Reflections On The Maine Peace Walk 2016-“Stop The Wars On Mother Nature”

By Zack James

 

Fritz Taylor, the now old Vietnam War veteran and for several years a proud member of the non-violent anti-war oriented Veterans for Peace wasn’t sure just what had gotten him interested in taking his now annual Maine VFP-sponsored Peace Walk in October the preceding few years.  (VFP, a group which had its original foundations in the famous and historic Vietnam Veterans Against the War, VVAW, which he had joined just out of the Army, just out of ‘Nam after he had gotten “religion” on the questions of war and peace and decided to cast his fate with the anti-warriors of the world seeing the other side had nothing to offer but murder and mayhem.) All he knew was that a couple of years back he had read about the annual walk, now in its fifth iteration, in one of the VFP publications, maybe In These Times, and had been asked, had been cajoled by a number of his fellow members to head up to Maine to catch the last day of the walk as it headed from Saco down to the Pratt-Whitney plant in South Berwick where they make the jet engines for the military, the navy mostly, to rally outside the plant as the day shift left work. He had been so impressed by those on the walk and the idea of another more visceral way to promote peace that he had continued to take some October time out to join his fellow mostly aging “peaceniks” in their endeavors (that Saco by the way pronounced “socko” as he was made painfully aware of despite the fact that he had been going up to Maine periodically for about fifty years and on many occasions had stayed in that very town. He would not even address that even more serious question about his long affection for Maine made him a “Mainaic ” since he had been severely disabused of that idea by an old born in Maine woman who ran a diner and who threw daggers his ways when he made such an outlandish claim).    

The way things had gone as he readied for each new campaign was that each year he was adding a day or two to his commitment as the Walk headed south (usually the Walk started somewhere in the middle of nowhere up-country Maine in places like Rangeley or like this year at the Penobscot Nation, Indian Island, up by Old-Town, if you needed a town name since this really was out in the middle of nowhere from the description one walker gave him since they had to be shuttled thirty-something miles to the nearest point to continue the walk). It didn’t hurt that that southern part of the walk would run along Route One, the old coastal route which he knew well from about Freeport, the place that the outdoors giant merchandiser L.L. Bean had its origins and that this year would follow that same route down to Kittery at the border between Maine and New Hampshire and the site of the Portsmouth Naval Base which strangely is located on the Kittery side of the river that separates the two states for a final protest, a vigil as the day shift left work (and a time of previous hostility or indifference since those very workers felt, some of them anyway as Fritz found out later talking to some of them at a bar in Portsmouth where they were not very ambiguous about their feelings that closing down the base for military purposes and converting to some more socially useful purpose was so much utopian bullshit).

This year’s theme, each year there had been theme which partially determined the route and the stops, was “Stop The Wars Against Mother Nature (that plural is right on wars and not a misspelling by me and missed by the copy editor since the issues addressed were to be the obviously one against the American government’s endless military wars around the globe, big and small, and the degradation of the planet by man-made destruction of the physical space, military and corporate,  and climate change so plural is very right). The previous year’s Walk had centered on the “militarization of the seas” hence that Walk had been almost exclusively down the coast to Kittery and while this year’s started in north central Maine with stops along the way to such places as the Poland Springs plant although continuing to emphasis the militarization of the seas as part of the military degradation of the planet this year’s would finish at the key target naval base at Kittery as well.  

The previous year Fritz had begun at Freeport so this year he had planned to add a couple of days onto his schedule and start in Lewiston up in the center of the state, up in an old working class-etched factory town fallen like a lot of such old American towns by the negative impact of globalization which has made it easy, very easy to shift jobs off-shore for cheaper labor costs and no back talk although he was not sure what had been produced at those Lewiston plants, probably textiles). As this year’s march came nearer though due to a spade of health issues he had had to bail out on the Lewiston start and pick up the walk at the next starting point in Brunswick the home of Bowdoin College.

No question since the last walk the previous year life had taken a turn downward if not for the worse. Not only did Fritz develop several health problems after a lifetime of being fairly healthy if not exactly physically fit but he had turned seventy and that “milestone” had taken its toll on him mentally as the combination of illness and age made him aware, very aware of his own mortality. Worse, worst of all, was that partially due to his cranky reaction to his declining health, his increasing sense of his own mortality and his increased drive to leave his mark on this wicked old world rather than relaxing, rather attempting to find peace within himself as he faced the future music, he had become estranged from his longtime companion, Laura, or rather she had become estranged from him and so shortly before the Walk they had separated, or rather he had seen the writing on the wall after many pleas to the contrary and had reluctantly agreed to a permanent separation. She would stay in their long time home and he would wind up via an Air B and B arrangement staying in Ogunquit up in Maine for several reasons, including easier access to the Walk rather than driving up from Boston a time-consuming and taxing effort a few times.         

Having shortened up his commitment by a day due to a bad reaction from an on-going medical treatment Fritz had been undertaking the past several weeks he was primed to head up to Brunswick to begin the march south. That first morning he went up early to meet the walkers at the designated place at Bowdoin College-the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial as you enter the campus from downtown. Fritz an old time American Civil War buff thought it both fitting and ironic that the caravan had decided to form up at that particular place. Fitting since Professor Chamberlain had led a regiment of Maine’s heartiest and most dedicated to the Union and/or abolitionist cause in the gruesome key day down at Gettysburg, a key turning point along with Grant’s victory at Vicksburg along the Mississippi in the Civil War. Ironic in that that civil war against the scourge of slavery, the bedrock on which the American economy was probably the last time that a “peacenik” could have in good conscience taken up arms in a righteous American cause, here  against the villainous and unforgiving South. Given that this day as all of the days of the march would be dedicated to stopping just those kind of wars, the on-going proliferation of civil wars, as part of the grand strategy of making this wicked old world a more peaceful place the irony was not lost on Fritz.     

Having done the last five days of the walk the year before Fritz knew that he had to pace himself the first day, although the walk to Freeport was not all that long, about ten miles or so. After greeting old friend walkers from the previous years and waiting on other walkers to arrive from their various destinations (walkers were being hosted in various location by friendly patrons mostly from the assorted church denominations who have active social action committees within their congregations) he got back into his automobile to be shuttled along with others who had brought their automobiles to the lunch stop, an abandoned radio station with a porch, luckily with a porch since the day had begun rainy. Returning via the ever present van he joined the walkers as they headed out of Brunswick onto U.S. Route One, a road he was very familiar with further south but would be new ground covered here.

