for a couple of days work to tide us over, he got a hold of some badass smack , some poison left-over stuff and started dancing on the tracks from what some ‘bo who was there said later. You know as well as I do you can’t dance on any railroad track and not draw a wrong number. They say he tried to get off the track but he wasn’t fast enough.
Ya, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on if you know what I mean. I still miss the bastard and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. Poor Jeb lived on sweet dreams and train smoke and I guess I will for a while. Maybe do a little of this and that again. But not right now, okay.
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
Recently in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to “burn” and download into my iPod I came across a song that stopped in my tracks, the one highlighted in the title to this entry Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (California, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a great depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramps camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles and created their own “society.”
The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me this assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.
After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A couple of weeks ago, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from a story that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round it into shape. The format of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to heard, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for language). I have reconstructed that story here as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said. This is Jeff and Zeb’s story as told by Jeff, probably one of the only stories that have ever driven home to me the hellishness of war and what it does to men’s souls.
For the record Jeffrey James Adams served in Vietnam from mid-1969 to-early 1970 and Zebulon Samuel Johnston from mid-1969 to late 1971. Zebulon Johnston’s name appears in no rededicated wall down in Washington but just maybe it should. Read below why. Josh Breslin
**********
This conversation took place one afternoon (date, unknown) in late October, 1977 under a massive concrete overpass along U.S. Interstate 5 just south of Inglewood near Los Angeles, California.
“Ya, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on, a guy you could count on, if you know what I mean. Who did you say you worked for, mister? Oh, ya, The East Bay Eye. I still miss the bastard, miss him for leaving me here without a guy I could count on, and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. A real brother, unlike my own brother who sometimes was a brother to me and sometimes just a same last name.
Zeb and I went back, went back to basic training in the Army down at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Jesus just remembering that hellhole place and that hellhole time and that hellhole way the good citizens outside in Augusta treated us the couple of times we had weekend passes just like the blacks just because I was a Yankee and old Zeb was from broken down Appalachia, some dink town called Hazard, a coal dust town from what he said about it. A town he always said was full of history and written up in song and in the books. But I had never heard of it, and truth, never have heard of it since so I think that was old Zeb just being old Zeb. Just so you know when you write this story his real name was Zebulon Samuel Johnston, named after his father, his pa-pa he said, simple as that. And don’t call him a Johnson, either. He was a Johnston, born and bred, he said.
But the big thing about how we hit it off right from the start was that first day when we got off that olive drab bus and hit the barracks and Jeb was bunked across from me and I had to show him how to tie his boots. See, he never had proper shoes from the way he told it and the way he tried to tie those boots before the boot camp sergeant snapped his neck back for him I can believe that and maybe that was the way things were down in broken down Hazard. All I know is that all through basic training, through rough woods stuff, Zeb paid me back, paid me back big time, for my minute kindness. See he knew more about the woods, and how to survive in them, and little tricks about how to use this and that to get stuff done than a city boy, a big time Boston city boy, Yankee to the core, and corner boy smart not woods smart could ever know.
So he kept me on, as he said, as his mascot. And anytime he needed some fancy way to get out of something he would yell for me, and then he would be my mascot. Tight we were right from basic. Same tight, and you'd better be tight, or get our asses kicked when we took Advanced Infantry Training down at Fort McClellan down in Alabama where the civilians put Yankees and hillbillies below blacks in the pecking order they had established, or so it seemed every time we had town leave.
And then shipped out to ‘Nam. Ya, ‘Nam hellhole of all hellholes and I know, know for certain I never would have made it out alive if not for Zeb. See one time after we had a few days off from the line we hit Saigon and jesus, the place looked just like home, or somebody’s home if that home was Vegas or one of those glitter town, action night or day. I couldn’t leave the place, or want to. Zeb could take it or leave it so he went back first. Well one day, yes, day time he pulled me out of some brothel, some sweet Eurasian girl specialty house just in time to keep me from being locked up for about six months in Long Binh for being, well, a few days over my leave time.
But I am getting a little sidetracked and confused because that is not really the time he saved my young white ass. No that was when we were out in the boonies, out in the Central Highlands, near Pleiku just doing a routine patrol, keeping as far away from the enemy as we could and as close to this little river, a crick Zeb called it, but really a creek, a little low during the dry season. From out of nowhere we start taking fire from “Charlie,” or maybe NVA regulars because the field of fire was pretty concentrated like these guys had done it together for a while. In any case the fire was getting heavy and so I wasn’t paying enough attention to where I was heading. Next thing I know I am in the creek, water all around and muddy, big muddy, and I can’t get out, no way. I take a round in the shoulder; see that scar there, ya, that’s Purple Heart territory. I guess the hit made me crazy, crazy not with pain as with fear, animal fear, and that ain’t no lie. I could smell it and it wasn’t pretty.
I started crying out, started crying out like crazy “Zeb, don’t leave me here to die alone so far from home, please Zeb.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more about it because as you can see Jeb did not leave me in any 'Nam. Ya, he got the Bronze Star for that, and a Purple Heart to boot for his own wounds carrying me to the medivac area although I must have passed out because I don’t remember much after the screaming and that fear smell. My war was over, and I lost a little contact with Jeb as guys will do when they get split up in wartime.
Back in the real world and out, maybe 1972, I was doing okay, a little of this and that, nothing big and nothing that couldn’t be shoved aside like air if I wanted to take off. Then about a year later I heard through a mutual friend that Jeb had made it back to “the real world” after another tour of duty in ‘Nam and was out in Los Angeles. What that friend didn’t tell me, or didn’t know, was that second tour took the stuffing out of Zeb and he had started doing some girl. You know what that is right? Cocaine. Ya, drugs to ease the pain and erase the horror. And once girl couldn’t shake the dreams and the pain then boy, plenty of boy took you out of this world. Boy, since you didn’t know what girl was, is nothing but horse, heroin, sweet dreams, for a while heroin.
