A Dream Fragment On Looking For A Few Good…Mystics -In The Matter Of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

Okay, blame this foam-flecked entry totally on old wanna-be “gonzo” journalist/novelist Tom Wolfe and his infernal 1960s classic countercultural expose The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I’ll explain the ‘wanna-be’ part in some book review, or in some of other place where talking about and discussing the "new journalism (1960s-style, including the likes of Hunter Thompson and Joan Didion)” is called for. But, at least for now, I want to explain the why of that ‘where the blame should be placed’.

And why does Brother Wolfe (or is it really Brother Wolf?) earn this blame? Well, frankly, merely by telling this acid-etched (literally) story about the late author Ken Kesey (most famous for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion), his California-gathered (naturally, right?) tribe of Merry Pranksters, their then rural California coastal communal arrangements (or non-arrangements, or dis-arrangements, as the case may be), and their antics, including a collectively produced and massively-filmed cross-country “bus” ride “further in” that cemented their zany experiences. No kidding- you were truly either on the “bus” or off the “bus” if you got entangled with this crowd.

Oh, did I mention, as well, their deep-end “edge city” drug experiences, especially the then little known acid (LSD) trips? Those drug experiments, important as they were to the story line of the book, are, however, not what have me up in arms though. Hey, experimenting with drugs, or experimenting with sometime (sex, the karma sutra, zen, sex, abstract primitivist painting, free-form verse, sex, hitchhiking the universe, sex, etc.) was de rigueur in those halcyon days. I wouldn’t waste my breath, and your time, recounting those kinds of stories. Everybody did drugs back then, or was….un-hip. And almost no one, hip, un-hip, cloven-footed devil, or haloed angel wanted to be thought of as un-hip, un-cool.

The others, those who today claim memory loses on the subject, or some story along those lines, just lie. Or were cloistered somewhere, and such circumstances are better left untold. Or, and here is my favorite, didn’t inhale. The number of guys (and gals) who NOW say that they didn’t inhale exceeds the total youth tribe members of the 1960s, by far, especially those with wayward children of their own. Unless, of course, my numbers are off, slightly. I, in any case, need not go through that scene again. Read Wolfe’s book or watch Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, or ask your parents or…ouch, grandparents.

Today, however, I am excised on another point. Wolfe mentioned, repeatedly, the quasi-religious, mystical nature of the Kesey-gathered Merry Prankster tribal experience. And central to that, as to all such mystical communal experiences, is the emergence of some kind of “messiah” figure, or at least a chief mystic who guides the group’s actions, including the inevitable breakout into the real wide world when that time comes. Then, the breakout time, is when the power struggle really begins as the increased number of acolytes gather round and begin the long process of the selection of the “ins” and “outs”. To speak nothing of the very serious question of who is to “guard” the wisdom tablet (maybe, literally, a tablet in this case). Or who conducts the ceremonials to adhere the devotees. This is well-trodden ground, in any case.

And what in hell am I mad about that little quirky business for? Kesey was hardly the first guy or gal, and will hardly be the last either, to come down off the mountain to spread the “good news,” if only among the elect-at first. Hear me out though. I am sick and tired, utterly sick and tired, after a life time of listening, or really, half-listening to the latest screeds of the “god-seekers”, secular or religious. And of the side show carnival guys claiming for the umpteenth time they have the “new message” about human redemption. And of the about the 287th, or so, rendition of the story line of those who succumbed to some “conversion” religious experience. Enough, right? Well, perhaps, but what I want to blurt out is that, damn, I think Wolfe, and through him, Kesey were basically right that this was a time, the 1960s that is , when we, and I include myself in this as well, were looking for the “new messiah.”

For starters though, just in case the reader is caught up short on the term “new messiah”, forget all the rough and tumble organized traditional religious stuff. That was a non-contender, then anyway. Hell, that was what we were running away from, and running as hard as our wobbly, drug-filled heads would force our legs to take us. (The three of us who have "confessed" to such activity in those days, excuse me. I don’t know in what condition the others were in during their runs.) No, any “church” had to be in some freshly-mown meadow, or among the squirrel-infested pines, or at the edge of the earth on some place where ‘our homeland’ the ocean, the sand and our sense of the vastness of space met. And any “preacher,’ of the “good book” or, for that matter, of the virtues of demonology had to wear multi-colored, flowing home-spun robes, or some discarded army-navy store uniform, or some sheepskin vest, or maybe nothing. But, please, no collars around your neck, or ours. There were plenty of candidates looking for the job, looking to be heard, looking to be listened to and looking for those who were looking, for awhile anyway, until they ran out of steam, ran off with their sweeties, or with the cash box.

What we were looking for, at least what I think we were looking for was someone, once the traditional politicians proved to have feet of clay, or were mired in mud and blood up to their necks, or were blown away, to lead us to the “Promised Land.” That’s right the “Promised Land,” not some old quirky, queasy, hard scrabble, no air place that we all knew, or all of us that were “hip” knew, was not where we were at then. You know sometimes it was as simple as finding someone who had an answer or two. If they had a plan, or maybe had the whole thing mapped out, so much the better. Mainly they just didn’t have to shout about it to the whole square world and bring the squares in to corner it, corral it, organize it, and make it a thing that not even your square, square parents could love.

And that, my friends, is where someone like Ken Kesey got some play, got his edge. His simple Western- bred (American Western-bred) ways, his obvious literary talents that acted as a magnet for those who saw no real difference between mad scientist Kesey and ‘mad scientist’ McMurphy (in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), and his strong branding personality held the Prankster commune together. For a while. Until he too proved to have feet of clay, and fled. But here is the main point in the end it required just too much of a leap of faith to sail into the mystic with the mystics. For those like me, and there were many others like me, we had our mystical moment but when the deal went down we had to look elsewhere to other names to “seek the newer world.” World historic names, names like Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, no one, except, maybe, those now professed non-inhalers and vanguard neo-con cultural dead-enders, would confuse with mysticism.

Not Ready For Prime Time AARP Songs- The Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Beatles performing When I'm Sixty-Four from the animated movie Yellow Submarine.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964 and thus already past sixty-four, comment:

Many of my fellows from the Generation of '68 (a. k. a. baby-boomers) will be, if you can believe this, turning sixty-four this year. So be it.

When I'm Sixty-Four - The Beatles

When I get olded, loosing my hair,
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me the Valentine,
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine

If I stay out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word I could stay with you.

I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday morning go for a ride

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight,
if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form,
Mine for evermore,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

*******
Ancient dreams, dreamed:

To be born under a portentous sign. Ya, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff and just call her a woman and be done with it, will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what. Tie up a guy so bad he will go to the chair kind of smiling, okay, maybe just half-smiling. He had it bad as a man could have from the minute Ms. Cora walked through the door in her white summer blouse, shorts, and then de rigueur bandana, white as well, holding back her hair. She may have been just another blonde, another very blonde frail serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint but from second one she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale. Trouble, big trouble. I swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled at the movie screen for him to get the hell out of there at that moment. But do you think he would listen, no not our boy. He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end.

Nose flattened cold against the frozen, snow falling front window apartment dwell, small, warm, no hint of madness, or crazes only of sadness, brother sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching as he, that brother, goes off to foreign places and one is left to ponder his own place in those places.

A cloudless day, hot, hot end of June day laying, face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, starting to find his own place in the sun but wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means, that and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes but changes.

Endless walks, endless sea street walks, rocks strewn every which way, making way for the uptown drug store valentine night bushel, if only she, about five candidates she just then, would give a look his way his endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash would be quiet.

Nighttime fears, red Stalin-named fears, red bomb shelter blast fears against the dark school yard night and avoidance, clean, clear avoidance of old times sailors, tars, AND deaths in lonely seaside graveyards.

