Carry on, carry on... Nothing really matters...

When I just logged in, the rotating globe showed a reader in Belgium! That's why I like the globe - even though it slows the site's load time a little. Enlarge it sometime using the "+" button. Every red dot shows the location of an ISP which visited.

Recently, I've spent quite a bit of time wending my way through the dusty roads of my memory. Much of that exercise has been intended as an entry into this blog. And I'm sure I'll get there.

In the meantime, I found this on the web today while I was free associating from site to site. It has to be seen and demands to be shared. Thing is, it left me speechless.  After I stopped laughing.

A Little Rebellion now and then

So here's the thing - I was walking to work one Sunday morning (August 27th), and I'd gotten almost as far as Veteran's Bridge over the West River where it meets the Connecticut. Next to the bridge there's a US flag and an MIA flag on display. Just to the right of the flagpole is some sort of an electronic power substation. It might have something to do with the train tracks whose bridge is about 30 feet away. Or not. There's enough of a sliver of land for weeds to grow, then there's the Connecticut River.The sky was beginning to grow light and there was a slight fog that would have to burn off.  The figure of a large man, a full trash bag slung over his shoulder, was walking into the middle of the road. A car went by and in that second, the guy disappeared. On the far side of the bridge, weeds have overgrown a small area next  to the beginning of  the bridge's tourist sidewalk and Kodak Moment spot.

 The weeds were not tamped down. He hadn't crossed thru or walked there. So where was he? Was he real, a trick of the light, a trick of memory, a shadow person crossing momentarily between realities? Maybe I had crossed into his.

August 29th was the anniversary of the start of Shays' Rebellion (1786). It's been relegated to a footnote in U.S. history. When I was in grade school, it was mentioned in a quick exhalation of breath which included the words "Whisky Rebellion"  all jumbled together.

It was just after the Revolution. Times were considered pretty good. Shipping of goods from England had resumed, and the pent up demand was starting a boom economy. Many merchants, lawyers, and lenders, (most of them Loyalists to the Crown) had returned after having evacuated with the British army back in March of 1776. They knew when to cover their asses. The Bostonian elite was happily out of control with its spending. The poor, of course, were suffering. The U.S. Government at the time barely existed. It was also broke and in debt. European investors in the Revolution began demanding payment - in gold and silver. The Loyalist merchants and money lenders in Boston followed suit, demanding payment on pre-war loans. The Massachusetts legislature laid the heaviest tax in the history of the state. It was time to squeeze the poor some more.

The small land owners and farmers had no money. Many had been soldiers in the Revolution, some as conscripts, some as volunteers. They had never received any of their promised pay. After returning home, they soon found themselves deeply in debt and sent to prison. People started to organize. Those in the movements became known as "Regulators".  Their squads would surround courthouses attempting to prevent the convening of bankruptcy hearings. They closed down courts from Great Barrington to Worcester, Concord, and Northampton. In Northampton, there had been person to person combat.

Daniel Shays had joined the Revolution and fought his way from Lexington to Bunker Hill to Saratoga. He'd been decorated and made a captain. Wounded, and without his pay, he had journeyed home and started a new life on a hardscrabble farm in Pelham, Mass. As the economic noose tightened, he saw a sick woman have her bed taken out from under her, confiscated to pay debts. He would soon find himself  being sued for payment of debt.

After the Northampton incident, the Regulators pressed upon Shays to present to the government a request that bankruptcy court not meet in Springfield until the state governor "had a chance to address the grievances of the people". Shays reluctantly agreed to become involved.

As tensions mounted, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indicted what it thought were eleven leaders of the insurgency as "disorderly, riotous, and seditious persons." Shays, incensed by the indictments, organized an army of 700 farmers - mostly veterans like himself. He led them on a march to the court at Springfield. As the men marched, they were joined by deserting militia members, former soldiers, and townsfolk. In the meantime, General William Shepard - head of a local militia of 900 - sought permission from the US Secretary of War for the militia's use of weapons stored at the Springfield Armory.

On Sept. 26th, Shays and his men, now numbering around 1,400,  arrived at the Springfield court. General Shepard and his militia were guarding the Courthouse. Shays had his men surrounded both Shepard's forces and the Courthouse. They broke into the jail and freed imprisoned debtors. Shays summed up General Shepard and his troops; they were well armed, well fed, and possessed warm clothing for the oncoming winter. His men were poorly clothed and fed, and had a mix of guns, clubs and pitchforks for weapons. He met with Gen. Shepard, whose militia was easily outnumbered by Shays'. The two former war officers reached a settlement - Shepard would withdraw his troops, the judges would leave without starting hearings. Shays and his men would peaceably march around the courthouse, demonstrate, and "go home friendly".

The Boston elite, seeing the implications, were mortified and pressured the Governor to do something. No less a personage than Sam Adams, Patriot,

organizer and leader of the first "Tea Party", claimed that "foreigners" were instigating treason among the "commoners". He further added ,"the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death". He helped write and enact a Riot Act, which allowed county sheriffs to kill the rebels with impunity. On sight.

In November, the Legislature suspended habeous corpus. It was being said that the “rebels”' goal was to share all private property as “the common property of all...” The governor dispatched a militia of 4,400 financed by Boston merchants, to re-open courts so they could continue to process property confiscations.

