Reprise: Dick Gregory for President!!

(This is a repost of a previous entry, but given Obama's historic nomination by the Dems, I thought it made sense to give it some more air time)

Given all the hoopla over a prospective Obama presidency, I thought I'd pay a little tribute to some of the previous African Americans who made a run for the highest office in the land. In this post, I focus on Dick Gregory, who ran in 1968 with Mark Lane on the Freedom & Peace ticket.

Dick Gregory was born in St. Louis in 1932. While in the Army, Gregory's commanding officers noticed he was a joker and encouraged him to take his comedic skills to the military talent show, which he won several times. After completing his service, he worked at the Chicago Playboy Club, where Hugh Hefner was impressed by Gregory's ability to wow white audiences. Here was the portion that impressed Hef:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you." So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!"

The Playboy Club launched him to national television notoriety in the early-60s as one of the first comics to find success in front of black and white audiences. In 1964, Gregory published an autobiography, controversially titled, Nigger, which sold 4 million copies. Gregory's comedic and personal style was inflammatory and uncompromising, titillating many, shocking others and angering some. Around the same time, Gregory became active in the civil rights movement and participated in many of the most significant marches and demonstrations of the era.

Here is a speech he gave in Birmingham in 1963 on the day more people got arrested than any other day in the entire history of the civil rights movement: Speech at St. John's Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

Ultimately, Gregory also became an ardent opponent of the war in Vietnam and championed numerous other progressive causes. In 1967, Gregory ran an unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of Chicago against notorious political boss, Richard Daley.

In 1968, Dick Gregory again tried his hand at politics, this time as the Presidential nominee for the Freedom & Peace Party a splinter group from the Peace & Freedom Party, a party that emerged out of the civil rights and anti-war movements. Interestingly, the Peace & Freedom Party elected Eldridge Cleaver in '68, the incendiary Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party. During the campaign, Gregory supporters at the Operation Breadbasket office in Chicago created fake dollar bills with Gregory's face on them. They are really funny. Here it is (click to enlarge):


Not surprisingly, the feds didn't have much of a sense of humor about the whole thing, particularly after some made it into circulation, but the stunt did gain the activist some easy publicity at a time when many were more than willing to stick it to The Man. It also landed him on Nixon's master list of political opponents! Gregory earned more than 47,000 votes in the election, or .06% of the total, including one from hunter S. Thompson. He finished just behind the Socialist Labor Party candidate, but ahead of Prohibition Party and Communist Party candidates. Sadly, George Wallace, the racist Democratic Governor of Alabama and godfather of modern conservatism, received about 210 times more votes (almost 10 million!) than Gregory...

The same year as the campaign, Gregory wrote, Write Me In! The book is really funny and interesting and worth a read, even today. Here are a few of the things he put forth:

• Gregory argued that the one qualification we should seek in a Presidential candidate is "a sensitivity to human need."

• He encouraged citizens to smash the two party system. Gregory wrote that he did not vote in the 1964 Presidential election because "I refused to be the victim of having to choose between the lesser of two evils."

• In a passage that speaks forcefully to our current international predicament, he wrote, "America speaks with pride of the fruits of democracy and advocates democracy for the rest of the world. Yet we go all over the world trying to force democracy upon people at gunpoint."

• Gregory argued that the U.S. Constitution had never been fully implemented and suggested, therefore, that before we talk about changing it we actually see how life in America would change if we followed the Constitution. He wrote, "I have a dream and a vision of seeing the Constitution of the United States implemented in full for the first time in American history."

• Gregory promised that his administration would give American citizens what he termed, "The Clean Society." He wrote that one of his first acts as Prez would be to set aside half of his Presidential salary as a reward for any information leading to his arrest and conviction for wrongdoing in office. Further he proposed to place into escrow $10,000 for each Senator and Congressman also as a reward for information of wrong doing in office. This combined sum (around $5 million dollars he estimated) was small in comparison to the federal government's annual budget. Yet the rewards for taking political corruption seriously were profound.

• Gregory also proposed a corporate tax on "excess-profits."