Walks, bus stop non stop walks, up crooked cheap, low rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets pass trees are green, endless trees are green waiting, waiting against infinite time for one look, one look that would elude him, elude him forever. Such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots.

City square standing, waiting, standing going in, coming out, coming out with a gold nugget jewel, no carat for his efforts such is the way of young crime, no value, no look just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dreams make no more sense.

A bridge too far. Bicycle boy churning through endless heated streets, names all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea. Twelve-year old miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old grifter, midnight shifters friends hard against the named seas, against those slo-fast changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once.

Lindo, lindos, beautiful, beautifuls, not some spanish exotic though, I don’t think, just some junior league dream fuss, some sweated night pastry crust and I too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before my time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic windows.

Sweated dust bowl nights, not the sweated exotic atlantic nights but something else for something inside for some sense of worth in the this moldy shirt, mildewed shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, pushing the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval ,watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then.

Main street walked, main street telephone booth walked, searching for some Diana greek goddess wholesale on the atlantic streets. Or rather courage, nickel and dime courage as it turns out, nickel and dime courage when home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights, No way, no way, Jack, not my name, and then red-face, red-face even forty years later. Wow.

Multi-colored jacket worn, cigarette hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, a cup of coffee if coffee was the drink, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessary of fame, local fame, always local fame but fame, and then the abyss on non-fame, non- recognition and no more snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson, very tough.


Drunk, whisky drunk in some bayside bar. Name, nameless, no legion. Some staggered midnight vista street, legs weak from lack of work, brain weak, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish although who could have known that then.

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head and ten-thousand, no, one hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting, dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama that portent no good, and no earthly good. Except this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? And the die is cast, not truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the night cast but cast. Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession.

The great Mandela cries, cries to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son has found his way, a strange way but a way. And a certain swagger comes to his feet in the high heaven black madonna of night. No cigarette hanging off the lip now, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that. Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little.

Bloodless bloodied streets, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. But stop. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove and no flame-flecked phoenix but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva comes a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ will take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart acting in god’s place can even dream of.

Chill chili nights south of the border, endless Kennebunkports, Bar Harbors, Calais’, Monkton, Peggy’s Coves, Charlottetowns, Montreals, Ann Arbors, Neolas, Denvers by moonlight, Boulders echos, Dinosaurs dies, salted lakes, Winnemuccas flats, golden-gated bridges, malibus, Joshua Trees, pueblos, embarkederos, and flies. Enough to last a life-time, thank you. Enough of Bunsen burners, Coleman stoves, wrapped blankets, second-hand sweated army sleeping bags, and minute pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, peyote seeds, and the shamanic ghosts dancing off against apache (no, not helicopters, real injuns) ancient cavern wall. Enough, okay.

He said struggle. He said push back. He said stay with your people. He said it would not be easy. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. He said look for a sign. He said the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy. He said it again and again. He said struggle.

Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out. Plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Desolation row, no way home.

A smoky sunless bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home times. Order another deadened drink, slightly benny-addled, then in walks a vision. A million time in walks a vision, but in white this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Ya that seems right, right.

White flags neatly placed in right pocket. Folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more dastardly fight against time, against a bigger opponent, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy. The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly. Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. Out. Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. The other he said struggle, struggle. Ya, easy for you to say.

Desperately clutching his new white flags, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones, white flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. Now ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turns right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. Not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, and this is no time to stick out with white flags (or red, for that matter). He jumps out of the way, the horde passes brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy say, oh yes, struggle.

One more battle, one more, please one more. He chains himself, well not really chains, but more like ties himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief . Another guy does the same, except he uses some plastic stuff. A couple of women just stand there, hard against that ebony fence, can you believe it, just stand there. More, milling around, disorderly in a way, someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene is complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knows, knows for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora whom he needed to worry about, and that his child dream was a different thing altogether. But who, just a child, could have known then.

Out In The 1970s Be-Bop Rock ‘N’ Rock Night-When The Music’s Over- “The Last Waltz- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for The Band’s last stand, The Last Waltz.

DVD Review

The Last Waltz, The Band, various rock, folk rock and blues artists, directed by Martin Scorsese, United Artists, 1978

It’s funny sometimes how when you are hooked into certain musical vibes like going back in the day to classic rock ‘n’ roll things, things like remembrances of long lost bands, turn up in odd places. That is the case here with the Martin Scorsese documentary film, The Last Waltz, the filming of The Band’s last concert in 1976.

And here is the sequence of how I got there. I had heard, several years ago, that Bob Dylan was putting out as part of his now seemingly never-ending official boot-leg series, some work that he did with The Band back in the mid-1960s when he was “hiding” out with them after his motorcycle accident out in the Woodstock (ya, that Woodstock) area of upstate New York making all kinds of interesting music from a number of genres. I made a mental note to check it out but did not pursue the thought until recently. Then I headed to a local library to see if they had a CD of the work since they had other in the series (and in fact has a separate Dylan drawer for all of their CD collection of him). They didn’t have it, or rather it was out. So I went to the Dylan drawer to check on some other possibilities and there I found a set of five CD’s entitled the “Real Woodstock Sessions Boot-leg” series (or something like that). And that find contained (along with plenty of odd-ball outtakes and other miscellanea) some incredible versions of famous folk, folk rock, and country songs like Joshua Gone Barbados, Spanish Is The Loving Tongue, I Forgot To Remember To Forget Her, and stuff like that. All done in just kind of off-handedly way, Dylan and The Band off-handedly.

That is a rather circuitous way to explain the why of this review of The Last Waltz that I had seen when it originally came out in 1978 and have now re-viewed. What popped out at me in this second sighting was that these guys displayed in this two hour documentary that same kind of off-handed serious musicianship that I sensed in the boot-leg CD series mentioned above. No only did they rock, when rock was called for, but they could turn around musically (and instrumentally too) and do, well, a waltz. Hell, some of the instruments they were playing, and playing with professional abandon, I am not even sure I know the names of. And that explains Scorsese interest in doing this piece. He sensed a good story behind the rock and roll, a story of a band coming together when it counts-on stage. But also when, as band leader Robbie Robertson put it, it is time to move on after over a decade on the road. The road is a monster only the crazed, and Bob Dylan, can keep rolling along on. The Band got “off the bus” while they still had plenty of music left in them, just not together.


That said, all that is left is to pick out some highlights from some of the performers who showed up to bid adieu. Aside from a couple of numbers of their own The Band’s strength here was as “back-up” for a number of performers, most notably Neil Young on Helpless, Van Morrison on Radio, Joni Mitchell on Coyote, Bob Dylan on I Shall Be Released (along with the entire ensemble), Muddy Waters On Mannish-Child, and going back to their roots, Ronnie Hawkins on Who Do You Love. Nice stuff, nice stuff indeed if you are interested in knowing what it was like when men (and women) played rock and roll for keeps.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion-He Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Keep It Simple”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing Behind The Ritual.

CD Review

Keep It Simple, Van Morrison, Exile Records, 2008

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Keep It Simple, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast Cowboy. But he ain't no one-trick pony.No way, no how. Too many hard life lessons "learned."

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on School of Hard Knocks, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful Song Of Home; the pathos of No Thing; the title song reflecting back from back in youthful rock times, Keep It Simple; and, something out of time, Behind The Ritual. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. But I guess they do.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion-He Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Down The Road”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing the title song from the album under review, Back On Top.

CD Review

Down The Road, Van Morrison, Exile Records, 2002

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Pay The Devil, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast cowboy.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Steal My Heart Away, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful The Beauty Of Days Gone By; the pathos of Chopping Wood; the title song reflecting back on youthful rock timesDown The Road; and, something out of time,Fast Train. The Belfast cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. But I guess they do.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion- This Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing In The Back Room.