There were other "close the courthouse" operations, and many turned ugly. Rumors of atrocities inflicted by Government troops on innocent bystanders, including women and children, alarmed and inflamed the Regulators. Shays and other leaders began organizing more towns and farmers.

General George Washington, seeing the powerless position of his new country, left retirement and began to advocate a change in the Articles of Confederation for a stronger national government. In letters from France, Thomas Jefferson wrote; "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion." 

 Shays attention tuned to the Springfield armory. Aside from providing weapons for his men, the armory would also provide safe shelter against the cold. He planned with other regulators to have three regiments take the armory on January the 25th.

On that day, one of Shays regiments was, unknown to him, delayed. He marched his other two regiments through 4 feet of snow towards the armory. General Shepard and his men, without authorization, "borrowed" weapons from the armory and were waiting to defend it. They had set up two cannons at the door. General Lincoln was about a day's march away. As Shays and his men approached, Shephard's men opened fire with the cannon. Four of Shays' men fell dead. Over forty were wounded. They had never thought that their neighbors and fellow veterans would fire at them. They  faded into the woods.

Over the next two months, Shays and his men were pursued from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. Many, Shays included, found refuge in Vermont. Death sentences were handed down against the rebels. Most would be reprieved at the last moment as they stepped to the gallows noose. Eventually, only two were hung - and they had been horse thieves. After being pardoned, Shays landed in upstate New York, where he eventually died at the age of 76 or so, broke and in obscurity.

A few months after the rebellion, a convention opened in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. As the rich and powerful began to circle around, it was decided to do away with the Articles and write a new document.

As one proposal was being debated, another letter from Thomas Jefferson noted; "Wonderful is the effect of impudent; persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts?... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."

The new document to emerge from Philadelphia became the Constitution of the United States.

Post Script :

It has taken over a month to write all of this. On the second day at it, back in August, I saw another shadow form, this one thin, carrying a full garbage bag slung over its shoulder. He faded into the darkness.

At the end of August, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and members of the "Tea Party" met on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed his dream exactly 47 years earlier.

Beck and Palin are both on the payroll of Fox News, which heavily promoted the event. Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. is the world's third largest media conglomerate. Click here for a list of Media Corp's assets, which range from the Times of London, to the Wall Street Journal,  the New York Post, 20th Century Fox, Direct TV, the Fox TV network, and My Space. He is a principal backer of the Tea Party movement, along with the Koch brothers.

The Koch brothers are both Libertarians who advocate for the abolition of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies, welfare, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools. They operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, control some four thousand miles of pipeline, and own products from Brawny paper towels, to Dixie cups, and Georgia-Pacific lumber. Their secret war against Obama was recently exposed by Jane Mayer's article, "Covert Operations", in the New Yorker. (Click here for article)

A couple of days ago, just as twilight was passing into darkness, I saw another shadow carrying a full garbage bag slung over one shoulder. He crossed through my apartment building's front yard. A neighbor, out on his balcony for a smoke, hollered out to the shadow that the recycle bin of bottles and cans had moved around the corner. The figure continued on its way.

In the 1930's, in order to expand the water supply for Boston, the Swift River Valley was dammed and flooded. Parts of Pelham, Mass. including Daniel Shays' home and farm, along with several other towns and sites tied to the rebellion, now sit at the bottom of the Quabbin Reservoir.

September 11th - 8:46am

The Lieutenants Cable Always Die Off-stage

It's taken awhile to get back to writing in the blog. I had started a new post on August 1st. I'd typed in the title "A Tribute to YouTube" about noon. I wandered away and didn't get back to it until sometime after 8pm. I wrote that I had been shocked by a revelation. Frank Sinatra seemed to have something to do with it. Then I stopped. Now, looking back, I no longer have any idea what the "revelation" was, which is a shame as it started out in a rather promising fashion, involving Sinatra and all. I do remember that I'd thought of a DVD I have, in which Frank Sinatra welcomed Elvis Presley back to the US after his army stint in Germany.

Hmmm, Elvis.

I still remember being horrified that the US Army would draft the most popular man in the country, especially since he was doing so much good entertaining folks right here at home. (Back then, you'd serve in the army for two years, followed by fours years in the reserves). At the time, I was 7 years old. I've had a mistrust of the armed services ever since. And to this very day, I can not for the life of me understand why someone should owe up to 6 years of their life to the government of the scrap of land they were born on. Because of such beliefs, I became a draft counsellor (for staying out of the military) during the Vietnam War. But that's a story for another day. 

 

I still remember where I was when I first heard the news. I was working for Richard H. Rodgers Film Media. (No, not -that- Richard Rodgers.) I was head of the booking side of the business, and sitting at my desk in the booking room when Artie Haber came in. It was a little after 4pm on the 16th of August 1977. He told me that the news reports were saying Elvis Presley had died.

I'm old enough to remember the end of the big band years. Most of the few bands that had survived had gone into television. Pop songs of the day tended towards sentimental ballads. And then Elvis burst upon the scene.

Elvis changed everything. "Presley brought rock'n'roll into the mainstream of popular culture", wrote historian Marty Jezer. "As Presley set the artistic pace, other artists followed. ... Presley, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture." Marty used to live near my apartment here in Brattleboro. I miss his walking by and stopping for a chat.

