Martin Blank

On 4/4/2020 at 6:01 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Did anyone know this?

Dylan lived in Woodstock in 1969.

He turned down an offer to play there. 

Instead he did the Isle of Wight festival..  

the festival was in bethel originally was to be at woodstock but you know how that goes.  dylan had been going up there for several years and staying at his manager's before he bought a place. Big Pink was up there. dylan couldn't handle the hippies he drew to Woodstock

On 4/4/2020 at 2:00 PM, W. Niederhut said:

I'm no expert, by any stretch, but I agree with Ron Ecker on this one.

The Joint Chiefs and NSC people (Bundy, Rostow, et.al.) certainly knew from their staff meetings that LBJ disagreed with JFK's interest in getting out of Vietnam and de-escalating the Cold War.

The fact (?) that LBJ ducked as his limo entered Dealey Plaza implies that he knew JFK was slated for execution, but also indicates that he, himself, didn't necessarily trust the executioners.

don't forget JFK and LBJ's argument the morning of the 22 about taking connally out of the limo and putting yarborough, in his place which i believe was the original seating plan for the  motorcade. 

On 7/17/2019 at 7:54 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

Heh heh.  I promoted hardcore punk rock in Reno Nevada 1980-2.  Some hairy moments of near-death, indeed.

Some great punk bands out of Texas in the 80's -- Butthole Surfers, MDC, the Big Boys, the Dicks.

how can the adjective "great"  ever fit punk?" 

26 minutes ago, Roy Wieselquist said:

Oh no Martin you missed the memo.  Metaphysics is for those who are too plain dumb to understand just plain physics, science, reason, logos.  Aristotle around 300 BCE.  2300 years and change ago.

you make me laugh. metaphysical poetry is john donne, george herbert, etc. read it. learning won't harm you. they are 17th century english poets. again lol

On 12/12/2018 at 7:46 PM, Roy Wieselquist said:

David A.,

So true about layers of meaning in the Beatle lyrics, as in any good poetry.  And you put it very well.  You and Ron B. and Kirk G. are so helpful pointing in the right direction, giving me new sources.  Though, I tell ya, the more I look at different Beatle resources on the web and in books, the more I'm seeing that virtually NO ONE touches on what I see: TWA is all about America's slide into fascism.

Oh wait a minute, we're not allowed to discuss things like layers and meanings and spoofs and myth-making because that's like dissecting a rabbit or some other living animal, right Martin Blank?  That's what your authority D T Suzuki says.  That's what anti-democratic (he stood up for the worst enslavement of working folk and prisoners), anti-Semite (never met a Jew in his life until his privileged self was sent off to college by the munificence of the producers, and then he felt threatened by their intelligence) DTS says.  We are not allowed to ponder the beauty of culture.  You bet that is what the not-see Nazis want.

Let’s start this comedy of errors with you. Your words appear in boldface in all instances.

So true about layers of meaning in the Beatle lyrics, as in any good poetry. And you put it very well. You and Ron B. and Kirk G. are so helpful pointing in the right direction, giving me new sources. 

The right direction? That’s a good one, especially since you have not shown where the evidence exists in the lyrics to substantiate your claims. You have just sort of made bald statements and then talked around them trying to get us to accept your absurd positions on their face. To say that your way is the right way and by extension the only way contradicts and is contradicted by your claim that poetry includes things like layers and meanings and spoofs and myth-making. Sorry but you can’t have it both ways. Sounds like a bad case of megalomania to me.

And for future reference when someone puts his or her opinion out there they should expect criticism and questioning especially if the audience includes people who really know what they are talking about. So before you take the step of putting your ideas out there for scrutiny you might want to put your big boy pants on thicken your skin, check your ego and paranoia at the door and try to learn something from the exercise. You can choose ignorance if you would like but that won’t get you very far. And just because you think it so or the voices tell you something is there, most people want evidence or some kind of proof of its existence before they make a leap of faith. There is no such thing as it is because I think it so.

Though I tell ya, the more I look at different Beatle resources on the web and in books, the more I'm seeing that virtually NO ONE touches on what I see: TWA is all about America's slide into fascism.

There may be a good reason for that. Pick one:

o   It just isn’t there

o   People aren’t crazy and are more discerning than you think

o   You overestimate your exegetical skills

o   You are delusional

o   You aren’t who you think you are

o   You type real fast and never review or edit your writing. Remember running off at the mouth gets you nowhere

o   All of the above

o   All of the above and more

Oh wait a minute, we're not allowed to discuss things like layers and meanings and spoofs and myth-making.