Ya, Jeb was in a bad way out there in L.A. living on the streets, knocking off drug stores and I don’t what else is what he told me later when he was sober a couple of times. Somehow our mutual friend gave Zeb my number and one night, one hellish stormy night up in Maine where I was staying working at a small shipyard, I got a phone call from Zeb saying, “Jeff, don’t leave me out here alone to die, please Jeff.” And you know I don’t have to say anything more because I did not leave Jeb to die alone in any L.A. Jesus, no, not a good old country no shoes boy like Zeb in L.A. They would eat him alive.
So, a few days, maybe a week later, we met in a Mission Of God house or some such place over on Wiltshire, not the good part, and I got him fixed up there for a while. He was shaky, very shaky. Then, after a few months, he decided that he had to get out of that mission house and live on the streets. Well not exactly the streets but in a place like this, near the railroad tracks, in case he wanted to head home he said, just a hobo jungle really. So I stayed with him naturally. Somehow he got some boy from god knows where and he went off to the races again. He wouldn’t even consider getting help or leaving the jungle. He said he felt at home under bridges, and along railroad tracks.
Well, somehow one day, I wasn’t around that day I was down at the pier looking for a couple of days work to tide us over, he got a hold of some badass smack , some poison left-over stuff and started dancing on the tracks from what some ‘bo who was there said later. You know as well as I do you can’t dance on any railroad track and not draw a wrong number. They say he tried to get off the track but he wasn’t fast enough.
Ya, Zeb was quite a guy in his time, a guy you could depend on if you know what I mean. I still miss the bastard and will until I leave this good green earth and that ain’t no lie, no sir. Poor Jeb lived on sweet dreams and train smoke and I guess I will for a while. Maybe do a little of this and that again. But not right now, okay.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Out In The Be-Bop Rock Night- Present At The Creation -The Birth Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing the classic rock anthem, Rock Around The Clock.
DVD Review
One For The Money: The Birth Of Rock, various artists, 2005
The birth of the “beat” movement or, at least the public awareness of its break-out, occurred in the late 1950s. (Although road mad warriors like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady were revving up the ground underneath plain vanilla America in the late 1940s, but that was sideshow and strictly for aficionados.) It even reached down to “the projects” kids like me with my dark sun-glassed, flannel shirted, black chino pants look, and a mandatory pinch of teen angst if not of any real understanding of what that break-out meant. The seminal cultural moment for us kids, us clueless 1950s kids, was when the clean, free, breathe of fresh air that we call rock ‘n’ roll crashed onto the scene that also broke out in the be-bop 1950s.
Although the “beat” movement, especially its literary end, was driven, and driven hard by the cool, clear, high white note jazz performed by the likes of Charley Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and in no way frontally drove rock the two easily mingle in memory of that be-bop 1950s night. Especially for those of us who really were too young to be washed over by the beats and got our “beatitude” in a more second-hand way but who were dead center when that wild jungle night, “devil's music,” “what was that sound, and where can we hear more of it?” drum beat hit our virgin ears about 1955 or so. Call us the stepchildren of one movement, and the children, mad, crash-out, runaway children of the other.
That is the premise behind this one hour documentary as it tries to tap into what the roots of rock were, how it exploded onto the central 1950s teenage stage, and how it was tamed beyond redemption, teenage redemption anyway within a few short years. One only needs to say the names Bill Haley and The Comets, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, and Eddie Cochran, and then say Fabian, Rick Nelson, Conway Twitty, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Vinton and Paul Anka to know that the music had died on some good housekeeping seal of approval parent altar. And, jesus, it wasn’t coming back, at least not in its innocent, hungry teen angst, teen alienated form, just as our youth never did either.
For an hour documentary this one covers a lot of territory. Much time is spent on the roots of rock, who pushed it along and also on the space that what we now call, sadly, classic rock, filled at just that moment in the 1950s when we, meaning teenage America, were desperate to have our own music, our own not-our parents-seal of approval music. If you think about the roots, it is almost a "no-brainer" that black-centered rhythm and blues would be an important factor as a source for rock. Especially as R&B came all rambly and scrambly out of the Mississippi Delta and got electrified in the immediate post-World War II period as it followed the black migration north to the Southern river cities and then the Midwest industrial cities. And as it got more sophisticated as its mainly black listeners and a few white “hipsters” settled in.
Just listen to early Bill Haley “jump” with that bass line and saxophone on classics like Rock Around The Clock and Shake, Rattle and Roll (even though Big Joe Turner’s version on the latter is about ten times better and sexier). Also a no-brainer, since it seems that every poor white boy child of the Great Depression who could strum three chords or pluck a few ivories was putting R&B together with that old-time Appalachian mountain twang music, hillbilly music is the influence of rockabilly.. No question that this rock is purely American songbook-worthy music.
As for those who pushed the music first place, rightly I think, goes to Alan Freed (and last place to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, although I like every other breathing, hell non-comatose, 1950s kid frenetically raced home to watch the thing in the afternoon, every afternoon okay). Freed gets his just desserts here, especially in his attempts to bring to the fore the black groups who originally recorded many of the songs that would be covered by white groups and who would gain much wider recognition for those efforts. Also deserving of mention is Sam Phillips and his Sun Record operation that was the first stop north for those who wanted to reach those teens waiting, waiting patiently, waiting out until hell froze over in the red scare cold war night just to hear the likes Of Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, Elvis and Jerry Lee.