It became fashionable at one point to note that Elvis had "stolen" from black musicians and records. Back then, everyone had 'their' version of popular songs. It was the norm. It was Elvis who was most responsible for merging gospel with rhythm and blues to form rockabilly. He brought the music into the mainstream. He made the careers of most black performers possible. At one point, a nasty, racist comment was attributed to him. Black performers of the day who knew him came to his defense. No longer dealing with the mainstream press, Elvis gave only one interview about the incident - to African American magazine, 'Jet'. Even though the rumor was quickly discounted, it is still repeated and used against Presley to this very day.

In his later years, he became an object of some derision. Around 1973, after his mother's death and his divorce, Elvis' health began to decline. He became addicted to Demerol and barbiturates. He gained weight. In performance, he began slurring his words, and occasionally falling over. Even still, he was one hell of a performer.  His last real hit was "Hurt". "If he felt the way he sounded", Dave Marsh wrote, "the wonder isn't that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long." Here it is, from Elvis' last performance on June 27th, 1977.



And here's the last song Elvis sang in Public, the closing number of that same June 27th, 2007 show.



I moved to Brattleboro in May of 1995. The apartment I rented had a side porch where I could often be found, gently rocking in my chair, gazing off at nothing in particular. That August, just after the middle of the month, there was an afternoon when a Church bell began to toll just after 4pm. It wasn't time for a service, or vespers, or anything I could think of. As the bell continued, I ran inside and turned on the tv - someone important must have died. But there was no such news. There was nothing in the paper the next day. It bugged me for awhile, then I forgot about it. The following year, once again in mid August, once again just after 4pm, the church bell started to ring. I remembered the previous year, and went off to turn on the tv and radio - this event was beginning to make me very curious. The months passed. On October the 31st, my then employer, the Brattleboro Food Co-op, had encouraged employees to dress up for Halloween. Several did - including one guy who was wearing a gold lame suit, and had his hair in a pompadour. It turned out that he was a big Elvis fan. Suddenly, it began to dawn on me. I asked if he remembered the date Elvis died. About mid-August he said. I asked if he remembered the time. He said that the death was reported a little after 4pm. I had moved to a town that still remembered Elvis 20 years on. I loved it. It was the kind of town I wanted to live in.

That Brattleboro is gone. More and more now, I hear the songs of those who can't make it anymore, who can't take it anymore, who have been pushed over the edge. Voices in the night singing a litany of curses. There's more homeless on the streets now. There's more people living out of their cars. They have all been made mad. And how could they not be in such times as these? 

Now, I'm not an Obama fan. When he first ran for president, he often spoke of fixing middle class woes. He did not talk about the poor. No one talks about the poor. But good God - that man isn't being allowed to govern. He's been tarred and feathered as a demon by the rightist groups. They repeat untrue and outrageous statements about him and his policies. No one remembers or seeks the truth anymore. A person with a memory is now to be feared as a radical. Take the shout of "You LIE". All anyone remembers is - he lies. And the person who shouted that is now regarded as a hero for telling the truth "like it is".The recent brouhaha over the Muslims building a center near the site of the World Trade Towers is a perfect case in point. Here's what the president said:



He did not endorse the project. He simply defended their constitutional right build a center. Those on the right were quickly (and loudly) incensed. Obama was condemned for his comments. He's in with the Muslims, you know. He wasn't even born in this country. He lies. How can this be built two blocks from Ground Zero- Hallowed Ground? The yelling was so loud that the next day Obama was forced to note that he had not endorsed the project. So he was suddenly accused of "back pedaling". It was such a mess that other Democrats, who had been rather silent, started weighing in on the issue - especially those who are up for re-election. It just goes on and on from every side, and no one points out that Ground Zero isn't so Hallowed that a commercial complex can't be built at the site. No one seems to stand up and yell the truth anymore - and these days you have to yell louder than the lies. No one has the guts anymore. They can't take the risk of being politically destroyed. The president doesn't get to sing "Hurt".

While I was starting this post, I found myself telling you about Richard H. Rodgers just as the PBS station on the tv began broadcasting -that- Richard Rodgers (and Hammerstein's) "South Pacific" live from Lincoln Center. Wonderful show. Except that Lt. Cable dies offstage. Cable was the first of the cast to overcome his own inborn prejudices and fears. It's Cable who sings, "You have to be taught to hate and fear, you have to be taught from year to year.... You've got to be carefully taught." I wanted to know more about him. I wanted a chance to shed a tear over the man who stood up and told the truth. But Lt. Cable dies offstage.

One of my first dim memories of watching television was tuning in to the Du Mont channel to see "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle". But one day there was news on in its place. There was endless talk, men sitting at tables, and one really old man talking in a strange manner. After a few minutes, I changed the channel to search for cartoons. I did not realize then what I had witnessed. I did not understand it. I was not quite 4 years old. It was the final episode of a hell of a show. And the really old guy had spoken truth.


So what has happened to decency and civility? How can one promote decency when the banks and auto industry got bailed out and nothing went to the poor - except the added expense of being required to get health insurance? Oh that's right - the money spent didn't help. Even though even GM posted a profit. How can there be decency when the folks who spent the most borrowed money on overpriced houses are getting to walk away from thier debt? Even if they settle with the bank, it will be at 10 cents on the dollar. That kind of profiteering "rewards immorality to some extent.”  And the little everyday guy? He got screwed. He's left wandering the night chanting his liturgy of swears. If he tries to talk back, to stand up, his character will be smeared and he'll be left to die off stage. At long last, no one has a sense of decency left. And no one rings the bell for Elvis.