CD Review

Brown Eyed Handsome Man , Van Morrison, Bono Records, 2000

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Pay The Devil, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast Cowboy. But this ain't no one-trick pony. No way, no how not with that deep musical background.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on He Ain’t Give You None, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful Beside You; the pathos of Send Your Mind; the title song from back in youthful rock timesBrown Eyed Handsome Man; and, something out of time,The Back Room. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. But I guess they do.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion- This Ain't No One-Trick Pony-The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again Van Morrison’s “The Best Of Van Morrison, Volume Three”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing Tupelo Honey. A greatest hit, indeed.

CD Review

The Best Of Van Morrison: Volume Three, two CD set, Van Morrison, various artist, Exile Productions, 2007

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Pay The Devil, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast Cowboy. But this ain't no one-trick pony. No way, no how.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Gloria , a classic bluesy number with legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker; the thoughtful Centerpiece Stone with Georgie Fame and the Flames;the pathos of That’s Life;The Healing Game; and, something out of time, out of youthful rock timeTupelo Honey with bluesman Bobby Bland. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. And as loners, not with legendary company. But fine, fine indeed.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion- He Ain't No One-Trick Pony-The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again- Van Morrison’s "How Long Has This Been Going On"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing the title song from the album under review, How Long Has This Been Going On.

CD Review

How Long Has This Been Going On, Van Morrison, with Georgie Fame and the Flames, Exile Productions, 1995

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and is funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Pay The Devil, and another “outlaw” country music man, the Belfast cowboy Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast Cowboy. But this ain't no one-trick pony. No way.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Early In The Morning , a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful Gershwin tuneHow Long Has This Been Going On ; the pathos of That’s Life;and, Blues In The Night; and, something out of lost time,Early In The Morning. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves. And kudos to Brother Fame, who rode that same train, as well.

In The Time Of The Time Of The British Blues Explosion- He Ain't No One-Trick Pony- The Belfast Cowboy Rides Again-Van Morrison’s “Back On Top”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing the title song from the album under review, Back On Top.

CD Review

Back On Top, Van Morrison, Exile Productions, 1999

Apparently just now, although this time rather accidentally, I am on something of an outlaw country moment tear, again. I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre in the late 1970s. After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and other more well know country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of Townes Van Zandt whose Steve Earle tribute album Townes I have recently reviewed in this space. As I noted there, as well, while this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrambled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes and his funny mix of blues, folk rock, rock folk, and just downright outlaw country.

And that brings us to the album under review, Back on Top, and another “outlaw” country music man, the "Belfast Cowboy," Van Morrison. Wait a minute, Van Morrison? Belfast cowboy? Okay, let me take a few steps back. I first heard Van Morrison in his 1960s rock period when I flipped out over his Into The Mystic on his Moondance album. And when I later saw him doing some blues stuff highlighted by his appearance in Martin Scorsese PBS History of Blues series several years ago I also flipped out, and said yes, brother blues. But somewhere along the way he turned again on us and has “reinvented” himself as the “son”, the legitimate son, of Hank Williams. And hence the Belfast cowboy. But he ain't no one-trick pony, no way. This guy is a musical songbook of the late 20th century.

If you do not believe me then just listen to him ante up on Goin’ Down Geneva, a classic bluesy number; the thoughtful The Philosophers Stone; the pathos of High Summer; the title song Back On Top; and, something out of time, something out of a place that few musicians, hell, few people, go Golden Autumn Day. The Belfast Cowboy, indeed, although I always thought cowboys worn their emotions down deep, not on their blues high white note sleeves.

Johnny Prescott’s Itch- With Kudos To Mister Gene Vincent's Be-Bop_A-Lula

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Gene Vincent performing his rock classic, Be-Bop-A-Lula.

He had the itch. John Prescott had the itch and he had it bad, especially since his eyes flamed up consumed with hell-bend flames when he saw Elvis performing live on the Ed Sullivan Show one Sunday night. And he had it so bad that he had missed, unbeknownst to his parents who would have been crestfallen and, perhaps, enraged, his last few piano lessons. Sure, he covered his butt by having saxophonist Sid Stein, drummer Eddie Shore, and bass player Kenny Jackson from his improvisational school jazz combo, The G-Clefs (ya, a well-thought out name for a musical group) come by his house to pick him up. While standing at the Prescott door parents and sidemen went through the “well aren’t things looking up for you boys,” and “they seem to be” scene without missing a beat. But as soon as Kenny’s 1954 Nash Rambler turned the corner of Walnut Street Johnny was a long-gone daddy, real long-gone. And where he was long-gone but not forlorn to was Sally Ann’s Music Shop over on the far end of West Main Street. Now the beauty of Sally Ann’s was that it was, well, Sally Ann’s, a small shop that was well off the main drag, and therefore no a likely place where any snooping eyes, ears or voices that would report to said staid Prescott parents when Johnny went in or out of the place. Everyone, moreover, knew Sally Ann’s was nothing but a run-down, past its prime place and if you really wanted all the best 45s, and musical instrument stuff then every self-respecting teenager hit the tracks for Benny’s Music Emporium right downtown and only about a quick five-minute walk from North Clintondale High where Johnny and the combo served their high school time, impatiently served their high school time.

Now while everybody respected old Sally Ann’s musical instincts (she was the queen of the jitterbug night in the 1940s, had been on top of the be-bop jazz scene with Charley, Dizzy and the guys early on, guys whom the G-Clefs covered, covered like crazy, and nixed, nixed big time that whole Patti Page, Teresa Brewer weepy, sad song thing in the early 1950s) she was passé, old hat when it came to the cool blues coming out of Chicago, and the be-bop doo wop that kids, white kids, because there were no known blacks, or spanish, chinese, armenians, or whatever, in dear old Clintondale were crazy for ever since Frankie Lyman and his back-up guys tore up the scene with Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

But her greatest sin, although up until a few weeks ago Johnny would have been agnostic on that sin part, was that she was behind, way behind the curve, on the rock ‘n’ rock good night wave coming though and splashing over everybody, including deep jazz man, Johnny Prescott. But Sally Ann had, aside from that secluded locale and a tell-no-tales-attitude, something Johnny could use. She had a primo Les Paul Fender-bender guitar in stock just like the one Gene Vincent used that she was willing to let clandestine Johnny play when he came by. And she had something else Johnny could use, or maybe better Sally Ann could use. She had an A-Number One ear for guys who knew how to make music, any kind of music and had the bead on Johnny, no question. See Sally Ann was looking for one more glory flame, one more Clintondale shine moment, and who knows maybe she believed she could work some Colonel Parker magic and so Johnny Prescott was king of the Sally Ann day.

King, that is, until James and Martha Prescott spotted the other G-Clefs (Kenny, Sid, Eddie) coming out of the Dean Music School minus Johnny, minus a “don’t know where he is, sir,” Johnny. And Mr. Dean, Johnny’s piano instructor, was clueless as well, believing Johnny’s telephone story about having to work for the past few weeks and so lessons were to be held in abeyance. Something was definitely wrong if Mr. Dean, the man more who than anyone else who recognized Johnny’s raw musical talent in about the third grade had lost Johnny's confidence. But the Prescotts got wise in a hurry because flutist Mary Jane Galvin, also coming out the school just, then and overhearing the commotion about Johnny’s whereabouts decided to get even with one John Prescott by, let’s call a thing by its right name, snitch on him and disclosed that she had seen him earlier in the day when she walked into Sally Ann’s looking for an old Benny Goodman record that featured Peggy Lee and which Benny’s Emporium, crazed rock ‘n’ rock hub Benny’s would not dream of carrying, or even have space for.