[That van, a rented van from “Rent a Wreck” in Bangor to save money and not worry as much about wear and tear or accidents, had its own history on the Walk as not only the shuttle vehicle but as a place of refuge for those who were willingly at heart to walk but were too infirm to go the daily distance without some additional rest. Also a place on the various daily breaks for people to get snacks and lunches. There was a separate van for personal gear, sleeping bags, knapsacks, other effects. The van as was to be expected had also been geared up, suited up, decorated up with a model dolphin created by Randy Ray, an artist who was also on the walk and a banner on one side which proclaimed the theme-Stop The Wars Against Mother Earth. Randy at one of the informational evening programs which were part of the routine of the Walk told the entranced gathering of walkers, local supporters, and supper and sleeping quarters hosts about the thought process he had gone through to create this beautiful piece of artistic propaganda which as the saying goes was more powerful than a thousand words. See banner above.]       

 

 

Fritz the previous year had noted that despite the fact that he had been coming up to Maine off and on for perhaps the past fifty years or so (which in no way, as he was periodically told and has gone out of his way to tell everybody on the Walk previously like they had not gotten  the point by native Mainers, made you a Mainer you had to have been born and bred to the place) that it had all been done by automobile, at least on U.S. 1 and so he had missed a lot of what Maine, working class and small town trades Maine was about. He had been amazed by the number of small businesses, hair salons, print shops, dentists’ offices adjoining their homes that there were along the way. That same though occurred to him again on this walk as he edged along this new walking stretch of miles. Fritz though it funny as he ambled along how so much of Maine had changed, especially along the coast where many out-of-staters had decided to settle for the cheaper housing prices and the slower way of life ever since the various Interstate highway connections made it easier to rationalize the long drives to the cities for work against the cheaper cost of living. So beside various “estate” dwellings, you know the routine, some The Glendale Estates which meant the low-rent types were not welcome, those same working poor types had their various run-down in desperate need of paint houses with rusted out old cars out back, whelping snarling dogs, screaming under-clothed kids, and cigarette butts and empty beer cans strewn everywhere. But that scene had been getting less notable along the big roads, the U.S. One roads and more likely to be seen on the intricate set of rutted back roads that form a web throughout the state.

Fritz as he traipsed along that first mile or so carrying the dove-centered black on white VFP flag that he had carried on almost every public occasion the last several years thought about the rhythm of the next six days which were pretty predictable, predictable in the best sense of that word because the organizing committee had done it work well and had the benefit of four previous efforts. Each day including this damp drizzling day started by all the various walkers meeting in a central location from their respective home-stay places near the end of the previous day’s march (or a few times when home-stays were not practical then some dusty church basement-nobody said the spreading the word about peace was a luxurious undertaking). Each day, once the issue of the shuttle had been solved with the automobiles pushed forward to the daily luncheon location had been settled, would start with a circle, a circle which he was never clear about its purpose but perhaps had something to do with the ceremonial needs of the Buddhist monks and nuns who would lead the Walk, beating their merciless drums with sticks an chanting some incantation for the well-being of the walkers and to demonstrate the one-ness of the universe. He had been surprised how many of the walkers, several of them hard-core VFPers with many anti-war actions and arrests under their belts were either deferential to the ceremonial or were in some degree sympathetic to Buddhism. He had been almost enraged the first time he saw the Buddhists scarping and bowing and the others following suit as a matter of course. He made a point of not doing the bowing and scraping and although this year he had due to his health and his new-found loneliness status begun to think more spiritually that way of the dharma was not for his as attractive as it seemed to those he admired, including his literary hero Jack Kerouac.

Each day walk covered between twelve and fifteen miles depending on what places were welcoming to this small band of active citizens and had been roughly broken into three mile segments starting about nine in the morning with ten to fifteen minute breaks, an hour or so for lunch and would continue until four or five in the late afternoon. Supper, provided supports mostly form the “usual suspects,” church groups with social action committees bend toward helping peace activists do their walking without themselves necessarily walking the trails as well. Supper were surprisingly good and bountiful as if those who were breaking bread with the righteous in their eyes walking  brethren went way out of their ways to make the best possible pot luck dishes their culinary skills could muster. (A number of walkers, male and female alike, had assumed that during the Walk they would lose some pounds and as it turned out several had gained weight due to those well-done over-the-top culinary delights and unforgettable killer desserts). After a good meal each night ended with a short to medium program centered on the theme of the Walk. One of the walkers would be elected or asked to lead the presentation to the assorted guests.

The first night of this year’s Walk for Fritz had been held at the Friends Meeting House in Durham about ten miles away from Freeport and could serve as an exemplar for the flow of most programs. Betsy Binstock, the long-time and well-known Maine peace activist and veteran walker for a million causes, led the program telling her listeners about several actions that were done by the walkers including a ceremonial sent-off by the Native Americans of the Penobscot Nation up on their sacred grounds, a stop at Poland Springs, and a rally and vigil at the notorious civilian-run Bath Iron Works who have produced more deadly vessels for the Navy than one could shake a stick at. Then Betsy present Robert Ray the designer of the banner and other artwork that graced the side of the support van and on various propaganda pieces put out by the Walk.  The evening ended with a few rousing songs performed by master guitarist Jacob Wright including War No More, a song of his own creation.  

[The evening program which had been organized by the committee to inform local supporters and interested parties and to entertain as well with music a key component of most programs had in Fritz’s mind taken second place as a way to inform people about what was going one to the actual sight of a group of twenty to thirty walkers depending on the day and the location. The sight of  a lead walker along the roads signaling with an orange flag that a procession was coming, somebody carrying the theme sign strapped to their shoulders-Stop The Wars Against Mother Earth- a Buddhist flag leading several monks and nuns chanting and beating drums, various dove-emblemed Veterans for Peace flags furiously fluttering in the wind, a banner expressing solidarity with the Native American land rights struggle out in the Dakotas, other peace and justice oriented signs and a tail-end repeat of the lead banner sign seemed more informative in a way than a few words at a program to people who already were on board. He had mentioned this idea, for which he received some counter-arguments, along the Walk to some walkers stating that the supportive honks from passing motorists, hell, the unacknowledged response even if momentarily of most motorists not hooked to a cellphone or texting  was worth walking for. His idea being that some of those who viewed the passage would have to think a little anyway about what they saw and that some citizens were walking their legs off to make a point worth thinking about. The argument will continue-as usual.]        