• He also wrote, "I will propose legislation to allow American taxpayers to bring suit against the federal government challenging the spending of a sizable portion of the national budget for a possibly illegal war." And, " Any time American troops are being used overseas as a result of orders by the commander-in-chief, the question of the constitutionality of such action should be immediately raised."

• Gregory pledged to respect international law and order and to create renewed respect for the United Nations. He wrote, "I will urge a redistribution of power in the UN so that every nation has an equal voice [...] " Further he proposes that the UN flag become as recognizable as corporate logos, the flag announcing to people the world over that "colors, religions and political orientations place no restriction upon membership in the human family."

• In an interesting passage, he argued, "America must re-evaluate what is meant by developing 'stronger' nations. A nation that is well equipped militarily, yet plagued with disease, hunger and ignorance, is not really strong."

• Gregory wanted to see America taking leadership in eliminating world hunger and he proposed to have elementary school children contribute a penny a week and for adults to give up one meal each week with the proceeds from both to be used to feed the hungry.

• Gregory proposed using tax rebates as incentives for companies which establish fair employment practices.

• Gregory suggested reforms for fire and police departments as well as the criminal justice system and the courts. "As President," he wrote, "I will make every effort to free the court system from political ties. I will seek federal legislation to rule out the concept of judgeship by political appointment."

• Finally, Gregory advocated the elimination of capital punishment. He sought a criminal justice system that accomplished rehabilitation of the criminal rather than merely punishment.

Yeah, that is pretty amazing, isn't it??!!!

Gregory has continued to fight the good fight since 1968, going on numerous hunger strikes for various causes. On July 21, 1979, Gregory appeared at the Amandla Festival, otherwise know as the "Festival of Unity," held at Harvard Stadium in Boston. The idea behind the event was to show support for freedom across southern Africa and to encourage racial healing in Boston, a city torn by racial discord. Bob Marley, Patti LaBelle and Eddie Palmieri, and others, also performed. In 1980, he attempted to negotiate the release of American hostages in Iran. He and his former running mate, Mark Lane, wrote a fascinating book about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Code Name Zorro, which argued that James Earle Ray did not act alone in that historic tragedy.

More recently, Gregory has gotten a little far out at times, advocating a variety of conspiracy theories and a radical health diet that he claims saved him from cancer.

In one of the more bizarre recent episodes, Michael Jackson's father asked Gregory to advise Michael on his diet during his 2005 trial for child molestation. On June 4 of that year, Gregory brought a blood-circulating machine to Jackson's house, but Jackson refused to use it.

Here I am with Dick Gregory on September 29, 2007, in Milwaukee! Seriosuly.



What the heck am I doing with Dick Gregory? Well, we were both participating in the "March On Milwaukee" 40th anniversary celebration of the historic open housing campaign there. I am writing a book about the civil rights movement in Milwaukee and spoke at the conference. Gregory was an important activist in that movement. In 1968, he praised the Movement in Milwaukee, which many called "the last stand for an non-violent, interracial, church-based movement," and which was led by a white Catholic priest named Fr. James Groppi, for showing that Black Power was "more an attitude than a color." Mr. Gregory was amazingly kind and gracious to everyone throughout the weekend... and funny as hell. Holy Moses, this guy can let the jokes fly. He's still got the edge, too. He seemed to me to be one of those people that is simultaneously brilliant and a little mad; many of the great ones are, after all. Provocative ideas come fast and furious...

This is a clip of Gregory more recently "revoking Bill Clinton's blackness":


Here's to you, Mr. Gregory! Thanks for blazing a trail and fighting for justice...

It was forty years ago...

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago yesterday...

RFK speaking after MLK's assassination April 4, 1968...

'68 campaign photo...

Ted Kennedy's eulogy for his brother...

Dick Gregory for President!??!!

Given all the hoopla over a prospective Obama presidency, I thought I'd pay a little tribute to some of the previous African Americans who made a run for the highest office in the land. In this post, I focus on Dick Gregory, who ran in 1968 with Mark Lane on the Freedom & Peace ticket.