Well I’ve covered the roots, I covered the movers and shakers, and I should mention the ”talking head” music historians who give their take, half a century later, on what it all meant. But that is not the real reason to watch this thing. The real reason is to see Bill Haley’s sax and bass men hold forth like high heaven’s own angels; to see Elvis shake , rattle and roll like some demon sex fiend making all the girls sweat and all the boys practice their moves in dank cellars or before merciless mirrors; to hear Little Richard go wild, male/female wild, high pitched wild at the piano; to see Jerry Lee reach down in some primitive place and drive those ivories to bloody hell; to see Chuck Berry duck walk his stuff; and to see between segues all that jitter-buggery, that shear, happy energy as the kids danced their hearts out. That, my friends, my nostalgic friends, was what it was like in that be-bop night of 1950s classic rock when women and men played the music for keeps.
**********
Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley
One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
DVD Review
One For The Money: The Birth Of Rock, various artists, 2005
The birth of the “beat” movement or, at least the public awareness of its break-out, occurred in the late 1950s. (Although road mad warriors like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady were revving up the ground underneath plain vanilla America in the late 1940s, but that was sideshow and strictly for aficionados.) It even reached down to “the projects” kids like me with my dark sun-glassed, flannel shirted, black chino pants look, and a mandatory pinch of teen angst if not of any real understanding of what that break-out meant. The seminal cultural moment for us kids, us clueless 1950s kids, was when the clean, free, breathe of fresh air that we call rock ‘n’ roll crashed onto the scene that also broke out in the be-bop 1950s.
Although the “beat” movement, especially its literary end, was driven, and driven hard by the cool, clear, high white note jazz performed by the likes of Charley Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and in no way frontally drove rock the two easily mingle in memory of that be-bop 1950s night. Especially for those of us who really were too young to be washed over by the beats and got our “beatitude” in a more second-hand way but who were dead center when that wild jungle night, “devil's music,” “what was that sound, and where can we hear more of it?” drum beat hit our virgin ears about 1955 or so. Call us the stepchildren of one movement, and the children, mad, crash-out, runaway children of the other.
That is the premise behind this one hour documentary as it tries to tap into what the roots of rock were, how it exploded onto the central 1950s teenage stage, and how it was tamed beyond redemption, teenage redemption anyway within a few short years. One only needs to say the names Bill Haley and The Comets, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, and Eddie Cochran, and then say Fabian, Rick Nelson, Conway Twitty, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Vinton and Paul Anka to know that the music had died on some good housekeeping seal of approval parent altar. And, jesus, it wasn’t coming back, at least not in its innocent, hungry teen angst, teen alienated form, just as our youth never did either.
For an hour documentary this one covers a lot of territory. Much time is spent on the roots of rock, who pushed it along and also on the space that what we now call, sadly, classic rock, filled at just that moment in the 1950s when we, meaning teenage America, were desperate to have our own music, our own not-our parents-seal of approval music. If you think about the roots, it is almost a "no-brainer" that black-centered rhythm and blues would be an important factor as a source for rock. Especially as R&B came all rambly and scrambly out of the Mississippi Delta and got electrified in the immediate post-World War II period as it followed the black migration north to the Southern river cities and then the Midwest industrial cities. And as it got more sophisticated as its mainly black listeners and a few white “hipsters” settled in.
Just listen to early Bill Haley “jump” with that bass line and saxophone on classics like Rock Around The Clock and Shake, Rattle and Roll (even though Big Joe Turner’s version on the latter is about ten times better and sexier). Also a no-brainer, since it seems that every poor white boy child of the Great Depression who could strum three chords or pluck a few ivories was putting R&B together with that old-time Appalachian mountain twang music, hillbilly music is the influence of rockabilly.. No question that this rock is purely American songbook-worthy music.
As for those who pushed the music first place, rightly I think, goes to Alan Freed (and last place to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, although I like every other breathing, hell non-comatose, 1950s kid frenetically raced home to watch the thing in the afternoon, every afternoon okay). Freed gets his just desserts here, especially in his attempts to bring to the fore the black groups who originally recorded many of the songs that would be covered by white groups and who would gain much wider recognition for those efforts. Also deserving of mention is Sam Phillips and his Sun Record operation that was the first stop north for those who wanted to reach those teens waiting, waiting patiently, waiting out until hell froze over in the red scare cold war night just to hear the likes Of Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, Elvis and Jerry Lee.
Well I’ve covered the roots, I covered the movers and shakers, and I should mention the ”talking head” music historians who give their take, half a century later, on what it all meant. But that is not the real reason to watch this thing. The real reason is to see Bill Haley’s sax and bass men hold forth like high heaven’s own angels; to see Elvis shake , rattle and roll like some demon sex fiend making all the girls sweat and all the boys practice their moves in dank cellars or before merciless mirrors; to hear Little Richard go wild, male/female wild, high pitched wild at the piano; to see Jerry Lee reach down in some primitive place and drive those ivories to bloody hell; to see Chuck Berry duck walk his stuff; and to see between segues all that jitter-buggery, that shear, happy energy as the kids danced their hearts out. That, my friends, my nostalgic friends, was what it was like in that be-bop night of 1950s classic rock when women and men played the music for keeps.
**********
Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley
One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
Bertolt Brecht’s To Those Born After- In Honor Of A Veteran Communist Militant For Forty Years Of Service To The Struggle
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My old friend and political compatriot, Peter Paul Markin, and I have been on many a picket line, joined many a rally, walked many an endless march, and attended, seemingly, countless meetings (emergency meetings, of course) since we first met in the summer of love in the year of our lord, 1967. We have sat on many an ad hoc committee as well. Although Markin has flirted with more than one on-going organization I have studiously avoid that means of political expression preferring the free-lance organization life. Nevertheless in our circumscribed small left-wing circles we have worked with, been friends with, and even had affairs with those who have been committed to the organized left-wing life. Recently Markin came across some information about one such woman, her real name and her organization are not important to publish here, whom I was very close to back in the early 1970s. I had not heard her name nor been in contact with her for well over thirty years. Nor am I in contact with her now. Nevertheless I will honor her here and the reader can read why below.