Oh sure you are especially if the discussion isn’t at a level so laughable as to be embarrassing to all concerned. (Please re-read paragraph 3.) I love a good discussion especially if it is carried out at a high level.

. . .because that's like dissecting a rabbit or some other living animal, right Martin Blank?  That's what your authority D T Suzuki says. If you can’t decipher such a simple thought you need to take some classes or give up. At the least read T.S. Eliot’s essay  

on metaphysical poetry, Shelley’s Defense of Poetry, Wordsworth’ Preface to Lyrical Ballads, and Cleanth Brooks’ Understanding Poetry. Here’s the exact quote in case you want to think about it some more:

Remember a scientific approach to understanding poetry, in which a work of art is rationally taken apart much as one dissects a frog, only eviscerates it and makes it something less — and other — than what it is. D.T. Suzuki recognized the limitations of science in this respect, saying, “The scientific way kills, murders the object and by dissecting the corpse and putting the parts together again tries to reproduce the original living body, which is really a deed of impossibility.”

I find those things you point out about Suzuki as deplorable as the next guy but they have no bearing on his views on poetry. Sorry. You got nothing on me.

We are not allowed to ponder the beauty of culture. You bet that is what the not-see Nazis want. Clever pun you got there just like old JL himself.

Sure you can ponder the beauty of culture any time and anywhere, that‘s what your mind is for. Don’t give up so easily.

Peace.

that's much better.

35 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

Don't forget that these guys are Englishmen to the core.  They're more concerned with Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath (later, Enoch Powell) in Old Blighty than they are with Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara.  When they flew in from Miami Beach, it was on BOAC; "Miami Beach" may have been their misguided stab at making surf-music satire (i. e., wrong state).

or the words fits the scheme better. or they took the reference from their stay in Miami Beach in early 1964, where they taped an appearance for Sullivan

1 hour ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Didn't Monica Lewinski say something similar?.

I believe she said: "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." 

13 hours ago, Roy Wieselquist said:

The White Album: A Treatise on America's Slide into Fascism

                                                                            Side One

1.  "Back in the USSR" -- A poke in the eye to America's wasteful Cold War competition with the Soviet Union.  The jet sound at the beginning is used many times later in other rock songs, most notably in Lesh/Petersen's "Unbroken Chain."  "USSR" is a fitting start for the album; George Martin and the Boys liked to start an album and a side with a real upbeat attention-getter.  Also, this song's production was pretty much like how they did most of the album: "The individual songwriter took control of the process."  (p. 343 in the new Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin, the Later Years, 1966-2016 by Kenneth Womack.  "If Paul had to come in to put a bass track on one of George's songs, Paul would come in that day, do his thing and then leave.  Every song was very much like that."

This was a pure McCartney number.  He played all the instruments, even the drums because this was during Ringo's extended absence when he felt left out of the group.  PM got John and George to double track all the parts, and with good headphones you can hear how sloppy some of that background is, esp. bass and drums.

"Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC."  JFK flew in (back to D. C.) from Miami and Tampa a mere two days before the Texas trip.  If only he had been flying to the USSR like, say a Kruschev, he would have been just fine.  Ol' Nikita was eased out quietly by his hawks within two years of the U. S. hawks blowing their commander-in-chief's brains out in a most public fashion.  "You don't know how lucky you are, boy" to be going back to a much safer place than America, the murderer's paradise.  "Come and keep your comrade warm" made J Edna Hoover squirm in his lace silk panties.

The "guitar solo" is ONE NOTE played blistering fast, like a machine gun.  Many other artists used this when it fit with the song, most notably Neil Young in "Cinnamon Girl."

Paul finished this very quickly. He was on a mission, working on a deadline -- have it all ready to go to pressing by late October for the targeted release date, 11/22/1968.

 

Small Aside: the Characteristics of a Fascist State in Order of Importance for the Am. Brand of Fascism

* hatred/despising of labor, both the performance of it and the performer, the worker.  Labor unions are especially hated, have died out in Am. since the 1950's.  Hatred of fundamental labor (farming, construction, mining, etc. -- outside, dirty work) is now in our blood.  For decades, we have been touting "college" as a way "to get a good Job", meaning inside office work.  Manual labor is to be shunned at all costs, and ignored -- media reporting on labor acts as if basic production does not exist; it's all about working in an office.  This is why housing is so astronomically expensive now (Remember the "Rent is Too Damn High Party"?), because we don't have Americans willing and able to do that labor.

*hatred/despising of the other; i. e., non-white, non-Judaeo Christian.  But they are welcome to grow our food and build our homes.