As Things Fall Apart

It happened again last Saturday.
I was on my way home after finishing my radio show.
I'd just gotten to the juncture of Main Street and Putney Road when I heard voices arguing.
Male Voice "Shut Up!"
Female Voice "No, You shut up!"
Male Voice "Shut up, woman!"

(pause - during which I tried in vain to get a peek across the little park by the Wells Fountain)

Male Voice "FUCK THE WORLD."

Well, at least he was succinct.
I knew in that moment that he had been pushed over the edge too.

I'm at the brink these days myself.

My low wage, demeaning. and unrewarding career position as a cashier at a supermarket has taken a new and potentially ugly turn. The front end management recently hired about 12 new people. In fact, all of a sudden, there are new hires all over the store. I've heard that a few years ago there was a sudden purge of the cashiers and service clerks. It may be getting ready to happen again. Corporate, located somewhere over in Belgium, is slowly lowering the iron boot upon the neck of the workers. You know, this somewhat confirms a suspicion of mine that the Netherlands rather enjoyed having the Nazis take over.

Our hours have been cut again. I now have days (plural) when I work a total of four hours. It is now impossible to meet my few financial obligations : rent, cable (bundle with phone and Internet), storage and food. Everyone has had their hours cut. I've looked. Aside from cashiers who are also shift leaders or bookkeepers, I have more hours than anyone at 30 hrs per week. I have no reserves left, either in the bank or in the soul. I'm tapped out. It will be at least another two weeks before I'll be able to get the rent together - if I give up eating. I often find myself these days gazing off without focusing, adrift in my own little world of anger, frustration, resentment, resignation and bitterness. I'd throw in more adjectives but if Kubler-Ross could do it in five, then so can I.

Meanwhile, I read in this mornings online news that 17 of the banks which got billions in bailouts — including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America — have paid out $1.6 billion in bonuses, golden parachutes, retention awards and the like. One handed out bonuses equivalent to one-quarter of its bailout. And there is even a law against it. My "bailout" - known as a 'yearly raise' was fourteen cents an hour.

Since I'm working with negative numbers these days, there is no way I can save up for another junker car.
My computer is now over 10 years old - it originally ran on Windows
Millennium. It is now having distinct problems. The other day a bunch of the programming which starts the system blew up.
Luckily, I had a backup.

But it seems like it's approaching its' end times.

Now it freezes up a lot. This, for instance, is the third time I've worked on this post. The daily itching and burning from my non-contagious skin condition has grown worse. It pesters me like the gnats or fruit flies which have been massing into troops in the kitchen. I don't worry about this kind of stuff anymore. I am doing what I can. At the moment, I feel like I'm over the hump and am going down hill, and anything going downhill tends to pick up speed.

Which reminds me, summer is nearly over.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

                                            --- William Butler Yeats.

Today is the anniversary of the routing of the Bonus Army. It's now a footnote in American History. And as a footnote, it uses extra small type. The Bonus Army was assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and friends who protested in Washington, D.C during the spring and summer of 1932. The Depression was getting worse - people were losing their homes, couldn't afford to eat, and couldn't find jobs. In 1925 Congress had voted to pay WWI veterans a "bonus" for their service. It wasn't due to be paid until 1945. In 1932, the U.S. House had voted to give the vets the money immediately. The march on Washington was being held to convince Congress to pass the bill into law. While they were waiting, the vets built shantys and "tent cities" which became known as "Hoovervilles". On June 17th, the Senate defeated the bill. A silent "Death March" began in front of the Capitol and lasted until July 17, when Congress adjourned. On July 28th, the Attorney General ordered the police to evict the marchers. There was gunfire, and two veterans were killed. Learning of the shooting, President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans.  Infantry Troops and cavalry, supported by six tanks, were let loose with Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur in command. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower served as his liaison with Washington police and Major George Patton led the cavalry.



While searching for the above footage, I found a 9 and a half minute video called The Bonus Army: The Great War Veterans Vs. the United States Government. This is what I saw when I clicked on it:

"This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

Oh, so very interesting.
I tried another promising video on the same topic:

"Skipped to the next available video. One or more videos were no longer available."

Now's probably a good time to post a moment of a speech given by Senator Al Franken two days ago.



Final note:

A remembrance of things past

So, it's come to my attention that many online almanacs list today, July 21st, as the day mankind (in the person of Neil Armstrong) first set foot on the surface of the moon.

Well, maybe, sort of. Here on the East Coast, it all took place on July 20th (1969). I remember it quite well. At the time, I was working at a "coffee house" in Ocean City, New Jersey called the Purple Dragon. Back then a "coffeehouse" was a place to get coffee or a soda, sit around with friends, read bad poetry aloud ("Interesting". "no, really, I liked it") and sing folk/protest songs. The Purple Dragon was funded as a youth project of the Methodist Church. It had started life as the "Open House" just off the boardwalk at 10th street. Hmmm, I think I'll save those stories for another day. At any rate, the Dragon had no TV, so I went over to Sweaty Mama's. (Sweaty Mama was the nickname of a friend who was a local Earth Mother Goddesses.) I was part of a small group who sat gathered around her "portable" television. It looked very much like the one in this photo. 