Dear Roberta,
Way back, back in the 1970s day, when we had our personal and political Boston minute, I sensed, strongly sensed although I, perhaps, never articulated it that way that here was a person who was in the struggle for the long haul. Here was somebody, a woman, out of long misty past European traditions of revolutionary struggle, a Verna Figner, Krupskaya, or beloved Rosa Luxemburg. Maybe it was the careless way you wore your hair then (and your seeming disdain for creature comforts). Maybe it that tone in your voice, the one that said this is not somebody to trifle with politically. Or maybe it was just East Texas po’ girl grit. (Christ, trying to be communist out of Texas in the 1960s required some serious grit.) But here you are now a veteran communist passing on the lessons of our common history to the next communist generation a-borning (actually the next next generation we lost the Reagan generation). And I am sure that they were listening attentively, or else.
I, on the other hand, turned out to be a poor communist. But know this, through all my personal foibles and faults, and they were massive and egregious then, I never lost faith in the communist future. While I do not have forty years of dedicated organized communist service to my credit I am comfortable in the knowledge that I too will finish up as a communist, and that those better instincts of my nature got me through.
Enough of that though. In a righteous world we could sit in some Bay Area ocean spot (or the Charles River) and compare notes in a League of Old Communists. Fate has dealt us a terrible blow and we have no time for such drawn out reflections. The youth will make the revolution and make this wicked old world a far better place to live in. But just in case they falter we had better stay in the fight to the end.
Have courage –Josh Breslin
Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor of a Veteran Communist (Of course it had to be a German poet to honor this communist)
To Those Born After
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.
*******
To Those Who Come After
History in the conditional is always a funny tricky little thing. You can get wrapped up it in so bad that you begin to deny the hard reality of what really happened, what really bad happened usually. On the other hand you can do as most historians do and just plod along assuming because X, Y, or Z happened that was that. That’s the facts, jack and that’s it. Obviously to resolve this thing, or rather to get a real sense of the possibilities, some combination, some mix and matching needs to be placed in the maelstrom. And it is under that sign that I wish to understand Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, his great big tied-up with ribbons and bows valentine to future generations really, To Those Who Come After, that I have dedicated to a veteran communist who will understand my choice.
Of course it is a matter of generations, no question. And what that generation could have, or could not have, done, and done differently to sway the funny little rhythms of history. For his, Bertolt’s generation, if they only could have held out against the imperialist imperative onslaught of World War I, or at least not gone alone like sheep until almost the very end. More germane, if it could have carried out to completion one of those big-time revolutionary possibilities in Germany it had in the early 1920s. Or ceased, Communists and Social-Democrats alike, their willfully myopic view that the Weimar regime would hold out against the jackboot of Hitler’s storm streets without having to unite for an all-out fight to the death against the Nazi menace.
Moving forward to my parent’s generation, the generation that scarecrow survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and went on to survive, or wait on the survivors, of the D-Day and Pacific bloodbaths of World War II. If only they could have seen clearly enough that that Roosevelt guise was sheer deception to save his class in power (even if he had to fight them, the economic royalists, the one percent of his time, tooth and nail to do it) and create their own party, a workers party, after the tremendous class battles of the mid to late 1930s when they had the bosses on the run, a little anyway. Or hadn’t bought, bought hard into that white picket fence post-war dream and let the red scare dark night wash away whatever big (or little, but I think big) spark got them through the dustbowl miseries and war shellshock.
Once again moving forward to my generation, my disposable income record store soda fountain be-bop high school confidential night with some undiagnosed teen angst mixed with teen alienation generation, the generation of ’68, who didn’t want, well, didn’t start out wanting to anyway, buy into that red scare night white picket fence dream. If we could have just, a big “could have just” I agree, not thrown everything out with the bathwater and read some history we could have realized that it wasn’t just about us. Well, one way or the other, the Vietnamese taught us that lesson, that lesson about perseverance, about a sense of history and about using every tool around to get free. Or, closer to home, if we could have remembered where we had come from, most of us anyway, and dug our working class heels in sooner we could have left some kind of social movement worthy of the name instead of leaving future generations to start almost from scratch.
And moving on to our children’s generation. Oh, well, history records many retrogressions in the uphill struggle.
And now on to the generation that I am really directing this little “history” lesson to, the real subject of my “to those who come after,” those who roughly are students today, and are moreover the heart and soul of the Occupy movement that has suddenly jumped up onto the historic stage giving them a chance to change the course of history- on their terms. And, by the way incidentally giving to me (and others) from the generation of ’68 a second chance to make things right. Each generation I am firmly convinced must (and will) find its own ways to fight the monster. But know this, know this from first-hand experience, there is a monster on the loose out there, and that monster has a name, the American imperial state just now being captained by one Barack Obama. Whoever the captain is though the monster remains and that is where the “to the death” fight is.
And this is where Brother Brecht and I can share the same sentiments about being ill-equipped in our times to face those hard realities, to worry over half-measures, to not stay the course we knew we had to stay. So forgive us for not doing better, not doing a lot better. But forgive, or not, go slay that damn dragon.