The details of the actual physical confrontation with Johnny by his parents (with Mr. Dean in tow) are not very relevant to our little story. What is necessary to detail is the shock and chagrin that James and Martha exhibited on hearing of Johnny’s itch, his itch to be the be-bop, long-gone daddy of the rock ‘n’ roll night. Christ, Mr. Dean almost had a heart attack on the spot when he heard that Johnny had, and we will quote here, “lowered himself to play such nonsense,” and gone over to the enemy of music. As mentioned earlier Mr. Dean, before he opened his music school, had been the roving music teacher for the Clintondale elementary school sand had spotted Johnny’s natural feel for music early on. He also knew, knew somewhere is his sacred musical bones, that Johnny’s talents, his care-free piano talents in particular, could not be harnessed to classical programs, the Bachs, Beethoven, and Brahms stuff, so that he encouraged Johnny to work his magic through be-bop jazz then in high fashion, and with a long pedigree in American musical life. When he approached the Prescotts about coordinating efforts to drive Johnny’s talents by lessons his big pitch had been that his jazz ear would assure him of steady work when he came of age, came of age in the mid-1950s.

This last point should not be underestimated in winning the Prescotts over. James worked, when there was work, as welder, over at the shipyards in Adamsville, and Martha previously solely a housewife, in order to pay for those lessons (and be a good and caring mother to boot) had taken on a job filling jelly donuts (and other donut stuff) at one of the first of the Dandy Donuts shops that were spreading over the greater Clintondale area.
Christ, filling donuts. No wonder they were chagrined, or worst.

Previously both parents were proud, proud as peacocks, when Johnny really did show that promise that Mr. Dean saw early on. Especially when Johnny would inevitably be called to lead any musical assemblage at school, and later when, at Mr. Dean’s urging, he formed the G-Clef and began to make small amounts of money at parties and other functions. Rock ‘n’ rock did not fit in, fit in at all in that Prescott world. Then damn Elvis came into view and corrupted Johnny’s morals, or something like that. Shouldn’t the authorities do something about it?

Johnny and his parents worked out a truce, well kind of a truce,kind of a truce for a while. And that kind of a truce for a while is where old Sally Ann enters again. See, Johnny had so much raw rock talent that she persuaded him to have his boys (yes, Kenny, Sid and Eddy in case you forgot) come by and accompany him on some rock stuff. And because Johnny (not Sally Ann, old Aunt Sally by then) was loved, loved in the musical sense if not in the human affection sense by the other boys they followed along. Truth to tell they were getting the itch too, a little. And that little itch turned into a very big itch indeed when at that very same dime-dropper, Mary Jane Galvin’s sweet sixteen party concert (yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), the G-Clefs finished one of their covers, Dizzy’s Salt Peanuts with some rock riffs. The kids started to get up, started dancing in front of their seats to the shock of the parents and Mary Jane(yes, Mary Jane was that kind of girl), including the senior Prescotts, were crazy for the music. And Johnny’s fellow G-Clefs noticed, noticed very quickly that all kinds of foxy frails (girls, okay), girls who had previously spent much time ignoring their existences, came up all dream-eyed and asked them, well, asked them stuff, boy-girl stuff.

Oh, the Sally Ann part, the real Sally Ann part not just the idea of putting the rock band together. Well, she talked her talk to the headmaster over at North Clintondale High (an old classmate, Clintondale Class of 1925, and flame from what the boys later heard) and got the boys a paying gig at the up coming school Spring Frolics. And the money was more than the G-Clefs, the avant guarde G-Clefs made in a month of jazz club appearances, to speak nothing of girls attached. So now the senior Prescotts are happy, well as happy as parents can be over rock ‘n’ roll. And from what I hear Johnny and the Rocking Ramrods are going, courtesy of Aunt Sally, naturally, to be playing at the Gloversville Fair this summer. Be-bop-a-Lula indeed.

When Rockabilly Drove The Be-Bop 1950s Night- “Rockabilly Boogie”-The Johnny Burnette Trio-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Johnny Burnette performing Dreamin'.

CD Review

Rockabilly Boogie, The Johnny Burnette Trio, Bear Family Records, 1989


Recently, in reviewing a two-volume CD entitled Rock This House, CDs dedicated to the best of the rockabilly artists that formed one of the important strands of the 1950s rock jail-break for my generation, the generation of ’68, I noted that there were actually very few rockabilly artists who stayed right in the rockabilly genre. They either, like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, inhaled, inhaled big time, the rock wave that swept all before it for a few magnificent years before “they” (that infamous big time record company corporate they, although we didn't know that at the time) made it all soupy, and parent-happy worthy or were left behind. I mentioned the names Warren Smith and Billy Riley as exemplar of the genre. I could also have added Sonny Burgess and the artist highlighted here, Johnny Burnette, at least for a long while.

Of course, seemingly every rockabilly artist, including Elvis and Johnny Cash, started rocking with a three piece band (bass and drums along with lead guitar) and Johnny (along with brother, Dorsey, who had his own career as well) followed that trend. Why Johnny and the trio, which was a staple on that rockabilly circuit did not make it, is detailed in a very informative booklet that accompanied this CD. In general terms it was, as usual, a question of personality, personality differences, and a not unnatural calculation that the road to success was too hard, or too tenuous to make the run. Every genre (for that matter every field of endeavor) has that moment of truth. Here, as well, was the question by Johnny of whether to stick with the “girl who brung you”, rockabilly, at a time when it was heading up against that misty, mushy rock wave just mentioned. However, in the end as a solo he also left those rockabilly roots behind when the music turned vanilla in the late 1950s.

Many of the selections here show very good rockabilly rhythm and workmanlike riffs but a few also point to the limitations, listening limitations of young teenage ears, in the repetition of the same musical theme. Still, the stick-outs really shine: Rockabilly Boogie: Chains Of Love; Please Don’t Leave Me; and, Midnight Train.

When Young Women’s Voices Ruled the Airwaves Before The British Rock Invasion Of The 1960s- Another Look – "The Battle Of The Sexes-Round 235"-For Cindy P., Class Of 1968

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Patsy Cline performing She's Got You.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The 1960s: Jukebox Memories, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1991

Several years ago, in response to a question on questionnaire sent by members of my 1964 high school class reunion committee, a question posed simply as this-did one prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones during one's high school days? I answered in favor of the latter. Needless to say in recounting that experience in this space I provided more than that simply either/or answer. I went on and on about how the Stones' blues-driven early rock numbers “spoke” much more to my boy teenager alienation and angst, girl angst if you must know, than the more “happy music” the Beatles originally produced. I also noted that, as a general proposition, the earlier male rockers of the period from Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry “spoke” more to me, for those same reasons, than the girl (the term of the times) vocalists with their generally wistful, whimsical lyrics about the age old boy-meets-girl relationships, and their pratfalls.

That simple, or I thought simple, observation from ancient youth brought a storm of protest from an unexpected (well, now that I think about it, not so unexpected) source, my long time dear companion, my "significant other". She lambasted my male-based choices unceremoniously and challenged me to really listen to the great female vocalists from those days. And I did, although somewhat haphazardly. And thereafter I, in this space, posed the Beatles/Stones question for the distaff side. Brenda Lee or Patsy Cline? At the time I did that somewhat artificially because I was actually pretty unfamiliar with their works. And, as it turned out, ditto for most of the young female vocalists of that period. So more recently I have been on something of a learning, or rather re-learning binge (re-learning because of, course, fixated on my transistor radio up in my room to keep out parental and sibling noise I had heard most of the girl vocalists back then, their songs just didn’t register). To answer the question I posed though, no question Patsy Cline was the “max mama” of the late 1950s song night before her untimely death.