 

The routine established Fritz already knew the contours of the next day’s walk from Freeport to Portland, a long walk which he had a certain amount of trepidation about since the previous year that had been the first day of the Walk for him and he was dog-tired at the end of it. With rain expected to dog them that all day he was worried about having the strength to go the distance. He feared, dreaded, stood in horror of having to ride part of the route in the refugee van-that was for old people and he dreaded that notion of refuge-taking worse than anything.             

This is the way Fritz later explained how important to him walking this Peace Walk had become over the previous couple of years to his old friend and fellow anti-war activist, Jack Callahan, who due to severe hip problems had been unable to make the walks. Fritz, they had been in all kinds of anti-war actions from huge demonstrations in Washington to tiny forlorn vigils outside Army bases but he had said of late with the serious decline of any action whatsoever against war in the street sometimes it was necessary to “show the colors,” to make a public display of opposition out in the streets. Now there are still all kinds of small clots of people doing that but a Peace Walk provides an on-going thrust over several days to get the message out. Just the public display along the sometimes lonely roads of Maine can provide a boost as the occasional motorist toots his or her car horn in solidarity, or people as they passed by would say “good work.” Moreover old-fashioned leafletting along the route especially in the towns passed through provide a way to get the message out. An occasional news article by some young budding journalist who got one of the press releases and needed a subject for his or her by-line gave an added publicity push. Lately though as Fritz has become more as ease with the sense of his own mortality just the meditative rush that he received as he walked along helped him get through this rough patch heath and companion problems. No question walking along to the beat of those Buddhist drums and chanting kept him going for more than a few miles this year as he became weary on the road.    

Fritz also told Jack that night as they were slowly sipping their scotches at Jack’s, their favorite watering hole of late, to avoid too much alcohol for their respective rides home that he had met some interesting characters along the line of march, some of whom Jack knew or had heard of from various VFP actions that the pair had participated in the past. Some of the walkers had started out in Penobscot Nation and were going through to Kittery but the that was a small core mostly the long march was peopled by those like Fritz picking up the march for a day, a few days and then leave so turnover was a fairly routine occurrence (although the partings even after a couple of days on the road were emotional, a variation of separation anxiety as one wag on the road put the matter very succinctly). Of course an important element of the core, the Buddhists who led the procession daily, their personas were a book sealed with seven seals both because of language difficulties and, well, cultural differences as well since they seemed totally immersed in the drumming and chanting. Strangely, well maybe not so strangely after all, he tended to stay toward the front this year which was a “quiet zone” out of respect for the work of the Buddhists and those who were doing “walking” meditation. He stayed up with them in setting the pace in order to see if the beat in his head, a beat driven by childhood-driven rock and roll and lately the blues, maybe not even the beat in his head but the fire in his head over his current troubles, could get in synch with the beat the drummers were laying down. This in contrast to his placement the previous year where he staked out the rear of the procession and he could freely talk and let the drummers do their thing far up front but also he was then in a mood reflecting his take on the Chelsea Manning case of not leaving anybody, brother or sister behind, one of the few things felt the Army was positive in emphasizing-but as he told Jack don’t make too much of that idea, that idea that the Army could instill something positive in anybody at any time under any circumstance.     

Bob, the initial organizer of five Peace Walks and a veteran of other walks in other locales, especially down in Florida, was an enigma, rather quiet along the route but determined to give the appearance that this was a democratic effort, although peace walkers, peace activists in general these days an almost extinct species have a history of being self-starters so unless some monster problem came up to expose the reality of who was in charge (him, no question, although not without dispute, friendly dispute) that appearance held up pretty well. Beyond that there were the usual assortment of AARP-worthies who had the time to spare from their lesser pursuits of retirement like golfing or crocheting and could still go the distance (even if with a little help from the dreaded van) whom Fritz tended to stay away from since he didn’t want to get into a pissing match with those fellow worthies who wanted to detail their various illnesses, overcome and pending. The few young people, high school students who actually put the walkers up one night in Kennebuck and recent college graduates without jobs or seeking who they were, tagging along were so earnest and serious, earnest and serious like he had been when he was their age if that was possible that they were beyond the pale, just as he had been in his turn.

The most interesting characters were, as he might have suspected if he thought about it for a while, his fellow ex-servicemen with whom he could swap stories. Like Ivan who had been drafted and sent to Germany during the Vietnam War on a fluke of having been hospitalized when the rest of his training unit was given orders to that hellhole. Only to have orders to go to Vietnam during his tour in Germany as infantrymen, grunts, “cannon fodder” were pretty short on the ground during and after Tet, 1968. Another had just gotten back from Standing Rock out in the Dakotas standing in solidarity with the Native American tribes taking on Big Oil in another titanic struggle to preserve their land and their scared heritage (once again fighting for what was their own according to treaty-the white man’s treaty for what that was worth). Others as well that he could relate to easily enough since they were brethren. A few “tree-huggers” and “do-gooders” who seemed to have had the extra cash to do so were something like professional protestors once he found out their political resumes.         

A lot of oddly funny things would occur along the route like the time they were deep in the treed and nothing else part of U.S.1 and he needed to go to the bathroom, the “men’s restroom” out on the road where no stores or gas stations were within sight, had asked somebody to hold his ever present VFP-dove emblazoned flag and he ran into the woods, into a unseen small creek and got his sneakers all wet (they didn’t dry out until later the next day so he had to wear his alternate pair). Some break areas would have gas stations, restaurants, or diners, which had toilet facilities and some not. Some places would gladly let the walkers use their facilities others not (some of the latter showing a real capitalist instinct even about bodily functions would require a purchase, small or large, before allowing use of their facilities. Bah!)     