My old friend and political compatriot, Peter Paul Markin, and I have been on many a picket line, joined many a rally, walked many an endless march, and attended, seemingly, countless meetings (emergency meetings, of course) since we first met in the summer of love in the year of our lord, 1967. We have sat on many an ad hoc committee as well. Although Markin has flirted with more than one on-going organization I have studiously avoid that means of political expression preferring the free-lance organization life. Nevertheless in our circumscribed small left-wing circles we have worked with, been friends with, and even had affairs with those who have been committed to the organized left-wing life. Recently Markin came across some information about one such woman, her real name and her organization are not important to publish here, whom I was very close to back in the early 1970s. I had not heard her name nor been in contact with her for well over thirty years. Nor am I in contact with her now. Nevertheless I will honor her here and the reader can read why below.
Dear Roberta,
Way back, back in the 1970s day, when we had our personal and political Boston minute, I sensed, strongly sensed although I, perhaps, never articulated it that way that here was a person who was in the struggle for the long haul. Here was somebody, a woman, out of long misty past European traditions of revolutionary struggle, a Verna Figner, Krupskaya, or beloved Rosa Luxemburg. Maybe it was the careless way you wore your hair then (and your seeming disdain for creature comforts). Maybe it that tone in your voice, the one that said this is not somebody to trifle with politically. Or maybe it was just East Texas po’ girl grit. (Christ, trying to be communist out of Texas in the 1960s required some serious grit.) But here you are now a veteran communist passing on the lessons of our common history to the next communist generation a-borning (actually the next next generation we lost the Reagan generation). And I am sure that they were listening attentively, or else.
I, on the other hand, turned out to be a poor communist. But know this, through all my personal foibles and faults, and they were massive and egregious then, I never lost faith in the communist future. While I do not have forty years of dedicated organized communist service to my credit I am comfortable in the knowledge that I too will finish up as a communist, and that those better instincts of my nature got me through.
Enough of that though. In a righteous world we could sit in some Bay Area ocean spot (or the Charles River) and compare notes in a League of Old Communists. Fate has dealt us a terrible blow and we have no time for such drawn out reflections. The youth will make the revolution and make this wicked old world a far better place to live in. But just in case they falter we had better stay in the fight to the end.
Have courage –Josh Breslin
Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor of a Veteran Communist (Of course it had to be a German poet to honor this communist)
To Those Born After
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.
*******
To Those Who Come After
History in the conditional is always a funny tricky little thing. You can get wrapped up it in so bad that you begin to deny the hard reality of what really happened, what really bad happened usually. On the other hand you can do as most historians do and just plod along assuming because X, Y, or Z happened that was that. That’s the facts, jack and that’s it. Obviously to resolve this thing, or rather to get a real sense of the possibilities, some combination, some mix and matching needs to be placed in the maelstrom. And it is under that sign that I wish to understand Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, his great big tied-up with ribbons and bows valentine to future generations really, To Those Who Come After, that I have dedicated to a veteran communist who will understand my choice.
Of course it is a matter of generations, no question. And what that generation could have, or could not have, done, and done differently to sway the funny little rhythms of history. For his, Bertolt’s generation, if they only could have held out against the imperialist imperative onslaught of World War I, or at least not gone alone like sheep until almost the very end. More germane, if it could have carried out to completion one of those big-time revolutionary possibilities in Germany it had in the early 1920s. Or ceased, Communists and Social-Democrats alike, their willfully myopic view that the Weimar regime would hold out against the jackboot of Hitler’s storm streets without having to unite for an all-out fight to the death against the Nazi menace.
Moving forward to my parent’s generation, the generation that scarecrow survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and went on to survive, or wait on the survivors, of the D-Day and Pacific bloodbaths of World War II. If only they could have seen clearly enough that that Roosevelt guise was sheer deception to save his class in power (even if he had to fight them, the economic royalists, the one percent of his time, tooth and nail to do it) and create their own party, a workers party, after the tremendous class battles of the mid to late 1930s when they had the bosses on the run, a little anyway. Or hadn’t bought, bought hard into that white picket fence post-war dream and let the red scare dark night wash away whatever big (or little, but I think big) spark got them through the dustbowl miseries and war shellshock.
Once again moving forward to my generation, my disposable income record store soda fountain be-bop high school confidential night with some undiagnosed teen angst mixed with teen alienation generation, the generation of ’68, who didn’t want, well, didn’t start out wanting to anyway, buy into that red scare night white picket fence dream. If we could have just, a big “could have just” I agree, not thrown everything out with the bathwater and read some history we could have realized that it wasn’t just about us. Well, one way or the other, the Vietnamese taught us that lesson, that lesson about perseverance, about a sense of history and about using every tool around to get free. Or, closer to home, if we could have remembered where we had come from, most of us anyway, and dug our working class heels in sooner we could have left some kind of social movement worthy of the name instead of leaving future generations to start almost from scratch.
And moving on to our children’s generation. Oh, well, history records many retrogressions in the uphill struggle.
And now on to the generation that I am really directing this little “history” lesson to, the real subject of my “to those who come after,” those who roughly are students today, and are moreover the heart and soul of the Occupy movement that has suddenly jumped up onto the historic stage giving them a chance to change the course of history- on their terms. And, by the way incidentally giving to me (and others) from the generation of ’68 a second chance to make things right. Each generation I am firmly convinced must (and will) find its own ways to fight the monster. But know this, know this from first-hand experience, there is a monster on the loose out there, and that monster has a name, the American imperial state just now being captained by one Barack Obama. Whoever the captain is though the monster remains and that is where the “to the death” fight is.
And this is where Brother Brecht and I can share the same sentiments about being ill-equipped in our times to face those hard realities, to worry over half-measures, to not stay the course we knew we had to stay. So forgive us for not doing better, not doing a lot better. But forgive, or not, go slay that damn dragon.