Dick Gregory was born in St. Louis in 1932. While in the Army, Gregory's commanding officers noticed he was a joker and encouraged him to take his comedic skills to the military talent show, which he won several times. After completing his service, he worked at the Chicago Playboy Club, where Hugh Hefner was impressed by Gregory's ability to wow white audiences. Here was the portion that impressed Hef:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you." So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!"

The Playboy Club launched him to national television notoriety in the early-60s as one of the first comics to find success in front of black and white audiences. In 1964, Gregory published an autobiography, controversially titled, Nigger, which sold 4 million copies. Gregory's comedic and personal style was inflammatory and uncompromising, titillating many, shocking others and angering some. Around the same time, Gregory became active in the civil rights movement and participated in many of the most significant marches and demonstrations of the era.

Here is a speech he gave in Birmingham in 1963 on the day more people got arrested than any other day in the entire history of the civil rights movement: Speech at St. John's Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

Ultimately, Gregory also became an ardent opponent of the war in Vietnam and championed numerous other progressive causes. In 1967, Gregory ran an unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of Chicago against notorious political boss, Richard Daley.

In 1968, Dick Gregory again tried his hand at politics, this time as the Presidential nominee for the Freedom & Peace Party a splinter group from the Peace & Freedom Party, a party that emerged out of the civil rights and anti-war movements. Interestingly, the Peace & Freedom Party elected Eldridge Cleaver in '68, the incendiary Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party. During the campaign, Gregory supporters at the Operation Breadbasket office in Chicago created fake dollar bills with Gregory's face on them. They are really funny. Here it is (click to enlarge):


Not surprisingly, the feds didn't have much of a sense of humor about the whole thing, particularly after some made it into circulation, but the stunt did gain the activist some easy publicity at a time when many were more than willing to stick it to The Man. It also landed him on Nixon's master list of political opponents! Gregory earned more than 47,000 votes in the election, or .06% of the total, including one from hunter S. Thompson. He finished just behind the Socialist Labor Party candidate, but ahead of Prohibition Party and Communist Party candidates. Sadly, George Wallace, the racist Democratic Governor of Alabama and godfather of modern conservatism, received about 210 times more votes (almost 10 million!) than Gregory...

The same year as the campaign, Gregory wrote, Write Me In! The book is really funny and interesting and worth a read, even today. Here are a few of the things he put forth:

• Gregory argued that the one qualification we should seek in a Presidential candidate is "a sensitivity to human need."

• He encouraged citizens to smash the two party system. Gregory wrote that he did not vote in the 1964 Presidential election because "I refused to be the victim of having to choose between the lesser of two evils."

• In a passage that speaks forcefully to our current international predicament, he wrote, "America speaks with pride of the fruits of democracy and advocates democracy for the rest of the world. Yet we go all over the world trying to force democracy upon people at gunpoint."

• Gregory argued that the U.S. Constitution had never been fully implemented and suggested, therefore, that before we talk about changing it we actually see how life in America would change if we followed the Constitution. He wrote, "I have a dream and a vision of seeing the Constitution of the United States implemented in full for the first time in American history."

• Gregory promised that his administration would give American citizens what he termed, "The Clean Society." He wrote that one of his first acts as Prez would be to set aside half of his Presidential salary as a reward for any information leading to his arrest and conviction for wrongdoing in office. Further he proposed to place into escrow $10,000 for each Senator and Congressman also as a reward for information of wrong doing in office. This combined sum (around $5 million dollars he estimated) was small in comparison to the federal government's annual budget. Yet the rewards for taking political corruption seriously were profound.

• Gregory also proposed a corporate tax on "excess-profits."

• He also wrote, "I will propose legislation to allow American taxpayers to bring suit against the federal government challenging the spending of a sizable portion of the national budget for a possibly illegal war." And, " Any time American troops are being used overseas as a result of orders by the commander-in-chief, the question of the constitutionality of such action should be immediately raised."