* marriage of big business and government

* overlarge military, our most thriving business (ordnance to Saud to drop on Yemen and kill those unarmed peasants so Saud can have another oil port).  Am. spends as much or more as the rest of the world on "defense," but we are only 4.5% of world population.  That means we spend 22 times as much per capita as the rest of the world.

* empire, perpetual war.  The recent death of GHW Bush reminds us of our nearly constant massacring of decent, defenseless "other" people worldwide.

* ridiculous, belligerent nationalism.  "We're #1."  (Old joke: "But you smell like #2.")  Our working citizens are worse off than many, if not most, third world nations for health and safety.  USA! USA!  Isn't it a human embarassment to hear fans at the Olympics screaming this?  At a place and time that's neutral good sportsmanship to everyone else.

*oligarchy gets richer and more powerful

* far-right authoritarian dictatorship.  We don't realize it because we're like the frogs boiled slowly.  The last election: Oh my who will win?  The Republican or the other Republican.  The better choice, warmonger Hillary, destroyed the perfectly stable, advancing nation of Libya.  Among other warmonger atrocities.

America is the old Roman style of fascism, nothing like the German Third Reich brand.  The Roman-American brand is a sloppy, greedy way that eventually comes home to roost.  Our urban water systems are a study in incompetent, lazy neglect of infrastructure just like the Romans between short-lived golden ages.

(Side One continued next.  Sorry about all the preamble, just getting terms straight.)

Freud said: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

On 12/3/2018 at 5:25 PM, Roy Wieselquist said:

I'm about to type up a little synopsis of Side One of TWA as a "treatise of America's slide into fascism."  If it is not your cuppa, don't read it.  Your referring me to the Zen of D T Suzuki is somewhat nettling.  You don't know he was an anti-Semitic, fascist freak wrapped in Zen clothing?  BTW I brought the Tao of Lao Tzu to Piedmont North Carolina in 1972, for which me former high school mates are still grateful.

PS to Martin: maybe you are one of those American chauvinists who cannot bear to see British music getting any kind of spotlight or consideration because you feel it takes something away from our home growns?

Roy W: I know dozens of Beatle fans who have studied TWA way beyond the Charles Manson depth, which is to say no depth or crazy depth. 

 

Boy am I glad I don’t know those Beatle fans. I don’t suffer insufferability well.

 

 

You don't know he was an anti-Semitic, fascist freak wrapped in Zen clothing?

 

That may be true of Suzuki, I don’t know; his words do make sense, however.

 

But did you know John Lennon beat his wife and child, emotionally abused his first son, was a political poseur, a  supporter of violence through donations to groups such as the Black Panthers. Imagine that.

 

PS to Martin: maybe you are one of those American chauvinists who cannot bear to see British music getting any kind of spotlight or consideration because you feel it takes something away from our home growns?

 

Well, there were three good  British groups and they are The Beatles (before Sgt. Pepper’s when they were trying to be American), the Searchers, and Fairport Convention (before Full House with Sandy Denny leaving the band; Liege and Lief was British music.) You can pretty much have the rest.

Remember, poetry is not a puzzle to be solved like some parlor trick

 (RW): Who said it was?

You do by your methodology and results. It shows up in statements such as this:

The song is obviously about heroin abuse. Macca saw Lennon going down due to Yoko's influence.  The song is a slam on her: "You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer."

 

Anyway,  I might see methadone but heroin? Now that’s a stretcher as Huck Finn would say.

 

I'm about to type up a little synopsis of Side One of TWA as a "treatise of America's slide into fascism." 

 

I await it with braided breath though there are much better books on the subject.

 

As Ethel Rosenberg said: “We are the first victims of American fascism.”

Now cue Bob Dylan’s Julius and Ethel:

 

People look upon this couple with contempt and doubt, 
But they loved each other right up to the time they checked out --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

I leave you with this. Is the last verse of Piggies about cannibalism?

 

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner 
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

 

 

 

 

Apple re-released Spector’s album in 1972.

DYLAN: I do know what my songs are about.

PLAYBOY: And what’s that?

PLAYBOY: Oh and, some are about four minutes, some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about twelve.

Sorry, but I just don’t see any template for a coup d’etat in the album. Neither do I see where it’s about “the murder of our leaders who are for the people and general decency.” The same goes of for it being “about the murder of decency itself.” Ditto for it being about a Theory of Generations and a cycle of 72 or 80 years, and trying to break that cycle.”

The only person I know of who “studied” the album to that depth was Charles Manson, and I didn't see any race war in the album either.