All of the above is just a roundabout, very roundabout way, of getting to the core of this review. One of the great features of this Time-Life Rock ‘N’ Roll Era series is the cover art work. And that remains true on this 1960s: Jukebox Memories CD compilation. The cover portrays a very Brenda Lee/Wanda Jackson/Leslie Gore wannabe young female vocalist surrounded by a standard rock trio backing up her vocals. And that sent me flashing back to those tunes, those girl tunes. And I will just repeat here what I mentioned as a result of listening to about ten girl doo wop group or just straight girl solo vocalist CDs. As you will not doubt see I have “got religion” :

“As I also noted in that earlier review [referring to a review of girl doo wop compilations] one problem with the girl groups, and now with these generic girl vocals for a guy, me, a serious rock guy, me, was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak to me.” After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks like this writer have for a girl who breaks a guy's heart after leading him on, yes, leading him on, just because her big bruiser of a boyfriend is coming back and she needs some excuse to brush the heartbroken lad off in the Angels' My Boyfriend’s Back. Or some lucky guy, some lucky Sunday guy, maybe, who breathlessly catches the eye of the singer in the Shirelles' I Met Him On Sunday from a guy who, dateless Saturday night, was hunched over some misbegotten book, some study book, on Sunday feeling all dejected. And how about this, some two, or maybe, three-timing gal who berated her ever-loving boyfriend because she needs a good talking to, or worst, a now socially incorrect, very incorrect and rightly so, "beating" in Joanie Sommers’ Johnny Get Angry.

So you get the idea, this stuff could not “speak to me.” Now you understand, right? Except, surprise, surprise foolish, behind the eight- ball, know-nothing youthful guy had it all wrong and should have been listening, and listening like crazy, to these lyrics because, brothers and sisters, they held the key to what was what about what was on girls’ minds back in the day, and maybe now a little too, and if I could have decoded this I would have had, well, the beginning of knowledge, girl knowledge. Damn. But that is one of the virtues, and maybe the only virtue of age. Ya, and also get this- you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, and your best be-bop, be-bop into that good night voice out and sing along to the lyrics here. This, fellow baby-boomers, was our teen angst, teen alienation, teen love youth and now this stuff sounds great.
And from girls even.”

As for the stick outs in this compilation: Dum Dum by Brenda Lee; Runaround by The Fleetwoods; I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight by Barry & Tamerlanes; Dear One by Larry Finnegan; You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry by Caravelles; My One And Only Jimmy Boy by The Girlfriends; That's The Way Boys Are by Lesley Gore; Happy Birthday by Kathy Young & Innocents; and, My Own True Love by The Duprees.
*****
P.S. Oh, you thought I was finished. Well with the review, yes, but there is still that little nagging question of that companion, that “significant other,” lambasting me about my male youth choices. Well sometimes one cannot win. The gist of her indignant argument, as you now know, centered on my alleged testosterone-driven choices of male Rock 'n' Roll bands to the exclusion of kinder, gentler music-in short, choices that women might prefer. As mentioned above I took her point to heart. But explain this. In the summer of 2005 I attended a Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park. Now who do you think was standing beside me shaking, as the kids say, her "booty" for all she was worth? So much for that testosterone theory. Moreover, who imprisoned me in Fenway Park practically at gunpoint, until I bought her a sassy little Stones T-shirt as a memento of the occasion? Enough said. I rest my case.

Here Are Some Lyrics For Brenda and Patsy So You Can Make An Informed Decision On These Burning Questions Of The Day.

Brenda Lee - I'm Sorry lyrics

Lyrics to I'm Sorry :

I'm sorry, so sorry
That I was such a fool
I didn't know
Love could be so cruel
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes

You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done

Spoken:
(I'm sorry) I'm sorry
(So sorry) So sorry
Please accept my apology
But love is blind
And I was to blind to see
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes

You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes

I'm sorry, so sorry
Please accept my apology
But love was blind
And I was too blind to see
(Sorry)

She's Got You Lyrics

Artist: Patsy Cline

I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed with love just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you

I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got the records, she's got you

I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be

I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you

I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be

I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's-got-you

*In The Time Of The Hard Motorcycle Boys- “The Wild One” A Film Review-And More

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the classic Marlon Brando film, The Wild One.

DVD Review

The Wild One, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, produced by Stanley Kramer,1954

Okay here is the book of genesis, the motorcycle book of genesis, or at least my motorcycle book of genesis. But, before I get to that let me make about seventy–six disclaimers. First, the whys and wherefores of the motorcycle culture, except on those occasions when they become subject to governmental investigation or impact some cultural phenomena, is outside the purview of the leftist politics that dominate the commentary in this space. There is no Marxoid political line, as a rule, on such activity, nor should there be. Those exceptions include when motorcyclists, usually under the rubric of “bad actor” motorcycle clubs, like the famous (or infamous) Oakland, California-based Hell’s Angels are generally harassed by the cops and we have to defend their right to be left alone (you know, those "helmet laws", and the never-failing pull-over for "driving while biker") or, like when the Angels were used by the Rolling Stones at Altamont and that ill-advised decision represented a watershed in the 1960s counter-cultural movement. Or, more ominously, from another angle when such lumpen formations form the core hell-raisers of anti-immigrant, anti-communist, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black liberation fascistic demonstrations and we are compelled, and rightly so, to go toe to toe with them. Scary yes, necessary yes, bikes or no bikes.

Second, in the interest of full disclosure I own no stock, or have any other interest, in Harley-Davidson, or any other motorcycle company. Third, I do not now, or have I ever belonged to a motorcycle club or owned a motorcycle, although I have driven them, or, more often, on back of them on occasion. Fourth, I do not now, knowingly or unknowingly, although I grew up in working class neighborhoods where bikes and bikers were plentiful, hang with such types. Fifth, the damn things and their riders are too noisy, despite the glamour and “freedom” of the road associated with them. Sixth, and here is the “kicker”, I have been, endlessly, fascinated by bikes and bike culture as least since early high school, if not before, and had several friends who “rode”. Well that is not seventy-six but that is enough for disclaimers.

Okay, as to genesis, motorcycle genesis. Let’s connect the dots. A couple of years ago, and maybe more, as part of a trip down memory lane, the details of which do not need detain us here, I did a series of articles on various world-shaking, earth-shattering subjects like high school romances, high school hi-jinks, high school dances, high school Saturday nights, and most importantly of all, high school how to impress the girls( or boys, for girls, or whatever sexual combinations fit these days, but you can speak for yourselves, I am standing on this ground). In short, high school sub-culture, American-style, early 1960s branch, although the emphasis there, as it will be here, is on that social phenomena as filtered through the lenses of a working class town, a seen better days town at that, my growing up wild-like-the-weeds town.

One of the subjects worked over in that series was the search, the eternal search I might add, for the great working class love song. Not the Teen Angel, Earth Angel, Johnny Angel generic mush that could play in Levittown, Shaker Heights or La Jolla as well as Youngstown or Moline. No, a song that, without blushing, one could call our own, our working class own, one that the middle and upper classes might like but would not put on their dance cards. As my offering to this high-brow debate I offered a song by written by Englishman Richard Thompson (who folkies, and folk rockers, might know from his Fairport Convention days, very good days, by the way), Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. (See lyrics below.) Without belaboring the point the gist of this song is the biker romance, British version, between outlaw biker James and black-leathered, red-headed Molly. Needless to say such a tenuous lumpen existence as James leads to keep himself “biked" cuts short any long term “little white house with picket fence” ending for the pair. And we do not need such a boring finish. For James, after losing the inevitable running battle with the police, on his death bed bequeaths his bike, his precious “Vincent Black Lightning”, to said Molly. His bike, man. His bike. Is there any greater love story, working class love story, around? No, this makes West Side Story lyrics and a whole bunch of other such songs seem like so much cornball nonsense. His bike, man. Wow! Kudos, Brother Thompson.