The broadcast images were grainy and unclear, but about 4:15 in the afternoon, the lunar module, named "Eagle", landed on the moon. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, as it was getting towards 11pm, Niel Armstrong started to step down the module's ladder. It was like a dream. I was 18 years old, and I was watching history unfold. It was a hell of a thing.

The above is NASA's newly restored footage. Sadly, it doesn't have the moment Armstrong first put foot on the moon, but then again it was blurry and hard to make out.

A few years ago, there was a wonderful story making the rounds. When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" statement but followed it by several remarks, usual com traffic between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control. Just before he re-entered the lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs. Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

On July 5, 1995 (in Tampa Bay, FL) while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died and so he felt that he could answer the question.

When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball which landed in the front of his neighbor's bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky.

As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Oral sex! You want oral sex?! You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

Oh, wait. The almanacs have it as "1969 Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon". Well, having the two of them on the surface would be right for the 21st. Never mind. We know the whole thing was a hoax anyway.




Today is also the birthday of singer Kay Starr. She was a big band singer, appearing with Joe Venuti's band, and had short stints with Bob Crosby and Glenn Miller. In the early early 1950's she had a couple of very big hits. The reason I'm mentioning this is that it gives me an excuse to post a Scopitone of her biggest hit. Scopitones were sort of a visual jukebox, using 16mm film.

The first Scopitones were made in France in the late 1950's. They became hugely popular, but by the late 60's they had just about faded from view. The last Scopitone was made in 1978. Here's one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


Kay Starr - Wheel Of Fortune
Uploaded by oliehoek. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall...

So there was this person just now walking down Putney Road.  It was impossible to tell if this writhing with sudden jerky movements electroshocked vision was male or female. The quality of the voice was a bit gruff, a few ticks up the scale from Bea Arthur or Selma Diamond.  In my one room apartment a sliding door to a balcony provides the only fresh air. There is a bit of a view: 1080 high def, somewhere between 3D and 2D. In the view, a little right of center are three birch trees framed by huge slashes of green as if painted by Mark Rothko. I'd take a picture except the camera batteries (and their standbys) need recharging. Oh, wait - dig,dig,dig,dig,dig - Aha! Here's a view out those sliding doors, only just now the predominate color is green.

If you look toward the left of the picture. there's this clear space behind the trees that shoots off at a 45 degree angle. That's Putney Road which is  usually populated by all sorts of cars and trucks. i.e. a blue green/white 1964 Chevy Impala just drove by, followed by a black GMC Jimmy - a little later model than the '98 I used to own and had to put down this past February. The sound of tires on asphalt is annoyingly overwhelming even after having lived here for more than a year. If I were to walk to the left side of my apartment and look out the doors, I'd be able to see a bit of St. Michael's Episcopal (as opposed to St. Michael's Roman Catholic a couple of blocks away). Nice brick church, used to be downtown before they moved it. It's where the local service to memorialize Matthew Shepard was held - gosh, was it really so far back as 1998? Sigh. At the end of the service, the entire congregation was given hyacinth bulbs to plant in autumn and watch bloom in the Spring.  A little heavy on the symbolism but I liked it. Or did they maybe pass the bulbs out at the conclusion of the silent vigil on the Post Office steps? It doesn't matter.What does is that I planted my bulb.. Only, I can't quite remember where in the garden it went. And I'm not quite certain if it was in the part of the garden that became play space for the Neighborhood Schoolhouse or if it was in my relocated 'new' garden. I do seem to recall that it never bloomed. Then again, I do have some faint memory about the blue one on the right hand side of this photo. You'll notice that they all seem a little stunted. I never had the time or money to test and improve the soil. Well now, as applied to my life, that's all rather Jung-ishly symbolic. The Freudian implications are more than a little interesting, too - but that's a story for another day.

So there I was, looking out the sliding door as this apparition came into view, jerking spastically while walking. There was also a great deal of cursing and screaming at someone although no one was there. My first assumption was that someone else had been pushed over the edge. Another one of the walking wounded. Perhaps a late 40-ish female - no that's not a dress is it? More like a t-shirt hanging from a belt. The bizarre motions seem to move hands to ears - is the yelling and cursing into a cell phone? As I glimpse further visual information through the green leaves, I gather that the person is a teenage male - which would explain a lot. As he passes out of view, I decide that I prefer to think of him as another one pushed over the edge. What did it take? What finally did it? The way he's screaming into nothing or a cell phone I get the feeling that he just couldn't take all the bullshit anymore. He knows he's not very educated, he's  become aware that there is music older than the stylings of Kayne West, will i am, and Beyonce. He realized that teenage rebellion is manufactured and sold at the holy temple Walmart. Maybe he cracked under the pressure of days into days in a menial no future job that tears away at one's very soul. He has seen the future and it is bleak and he couldn't handle it. His curses and screams are his song, his gift to us, his gift to god. His rant is our salvation. He's probably headed to the Retreat where he'll be anesthetized into conformity. He'll get the blue pill, no doubt. Maybe he's on his way to an event at The Church - the one across Grove Street from the Post Office. It's now a sort of club/rental hall. On the small green space before the church building stands a giant stone Celtic cross which used to top the steeple before the lightning strike a few years ago. Luckily, the lightening bolt hit the roof, not the cross, or we'd have a lot more of the walking spastics, screaming, singing their litany of curses. A few minutes ago as I was searching for that pic of hyacinths from my garden, I found shots from the day they took down the cross.