The following is only sort of partly accurate: “Supposedly, Harrison randomly opened a book and put his finger on the words "gently weeps", then used the I Ching from there.”

George Harrison wrote "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" after his return from India, where the Beatles had been studying Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi during the spring of 1968. Inspiration for the song came to him when he was visiting his parents in Warrington, Cheshire, and he began reading the I Ching, or "The Book of Changes".  As Harrison put it, "[the book] seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental." Embracing this idea of relativism, he committed to writing a song based on the first words he saw upon opening a book, which happened to be "gently weeps.” (Said book was not the I Ching.) Harrison continued to work on the lyrics after this initial writing session.

In the following examples, I think you try too hard to mine meaning from the songs on the album and, as a result, your arguments do not hold water because they really aren’t in the song but are merely constructs of your own mind. In addition, the lyrics are stretched constructs that exist only in your own mind and not in the work itself

·      “love there that's sleeping" dormant, gone, for all purposes dead.

·      "floor...needs sweeping" lazy slackers can't take care of even the simplest tasks

·      "how someone controlled you"  land of the greed, home of the slave, and we think we're so independent.

·      "they bought and sold you"  America is a bunch of whores of the Military Complex

·      "you were diverted"  from common decency; "perverted too"  'nuff said, what a shame; "inverted" i. e., reversed from our original goal of freedom and justice; "no one alerted you" = we're such dumb sob's that we have to be warned about the most simple, obvious things like a retarded child.  "America, don't stick your hand in the fire."  (wage an unnecessary war that will bankrupt us)

You are trying too hard in a way that will never allow you to succeed in understanding poetry.

To see an excellent example of what I am talking about see William Dowling’s brilliant essay "Ripple": A Minor Excursus” at http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/dowling.html BTW all those musicians came close to equaling one Jerry Garcia.  Just my opinion. Dark Star on Live Dead says it all.

Peace and Happy Trails.

Remember, poetry is not a puzzle to bone solved like some parlor trick

i am and i see mia farrow looking for her younger sister.

Not since Aesop's Fables and Reynard the Fox have beasts, birds, and pets shared and commingled their selves with ours so completely and revealingly.

Jonathan Cott wrote this in the tenth anniversary issue of Rolling Stone and it  is about all that needs to be said about the White Album.

Remember a scientific approach to understanding poetry, in which a work of art is rationally taken apart much as one dissects a frog, only eviscerates it and makes it something less — and other — than what it is. D.T. Suzuki recognized the limitations of science in this respect, saying, “The scientific way kills, murders the object and by dissecting the corpse and putting the parts together again tries to reproduce the original living body, which is really a deed of impossibility.” 

save  yourself some work and save us from the "treatise" Just listen

anyone hear/know anything about albarelli's new book – Coup in Dallas: Who Killed JFK and Why – that is due out next month. was very impressed his previous two books. thanks

marty

almost immediately, i had problems with this: "Sirhan Sirhan’s bullets not only demolished the hope for a savior candidate who would unite a party so fractured that its incumbent, President Lyndon B. Johnson, had decided not to seek re-election."

even if he had lived to win the election the powers of the presidency were no guarantee that he would have not been assassinated in office. after all, they hadn't done his brother much good. having lived through that period of american history, i find the what ifs to be useless. you know kind of like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer; it feels so good when you stop. xxxxty as it is, this is the hand we were dealt and it's up to use to honor memories by doing the best we can with it.

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Thanks Mike... 

A patriot in the CIA - who would have thought...  

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

An Ohio appears to be where many of the defectors on that list came from....  the home of the RAND corp, among others

can't seem to find list of ohio defectorr. can you point me. thanks

just a side note signifying nothing. he went to my alma mater kenyon college in ohio.

there was this one, too:                                         

i liked guy gabaldon when i was nine. 

Hell to Eternity

Guy Gabaldon (Jeffrey Hunter) is an orphaned Latino youth raised in Los Angeles by an adoptive Japanese-American family. With the dawn of conflict in the Pacific, Gabaldon enlists in the military as a translator. Fighting in the Battle of Saipan, he's horrified at the carnage. So, disobeying orders, he goes behind enemy lines and talks the Japanese into willful surrender, saving thousands of lives on both sides. The film is based on the true story of the decorated World War II veteran.

When you know the truth about who Robert and Lee Oswald really were, everything begins to fall into place and make sense, especially Robert's remarks about his brother.

What Robert knew back then was something that he and very few other people in the world were aware of and this was that there were two (lookalike) “Lee Oswalds”                                                           involved in the assassination.

Robert’s brother was LEE Oswald and he was the person who was seen in the sixth floor window and who may have fired shots at the motorcade.

