If You're Gonna Steal...

If you're gonna steal, why not steal from the best?

Today, I was admiring the renovations over at the Sprawling Ramshackle Compound and immediately decided to swipe one of the changes-- the widget that allows you to put a few songs on your blog. I called it "The Soundtrack To My Life." I've noticed a very high tendency for music to be important to most of the bloggers I enjoy reading.

My intent is to have a few songs that are high on my mental playlist, and a little explanation of each of them. BTW, does anyone know how to make m4a's playable on that widget?

The songs:

1. Abraham, Martin and John, by Dion
Dion Dimuccio was one of the many Italian-American crooners to have a bunch of hits in the early sixties, including one of my favorite-ever songs, "Ruby Baby."

By the mid-sixties, he was fading fast. First, music was changing and his style was becoming outdated. Secondly, he had become a raging heroin addict.

A few weeks ago, Andrew Loog Oldham, one of the deejays on Little Steven's Underground Garage was talking about interviewing Dion. Dion recounted how he had a powerful religious experience in April of 1968; a month and a half before, he'd been on a heroin binge with Frankie Lymon. They parted ways and a couple of days later Dion discovered that Lymon had died of a heroin overdose. When Martin Luther King died on April 4 of that year, it really hit Dion. He went to a church and spent hours praying. At the end of it, he resolved to kick heroin, which he did. A few months later, he recorded "Abraham, Martin and John," which had been written by Dick Holler (who'd also written the novelty tune "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron"). It reached #4 on the US charts and revived Dion's career.

Some may consider the song overly-sentimental, but I love the song, which is about the loss we all feel about the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. This line always grabs me, every time I hear the song:

"Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good in you and me?
And we'll be free
Someday soon...."

2. Roll Me On The Water- Bonnie Koloc
Bonnie Koloc was a staple of the folk scene in Chicago for years. I never got to see her at the Earl of Olde Town of any of the other wonderful folk clubs in pre-gentrification Lincoln Park, but I did get to see her at Ravinia the summer of 1979, right after I graduated high school. She had a double bill with another great Chicago folkie, Steve Goodman. This song, about unabashed love and lust, is just sweet and lovely.

On Monday nights at my Evanston job, there's live music. The bluegrass/folk/country band that plays that night plays a version of this little gem, and every Monday it makes my night to hear it.

3. Alone Again Or...- Love
I was saddened in 2006 by the death of Arthur Lee. His group Love was innovative and influential.

I first heard this song in the late eighties when my old friend Mark played The Damned's version of it for me when he, Dan and I were rooming together. I liked the Damned's version of it, but was absolutely floored when I heard Love's original a few months later.

The song was co-produced by The Doors' producer Bruce Botnick, who brought in a mariachi band he'd used on a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album. The horn solo is one of my favorite parts of the song.

Alone Again Or... only charted at #99, but like many records that had low sales (e.g. the first Velvet Underground album), it was very influential. According to Wikipedia, Rolling Stone Magazine rated it #436 of the 500 best records ever.

I Think He's Right

Today the New York Times online said:

Stocks plunged worldwide on fears of a recession in the United States.

Remember 1999? Remember when we weren't in a pointless, intractable war? Remember when we had such an enormous budget surplus that economists speculated that it might take 40 years to spend it? Remember when the economy was booming so much that former welfare mothers were able to get high-risk loans to buy a home, but that didn't matter because they had good-paying jobs and could afford it? And the economy could afford it because it was doing so damned well after Bill Clinton passed a balanced budget that made it so that we weren't deficit spending, and all that money that was being used to finance deficit spending since Reagan first pulled the stunt of cutting taxes to the rich, but increasing government spending anyway, all while running on a platform of "reducing government" was suddenly available for things like home loans and business loans, rocketing our economy into the stratosphere?

And do you remember the The Onion headline the week after W. got elected? "At Last The Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Ends."

On his blog, my son calls The Onion the only source of real news. He may just be right.

I Couldn't Say It Better

I thought about a post about Martin Luther King today, and realized that U2 said it all better than I could over 20 years ago.

Occasional Forgotten Video- Plimsouls "A Million Miles Away"

Yesterday was a rare occasion when I listened to our local "Prog Rock" station, WXRT; they were featuring one of my favorite years for music, 1982, on their Saturday morning flashback. 1982 was a big year for videos, and I got a lot of good ideas for future "Occasional Forgotten Videos," including today's.