See, Brattleboro just reeks of signs and symbols. As I hitch-hiked my way to work this morning, I got a ride from a guy who is of the end times rapture is coming persuasion. He was playing a tape of some third rate preacher intoning the signs of apocalypse. It seemed he was describing our world as it is now. The tape was over 15 years old, and its recounting of signs and symbols and approach of the horsemen was as eerily applicable to that time as it is now. End times, it seems, are manufactured and sold like gangsta image teenage rebellion at the holy temple Walmart. I wonder if the knights Templar have made it to town yet. Or if the wanderer's curses were his sermon,  another pilgrim who thinks he has seen the light. After all, the mad can see the signs clearer than most. And we're all a little mad here.

Cool Considerate Men

"Fuck my victims. I carried them for 20 years and now I'm doing 150." -- Bernie Madoff.

I work as a cashier in a supermarket.
Many of the cashiers are teens, saving and putting away enough money to buy that next tank of gas.
One cashier, a young woman, quite attractive and from the well bred equestrian set, was chatting with some guy who looked like any one else - that is, if anyone else was a piece of slime. He told her she should model - oh, god, not that line, really now! - He was telling her that she was just what the image consultants wanted as a representative for the local Entergy owned nuclear power plant.  (note the first syllable in 'consultant'.) All she had to do was to to speak well and present the power plant's side of things. She took his card. As she walked by me, I asked, "You know they want to use you to lie and distort truth, don't you?" "Oh, yeah." "Doesn't that bother you?" "Not as long as they pay me."

Just before July the 4th, 1975, I was living in Greenwich Village more or less around the corner from the Waverly movie theatre - it was a single screen then. A short bit further would get you to that, oh what was it's name - the Art? Cinema Village? 8th Street Playhouse? Yeah, that was it. I think. You know, the one just off the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street - just after the place that became a Nathan's. I walked over there one day to see a movie called "Nashville". Among all of its story lines was one with a third party candidate for president who says things like "Does Christmas smell like oranges to you?" There was this wonderful moment when a young woman got on national tv while holding a campaign sign. She smiled.  I think of the cashier. Nashville is on the one of my favorite movies of all time list. It was like a big, no, giant jigsaw puzzle, a tribute to America, a bicentennial present, a mirror, a portrait of us.
 


I've been remembering the 1950's and early 1960's a lot recently.

And, considering the time of year, many memories are at the beach and boardwalk in Ocean City New Jersey. Miniature golf. Big old movie theatres. Smell of cotton candy and hamburgers. The beach. The white sand. Then, like web surfing, I remember being 8 and the cub scouts long drive to a roller skating rink in Maryland where we were told we could go in as long as "that one" stayed on the bus. There was a hushed conference, then we turned around and went home. It would be some years before the kkk pamphlets and books by George Lincoln 'This Time the World" Rockwell would be pushed in my direction. But I already knew just what was going on. We were a generation preached to , and taught values by, the tv set. And it wouldn't take long before it showed us pictures that proved the lie to much of what we'd been taught.

At the end of my teens I was living in Ocean City and washing my clothes at the local laundry-mat. A heavy set woman came in, saw me, looked at my long hair, and proceeded to tell me to get out, they didn't want my kind there. (In case you are wondering, I stayed and finished my laundry, even after the three big guys were sent as intimidation. I smiled on my way out, waved, and never went in there again.

Back in New York of the 1970's, a friend got me interested in a rock and roll band headed up by a guy named Bruce Springstein. He spent a lot of time in a shore resort, too. "... and the boys from the casino danced with their shirts open like latin lovers on the shore, you can hear the oceans roar..."



On this July the 4th, I worked.
July 4th got me into quite a bit of trouble a few years back. I was managing a video store and took over the owner's work with a promise of a substantial raise. That was in January. By July, I'd was getting about 2 days off a month, and working somewhere between 10 to 14 or 15 hours a day. I hadn't gotten that raise yet. I was tired, worn out, and rather angry. The owner changed my plans for a day off during the evening of July 3rd. He made it impossible for me to do anything but work on the 4th. Next day, after getting the bank deposit squared away, I sent him an email and quit. I had to have some pride.

Pride goethed before the fall. There was no work to be had. Everyone I knew was either out of work, or not quite getting by. The tv told us things were good. I lost my apartment. I could look at myself in a mirror and sleep, but I couldn't eat without food stamps. Then the sleeping went, too. I was standing before the draft board in 1969 about to refuse induction. I remember beaches of white sand. I hear fireworks from the edge of town, I don't go, it's too crowded, too much of an effort. I've seen my share of fireworks.