And so it went for Fritz those several days on the road. Talk, endless talk trying to get a take on who was walking and why, then quiet up front with the Buddhists to see if he could channel some positive energy out of his dismal fate of late (that effort in itself a cause for remark given the fire in his head, his disquiet), and then the breaks, the rest stops, the lunch of mostly peanut butter sandwiches (he, a lifelong devotee of peanut and jelly sandwiches, by the end would pass up that delicacy for granola bars and the like). The end of the day’s walk and the inevitable wait for supper (all timed for 6 PM to give the hosts their proper preparation and set-up time) and the evening program. Then an early bed. So it went until that final day sadly walking pass the Kittery Mall (a place where he had many times with Loretta, waiting patiently or impatiently depending on his mood) on the final leg toward the Portsmouth Naval Base on the Kittery side of the river for a final hour long vigil where as in the previous year they were met with indifference or scorn by most workers driving off to their homes after their shifts were over. Went away unaware that Fritz and his crowd did not want them to lose their well-paying union jobs with benefits, a well-deserved luxury these days, but to change what they were making, making more socially useful things instead of military weapons and the like. Enough said.   

With Skip James’ Lyric I’d Rather Be With The Devil Than Be That Woman’s Man In Mind-Why I Won’t Vote For Hillary Clinton (Needless To Say Dump The Trump Too)

By Fritz Taylor

Okay, let’s go by the numbers. Sometime in maybe late 2007, early 2008 in any case before it became clear that one Senator Barack Obama of Illinois would pose a serious challenge to then Senator Hillary Clinton of New York I had been bombarded with a few books written probably by minions or otherwise tied to the Clinton brand name. As such things go they were political biographies commissioned to advance Mrs. Clinton’s ultimately ill-fated campaign or material to be used a sound bite fodder for the same purposes. I was asked by some serious political people, maybe political pimps is the better way to put the matter to get on board her train or at least review the various books to let people outside her direct camp know how good a candidate, how well-qualified she was and so on. I balked at such an insidious task although I did to my subsequent regret review some items for which I was sent to the gallows by those same serious political folk. (At that point I had not particular animus against the relatively unknown Obama although I was subsequently to have many a vile word to say against him and his endless wars and endless bullshit about a “post-racial” society and the sand in my mouth “hope” noise he spouted).         

My vantage point for writing about the various Clinton works was encapscalated almost perfectly by the old sweet falsetto-voiced bluesman from the late 1920s Skip James, who would be “discovered” by us budding folkies in the 1960s folk minute and have a second short career before passing on, in a signature song of his-Devil Got My Woman. The key line which I used shamelessly every time I could during the early part of that campaign year before I gave up covering the whole thing as one more act of futility for those of us who were serious about social change and who furthermore had no illusions in anything any candidate speaking for the Democratic Party of war and corruption had to say-“I’d rather be with the devil than be that woman’s man.” (Needless to say the various Republicans were and are beyond the pale and not worth even a sardonic look.) That very factual comment got me in hot water with some of my die-hard Clinton supporter friends (mostly politically savvy women looking to launch the first woman into the barren American presidency). But it also got me in Dutch with my more radically-inclined feminist friends who saw my comment as “sexist,” misanthropic and misogynous. Jesus didn’t they do their own castigations and aspirations against that woman for her lug-head vote with both hands for the Iraq War resolution which still lives with us burnt in our memoires for seemingly all eternity.   

Come 2016 and the age of Dump the Trump supposedly a greater threat to the American democracy than the “reds under every bed” of the red scare Cold War rhetoric of my youth back in the early 1960s and those same cohorts have taken once again to making the same silly accusations about my Neanderthal attitude (I am being kind to myself here since their language was significantly more heated that I care to quote). But everybody knows that bourgeois politics, hell, any politics is a tough dollar so for those who forgot my retort back then about my socially backward ways I am resurrecting my talisman-my defense.     

You see the blues lyrics, folk music in general, is almost always open to copying and tweaking. So the great modern (and very feminist) blues singer Rory Block came to my rescue after I remembered that she had done a version of Skip James’ song. Except naturally when she sang the song she said- I’d rather be with the devil than be that man’s woman.” Touché. I used the masculine version of that statement when somebody asked me if I supported Barack Obama for President in 2008. (I supported the very black, the very beautiful, and very feminist ex-Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in her Green Party-etched efforts and Jill Stein of the same party in hers this year so there). I use the feminine version this year for Mister Clinton once again. Oh yeah, and Dump The Trump.       

When Buddha Swings-With Max Daddy Dizzy Gillespie In Mind 

By Seth Garth

 

No question Fritz Taylor was crazy for jazz, crazy for that swing music from the likes of Duke and Benny, crazy for the Dizzy and Charlie cool breeze be-bop daddy jazz blowing out that high white note to the China seas off some swag club in Frisco town although the more modern, techno-jazz left him somewhat cold. The jazz craze of Fritz got a workout, got a talk workout every time somebody mentioned a jazz name or hummed some be-bop beat and that would start a fire in his head, a good fire unlike the others fires which disturbed his peace, the fires of his anxious passions from which he had to run.  

One night, to give an example of how quickly Fritz could pick up the slightest thread if push can to shove, he had been sitting at a table in a church basement getting ready to have a dinner being prepared by the good folks of the Catholic Worker movement up in York, up in Maine seashore country, along the coast. These good folk had volunteered to feed Fritz and his companions. (Although this screed is not about Fritz’s history with the Catholic Worker movement just let it be said that he had a long association going all the way back to his Grandmother Riley who was a Catholic Worker supporter even though he himself had long ago given up the tenets of the Church.) Sitting at the table was a distinguished looking man about his age, maybe a bit younger who casually asked probably in the interest of table-talk if anybody liked jazz, liked the be-bop sounds of the likes of Dizzy Gillespie.

That was all Fritz needed, all he needed almost before that gentleman finished his sentence. Fritz yelled across the table (there was a lot of noise from other conversations at other tables as people waited on dinner), “You mean the be-bop max daddy of cool breeze jazz? Sure I do although I didn’t get around to digging Dizzy, digging jazz until about ten or fifteen years ago.” The man nodded probably assuming that would be the end of it.        

No so lucky, although as it turned out after Fritz laid down his screed that man and he continued comparing notes about likes and who they had heard in person or on vinyl (Fritz mainly on vinyl or discs really since he was a late starter). But not before this:

“Hey I, like a lot of you if I am not mistaken about ages here, was a child of rock and roll, of the original rock and roll what they now call the classic age of rock, you know Elvis, Bill Haley, Bo Diddley, Wanda Jackson, Jerry Lee, Carl, those guys who helped bring us off that soft-sell stuff our parents liked and expected us to like. So I had no time, no rebellion against time to listen to some of that jazz stuff that would have saxs once I got hip that made the rock sax players look sick, except maybe Bill Haley’s sax player.   