The Plimsouls' "A Million Miles Away" is one of those songs I wish I'd written. Everything about it-- the wicked opening riff, the anguished lyrics, the ripping Rickenbacker guitar, the driving drumbeat-- it's awesome. It was put to good use in the 1983 movie "Valley Girl." Another great Plimsouls song, "The Oldest Story In The World," was also in the movie.

The Plimsouls formed in Los Angeles in 1978. They reunited for an album a couple of years ago and occasionally do shows still. Singer Peter Case has had some success as a solo artist, has worked with a number of other artists and is a respected music teacher, giving frequent workshops.

A Note To Barack Obama

Mr. Obama-- just a little FYI-- praising Reagan is not the way to win me over. In fact, I'm now for sure going to vote for Edwards in the Illinois primary next month.

A Meme From Monkerstein

The good Dr. Monkerstein tagged me (and my lovely bride) with a meme:

List five things that I never pictured being in my future when I was 25

1. A father. I was absolutely certain that I was never going to be a parent. I frankly didn't think I'd be a good parent. I probably wouldn't have been at 25. I was really pissed off and pretty irrresponsible. Fortunately, that's changed. I'm a lot happier guy, and very happy to be a parent.

2. A husband. I was dead certain that I was never going to get married. I'd witnessed so many dysfunctional marriages, and I just didn't think I'd be very good at marriage.

I did manage to get married. My first two marriages failed, but the current one seems to be doing pretty well! ; )

3. Alive. I was certain that I wasn't going to make it to 30. It turns out that I very nearly didn't-- I'll post soon about "The stupidest thing I've ever done," a story I shared with a few bloggers at the get-together at the tiki bar last month.

4. Studying Pharmacy. I thought I'd go back to school and get a pHD, but I assumed it would be in my original field, Political Science.

When I was working my first job, as a cashier at the Walgreen's in Western Springs, Illinois, my boss offered to get me into a scholarship program that they had where they'd pay my tuition to become a pharmacist if I agreed to work for them for a certain amount of time. I had no interest back then. I'd feel like I missed an opportunity, but I would never have finished the program back then, and I would have missed a ton of great experiences.

5. Living my life without my close friend Mark Evans. His murder in June of 2006 was one of the things that drove me to start this blog. I'd always assumed that he'd be one of the handful of longtime close friends that I'd grow old with. Probably 5 or 10 times a day, I see or hear something and wish I could call or email him about it. I still miss him terribly, and suspect I always will.

Random Ten For A Frigid Friday

Finished my first week back in class. It should be an interesting semester. My Chemistry professor has a bad reputation around the school-- she's easily frustrated when people don't answer correctly. My Biology professor is the complete opposite-- a very pleasant guy from Nepal who's very enthusiastic about his subject.

Today was probably the coldest day of the year here in Chicago. Our winters are not for the weak.


1. Steve McQueen- Sheryl Crow
2. Down In The Park- Gary Numan
3. Another Man Done Gone- Johnny Cash and Anita Carter
4. Man In Black- Johnny Cash
5. Famous Blue Raincoat- Leonard Cohen
6. Across the River- Bruce Hornsby and the Range
7. Wazmo Nariz- Checking Out the Checkout Girl
8. Rotten Peaches- Elton John
9. New Kid In Town- The Eagles
10. Sunny- Bobby Hebb

Notes:
1. Usually Sheryl Crow just annoys me, but I love this song, probably because of its subject matter. Bullitt is one of my favorite movies. I finally saw The Getaway recently-- Steve McQueen directed by Sam Peckinpah-- it just doesn't get any better.
2. A smaller hit that "Cars," but a good one.
3. The Man in Black #1....
4. ...and hot damn, a second time!
5. I saw that Leonard Cohen is among the inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, along with John Mellencamp!
6. I love this little beauty about a woman trying to break out of her circumstances.
7. Wazmo Nariz was a Chicago guy who got signed to Stiff Records and Miles Copeland's I.R.S. Records. He used to play my high school. This was his biggest hit, about having a crush on the checkout girl.
8. One of my favorite albums. I love the scene in Almost Famous where they sing "Tiny Dancer," another song from Madman Across The Water, on the tour bus.
9. "Even your old friends treat you like you're something new..."
10. Bobby Hebb wrote this song when in a two-day period, John Kennedy was assasinated, and his brother Harold was killed in a knifefight outside of a nightclub.