My country doesn't seem to care about anything anymore. Well, anything real anyway. The schools have failed. The jobs have gone. So have many people's homes. We could still pride ourselves in our achievements in equality until New Mexico points a finger, "That one'. The boys from the casino.. We no longer offer our protection of civil rights to 'That One". but no matter, we don't get them much anymore for ourselves. We can be arrested anytime. 240 some years are slipping away. I had a few things I wanted to do this July 4th. But after getting off of work, I was too tired. And like most days after work, I fell asleep for two hours or so.I catch pieces of tv from time to time while my head nods and I wake myself with my snoring. I may not have that job much longer. I got it into my mind again that I shouldn't have to be belittled and demeaned on a daily basis just to keep a job. Besides, the stress lines I'm getting are killer.

For a moment, I feel the tide rushing over my feet, and the beaches shine again. Yeah, I remember that. There was was still hope. That's how Obama got into office - he sold hope to the middle class, or what was left of it. I heard him talk about the middle class, but never about the poor, the lower class. There is no one to speak for the poor. Due to cutbacks to social services, there aren't many left to help them either. The beaches are no longer white sand. There are people on the tv who want to report on it, tell us the truth of things. Before falling asleep the night of the 3rd, I saw this on the tv



When the movie of "1776" was first released, two numbers were cut by the request of President Nixon. One was a song sung by a young messenger who tells of watching his best friend get shot at Lexington (By the time the British got there, the men had gone on to Concord. Lexington had been left to old men and teenage boys to defend.) The song was called "Momma, look sharp". The other number cut was "Cool Considerate Men".

a not so quick note

On this day in 1342 S.R. Bilbo Baggins returned to his home at Bag End, (Shire Reconning)




Among today's birthdays, a favorite of mine is Cyndi Lauper

"People used to complain to me all the time, 'I can't even hear you sing because your clothes are so loud.'" ...

Cyndi Lauper
 
 
 
  


Breaking News - as I was embedding the video above, the ABC news reported the death of Edith Shain at the age pf 92. If the name doesn't mean anything to you, then know that she was a nursecelebrating the end of WWII in Times Square ..  it seems that Peace had broken out. A sailor grabbed the first girl he saw, and kissed her. Alfred Eisenstaedt was nearby and took this picture which appeared in Life magazine a week later. It quickly became iconic.  Edith identified herself to Eisenstaedt in 1979, and he agreed it was her. A photographer at Life took a picture of the two togeather. Edith surfaced again on the photo's 50th anniversary in 1995, and achieved world wide fame and recogintion in 2005 when she was Grand Marshall of the New York City Veterens Day Parade

On June 22, 1969, the final curtain rang down for Judy Garland.She was 47 years old.
As Ray Bolger put it,"She just plain wore out."

Her funeral (and burial in a pauper's grave, if I remember correctly) occurred on June 27th 1969. In the early morning hours of June the 28th, police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. There are many stories of what happened next - the one I like most is that during the raid, one policeman went to stop the juke box
from playing. The music at that moment was a Judy Garland song. One young queen is said to have positioned herself in front of the jukebox saying "Judy stays", just as all hell broke loose.

solstice, a theatre memory, and fireflies

It's time for a little mid-summer madness. Huh? you say?
Well, summer solstice arrived (northern hemisphere) at 7:28am.

Which means summer has officially begun. Today is also known as "Mid-Summer's Day".(edit - see comments)

It's a good day and night for rowdy parties, dancing around campfires (go ahead, jump over the fire - you know you want to), collecting St. John's Wort and flowers, and Celebrating Life in general. The veils between worlds are thin just now (i.e. Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" ).

Speaking of that play, in 1982 the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theatre presented a wonderful production at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, NYC.
The Delacorte is an open air amphitheatre with Turtle Pond and the Belvedere Castle as backdrops. Tickets are free, and the line to get them usually forms around 9am. It is, or should be, part of everyone's New York experiences.

For this production, a "living stage" was created with trees, ferns, flowers & other plant life, varied terrain, a small brook, etc. The effect was magical. It starred Christine Baranski as a most excellent Helena and a very young William Hurt as Oberon. For the entry of the faeries, the costumes were of faerie spirits from around the world. I adored it. James Lapine directed, and it was taped live by Emile Ardolino. Broadcast on the Arts & Entertainment network and possibly PBS, it was released once on VHS and has since vanished. On one of my earliest betamax tapes, I managed to record that scene - and played it many times, for myself and my friends. I've spent hours searching for video or pictures to put here. I found exactly one picture of the set - in Black and white and taken from the highest seats. Maybe I shouldn't find anything better - this way I can keep the nice memories unchallenged and not remember how much I wanted to beat both William Hurt and Marcell Rosenblatt (as Puck) around the head with a heavy pipe.

So, go out into the new summer's day or night, and celebrate.
And with any luck, you might spot a few fireflies. I haven't seen a single one yet this year - which makes me kind of sad. There used to be so many... (The Boston Museum of Science holds yearly firefly watches to document their first sightings and their yearly decline.)

When I was a kid in the 1950's early summer evenings were spent collecting fireflies. Just about every kid did it back then. We'd get a big jar, punch holes in the lid for air, capture as many as we could, and watch them blink and glow all night in our rooms. It was lovely and wonderful. But they usually died by morning. It was an early lesson in appreciating the fleeting nature of beauty.

On this day in 1893

June 20th, 1893 - Lizzie Borden was acquitted by a jury in Fall River, Mass. (after an hour and a half's deliberation) of murdering her father and stepmother. Between the locals and the media, the event could easily be compared to the murder trial in which the accused was O.J. Simpson.