Needless to say that exploration was not the end, but rather the beginning of thinking through the great American night bike experience. And, of course, for this writer that means going to the books, the films and the memory bank to find every seemingly relevant “biker” experience. Thus, readers of this space were treated to reviews of such classic motorcycle sagas as “gonzo” journalist, Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and other, later Rolling Stone magazine printed “biker” stories and Tom Wolfe’ Hell Angel’s-sketched Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and other articles about California subset youth culture that drove Wolfe’s work in the old days). And to the hellish Rolling Stones (band) Hell’s Angels “policed” Altamont concert in 1969. And, as fate would have it, with the passing of actor/director Dennis Hooper, the 1960s classic biker/freedom/ seeking the great American night film, Easy Rider. And from Easy Rider to the “max daddy” of them all, tight-jeaned, thick leather-belted, tee-shirted, engineer-booted, leather-jacketed, taxi-driver-capped (hey, that’s what it reminds me of), side-burned, chain-linked wielding, hard-living, alienated, but in the end really just misunderstood, Johnny, aka, Marlon Brando, in The Wild One.

Okay, we will cut to the chase on the plot. Old Johnny and his fellow “outlaw” motorcycle club members are out for some weekend “kicks” after a hard week’s non-work (as far as we can figure out, work was marginal for many reasons, as Hunter Thompson in Hell’s Angels noted, to biker existence, the pursue of jack-rolling, armed robbery or grand theft auto careers probably running a little ahead) out in the sunny California small town hinterlands.(They are still heading out there today, the last time I noticed, in the Southern California high desert, places like Twenty-Nine Palms and Joshua Tree.)

And naturally, when the boys (and they are all boys here, except for couple of “mamas”, one spurned by Johnny, in a break-away club led by jack-in-the-box jokester, Lee Marvin as Chino) hit one small town they, naturally, after sizing up the local law, head for the local café (and bar). And once one mentions cafes in small towns in California (or Larry McMurtry’s West Texas, for that matter), then hard-working, trying to make it through the shift, got to get out of this small town and see the world, dreamy-eyed, naïve (yes, naive) sheriff-daughtered young waitress, Kathy, (yes, and hard-working, its tough dealing them off the arm in these kind of joints, or elsewhere) Johnny trap comes into play. Okay, now you know, even alienated, misunderstood, misanthropic, cop-hating (an additional obstacle given said waitress’s kinships) boy Johnny needs, needs cinematically at least, to meet a girl who understands him.

The development of that young hope, although hopeless, boy meets girl romance relationship, hither and yon, drives the plot. Natch. Oh, and along the way the boys, after a few thousand beers, as boys, especially girl-starved biker boys, will, at the drop of a hat start to systematically tear down the town, off-handedly, for fun. Needless to say, staid local burghers (aka “squares”) seeing what amount to them is their worst 1950s “communist” invasion nightmare, complete with murder, mayhem and rapine, (although that “C” word was not used in the film, nor should it have been) are determined to “take back” their little town. A few fights, forages, casualities, fatalities, and forgivenesses later though, still smitten but unquenched and chaste Johnny (and his rowdy crowd) and said waitress part, wistfully. The lesson here, for the kids in the theater audience, is that biker love outside bikerdom is doomed. For the adults, the real audience, the lesson: nip the “terrorists” in the bud (call in the state cops, the national guard, the militia, the 82nd Airborne, The Strategic Air Command, NATO, hell, even the weren't we buddies in the war Red Army , but nip it, fast when they come roaming through Amityville, Archer City, or your small town).

After that summary you can see what we are up against. This is pure fantasy Hollywood cautionary tale on a very real 1950s phenomena, “outlaw” biker clubs, mainly in California, but elsewhere as well. Hunter Thompson did yeoman’s work in his Hell’s Angels to “discover” who these guys were and what drove them, beyond drugs, sex, rock and roll (and, ya, murder and mayhem, the California prison system was a “home away from home”). In a sense the “bikers” were the obverse of the boys (again, mainly) whom Tom Wolfe, in many of his early essays, was writing about and who were (a) forming the core of the surfers on the beaches from Malibu to La Jolla and, (b) driving the custom car/hot rod/drive-in centered (later mall-centered) cool, teenage girl–impressing, car craze night in the immediate post-World War II great American Western sunny skies and pleasant dream drift (physically and culturally). Except those Wolfe guys were the “winners”. The “bikers” were Nelson Algren’s “losers”, the dead-enders who didn’t hit the gold rush, the Dove Linkhorns (aka the Arkies and Okies who in the 1930s populated John Steinbeck’s Joad saga, The Grapes Of Wrath). Not cool, iconic Marlin-Johnny but hellbend then-Hell Angels leader, Sonny Barger.

And that is why in the end, as beautifully sullen and misunderstood the alienated Johnny was, and as wholesomely rowdy as his gang was before demon rum took over, this was not the real “biker: scene, West or East. Now I lived, as a teenager in a working class, really marginally working poor, neighborhood that I have previously mentioned was the leavings of those who were moving up in post-war society. That neighborhood was no more than a mile from the central headquarters of Boston's local Hell’s Angels (although they were not called that, I think it was Deathheads, or something like that). I got to see these guys up close as they rallied at various spots on our local beach or “ran” through our neighborhood on their way to some crazed action. The leader had all of the charisma of Marlon Brando’s thick leather belt. His face, as did most of the faces, spoke of small-minded cruelties (and old prison pallors) not of misunderstood youth. And their collective prison records (as Hunter Thompson also noted about the Angels) spoke of “high” lumpenism. And that takes us back to the beginning about who, and what, forms one of the core cohorts for a fascist movement in this country, the sons of Sonny Barger. Then we will need to rely on our Marxist politics, and other such weapons.

*************


ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride

/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E - D A /
/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A - - - /

Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride

Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride

Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night - A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Platters performing the juke-box Saturday night classic, Only You.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The 50’s: Keep On Rockin’, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1988

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

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered) hanging from the lips, Coke, big sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, natch. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.

Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them). Moreover, I clued you in, and keep this quiet, about sex, or rather I should say doin’ the do in case the kids are around, and about the local “custom” (for any anthropologists present) of ocean-waved Atlantic “watching the submarine races.”

Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back indoors again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days. Bowling alleys, drugstores (drugstores with soda fountains- why else would healthy, young, sex-charged high school students go to such an old-timer-got-to-get medicine-for-the-arthritis place. Why indeed, although there are secrets in such places that I will tell you about some other time when I’m not jazzed up to go be-bop juke-boxing around the town.), pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and so on. Basically any place where kids were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

A lot of it was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention as they came in the door. The cover artwork on this compilation shows dreamy girls waiting for their platters (records, okay) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. There is your chance, boy, grab it. Just hanging around the machine with some cashmere-sweater-ed, beehive-haired (or bobbed, kind of), well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) chatting idly was worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Not after nine at night though or before eight because that was when she was talking to her boy friend. Lucky guy, maybe.

But here is where the real skill came in. Just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking to her friends as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boy friend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next. Then you made your move-“Have you heard Only You. NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up. Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to … for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc, etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. On that self-same jukebox you were very, very likely to hear some of the songs on the compilation on this CD: Here are the stick outs (and a few that worked some of that “magic” mentioned above on tough nights):

Oh Julie, The Crescendos (a great one if you knew, or thought you knew, or wanted to believe that girl at the jukebox’s name was Julie); Lavender Blue, Sammy Turner (good talk song especially on the word play); Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Chuck Berry (discussed above, and worthy of consideration if your tastes ran to those heart-breaking little rock and rollers. I will tell you about the ONE time it came in handy sometime); You Were Mine, The Fireflies; Susie Darlin’, Robin Luke (ditto the Julie thing above); Only You, The Platters (keep this one a secret, okay, unless you really are a sensitive guy).