The other Oswald was HARVEY Lee Oswald, who was just what he told police he was – a patsy. He was the person who was arrested and murdered by Jack Ruby. He was also accused of killing Officer Tippet and was found to be the "lone nut” shooter by the Warren Commission. 

Robert said in an interview: “There is no question in my mind that LEE was responsible for the three shots fired, two of the shots hitting the president and killing him.” 

Robert is telling you that it was LEE (his brother) not HARVEY who was involved in the assassination. Most people would take this as him convicting HARVEY.

I think that’s an understatement. . . I would love to be able to say that Lee was not involved in any way whatsoever, or much less to the extent that I believe that he was.

Again, he is talking of his brother LEE.

 Is someone going to take DNA samples? I beleive you will see no elation between Robert and HARVEY’s daughters

John Armstrong wrote a great book about this called Harvey and Lee.

seriously, they didn't know Hill 875 was hamburger hill?

i'm pretty sure the name koch listed with supporters

in the matter of what a coincidence: Admiral George Stephen Morrison, commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, was also the proud papa of one Jim Morrison, late of the Doors. Cue up: "The End" 

Here the two of them are sharing a moment on the bridge of the U.S.S carrier Bon Homme Richard in 1964. Wowzers, life is sure strange.

Gonna break on through to the other side!

I guess they can't count to 273 why would i think they could if they couldn't do 263?

20 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I took it as it was the administrations idea, I. E. JFK's.  Which, as you mention Dr. Newman, I think his book supports.  Go back to NSAM 111 and the Thanksgiving Day massacre of 61 and it's aftermath of firing Dulles/Cabbell/Bissell.  JFK showed his hand at that time by refusing to surrender to their demands for combat troops on the ground in Vietnam.  He continued this policy after his reorganization until his death.  He stated his intent to withdraw advisors by the end of 63 to more than one privately if I remember correctly. 

that firing had nothing to do with vietnam.

In 1968, (Ret.) General James M. Gavin stated:

 There has been much speculation about what President Kennedy would have done in Vietnam had he lived. Having discussed military affairs with him often and in detail for 15 years, I know he was totally opposed to the introduction of combat troops in southeast Asia. His public statements just before his murder support this view.

Paul B. Fay, undersecretary of the Navy under JFK, stated:

   If John Kennedy had lived, our military involvement in Vietnam would have been over by the end of 1964.

To Larry Newman, Kennedy said:

  “The first thing I do when I’m re-elected, I’m going to get the Americans   out of Vietnam. Exactly how I’m going to do it, right now, I don’t know.”

  JFK also advised Robert McNamara: “We are not going to have men ground up in this fashion, this far away     from home. I’m going to get these guys out because we’re not going to find ourselves in a war it is impossible to win.

     In 1963 Kennedy remarked to his aide Kenneth O’Donnell:

      In 1965, I’ll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser, but now I don’t care. If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe  McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m re-elected. So we  had better make damned sure I’m re-elected.

            Senator Wayne Morse told the Boston Globe in 1973:

There’s a weak defense of John Kennedy. He’d seen the error of his ways. I’m satisfied if he’d lived another year we’d have been out of Vietnam. Ten days before his assassination, I went down to the White House and handed     him his education bills, which I was handling on the Senate floor. I’d been making two to five speeches a week against Kennedy on Vietnam. . . .I’d gone into President Kennedy’s office to discuss education bills, but he said, ‘Wayne, I want you to know you’re absolutely right in your criticism of my Vietnam policy. Keep this in mind. I’m in the midst of an intensive study which substantiates your position on Vietnam.’

The study which Kennedy alluded to was made known “through the Ellsberg Papers as the McNamara Study.” Volume 8 of this study details, according to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “Kennedy’s plans to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War.”

The pressure to use combat troops was most intense over Cuba (twice, in April 1961 and October 1962), Laos (spring 1961), the Berlin Wall (summer and fall 1961) and in South Vietnam (twice, November 1961 and October 1963)

5 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

I took it as it was the administrations idea, I. E. JFK's.  Which, as you mention Dr. Newman, I think his book supports.  Go back to NSAM 111 and the Thanksgiving Day massacre of 61 and it's aftermath of firing Dulles/Cabbell/Bissell.  JFK showed his hand at that time by refusing to surrender to their demands for combat troops on the ground in Vietnam.  He continued this policy after his reorganization until his death.  He stated his intent to withdraw advisors by the end of 63 to more than one privately if I remember correctly. 

they have McNamara doing it in 1962! Why not mention JFK unless you're trying to confuse