“I also went through the folk minute of the early 1960s you all know that with Dylan calling the tune for us about a new day coming and others calling on us to chuck the old ways, like Joan Baez and Phil Ochs, people like that who made us think. As part of that folk minute I got into blues, first country blues with Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell [a couple of people nodded in recognition] and then the wild men like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf who amped the music up with electricity [more nods of recognition]. Funny how that blues stuff once I got into jazz had a lot of what jazz had to offer especially with guys like the Duke and the Count but I never made the connection then.    

“Like a lot of people, maybe most people as far as music goes, I basically stayed with the music of my youth, mostly stopped looking for new sounds except for a quick stop at some outlaw country music and a little Cajun stuff. Then in 1999, and that year is  important to note, I was listening as I usually do to NPR, to a talk radio show I think when I heard this music, music that turned out to be Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington. See the show was featuring Duke’s work both because the radio host was into jazz and because that year was the centennial of Duke’s birth. Naturally once I got that beat in my head like has happened before when music “spoke” to me I continued to listen and was floored by the man’s work.

“Like a lot of things that I really like when I get the bug the next day I went out a grabbed a bunch of Duke’s stuff at a record shop in Harvard Square (really a CD shop at that point) and played them for the rest of the day. That was the start. Then I pushed on to guys like Benny Goodman, the Count, Big Early, Sweet Baby James, you know the big band stuff. Eventually to the be-bop daddies like Dizzy, Charlie, Fatha Hines, the cool breeze stuff that broke from the big band sound and got a lot more into improvisation, although not just random blowing but picking up from where another guy left off, picking up a chord change and running with it. The search for the high white note that blew right out the door and changed the climate. Funny about be-bop though I should have “dug” it a lot earlier if I thought about it since I was crazy for the “beats,” for the mostly white hipsters like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, of the 1950s who were searching for their own rebellions because the music that defined them was be-bop jazz, that cool stuff that got played in the background at the coffeehouses and clubs where they read their poems and writings.                    

“Funny too because from way back when I was seriously interested in Billie Holiday although I never really associated her with jazz but with the low-down blues, with getting me well from listening to her pain alleviate my own. One day I looked up who was backing her up and lo and behold there were Lester Young, the Prez, and Johnny Hodges blowing sexy sax to high heaven behind her. Who would have guessed.

With that Fritz had finished his rant. Then that distinguished man who started Fritz’s avalanche started talking about all the great he had seen back in the day before they passed away, Dizzy, John Coltrane, the Duke, Thelonious Monk, and a million other be-bop cats. Also had a ton of anecdotes about jazz that put Fritz’s own knowledge to shame (and looks of sincere admiration from the others at the table whose knowledge was somewhat less robust than his or Fritz’s)

Here is the wild part. That place, that church basement where the group Fritz and the jazz man were talking their talk while waiting for their supper was the place where a local group of Catholic Workers in York were hosting a group of walkers, Fritz and the jazz man included, who were walking in the 5^th Annual Maine Walk for Peace whose theme for the year was to “Stop the Wars Against Mother Earth.” The Walk had started up in Penobscot Nation over one hundred miles to north and would finish the next day with a vigil at the Portsmouth Naval Base in Kittery at river’s edge. Fritz had picked the Walk up in Lewiston ninety miles up a few days before.  The distinguished jazz man had started from day one at Penobscot Nation. See that man was not only a jazz aficionado but a Buddhist monk from Japan (now residing in a Buddhist monastery outside Seattle) who was leading the group of several Buddhist monks and nuns chanting and beating their drums who were leading the other Veterans for Peace and social activists who were co-sponsoring the event. He had “gotten religion” about jazz when a lot of the jazz greats he was knowledgeable about had hit Japan where they were treated like royalty at a time when they could hardly get a hearing in the United States, the quintessential homeland of jazz.

Yeah, Buddha swings.      

 

The Bam-Bam World-Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher-Never Go Back  (A Film Review)

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Jack Reacher-2 Never Go Back, starring Tom Cruise, 2016

Strangely, or maybe not so strangely if I thought for a moment about the circumstances under which I have watched them I have been running the rack on adventure, what I call bam-bam movies, for all the shooting, killing, maiming and general mayhem that can be done in two or so hours. That rack now includes an aging (but probably still ladies’ man handsome) Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher, version number two. And as bam-bam movies go this one was not too bad, at least it had a decent story line to augment the seven kinds of hell each side put each other through. Maybe too having a female version of Jack Reacher as his companion and a side story about his possible paternity of a wayward young girl helped push this one along.

Here’s the play, here is what makes this one a better than okay second version of the saga of lone wolf, irascible, listens to his own drummer by one of the last of the pure good guys Jack Reacher who is good with his fists, his legs, his eyes and his assortment of weaponry generally taken from the bad guys after some dispute resolution (okay, okay after being beaten the hell out of or killed in action). Jack, ex-Army, an ex-Army officer of legendary stature, who still has it comes off the hitchhike road long enough to help that female Jack, Major Turner, commander of the 110^th MPs, Jack’s old command, who needs help in figuring out who killed a couple of her subordinates in Afghanistan while they were investigating missing or displaced arms caches.

Jack figured, ha ha right, to take a pass on the help except two things happened-that fetching Major had been arrested for espionage out of the blue and he was named in a paternity suit of a wayward fifteen old girl whom he may or may not have fathered. So off the road our Jack comes and off come the gloves early on too as people, nefarious people hired by the head guy, an ex-general, of a private mercenary operation which was in deep financial trouble and who needed to keep the fact that it wasn’t about the missing arms that they cared about but the many kilos of heroin from the poppy fields of sunny Afghanistan that they were hiding in the arms caches which would get the operation well again.          

 Of course to set the framework for the maimings and mayhem to come Jack had to get himself, the good Major and that potential daughter out of harm’s way. Naturally the CEO of the mercenary operation was not going to tackle Jack by himself so he used his supply of mercenaries headed by an ex-Special Ops guy who despite his retirement from those kinds of assignment still had the scent of the hunt in his blood. The chase was on-the chase that would lead as it always does in these vehicles to a solo mano y mano fight at the end between the two real antagonists. But along the way he, and the Major, take out what must have been the heart of the mercenary operation. Hey even that alleged daughter played her part with a few nice moves to keep us guessing that maybe it was in her Jack-derived DNA. In the end the bad guys took it on the chin, and everywhere else. In the end too despite Jack’s furrowed brows of worry about that could be daughter she turned out not to be his. Which once again left our Jack free as a bird on the hitchhike road that seems to be his fate-until the number three version comes up.    