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

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the movie trailer for Pirate Radio.

DVD Review

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

First Question: Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll? Well, of course, Bo Diddley (okay, okay others too). Second Question: Who brought rock ‘n’ roll to your double-locked bedroom, dank cellar, storage-filled garage, or other secret ear place back in old time battery-operated transistor radio (pre-iPod, alright) days? Well, of course, your local dee-jay who helped you while away your night, your dream-plagued rock ‘n’ roll night, with his (mainly) mile-a-minute-banter, selection of platters (records, pre-CD, DVD, iTune, youtube, you’ve heard about them, right?), and, yes, selected advertising targeted to the newly enriched (maybe) teenager with disposable dollars. Such names as Allan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Murry the K, and Arnie Ginsberg come quickly to mind. And although the music, praise be, outlasted the careers and remembrance of that lot this classic rock period is associated in my mind (and yours too, I bet) with that very dee-jay night. And that, my friends, is the premise behind this very nicely done trip down rock memory land- British version.

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

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

**Out In The Be-Bop Night- Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- Westward Ho!

Al Johnson comment:

The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search mentioned in the headline .

Scene Six: Westward Ho! In The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night


As I stepped down onto the yellow-sunned, farm-fresh soil from the farm-fresh cab of the farm-fresh truck that had deposited Angelica and I out into the waving-fielded, farm-fresh Neola, Iowa September day I quickly flashed back to stepping down from Colonel Eddie’s truck cab in Winchester, Kentucky that had started this whole segment of the trip westward. Christ that seemed like an eternity ago although it had been only a few summer heated, summer sweat-soaked heated weeks. Life on the road had it own tempos but this one, for reasons that I will discuss later, had run out of tempo and we were living on pure fumes just then.

While I am thinking about Winchester, Kentucky I might as well tell you what had happened since then to get us here to yellowed-sunned, waving-fielded, farm-fresh country and that will go a long way to explaining our need, our desperate need, for a jump start. Needless to say if you read the last scene, the scene where fair Angelica and me are kicking our heels up at a barn dance (and kicking those same heels after as well) in greater Prestonsburg, Kentucky and me about four sheets to the wind, no five or six sheets to the wind from the local , well-aged (about six minutes) “white lightning” then you know that we, thanks to Angelica, got promised a ride from Prestonsburg to Winchester which is just outside of Lexington, Kentucky.

Our chauffer, our Angelica-smitten chauffer, for the occasion turned out to be one ancient hard-driving (as we quickly found out), hard-drinking (as I knew from his condition as we met up with him), ghost of a truck-driving Colonel Eddie. (The colonel part is made-up, made up by him, all these Kentucky guys from the lowliest pig farmer on up call themselves that, or did back then. I think for about two bucks you could get yourself an “official” certificate designating you as such. If old Eddie had been a “real” colonel then that would go a long way to explaining the South’s righteous lost back in Civil War days). And despite this awful build-up of the guy, and a little off-hand character assassination above, he actually got us there, to Winchester that is, in one piece. Colonel Eddie was one the last of the good old boys, for sure.

What that one piece, by the way, looked like after traveling more back roads in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that seemed humanly possible in order to us get there is another story. See that is where the “white lighting” (rotgut, according to a somewhat miffed Angelica) had something like seven lives. Every time I thought I was feeling better, just a tiny it better like maybe I would actually survive the day, we would hit a double-reverse triple somersault hairpin turn followed by a triple-reverse double somersault hairpin turn that made me wish that, if there was any mercy in this flea-bitten old world, we would just go over the top down into some heavenly embankment and be done with it. But, as I said, we got there, and although we were pinching pennies a little, my condition was terminal and we needed, as a matter of simple primitive medical wisdom, to stay at one of those cheapjack motels that dot the back roads of this world to rest up for future battles, for future tilts at the westward windmills.

No, I am not going to descript this cheapjack motel, this back road, and what did or did not happen there, for the simple reason that I don’t really remember much about what it looked like it, or what happened there. Except this, this is etched in my brain and I can feel the cool- handed, cool-toweled sensation even as I am writing. Angelica, miffed or not, had taken a towel, wrapped some ice from the ubiquitous, usually whiskey fixings-friendly motel ice machine in it, and placed it on my forehead and held her hand on the compress for a while until I fell asleep. Of such kindnesses long-lasting civilizations should be created.

But enough of medical reports and folk wisdom medicines, sweet gestured or not. We were on the road west now, the blue-pink road west and for the first time since Angelica and I had met really on our own. Winchester, Kentucky heading to Lexington on our way west. Next morning, next already hot, steamy, sulky July Monday morning, having had a decent night’s recovery, and a thimbleful of food in my stomach to be on the safe side, we are off. Tonight we will sleep in no “bourgeois” roadside motel, ice cubes included free of charge or not, but out in the great outdoors, out in the promised great American night, and save our dwindling cash for stormier times. Thumb out, Angelica thumb out here, and we are indeed off. A half hour later after being picked up by a wayward sedan, driven by a nondescript but kindly driver, we are on the road to Lexington. And arrive we do without fanfare, or flourish.

This is really what is important about Lexington though. See, like I told you and I know I told Angelica before, that suitcase that she had packed up for Steubenville in her Muncie break-out days was fine to live out of for Steubenville motel cabin existences but no good on the hitchhike road, of whatever color. I didn’t tell you this before because Angelica had been such a trouper, especially with that ice-encrusted towel, but she had complained like hell about the damn dangling suitcase every time we had to push on in a hurry. Truth be told I had carried the thing more than she had, invalided as I was. So when we hit Lexington we hit the first Army-Navy store we could find to get her one of those fungible mountaineer backpacks.

Army-Navy store? Ya, Army-Navy store. Don’t snicker about so, well, about so yesterday, okay? Out on the hitchhike road you needed sturdy stuff, whatever it was you needed, because stuff got pretty banged around and your “faux” hitchhike road designer goods would last about seven miles (or about as long as the owner of such goods would be on the road before hailing a cab to the nearest airport). And as much as we hated the notion of deadly military weapons and anything military in those days we, we of youth nation, were strangely drawn to that fashion look, and the indestructible nature of their “camping” equipment. Besides the stuff was cheap, remember it was bought as World War II surplus mainly, hell, maybe World War I, but cheap.

Naturally, as events kept unfolding Angelica was showing more and more her origins as a Midwestern flower, and although a total stranger to such a place was thrilled (and mystified) by this place, including the odd , musty smell that goes with such stores. I will quote her, “Wow, does all this stuff really work?” So you can see by that simple statement that, every once in a while, she will throw out her Indiana naïve to confuse me. In any case, soon enough she will know whether it works or not. Of course she took forever to decide on which of two types of olive green backpacks “fit” her. Christ, women (oops, sorry). After that we made other purchases in order to set up “housekeeping”. Like. Well, like a small very portable army pup tent, complete with staves, to shelter us from storms and summer bugs. And a couple of canteens, small useful three-prong knives, a shovel, and mess kits.

I, as I write this, still smile over the fact that Angelica talked for days about how whoever invented such a useful thing as a mess kit was a genius, a pure genius. So you see again what I meant about that Muncie thing. Best of all to her sheer unmitigated delight we purchased a warm, cozy, snuggly army surplus sleeping bag (hey, the best kind okay, you can’t have soldiers freezing their buns off in Alaska, Korea, Northern China or wherever). And also delighted, blushingly delighted, when I, off-handedly, whispered in her ear about how many people could fit inside the thing, in a pinch. And, finally, a green (naturally) army blanket, for emergencies, real emergencies, not those in a pinch kind.