• Gregory pledged to respect international law and order and to create renewed respect for the United Nations. He wrote, "I will urge a redistribution of power in the UN so that every nation has an equal voice [...] " Further he proposes that the UN flag become as recognizable as corporate logos, the flag announcing to people the world over that "colors, religions and political orientations place no restriction upon membership in the human family."

• In an interesting passage, he argued, "America must re-evaluate what is meant by developing 'stronger' nations. A nation that is well equipped militarily, yet plagued with disease, hunger and ignorance, is not really strong."

• Gregory wanted to see America taking leadership in eliminating world hunger and he proposed to have elementary school children contribute a penny a week and for adults to give up one meal each week with the proceeds from both to be used to feed the hungry.

• Gregory proposed using tax rebates as incentives for companies which establish fair employment practices.

• Gregory suggested reforms for fire and police departments as well as the criminal justice system and the courts. "As President," he wrote, "I will make every effort to free the court system from political ties. I will seek federal legislation to rule out the concept of judgeship by political appointment."

• Finally, Gregory advocated the elimination of capital punishment. He sought a criminal justice system that accomplished rehabilitation of the criminal rather than merely punishment.

Yeah, that is pretty amazing, isn't it??!!!

Gregory has continued to fight the good fight since 1968, going on numerous hunger strikes for various causes. On July 21, 1979, Gregory appeared at the Amandla Festival, otherwise know as the "Festival of Unity," held at Harvard Stadium in Boston. The idea behind the event was to show support for freedom across southern Africa and to encourage racial healing in Boston, a city torn by racial discord. Bob Marley, Patti LaBelle and Eddie Palmieri, and others, also performed. In 1980, he attempted to negotiate the release of American hostages in Iran. He and his former running mate, Mark Lane, wrote a fascinating book about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Code Name Zorro, which argued that James Earle Ray did not act alone in that historic tragedy.

More recently, Gregory has gotten a little far out at times, advocating a variety of conspiracy theories and a radical health diet that he claims saved him from cancer.

In one of the more bizarre recent episodes, Michael Jackson's father asked Gregory to advise Michael on his diet during his 2005 trial for child molestation. On June 4 of that year, Gregory brought a blood-circulating machine to Jackson's house, but Jackson refused to use it.

Here I am with Dick Gregory on September 29, 2007, in Milwaukee! Seriosuly.



What the heck am I doing with Dick Gregory? Well, we were both participating in the "March On Milwaukee" 40th anniversary celebration of the historic open housing campaign there. I am writing a book about the civil rights movement in Milwaukee and spoke at the conference. Gregory was an important activist in that movement. In 1968, he praised the Movement in Milwaukee, which many called "the last stand for an non-violent, interracial, church-based movement," and which was led by a white Catholic priest named Fr. James Groppi, for showing that Black Power was "more an attitude than a color." Mr. Gregory was amazingly kind and gracious to everyone throughout the weekend... and funny as hell. Holy Moses, this guy can let the jokes fly. He's still got the edge, too. He seemed to me to be one of those people that is simultaneously brilliant and a little mad; many of the great ones are, after all. Provocative ideas come fast and furious...

Here's to you, Mr. Gregory! Thanks for blazing a trail and fighting for justice...

MC5 & John Sinclair

MC5 (short for Motor City 5) "kicked out the jams" from their founding in 1964 through their dissolution in 1972. The band came out of Detroit and was known for its energetic live performances and their attachment to left-wing politics. Members of the band - Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitars) Michael Davis (bass), Rob Tyner (vocals), and Dennis Thompson (drums) - were heavily influenced by r&b, blues, Chuck Berry, Dick Dale, the Ventures, what came to be known as garage rock, and the free jazz of Archie Shepp, John Coltrane, Sun Ra and others. Their music is now considered a precursor of punk, heavy metal and hard-edged fusion. According to John Sinclair, who became the band's manager, "When I first saw them, I thought they were incredible. Just totally fucking great. They were trying to extend rock and roll into something that had more space for creativity and improvisation. They called themselves avant-rock at the time." MC5 was heavily influenced by Sinclair's political affiliations as well as the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party (led by revolutionary martyr Fred Hampton).