Yeah, Cowgirl In The Sand-With Neil Young (and Crazy Horse) In Mind   

By Sam Lowell 

Zack James when he was younger, much younger back in the early 1960s younger, now too for that matter was, well, how can we put it, maybe women-addled would be best. Ever since the end of high school, the beginning of college except for one short period he had always had some kind of woman relationship to confuse his sweet ass life (he hadn’t been very successful in high school too shy and too poor to make a hit with any of his female fellow high-schoolers so the end of high school seems the right place to start his women-addledness [sic]). Of late that streak had taken a sudden stop his latest flame of the past few years, Loretta, had flown the coop, had given him his walking papers, had decided that they had drifted too far apart, that she wanted to find herself, see who she was and what she would do with the rest of her life. Fair enough although the pain of her departure for parts unknown left a big hole in his heart, left him bereft for a while. But had also given him time to see what he was about, where he wanted to head.    

A lot of what Loretta had said about the need for her to cut Zack loose was dead-on, was right as she had been usually right about what ailed Zack. He always found himself behind the curve when it came to what Loretta was thinking about, what he was able to reflect in the lonely hours that he had recently spent in the house they had shared together over the previous several years. Had had to agree that the last year of so as his health had declined with some fairly serious medical issues which had required that he take some medicines that seem to pile up on each other and had made him, well, grumpy and cranky, a grumpy cranky old man if the truth be known especially as those medical problems dove-tailed with his turning three score and ten, turning seventy to not be cute about it. Had made him aware as never before of his own mortality and instead of taking it easy, instead of increasingly relaxing, instead of being at peace with himself, instead of trying to put out the fire in his head he was more driven than ever to find his place in the sun, to have his life have meaning at the end. As to his relationship with Loretta he had let himself drift apart, left her unattended, and okay left her to seek her own newer world.

During some of those lonely hours in that desolate house which creaked eerily to his ears Zack began to think through his whole life, who was he kidding his whole relationship with the women who had festooned his sweet ass life, had made life bearable for him. What he had found out, was trying to think through is that he really needed, very much needed the companionship of a woman, and if it was not going to be Loretta, hell, she essentially left no forwarding address all he had was her cellphone number so she could be anywhere, then it had to be somebody else. Rather than go right out and jump into the “meat market,” that is what they called it when he was younger and if they had a different name for the process it was still the same ordeal he decided that he had better take stock of himself and where he has been, and what he wanted out of a relationship now. Any reflection on his apart about failed relationships, and there were plenty, always, always, always led him back to the “cowgirl in the sand,” always led him back to Mariah Welsh, back when he decided  he wanted his first serious relationship.       

That “cowgirl in the sand” was no cute inside joke and it still pained Zack to even think about Mariah and how she led him a merry chase in that one summer, the summer of 1966, they had stayed together. See Mariah was actually from the West, had grown up on a big cattle ranch just outside of Cheyenne out in Wyoming country and had some certain set western ways for a young woman of twenty. He had met her down in Falmouth, down in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts about fifty miles from where he lived, down near the beach in the summer of 1966 just after his sophomore year in college. He had been renting a place with several other fellow college students for the summer who were as dedicated to partying as he was and that was that. He had actually seen her a couple of times on the beach at Falmouth Heights near where they had rented the cottage and thought that she looked very fine in her skimpy bikini (then skimpy which today would be considered modest) but was not sure how to approach her. One day he decided to go up and invite her to the weekly weekend party that his cottage put on and see what happened. (That weekend party almost literally true as the party would start early Friday afternoon and end at some Happy Hour bar early Sunday evening inevitably a few people, including Zack, would carry over until Monday or Tuesday if the spirit moved them or they had some hot date that kept the fires burning that long). 

As Zack approached her she had brought him up short when she saw him coming and shouted out “Here comes the boy who had been checking me out, checking out my shape as far as I could tell and who knows what else he was thinking about, but was afraid to come up and say hello.” Yeah, that was the kind of girl, young woman, Mariah was all through that hot summer relationship. She claimed one night when they had gotten better acquainted that unlike uptight people from the East Coast people from the West, from cattle country, were more plainspoken, less hung up about speaking out about what they wanted-or who they wanted. Needless to say Zack and Mariah spent the rest of that afternoon talking about this and that, mostly dreary college stuff since Mariah was also a student at the University of Wyoming studying art. (She was an exceptionally good artist, had drawn a couple of charcoal drawings of him which he had kept for years afterward even when he was married to Josie, his first wife, and Josie had asked who had done it and he had foolishly told her and he had to hide the damn things. Josie had later when they were separating torn the works up-yes, it was that kind of breakup). As they talked Mariah made no bones about showing off her very fine body, slender, small but firm breasts which he was attracted in woman, well-turned long legs and thin ankles, blondish brown hair, sea blue eyes and a wicked smile that would melt butter on a cold day. They made that primal connection that said they had something to do together what it would be who knew but something.

Mariah had told Zack that she had come East with a couple of her college girlfriends since none of them had ever been east of the Mississippi and had been thrilled when they first saw the ocean, had frolicked in the waves and one girl had almost gone under when a sudden riptide which they were totally ignorant of started pulling her down. But that scare was soon over since the girl had allowed herself to drift until the current subsided. They were staying for the summer over on Maravista a few blocks away from the beach (and maybe half a dozen blocks away from Zack’s cottage) in a tiny cottage in back of the landlord’s yard which he usually let out to students who worked in the restaurants and such places for the summer. As the hot tanning sun began to fade a bit by four Zack then popped the question of whether she and her girlfriends were up for a party that weekend. All Mariah asked about though was would there be booze and dope there. When Zack answered yes Mariah said they would surely, her word, be there and she had better not see him talking to some other girl when she arrived. Bingo. That booze and dope stuff needs a little explaining since Zack and his fellows were all under official drinking age (as were Mariah and her friends at least in Massachusetts) so they “hired” an older guy who was living with a bunch of his older friends up their street to “buy” for them and he would get a big bottle of liquor, usually scotch, as his service charge. The dope thing was a little more problematic since dope, marijuana, maybe some speed when a connection could be made, were not that widely used then by the youth fresh college generation although that movement was beginning to build up a head of steam. At that time “booze heads,” representing a more working class ethos and “dopers” were at loggerheads something that would get settled out later in the decade. Jazz, one of his roommates at their cottage and at school, had connections in Cambridge and so they never lacked for dope although more than a few girls would back off once they smelled the dope and didn’t know what the hell they were in for. So Mariah already was ahead of that crowd.       