A Hero's Obiturary

This morning, I looked at the New York Times online before I ran off to class and saw the obituary of someone I knew- Milt Wolff.

Around 1993 or I was working at the N.N. Smokehouse, a popular rib joint that my friend Larry Tucker had opened near Irving Park Road and Ashland in Chicago. It was early in the shift, and it wasn't busy, so I was reading Dennis Gilbert's book Sandinistas, a history of the Sandinistas, who overthrew a the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979 (yes, that's the kind of stuff I read). My only customer was a quiet, older (seventies) sometimes grouchy woman who came in once a week or so, ate quietly and left. This time, she wasn't quiet.

She asked me what I was reading, and I told her. To my surprise, she started talking about the Sandinista revolution and Nicaragua.

It turned out that she had been involved in leftist causes since her youth. Her name was Gladys Knoebel. From then on, whenever Gladys came in, until her death about a year later, I always waited on her, and we talked about politics and history. In the course of time, somehow we started talking about the Lincoln Brigade-- the American volunteers who joined the Spanish Republic's fight against a miilitary takeover in the late 1930's. I had, in fact, become quite interested in them, and had been trying to find information on them, going as far as contacting the New York-based "Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade" organization, and beginning an exchange of letters with some of the vets. Her late husband, she told me, had wanted to go but was considered too young. I mentioned some of the vets I'd either contacted or read about. When I mentioned Milt Wolff, she uncharacteristically blushed like a high school girl, got a coquettish look on her face and said "Oh, Miltie Wolff!" She'd clearly admired more than his political committment.

In 1996, a book was published on the Lincoln Brigade, The Odyssey of the Lincoln Brigade, by Peter Carroll. On May 11, 1997 (I remember the date because it was my birthday), I went down to Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago and saw Mr. Carroll speak. It was the beginning of my own odyssey.

I ended up chatting up Mr. Carroll and some of the veterans, and about a year later, ended up being asked to co-chair the Chicago Friends of the Lincoln Brigade.

Over the next couple of years, I was involved in a lot of activiites. I helped organize a lot of events, and usually emceed them. One of those events was in Oak Park in 1999. The town of Oak Park was honoring the centenniel of the birth of native son Ernest Hemingway. One of the events was co-sponsored by the Chicago Friends of the Lincoln Brigade-- bringing Milt Wolff in for a talk.

Milt was the last commander of the American battalion in Spain. By the summer of 1937, it was clear that Spain was going to lost the war. Desperate to get the thousands of German and Italian troops Hitler and Mussolini had sent to help Franco's fascists out of Spain, the Spanish government had agreed to send the tens of thousands of volunteers from 54 different countries if Germany and Italy would pull their troops out. Milt was sent home.

And Germany and Italy kept their troops there, leading to Franco's victory in Spain.

Milt had gone to Spain with the intention of driving an ambulance-- he considered himself a pacifist. He soon lost his pacifism and took charge of a machine-gun crew.

He'd lied to his mother, saying he was working in a factory in Spain. His cover was blown when famed photographer Bob Capa snapped his picture standing next to writer Ernest Hemingway (the picture at the top of this post), and the picture was on the front page of a magazine in the United States.

Milt continued with leftist causes. Here are links to his obit in the New York Times (you have to be registered with the New York Times online) and to an obit Peter Carroll posted on the VALB-ALBA site (he's also quoted in the New York Times obit).

New York Times obit

Peter Carroll-penned obit

I'd met Milt briefly in New York in 1998 when I visited the annual meeting the surviving Lincoln Brigade vets had back then. When we brought him to Oak Park in 1999, I hung out with him all day, and later we all had dinner and drinks with him. I could see why Gladys Knoebel had been smitten with him; he was handsome, gregarious, charming and very, very funny.

As I got ready to write this post, it occurred to me that we had a picture of Milt hanging in our home. In our dining room, we have a poster that my friend Andreas had given me a few years ago. It was a poster advertising a benefit for a striking labor union. The main attraction was the appearance of some Lincoln Brigade vets. When I met Milt, he had chuckled about how the Lincoln Brigade vets had become, when they returned from Spain, the rock stars of the left. Their commitment-- and blood that so many of them had shed-- had demonstrated without a doubt their commitment to the left and to a better world.





Milt's the guy on the far right in the photograph.

I read something back years ago-- that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who wait for something to come to them and those who go out and make it happen. Milt Wolff was, happily, one of the latter. I feel lucky to have known him.