Bertolt Brecht’s To Those Born After- In Honor Of A Veteran Communist Militant For Forty Years Of Service To The Struggle
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My old friend and political compatriot, Peter Paul Markin, and I have been on many a picket line, joined many a rally, walked many an endless march, and attended, seemingly, countless meetings (emergency meetings, of course) since we first met in the summer of love in the year of our lord, 1967. We have sat on many an ad hoc committee as well. Although Markin has flirted with more than one on-going organization I have studiously avoid that means of political expression preferring the free-lance organization life. Nevertheless in our circumscribed small left-wing circles we have worked with, been friends with, and even had affairs with those who have been committed to the organized left-wing life. Recently Markin came across some information about one such woman, her real name and her organization are not important to publish here, whom I was very close to back in the early 1970s. I had not heard her name nor been in contact with her for well over thirty years. Nor am I in contact with her now. Nevertheless I will honor her here and the reader can read why below.
Dear Roberta,
Way back, back in the 1970s day, when we had our personal and political Boston minute, I sensed, strongly sensed although I, perhaps, never articulated it that way that here was a person who was in the struggle for the long haul. Here was somebody, a woman, out of long misty past European traditions of revolutionary struggle, a Verna Figner, Krupskaya, or beloved Rosa Luxemburg. Maybe it was the careless way you wore your hair then (and your seeming disdain for creature comforts). Maybe it that tone in your voice, the one that said this is not somebody to trifle with politically. Or maybe it was just East Texas po’ girl grit. (Christ, trying to be communist out of Texas in the 1960s required some serious grit.) But here you are now a veteran communist passing on the lessons of our common history to the next communist generation a-borning (actually the next next generation we lost the Reagan generation). And I am sure that they were listening attentively, or else.
I, on the other hand, turned out to be a poor communist. But know this, through all my personal foibles and faults, and they were massive and egregious then, I never lost faith in the communist future. While I do not have forty years of dedicated organized communist service to my credit I am comfortable in the knowledge that I too will finish up as a communist, and that those better instincts of my nature got me through.
Enough of that though. In a righteous world we could sit in some Bay Area ocean spot (or the Charles River) and compare notes in a League of Old Communists. Fate has dealt us a terrible blow and we have no time for such drawn out reflections. The youth will make the revolution and make this wicked old world a far better place to live in. But just in case they falter we had better stay in the fight to the end.
Have courage –Josh Breslin
Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor of a Veteran Communist (Of course it had to be a German poet to honor this communist)
To Those Born After
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.
*******
To Those Who Come After
History in the conditional is always a funny tricky little thing. You can get wrapped up it in so bad that you begin to deny the hard reality of what really happened, what really bad happened usually. On the other hand you can do as most historians do and just plod along assuming because X, Y, or Z happened that was that. That’s the facts, jack and that’s it. Obviously to resolve this thing, or rather to get a real sense of the possibilities, some combination, some mix and matching needs to be placed in the maelstrom. And it is under that sign that I wish to understand Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, his great big tied-up with ribbons and bows valentine to future generations really, To Those Who Come After, that I have dedicated to a veteran communist who will understand my choice.
Of course it is a matter of generations, no question. And what that generation could have, or could not have, done, and done differently to sway the funny little rhythms of history. For his, Bertolt’s generation, if they only could have held out against the imperialist imperative onslaught of World War I, or at least not gone alone like sheep until almost the very end. More germane, if it could have carried out to completion one of those big-time revolutionary possibilities in Germany it had in the early 1920s. Or ceased, Communists and Social-Democrats alike, their willfully myopic view that the Weimar regime would hold out against the jackboot of Hitler’s storm streets without having to unite for an all-out fight to the death against the Nazi menace.
Moving forward to my parent’s generation, the generation that scarecrow survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and went on to survive, or wait on the survivors, of the D-Day and Pacific bloodbaths of World War II. If only they could have seen clearly enough that that Roosevelt guise was sheer deception to save his class in power (even if he had to fight them, the economic royalists, the one percent of his time, tooth and nail to do it) and create their own party, a workers party, after the tremendous class battles of the mid to late 1930s when they had the bosses on the run, a little anyway. Or hadn’t bought, bought hard into that white picket fence post-war dream and let the red scare dark night wash away whatever big (or little, but I think big) spark got them through the dustbowl miseries and war shellshock.
Once again moving forward to my generation, my disposable income record store soda fountain be-bop high school confidential night with some undiagnosed teen angst mixed with teen alienation generation, the generation of ’68, who didn’t want, well, didn’t start out wanting to anyway, buy into that red scare night white picket fence dream. If we could have just, a big “could have just” I agree, not thrown everything out with the bathwater and read some history we could have realized that it wasn’t just about us. Well, one way or the other, the Vietnamese taught us that lesson, that lesson about perseverance, about a sense of history and about using every tool around to get free. Or, closer to home, if we could have remembered where we had come from, most of us anyway, and dug our working class heels in sooner we could have left some kind of social movement worthy of the name instead of leaving future generations to start almost from scratch.
And moving on to our children’s generation. Oh, well, history records many retrogressions in the uphill struggle.
And now on to the generation that I am really directing this little “history” lesson to, the real subject of my “to those who come after,” those who roughly are students today, and are moreover the heart and soul of the Occupy movement that has suddenly jumped up onto the historic stage giving them a chance to change the course of history- on their terms. And, by the way incidentally giving to me (and others) from the generation of ’68 a second chance to make things right. Each generation I am firmly convinced must (and will) find its own ways to fight the monster. But know this, know this from first-hand experience, there is a monster on the loose out there, and that monster has a name, the American imperial state just now being captained by one Barack Obama. Whoever the captain is though the monster remains and that is where the “to the death” fight is.
And this is where Brother Brecht and I can share the same sentiments about being ill-equipped in our times to face those hard realities, to worry over half-measures, to not stay the course we knew we had to stay. So forgive us for not doing better, not doing a lot better. But forgive, or not, go slay that damn dragon.