After completing those purchases we stepped just outside the store door to a nearby bench, placed there probably for just such purposes, and ceremoniously transferred her stuff from the suitcase to the backpack. Here is the kicker though, which may tell about human nature or maybe not. I just kind of threw everything into my knapsack and hoped for the best. Hope, for example, that a pair of socks, matched, showed up when needed. Angelica, as I noticed back in the Steubenville pack-up, neat of suitcase also took pains (and would do so throughout the trip) to keep her stuff organized just like in the suitcase. I wonder if we had decided that plastic bags were absolutely the best for travel gear whether she would have done the same. Probably. In any case, Angelica’s yesterday Angelica miffs had turned around and she was beaming, at me, at her new existence, at the whole wide world for all I know. I liked it, I told her so, and we are off to a campground just outside of town that the Army-Navy store owner told me about to “camp out” in the great dark American night. Hell, even I was excited. Still I noticed, just a glimmer of a notice, that she turned back wistfully for just a second to take one last look at the suitcase that we left on that bench for someone else in need.

Every once in awhile, just as things are going right and this old world seems full of bright-eyed possibilities, things get twisted around. Let me tell you about it and see what you think. As we were walking, Angelica proudly practically hip-hop walking with her new backpack bouncing up and down with each step, decided she needed to discuss something, one of our little “adjustments” talks. Apparently the miffed Angelica of yesterday was not so much miffed at my condition as that when we went to sign in at that cheapjack motel I wrote down my real name and her real name indicating that we weren’t married, or at least not related. Some primordial sense of modesty, no, I know, just Muncie conventionality, made her feel ashamed.

Christ Angelica, there is not one cheapjack (or five star, for that matter) motel, hotel, inn,
Youth hostel, ashram, whatever in the whole world that in the year 1969 cares who you sign in as. I could have put down Queen Elizabeth and Richard Nixon (although that combination might have raised my eyebrow) and they would have been nonplussed, as long as the coin of the realm, cash, was in hand. I didn’t put quotation marks around the above sentences but I think I could have because that, in my mind’s eye, is probably exactly what I said to her. Her plea, and here I will quote, “I feel ashamed and like a tramp (exact word) and couldn’t we just say we were married when we signed into places?” Apparently the time I was going to spend with this woman was going to be filled with throwing in towels because that is just what I did, I agree to this proposition. Why? Well, in those days I, frankly, didn’t have an opinion, at least a strong opinion, about married or not married and to keep peace I conceded the point. Now would be a different story. But, hell, let’s get to the camp and the great American night.

There are camp sites and there are camp sites. Today you can belly up to some sites with your seven ton, overloaded monster “trailer” home and put in plug or two and act just like you never left Cicero, Albany, or whatever your port of origin. Or you can go back up into the hills, some forlorn shaggy hills, mainly some Western hills these days, carrying in with you whatever you are going to bring on your back, and be not that far removed from those old pioneers who feared every dangerous animal, dangerous man, dangerous natural condition step of the western way, and carried on nevertheless. The real westward ho crowd. That day though Angelica and I found ourselves at a plain old-timey campsite which we could see from the road in was dotted with various tents, some small trailers sitting in the beds of pick-up trucks, some free-form trailers pulled by trucks and a couple of psychedelically multi-colored converted school buses. The last had been popping up on the road ever since people started hearing about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters and their mad eastward escapades a few years earlier. Not a monster trailer in the house, a good sign. I can see a little river as well. Best of all there a small supermarket right across the street. Yes, this portends to be a great American night, and maybe nights.

After I passed the test at the camp office we went to our site, a cozy little site for a tent not too far from the river. What test? Come on now, pay attention, you know the test. Did I or did I not sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. (no Ms. then). Well, I am still sitting here writing this thing so of course I did. Angelica was beaming, beaming like an old married lady (at nineteen, jesus) but, maybe, just maybe because her “hubby” played it straight with her. (I never did get all the details, and she never put them all out there for me, but back in staid old homey Muncie some guys definitely did her wrong, tramp-treating wrong). Of course unlike the “bourgeois” upper class dwellers here in their little campers we were primitives (a word I have actually seen used to designate some campsites) and had to set up camp from scratch. Hell, we had more fun trying to set that damn Army-Navy tent and setting up for dinner on our little fireplace. There are not many times in life when just a couple of goofy, simple things provided so much entertainment. We napped then feasted.

As it got dark though I heard some music, the Stones, I think coming from one of the multi-colored painted, converted buses down the dirt lane. Nothing loud, but also something that said “youth nation” among the families of three and four that seemed to dominate the camp. We moseyed (like it?) on down and as we got closer I knew we had found kindred spirits, at least I thought we had. Angelica said, “What’s that strange smell?” Of course it was nothing but grass (marijuana, herb, ganja, whatever your term), and from the smell high-grade stuff. I thereafter proceeded to tell Angelica the “skinny”. She seemed a little non-plussed by the news but, however, confessed that she had never smoked or done any other drugs. And from the tone of that response seemingly did not want to.

Those were good and simple days to be young, especially on a road situation like this. Perfect strangers, unknown to one another, except by a telltale beard, or longhair, or long dresses or some slightly off-key sign, immediately embraced and as a welcome “gift” passed you a joint (or whatever drug of choice was available that day) and you passed whatever you had. We had some store-bought wine. I knew, knew from hard Arizona and Connecticut experiences, as well as the lore of the road, that carrying drugs was not “cool.” Many a road comrade spent many a night in some godforsaken cooler for making that mistake when the grim-reaper, usually small town, cops needed to boost their arrest records. Thus, for me it was nice to have a chance to get “high.” (inhaling even) although Angelica passed and was happy getting a little silly on the wine. We spent a nice night hanging out, listening to the Stones and the Doors, and a couple of other things that I don’t remember. I do remember, as we went back to our own site to turn in, that Angelica said she finally “got” what her parents, her neighbors, her minister, her schoolteachers, and some of her former boyfriends were afraid of. The feared great boxed-in break-out. She started to go on about it, but I gave her a knowing “preaching to the choir” smile and she stopped.

We wound up staying for few days, got to know most of the twelve or fifteen people connected with the buses (two at two adjoining sites, actually) and found out that they were on “vacation” from a little farm house that they all lived in communally, including some primitive farming and weaving to keep body and soul together, just outside of Springfield, Illinois. They were leaving Saturday morning and we were welcome to join them and stay at the farm for a while. We talked it over and it seemed right, especially for Angelica, as we could by-pass sweet home Indiana that she wanted avoid at all costs, so we left with them. That Saturday morning Angelica with great tenderness, and by herself, struck our camp (“our home” she called it by the end) as we prepared for the next leg of our journey. Ah, pioneer woman.

You know some towns you can say that you have been in but that is misleading. You might have passed through them, you might have been caught having to sleep on some forsaken bench in some lonely bus stop there, or stretched a watery cup of joe in some lonelier diner against some cold , rainy night wait, or, in flusher times, just hopped on a plane out of the place. So, yes you can tick that town off on your map as you move along in the world but you don’t know the town, no way. That is my recollection of Springfield. Oh sure I knew it was Lincoln’s home area, I knew it was the capital of the state of Illinois, I knew that people in that area were not Mayor Daly’s (the first one) people and that there was plenty of farmland there. But Springfield on this trip (or ever) was just that dot on the map because once we passed through it and we got to the farm a few days and joints after leaving Lexington that was it. We spent some quiet, well maybe no so quiet when the music went decibel high, but youth quiet time on the farm, did a little work for our keep, Angelica got a little more sun that she thought was good for her, and we relaxed before pushing on. Westward ho, ever westward ho in the blue-pink great American West night.