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History, Bitter & Twisted October 9

Arrivals:

1940 – John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England.

Let me tell you for a fact that Lennon is laughing his ass off at all the hoopla around his 70th birthday.  He would be the first to bury the 60s, not praise them.  As the accolades pour in and pass over the corpse, he would see it for what it is: the dying gasps of a generation who can’t admit to their own irrelevance.  Yes, every thread of our social narrative from 1960 to 1970 went through John Lennon before it ever got woven into the fabric of history.  Yes, he was the embodiment of our youth and our search for truth, then justice and meaning, and, finally peace — in a time that was so crazy even the inmates finally refused to run the asylum.  And yes, much of what we see and hear in the 21st century — way beyond music — is directly connected to what Lennon saw and heard and interpreted for us.  But no, he wouldn’t put up with these geriatric reminiscences and hourly mind-numbing renditions of “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance.”  He would see it for what it is — 60s worship — a religion built on the Instamatic snapshots of our immortal youth coerced on every generation since then.  Lennon spent his life pushing aside the old order to make room for the new, and the hilarious irony of this three-ring birthday would not be lost on him.

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1969 – In a courtroom in Chicago, the Chicago 8 — led by Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale — were on trial for conspiracy, rioting, bomb-making, littering and pretty much everything else.  The charges had come out of the mayhem at the 1968 Democratic Convention.  The trial was not going well.  Bobby Seale was gagged and tied to a chair.  Hoffman and Rubin were playing silly bugger, hurling insults at anything that moved, and Tom Hayden was thinking about Jane Fonda.  The judge, Julius Hoffman (no relation) was clearly out of his depth and had lost control of the proceedings.  On October 9th, outside the courtroom there was a crowd gathering: hippies, yippies, students, disaffected youth, all urban warriors, hardened soldiers of the street battles that had percolated through the 60s.  Fresh off the five-day conflict that had been the Democratic Convention, these people were veterans.  There was some fear (not unfounded) that they would storm the place and release the defendants.   In a surprise show of force, the authorities called in the National Guard.  This was not the first time “The Guard” had been called out to keep order, but it was a clear signal to anybody who was listening that the days of tolerance for overzealous youth were finished.  The playful 60s were over, and 7 months later they would abruptly end when the National Guard opened fire at Kent State.

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Departures:

1967 – Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, literally the poster child of the revolution, was killed in the Bolivian mountains.  He had been wounded and captured 2 days before.  He was executed without trial and buried without ceremony.  He became the Alberto Korda image.  But what is he really?   A lofty ideal on a t-shirt?  An imaginary college hero?  A paladin with an AK?  In reality, Che was a revolutionary.  He saw in the Revolution a singular hope for millions of people.  With the established order swept away, the Revolution could begin to remake the Socialist Man.  It would find the clean water for the people who needed it and the food.  It would educate everybody’s children.  It would turn the wealth of the nation into power and justice for each of its citizen.  It would change money into morality.   And he knew that the Revolution was a real thing, a living, breathing entity that would grow and change and reach into other dark corners of the world.  It would spread hope and courage wherever it went.

But he was a philosopher, not a king.  On January 2nd,1 959, with victory in his pocket, he walked down the Prado in Havana, the master of all he surveyed.  But his job was already over – he just didn’t know it.   First, there was the slaughter.  Enemies of the Revolution were taken to La Cabana and shot…and shot…and shot.  Until Fidel’s new partners, the Russians, told him to quit.  (Do you know how much blood it takes to sicken a Soviet?)  Then it was the Cuban economy.  Che became Finance Minister and Minister of Industry, but with philosophic solutions to pragmatic problems, production imploded and there was no wealth to re-distribute.  In 1965, Che left Cuba and went to Africa to continue the Revolution.  Despite himself, he became just another neo-colonial adventurer, bent on telling Africans how to shape their future.  He wrote of the Congo: “This is the history of a failure.”  Then, Bolivia.  Friendless and unfunded, without Fidel to smoothe the way, he was trapped in his own Revolution — unable to change his ways and unwilling to change his mind.

So what was Che?  Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was the last Lancelot, a knight errant, imbued with the righteousness of the Revolution.  His quest was motivated by the poverty, injustice and hopelessness he saw all around him.  His Holy Grail was the nobility of the best of mankind, the idealism of all history, distributed for everyone.  But in the end, like Lancelot, he could only see the Grail.  It was forever kept out of his grasp.

Time Flies October 8

Arrivals:

1920 – Frank Herbert, who wrote the all-time best selling science fiction novel, Dune, in 1965.  Dune is an incredible tour de force in league with the sword-and-sorcery epic Lord of the Rings.  And, like Lord of the Rings, it sits alone at the top of its genre.  Unlike most science fiction writing, which is normally single-cell dystopia, Dune creates an intricate picture of a complete society.  It also deals with conflict and frailty, ambition and emotion.  Dune is not a one-time week-end read, so set some time aside.  Don’t bother with the movie; it’s not very good.

1943 – Chevy Chase.  This guy isn’t funny.  He used to be funny on Saturday Night Live.  He was hilarious in the National Lampoon Vacation movies.  But anything else he’s ever touched just isn’t funny.  Name one movie that Chevy Chase ever did that’s funny — aside from Three Amigos! (and Steve Martin and Martin Short carried his ass through that one).  Deal of the Century? Not funny.  Spies Like Us? Not funny.  Cops & Robbersons?  Not funny.  Even Funny Farm isn’t funny, and several of his latest movies haven’t even been released to the public they’re so not funny.