In 1952, a little revue opened at the Royale Theatre in New York City. It was called "New Faces of 1952". It jump started the careers of most of its participants including Ronny Graham, Eartha Kitt, Robert Clary, June Carroll,  Alice Ghostly, Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde, and a writer named Mel Brooks.
Its original cast was brought together to film the show, which was released in CinemaScope, in 1954.

One of my favorite show tunes was written for the revue by Michael Brown (who later wrote children's books including the Santa Mouse series). Some know it as the "Lizzie Borden Song." Some know it as "You Can't Chop Your Poppa Up in Massachusetts." It's actual title is "Fall River Hoedown."



The house in which the murder occurred was converted into a bed & breakfast in 1996.
Today, most rooms go for $225.00 to $250.00. Or, you can rent the entire house for "just $1,500.00 per might". The highest bidder in a recent auction will get to stay in the Stepmother's bedroom on the night of August 4th. (The murders were  committed around 10:30am that day.) The winner will also get two free Lizzie Borden bobble head dolls. Which you can purchase from the gift store for $25.00 each - unless you'd prefer a pair of Lizzie's Hatchet ear rings ($5.00), or a vial of brick dust from the basement ($10.00)

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Oh, it just gets better and better.

So, even the Republican leadership felt that Rep. Joe Barton went a little overboard yesterday and forced him (by threatening to take away a powerful position he holds) to apologize. Which he did - sort of. He apologized for using the term "shakedown".

Why is this man so intent on defending the indefensible? Well, aside from the $27,500 BP has paid him over the years, he's gotten enough from other oil companies to total out at about $1.5 million.

And - and - he owns a gas well - which has already earned over $100,000 from his investment. At a hearing in January (2010) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Barton said he was "a small, small partner in a natural gas well in Johnson County in the Barnett Shale that is probably my 4-year-old son's college education." Uh, huh. In an interview, he also said, "I'm trying to provide a little bit of financial security for my family and do it honestly, ethically and openly". Okay . He purchased his interest from longtime friend and Texas businessman Walter G. Mize.

Mize had been a longtime cattleman, when he suddenly bought out Lothian Oil (based in Texas) which at that time had assumed all debt for United Heritage Corporation. Mize immediately became the CEO and Chairman of the board for UHC - which owns land in Texas and New Mexico which had an  aprox. 275 million barrels of oil underneath it --- and lots and lots of Natural Gas.

For his part, Rep. Barton acknowledges paying somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 for his interest in the wells. All this just happened to occur in 2007 (Mize died in 2008) when  the price of natural gas skyrocketed from about $7 to nearly $11 per thousand cubic foot.  Gee, that's the same time frame that BP (out of its Texas offices) manipulated the price of natural gas, for which they paid a $303 million + fine.

Ah, sweet mysteries of life.

WTF ?

For almost two weeks now, I've been trying to start writing the follow up to my investigations into StandardOil/BP/Gulf/Exxon/Chevron&etc. history and politics, and how they affect the Gulf  Oil Spill. I did, after all, promise to write my conclusions as to just what the hell might be really going on - but every time I try, something else crops up that I wanted to check into. And sometimes there have been moments so ludicrous that if this weren't such a serious situation, I'd laugh my ass off. Actually, because this is such a serious situation I have laughed my ass off. And just when you think nothing can ever top the latest moment of sheer stupidity. someone does it!

Start, for instance, with BP's Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward's quote, "There's no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I'd like my life back." or "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

Or this from BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg:
"And we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care. But that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people." (Best blog comment  - I'll bet the Lollipop Guild was pleased to hear that.)

But the best (so far) happened today at the Congressional hearings with BP execs.
Rep. Joe Barton ( R - Texas) who used to be the chair of  the Energy and Commerce Committee, apologized to BP and Tony Hayward saying, "I am ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday, that a private corporation would be subject to what I would characterize as a shake down,"
and this topper, "I apologize…I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong it is subject to political pressure that amounts to a shake down."

I'm not making this up, you know. Here's the whole sorry thing - the  good stuff starts about 1 min and 40 seconds in...



Now, if you are wondering why he made such idiotic statements, you  might note that over the years, BP has donated $27,350 to his campaigns. Which is  kind of paltry considering they donated $44,899 to John McCain, or George W Bush's $47,388. Their top contribution? $77,051 to Barak Obama. Which may help explain why the Prez took so damn long to do anything.

Bloomsday

When I lived in New York City, today (June 16th) was a good day to go to the Symphony Space at what? 95th? and Broadway. Any number of people there, some of them famous, would read from James Joyce's "Ulysses". All day and late into the night.

Other folks used to read sections all night on WBAI it would end around 2 o'clock in the morning with Molly's soliloquy - at 8 sentences long it comprises the last chapter of the book and has exactly two punctuation marks it's about 90 pages long and "...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "

It's not at really that special of a day today, it's kind of an ordinary, regular day.

It's a good day to go for a long walk through and around your own town.

It's a good day to stop at the local pub for a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of wine.
                                                                      

And it's a good day to howl the eternal yes.

 
 
(above left - young James Joyce)
(above center - Davy Byrnes, a moral pub)
(below - Stephen Colbert as Leo at Symphony Space)