As they were getting ready to part company after Zack gave Mariah his address and had told her to come by anytime on Friday afternoon or later Mariah told him to wait a minute until she put her street clothes on and they could walk off the beach together toward her car (Zack had walked over to the beach since he unlike several of his roommates did not have a car and was driven down by Willy another roommate). Zack was shocked, mildly shocked anyway, when Mariah put on her blue jean shorts, a frilly lacy cowgirl-type blouse, and, get this, her cowboy boots, and her cowgirl hat what he would later find out was called a Ladies’ Stetson. She looked like she had just gotten ready to go to the rodeo, or the state fair. Something told Zack that this was going to be an interesting ride indeed. Mariah must have sensed that because as they approached her car for her to leave she asked Zack whether he liked her outfit, and then said in her plain spoken Western way, “Maybe you can play cowboy with me if things work out.” Giving Zack a soft sexy look like if things worked out she would give him a ride he would not forget. Whoa!                             

That Friday evening Mariah and her two girlfriends arrived, guess what, dressed up very similarly to the way Mariah had been dressed as she and Zack left the beach a few days before which caused a sensation, a sensation at the novelty of the garb in Falmouth in the summer and also that the two girlfriends were “hot” as well. Zack fortunately was alone when they entered (he had earlier been talking to Cissie, an old flame whom he figured to rekindle a flame with that nightsince he had frankly given up the idea that Mariah was going to show, it would not have been the first time, or the last, some young thing had promised the moon to him and never showed up). Mariah came right over and asked if he had a joint, a joint she said to calm her nerves, make her feel good among the party-goers all of whom were eying her the guys for obvious reasons the women also for obvious reasons if they were with a guy.

Zack called over to Jazz who delivered a huge joint from dope he had “connected” with only that afternoon which made Mariah eyes widen and after taking a few “hits” said to Zack “You may be playing cowboy tonight after all.” In that instance her statement proved not to be true because she got so “wasted” that she fell asleep but the next night’s party, or really a continuation of Friday’s party she and Zack got it on in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs (not his room, the room where he had all his possessions, but nobody was particular about such arrangements when a “hot” date needed a place to put her head down).                         

What struck Zack about Mariah (beside that Western plain-spokenness that he was not used to with the local girls, mostly Irish girls who descended on the Cape with as the saying went “ten dollars and their virtue” and left with both intact or standoffish WASPish girls from the better colleges who were sometimes more trouble than they were worth in trying to get next to them if you were not seriously looking to be upward mobile after your college hijinks) was how sexually experienced and into doing sex she was even that first night when she did a lot of stuff that most other girls he knew were into, like giving a good blow job. When they talked about it later Mariah told him that those cowboys out in the West, the ones who worked for her father broke her in early at thirteen and she liked it, liked it enough to read books in high school about various sexual positions and practices from a manual. (It turned out to be the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian bible of sex for those who are clueless). 

So for several weeks that summer Zack and Mariah were what would be called an “item” today, were almost inseparable. Went to the beach, partied, had great sex (mostly based on her knowledge and Zack’s willingness as a subject) and Zack assumed would find some way to continue their relationship at summer’s end. When that time came though Mariah told him straight out that theirs was a summer fling and that she was heading back to school in Wyoming and back to her boyfriend. The night they parted though, despite Zack’s futile pleading that they stay together some way and then giving up when she cut him off which she said was also a Western way, she gave him a parting sexual bout that he still remember fifty years later. Yeah, Zack was women-addled, always was being played by them. Praise be.          

With Skip James’ Lyric I’d Rather Be With The Devil Than Be That Woman’s Man In Mind-Why I Won’t Vote For Hillary Clinton (Needless To Say Dump The Trump Too)

By Fritz Taylor

Okay, let’s go by the numbers. Sometime in maybe late 2007, early 2008 in any case before it became clear that one Senator Barack Obama of Illinois would pose a serious challenge to then Senator Hillary Clinton of New York I had been bombarded with a few books written probably by minions or otherwise tied to the Clinton brand name. As such things go they were political biographies commissioned to advance Mrs. Clinton’s ultimately ill-fated campaign or material to be used a sound bite fodder for the same purposes. I was asked by some serious political people, maybe political pimps is the better way to put the matter to get on board her train or at least review the various books to let people outside her direct camp know how good a candidate, how well-qualified she was and so on. I balked at such an insidious task although I did to my subsequent regret review some items for which I was sent to the gallows by those same serious political folk. (At that point I had not particular animus against the relatively unknown Obama although I was subsequently to have many a vile word to say against him and his endless wars and endless bullshit about a “post-racial” society and the sand in my mouth “hope” noise he spouted).         

My vantage point for writing about the various Clinton works was encapscalated almost perfectly by the old sweet falsetto-voiced bluesman from the late 1920s Skip James, who would be “discovered” by us budding folkies in the 1960s folk minute and have a second short career before passing on, in a signature song of his-Devil Got My Woman. The key line which I used shamelessly every time I could during the early part of that campaign year before I gave up covering the whole thing as one more act of futility for those of us who were serious about social change and who furthermore had no illusions in anything any candidate speaking for the Democratic Party of war and corruption had to say-“I’d rather be with the devil than be that woman’s man.” (Needless to say the various Republicans were and are beyond the pale and not worth even a sardonic look.) That very factual comment got me in hot water with some of my die-hard Clinton supporter friends (mostly politically savvy women looking to launch the first woman into the barren American presidency). But it also got me in Dutch with my more radically-inclined feminist friends who saw my comment as “sexist,” misanthropic and misogynous. Jesus didn’t they do their own castigations and aspirations against that woman for her lug-head vote with both hands for the Iraq War resolution which still lives with us burnt in our memoires for seemingly all eternity.   