My old friend and political compatriot, Peter Paul Markin, and I have been on many a picket line, joined many a rally, walked many an endless march, and attended, seemingly, countless meetings (emergency meetings, of course) since we first met in the summer of love in the year of our lord, 1967. We have sat on many an ad hoc committee as well. Although Markin has flirted with more than one on-going organization I have studiously avoid that means of political expression preferring the free-lance organization life. Nevertheless in our circumscribed small left-wing circles we have worked with, been friends with, and even had affairs with those who have been committed to the organized left-wing life. Recently Markin came across some information about one such woman, her real name and her organization are not important to publish here, whom I was very close to back in the early 1970s. I had not heard her name nor been in contact with her for well over thirty years. Nor am I in contact with her now. Nevertheless I will honor her here and the reader can read why below.
Dear Roberta,
Way back, back in the 1970s day, when we had our personal and political Boston minute, I sensed, strongly sensed although I, perhaps, never articulated it that way that here was a person who was in the struggle for the long haul. Here was somebody, a woman, out of long misty past European traditions of revolutionary struggle, a Verna Figner, Krupskaya, or beloved Rosa Luxemburg. Maybe it was the careless way you wore your hair then (and your seeming disdain for creature comforts). Maybe it that tone in your voice, the one that said this is not somebody to trifle with politically. Or maybe it was just East Texas po’ girl grit. (Christ, trying to be communist out of Texas in the 1960s required some serious grit.) But here you are now a veteran communist passing on the lessons of our common history to the next communist generation a-borning (actually the next next generation we lost the Reagan generation). And I am sure that they were listening attentively, or else.
I, on the other hand, turned out to be a poor communist. But know this, through all my personal foibles and faults, and they were massive and egregious then, I never lost faith in the communist future. While I do not have forty years of dedicated organized communist service to my credit I am comfortable in the knowledge that I too will finish up as a communist, and that those better instincts of my nature got me through.
Enough of that though. In a righteous world we could sit in some Bay Area ocean spot (or the Charles River) and compare notes in a League of Old Communists. Fate has dealt us a terrible blow and we have no time for such drawn out reflections. The youth will make the revolution and make this wicked old world a far better place to live in. But just in case they falter we had better stay in the fight to the end.
Have courage –Josh Breslin
Poet's Corner- Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born After"-In Honor of a Veteran Communist (Of course it had to be a German poet to honor this communist)
To Those Born After
I
To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
Our forces were slight and small,
Our goal lay in the far distance
Clearly in our sights,
If for me myself beyond my reaching.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.
II
You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all
Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness
That you've not had to face:
Days when we were used to changing countries
More often than shoes,
Through the war of the classes despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.
Even so we realised
Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves.
And in the future when no longer
Do human beings still treat themselves as animals,
Look back on us with indulgence.
*******
To Those Who Come After
History in the conditional is always a funny tricky little thing. You can get wrapped up it in so bad that you begin to deny the hard reality of what really happened, what really bad happened usually. On the other hand you can do as most historians do and just plod along assuming because X, Y, or Z happened that was that. That’s the facts, jack and that’s it. Obviously to resolve this thing, or rather to get a real sense of the possibilities, some combination, some mix and matching needs to be placed in the maelstrom. And it is under that sign that I wish to understand Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, his great big tied-up with ribbons and bows valentine to future generations really, To Those Who Come After, that I have dedicated to a veteran communist who will understand my choice.
Of course it is a matter of generations, no question. And what that generation could have, or could not have, done, and done differently to sway the funny little rhythms of history. For his, Bertolt’s generation, if they only could have held out against the imperialist imperative onslaught of World War I, or at least not gone alone like sheep until almost the very end. More germane, if it could have carried out to completion one of those big-time revolutionary possibilities in Germany it had in the early 1920s. Or ceased, Communists and Social-Democrats alike, their willfully myopic view that the Weimar regime would hold out against the jackboot of Hitler’s storm streets without having to unite for an all-out fight to the death against the Nazi menace.
Moving forward to my parent’s generation, the generation that scarecrow survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and went on to survive, or wait on the survivors, of the D-Day and Pacific bloodbaths of World War II. If only they could have seen clearly enough that that Roosevelt guise was sheer deception to save his class in power (even if he had to fight them, the economic royalists, the one percent of his time, tooth and nail to do it) and create their own party, a workers party, after the tremendous class battles of the mid to late 1930s when they had the bosses on the run, a little anyway. Or hadn’t bought, bought hard into that white picket fence post-war dream and let the red scare dark night wash away whatever big (or little, but I think big) spark got them through the dustbowl miseries and war shellshock.
Once again moving forward to my generation, my disposable income record store soda fountain be-bop high school confidential night with some undiagnosed teen angst mixed with teen alienation generation, the generation of ’68, who didn’t want, well, didn’t start out wanting to anyway, buy into that red scare night white picket fence dream. If we could have just, a big “could have just” I agree, not thrown everything out with the bathwater and read some history we could have realized that it wasn’t just about us. Well, one way or the other, the Vietnamese taught us that lesson, that lesson about perseverance, about a sense of history and about using every tool around to get free. Or, closer to home, if we could have remembered where we had come from, most of us anyway, and dug our working class heels in sooner we could have left some kind of social movement worthy of the name instead of leaving future generations to start almost from scratch.
And moving on to our children’s generation. Oh, well, history records many retrogressions in the uphill struggle.
And now on to the generation that I am really directing this little “history” lesson to, the real subject of my “to those who come after,” those who roughly are students today, and are moreover the heart and soul of the Occupy movement that has suddenly jumped up onto the historic stage giving them a chance to change the course of history- on their terms. And, by the way incidentally giving to me (and others) from the generation of ’68 a second chance to make things right. Each generation I am firmly convinced must (and will) find its own ways to fight the monster. But know this, know this from first-hand experience, there is a monster on the loose out there, and that monster has a name, the American imperial state just now being captained by one Barack Obama. Whoever the captain is though the monster remains and that is where the “to the death” fight is.