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1871 – As you watch Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann punch it out, night after night on television, let me take you back to the Great Chicago Fire which started on this day in 1871.  The story goes like this.  One night, October 8th actually, Mrs. O’Leary went out to her barn to milk her cow.  Stupidly, she set her lantern down on a messy floor of straw.  The cow moved away from Mrs. O’Leary and kicked the lantern over.  The straw burst into flames.  Mrs O’Leary, being an immigrant and unfamiliar with American things like fire, fled the scene rather than put the fire out or call for help.   When the fire finally burned itself out, 2 days later, over 200 people were dead, 90,000 were homeless and 4 square miles of central Chicago were a smoldering ruin.  In a bitter side note, the O’Leary residence had been spared by the flames.  That’s how Michael Ahern a reporter for the Chicago Republican newspaper told the story.  What has this got to do with O’Reilly and Olbermann?  Quite a bit.  Ahern made the story up he lied to sell newspapers.  It was widely re-reported across the country at the time and is still taken for the truth in many places.  Mrs O’Leary had no defence.  She didn’t have a newspaper to tell her side.  So the next time O’Reilly or Olbermann or any of those other talking heads start telling you “the truth,” remember Mrs. O’Leary and that journalistic integrity is an oxymoron and always has been.

1956 – Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitched the one and only perfect game ever thrown in a World Series (not a play-off! a World Series!).  There have been only 20 perfect games pitched in all of MLB history.  According to Larsen in interviews given after the game, he was quite relaxed through it all — even stepping out of the dugout in the seventh inning stretch to have a cigarette.

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Departures:

1793 – John Hancock, another one of those rich guys who made the American Revolution happen.  Hancock took up the revolutionary cause after the Stamp Act.  He was described on more than one occasion as a smuggler.  In other words, he was bringing goods into the colonies without paying the Stamp tax.  No wonder he was a proponent of “No Taxation without Representation.”  On the night of April 18th, 1775, the British sent a detachment of soldiers to destroy the guns the American militia had been collecting at Lexington and to arrest Hancock and Samuel Adams.  Paul Revere was sent to warn the two men and, on the way, gather the militia.  Paul did his job, John and Sam escaped and the British had a revolution on their hands.  Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence, loud and proud so King George could see it.  That last bit is actually part of the mythology of the Revolution.

1982 – Fernando Lamas, an actor who was intentionally brought to Hollywood from Argentina to play the “Latin lover” and the “swarthy villain.”  He did this very well in a number of movies and then as a guest star on a ton of television shows.  He was seriously lampooned by Billy Crystal on Saturday Night Live and the catch-phrase “You look …mahvelous” was everywhere for awhile.  Lamas, who obviously had a Spanish accent, once responded with one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard: “When a person has an accent, it means he can speak one more language than you.”

Time Flies October 7

Arrivals:

1952 – Vladimir Putin, the current Tsar of Russia.  Putin started out in the KGB, and it shows.  However, for all the negative press Putin gets he has established a certain stability in Russia and has restored its economy.  This is no minor accomplishment, given what he had to work with when he started. 

1959 – Simon Cowell, the smarmy smug bugger who thinks bitchy is witty.  He makes his living insulting people who can’t defend themselves.  It is the earnest hope of most of the people in this world that somewhere, sometime, when he least expects it somebody is going to jump down off that stage and punch his lights out.

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1916 – Corporal Adolf Hitler was wounded by a piece of shrapnel, during an artillery barrage at the Battle of the Somme.  Just think of how history would have changed if that British artillery officer had straightened out his aim!

1955 – Allen Ginsberg performed Howl for the first time at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.  And with the words “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked….” Ginsberg launched the Beat Generation.   With Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Kerouac’s On the Road the Beats set the tone for the rest of the century.  Today the microserfs of Generation Y look with nostalgia on the Beat era as a time of hedonism, sexuality and creativity.  No wonder, given the restrictions most contemporary people endure.  One of the things that they don’t know about the Beat Era, however, is it was tons of fun.

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Departures:

1849 – Edgar Allan Poe, the author who invented spooky.  He wrote stories that are frightening, macabre, gothic and just plain weird.  His best known work is a poem “The Raven”, which, when read properly – alone and at night – scares the crap outta ya.  He also invented detective fiction with his recurring character C. Auguste Dupin who was not called a detective at the time because that word hadn’t been invented.  Poe’s death reads like one of his stories.  On September 27th, he left Richmond Virginia to go home to New York and literally disappeared.  He was found 6 days later, in the gutter outside a tavern in Baltimore, Maryland.  He was dressed in somebody else’s shabby clothes.  He was delirious, slipping in and out of consciousness until he died.  And in a last twist that he could have written himself, all of his medical records and his death certificate have disappeared.

1956 – Clarence Birdseye, the guy who perfected flash freezing as a method of preserving food.  Apparently, he learned this technique while ice fishing with the Inuit in Labrador.  It’s a good story that’s actually true.  Birdseye artificially reproduced the freezing effects of the Arctic weather, first in a laboratory and then, on a bigger scale, in a factory.  There’s not a single guy or university student alive today who doesn’t worship Birdseye for the frozen pizza alone.