Come 2016 and the age of Dump the Trump supposedly a greater threat to the American democracy than the “reds under every bed” of the red scare Cold War rhetoric of my youth back in the early 1960s and those same cohorts have taken once again to making the same silly accusations about my Neanderthal attitude (I am being kind to myself here since their language was significantly more heated that I care to quote). But everybody knows that bourgeois politics, hell, any politics is a tough dollar so for those who forgot my retort back then about my socially backward ways I am resurrecting my talisman-my defense.     

You see the blues lyrics, folk music in general, is almost always open to copying and tweaking. So the great modern (and very feminist) blues singer Rory Block came to my rescue after I remembered that she had done a version of Skip James’ song. Except naturally when she sang the song she said- I’d rather be with the devil than be that man’s woman.” Touché. I used the masculine version of that statement when somebody asked me if I supported Barack Obama for President in 2008. (I supported the very black, the very beautiful, and very feminist ex-Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in her Green Party-etched efforts and Jill Stein of the same party in hers this year so there). I use the feminine version this year for Mister Clinton once again. Oh yeah, and Dump The Trump.       

The Gang That Couldn’t Rob Straight-Owen Wilson's Masterminds

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Masterminds, starring Owen Wilson, 2016

Sometimes when a friend recommends a film it turns out to be a dud, turns out to be less than expected and in the case of the film under review, Masterminds, make that much less than expected considering the cast. Makes one wonder why a great comedic actor like Owen Wilson took the job, took the chance to work on a funky film that had a chance to go in one of two directions, a straight line comic look at a true story or a farce that bombed. It took the latter. The direction toward the farcical led the vehicle astray when all is said and done.  

Here is the skinny, here is why the title of this piece can be called the gang that couldn’t shoot straight taking a page from an old Jimmy Breslin book. The story line based on a true incident about the doings around one of the great cash robberies in banking history, the Loomis heist in North Carolina 1997 for seventeen big ones-17 mil, okay not chicken feed then nor now. David Scott Ghantt, a security guard on a Lommis armored truck was hook-winked, no make that bewitched and bewildered by his sexy armored truck partner, Kelly, who had walked  out on the job over some harassment. A while later she wound up working hand and hand with a low-life short end of the stick criminal Steve, played by Wilson, who wants her to con, I am being kind here since this is a family sensitive outlet, David into being the inside man on a big heist of the company’s loot. David balked at first but Kelly lured him with her charms despite the fact he was two minutes to midnight away from getting married to another woman.        

The heist was a piece of cake for an inside job and David was told to lay low in Mexico until the coast was clear. The false lure was Kelly joining him soon, yeah, soon. The idea Steve thought though was that David was to get the short end of the straw, was the odd man out as he, Steve, was not going to share the dough with anybody but his loving wife and two unlovable kids. Meanwhile David was still forlornly expecting Kelly to join him in Mexico. Sucker. Double sucker because Steve threw the Feds onto him and he led them a merry chase before he got wise to what Steve, and Kelly, were up to. Steve in a panic, putting greed before good sense ordered a hit on David by a screwball hit man who couldn’t hit right-as was to be expected. They wind up switching same identities (it’s a long unfunny story so just go along with me) so that David wound up at Steve’s over-the-top mansion ready to get even. And he does in a way after the Feds got definitive proof that low-life greedy Steve and not pure-heart David was the evil mastermind behind the caper. Steve did 11 years, David pure-heart drew seven and Kelly a bunch too. With that enticing story-line it was a shame that the film was marred with so many unfunny slapstick jokes, some much low-rent bathroom humor and such a waste of an obviously talented cast. Yeah, what was Owen Wilson thinking. Some day when they do a retrospective of his work this one will not be included, I hope.     

The Good Guys?-Ben Affleck’s The Accountant (2016)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendricks, John Lithgow, 2016         

Every once in a I check out more modern up to date films that strike my interest (normally I am stuck in a long-term project to revisit the black and white beauties from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s mostly suspense and noir), usually if venture into that territory it is on the recommendation of a fellow movie devotee or has a star that might carry the film if the plot gets bogged down (a recent example, the latest remake of The Magnificent Seven with Denzel Washington and an ensemble cast carry a thin plotline). The film under review, Ben Affleck’s The Accountant, is an example of the former and the friend was not mistaken not only in Mister Affleck’s compelling presence but the twists and turns of this thriller.              

Here’s why I thought it worth recommending. Chris Wolff, Ben Affleck’s role as the autistic child turned adult hit man extraordinaire who still suffered the heartache of that disability from his military father’s refusal to get him experimental help as a child. The old man thought that young Chris (and his brother) should “man up” and this was the result. Now hit man Chris was a mathematics exemplar and thus found himself working as an independent accountant hand and glove for whoever who paid the freight. And the guys who were willing to pay the freight were some of the most wretched criminals on the planet who were worried that somebody in their organizations were “cooking” the books. Chris did his work well, working with a voice who directed his actions (who that “voice” was you can find out if you watch the film I will never tell because, well, because I don’t want to be blown away by a methodical vengenceful autistic hit man whose code of honor I have offended)         

Of course when you are working hand and glove with the wickedest of the wicked the government, here the Treasury Department, would deem you a “person of interest”-if they could find you. Find you in the person of a senior G-man running a young black agent with a checkered past to do the serious finding they (really she) finds out who he is. But not before Chris has blown away half the thugs in the universe (he was offing them so quickly I couldn’t keep the body count). He finds out from the “voice” that the government is on his trail, that methodical young black female agent working her magic under extreme duress,   and told to cool it for a while.  

Naturally Chris does taking on a legitimate project to find out who is embezzling serious money from a high tech robotics company headed by Lamar Blackburn (played by John Lithgow). The cooked books were discovered by the company’s accountant Dana, played by Anna Kendricks, who was in over her head in trying to find the problem, a problem that needed to be solved quickly since the company was in the midst of an IPO which would bring the company billions. With those high stakes Chris’s finding the missing link drove the rest of the film and dramatically increased the body count. Guess who the guy was who was very interested in making sure his company’s IPO went off without a hitch. And guy who also had a very serious interest in keeping Chris from spilling the beans. And guess who the guy was who hired his own hitmen to keep things quiet. And guess who the hired hitman was. Yes, you can figure all that out now. Remember though what I said about the voice. See this one if you have a couple of free hours.