And this is where Brother Brecht and I can share the same sentiments about being ill-equipped in our times to face those hard realities, to worry over half-measures, to not stay the course we knew we had to stay. So forgive us for not doing better, not doing a lot better. But forgive, or not, go slay that damn dragon.
Friday, June 1, 2012
I’ll Get By-Love and Lose In WWII- “Until We Meet Again”- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Inkspots performing I’ll Get By.
CD Review
Until We Meet Again: The Love Songs of World War II, various artists, Smithsonian Institute, 1993
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My late mother (Delores, nee LeBlanc) from the French-Canadian sections of Olde Saco up in Maine was an inveterate letter-writer and letter saver. After she passed on I went up into the attic of our old tumble-down working class house on Atlantic Avenue to start the long process of sorting out her “legacy.” What I discovered was that not only did she save her own received letters but those of her family, her brothers and sisters mostly. One written by her sister, Nina, from World War II three-cent stamped and all shook me up for days. Here it is and in it is the essence of what the CD mentioned above is all about.
********
December 13, 1942
Hi Jimmy,
I hope this letter gets to you okay and that you are in good health and good spirits. We haven’t heard much recently about Guadalcanal so we are taking that as a good sign that things have settled down and you can rest. Even my father, my straight arrow Army World War I father, says you guys are doing a hell of job mopping up the Japs out there. Sorry for the swear but, you know Dad, that’ how he speaks when he talks about stuff like that. I guess that means that you are okay and that he has gotten over the fact that you chose to go into the Marines instead of waiting, like a lot of guys, a lot of guys like Jimmy LaCroix, Delores’ beau, to be inducted into the Army. I am proud of you and hope your every waking thought (and dreams too) are of me. Well, except when you are shooting or doing Marine stuff.
Jimmy, every time I listen to the radio and hear I Don’t Want To Walk Without You I get a little teary and think of that last night we had together before you shipped out. Oh, I am not crying about what we did and why I let you go as far as you did. No that only brings me closer to you. What I am teary about is that you had to go away right away and I didn’t get a chance to tell you it was okay. That I was your girl forever now whatever happens. The same thing happens when I hear your old favorite song We’ll Meet Again. Remember when we fought half the night a couple of week s before you left about whether that song or I’ll Never Smile Again was the cat’s meow. And then I Don’t Want To Walk Without You won in the end. Funny, hah.
Say, I had been feeling a little funny lately, a little sick, not much nothing to worry about but I feel better today because I am writing you. Gee, I wish you were here and we could go somewhere and dance, and do you know what. I wouldn’t let you down. Well, that’s about it for tonight because my pen is running out of ink.
Always your girl- Nina
********
P.S. The envelope that contained this letter bore the makings- Return To Sender-Deceased stamped across the front. Jimmy Dubois had been killed under a hail of enemy fire while trying to rescue a buddy on hellhole Guadalcanal on December 10, 1942. RIP-Jimmy Dubois-JLB
CD Review
Until We Meet Again: The Love Songs of World War II, various artists, Smithsonian Institute, 1993
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
My late mother (Delores, nee LeBlanc) from the French-Canadian sections of Olde Saco up in Maine was an inveterate letter-writer and letter saver. After she passed on I went up into the attic of our old tumble-down working class house on Atlantic Avenue to start the long process of sorting out her “legacy.” What I discovered was that not only did she save her own received letters but those of her family, her brothers and sisters mostly. One written by her sister, Nina, from World War II three-cent stamped and all shook me up for days. Here it is and in it is the essence of what the CD mentioned above is all about.
********
December 13, 1942
Hi Jimmy,
I hope this letter gets to you okay and that you are in good health and good spirits. We haven’t heard much recently about Guadalcanal so we are taking that as a good sign that things have settled down and you can rest. Even my father, my straight arrow Army World War I father, says you guys are doing a hell of job mopping up the Japs out there. Sorry for the swear but, you know Dad, that’ how he speaks when he talks about stuff like that. I guess that means that you are okay and that he has gotten over the fact that you chose to go into the Marines instead of waiting, like a lot of guys, a lot of guys like Jimmy LaCroix, Delores’ beau, to be inducted into the Army. I am proud of you and hope your every waking thought (and dreams too) are of me. Well, except when you are shooting or doing Marine stuff.
Jimmy, every time I listen to the radio and hear I Don’t Want To Walk Without You I get a little teary and think of that last night we had together before you shipped out. Oh, I am not crying about what we did and why I let you go as far as you did. No that only brings me closer to you. What I am teary about is that you had to go away right away and I didn’t get a chance to tell you it was okay. That I was your girl forever now whatever happens. The same thing happens when I hear your old favorite song We’ll Meet Again. Remember when we fought half the night a couple of week s before you left about whether that song or I’ll Never Smile Again was the cat’s meow. And then I Don’t Want To Walk Without You won in the end. Funny, hah.
Say, I had been feeling a little funny lately, a little sick, not much nothing to worry about but I feel better today because I am writing you. Gee, I wish you were here and we could go somewhere and dance, and do you know what. I wouldn’t let you down. Well, that’s about it for tonight because my pen is running out of ink.
Always your girl- Nina
********
P.S. The envelope that contained this letter bore the makings- Return To Sender-Deceased stamped across the front. Jimmy Dubois had been killed under a hail of enemy fire while trying to rescue a buddy on hellhole Guadalcanal on December 10, 1942. RIP-Jimmy Dubois-JLB
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