MC5 crashed onto the scene with their first album, an unheardof live set, titled "Kick Out the Jams." The band gained some noteriety through controversy for the title track's battle cry, "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" and John Sinclair's incendiary liner notes. When Detroit Department Store, Hudson's, refused to stock the album, the band took out a full-page ad in the newspaper stating, "Fuck Hudson's!" MC5 played an epic 8 hour set outside the turbulent 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago until club-wielding cops waded into the crowd. By the early-70s, MC5 had fallen out with Sinclair, who himself was now in prison on a marijuana rap, and parted ways as a group in 1972. Over time, their influence has only grown, particularly in the punk and hardrock scenes.

Here is a great clip of MC5 doing "Lookin' at You" live in 1970:


During the 60s and 70s, John Sinclair was a colorful radical left-wing poet, political activist and MC5 manager from Detroit. Early on, Sinclair helped reorganize and publish Fifth Estate, an underground newspaper in the Detroit area that still publishes today. In 1968, Sinclair, along with his wife Leni and Lawrence Plamandon established the White Panther Party. The group, which sprung out of an interview with Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton, was dedicated to "cultural revolution." The group's platform intiailly included, "fighting for a clean planet and the freeing of political prisoners," but later expanded to include "rock 'n roll, dope, sex in the streets and the abolishing of capitalism." In 1968, Fifth Estate published the group's manifesto, which was heavily influenced by the Black Panther's "Ten Point program":

- Full endorsement and support of Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program
- Total assault on the culture by any means necessary
- Free exchange of energy and materials
- Free food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care
- Free access to information media
- Free time and space for all humans
- Free all schools and all structures from corporate rule
- Free all prisoners everywhere
- Free all soldiers at once
- Free the people from their "leaders"

In 1969, Sinclair was sentenced to 9 years in prison for serially breaking Michigan's anti-dope laws. Sinclair and Plamondon were also indicted as co-cospirator in connection with the bombing of a CIA office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That charge ultimately landed Plamondon in prison, too. The headquarters of the White Panthers in Portland, Oregon, was raided in 1970 after two members of the group were accused of throwing a molotov cocktail at a Selective Service office. In 1971, John Lennon headlined the "Free John Sinclair" concert in Ann Arbor, which was attended by 15,000 people and also included music by Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp and Phil Ochs, and speeches by Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale Allen Ginsberg, Jonnie Lee Tillmon and Fr. James Groppi. Surprisingly, two days later, Sinclair was released from prison on appeal!,

Here are two rants worth reading by Sinclair:

John Sinclair, "Rock and Roll is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution"
This piece famously begins, "'The duty of the revolutionary is to make the revolution.' The duty of the musician is to make the music. But there is an equation that must not be missed: MUSIC IS REVOLUTION. Rock and roll music is one of the most vital revolutionary forces in the West-it blows people all the way back to their senses and makes them feel good, like they're alive again in the middle of this monstrous funeral parlor of western civilization. And that's what the revolution is all about-we have to establish a situation on this planet where all people can feel good all the time. And we 'I not stop until that situation exists.'"

John Sinclair, "Marijuana Revolution"
In this essay, written from prison, Sinclair argues, "Marijuana makes people aware of alternatives to the machine life of American industrialism — it demonstrates in a very specific term that there are other and more exciting possibilities for life in this day and age than whiskey and football games and ulcers and a lifetime on the assembly line or in the office, and it makes people wonder why this old-time shit is still going on. Instead of deadening people’s consciousness, marijuana brings people back to life and expands their awareness of the world and their own possibilities for life in that world, and it leads them to questions that otherwise wouldn’t have been asked: why are we at war in Indochina? Why is racism so rampant in every area of American life? Why can’t people love each other? Why are our politicians and businessmen and generals such liars and hypocrites? Why is everything so fucked up?"

Here is a short film (4 minutes) on John Sinclair:


Here are two more interesting segments on John Sinclair, for those who might be interested:

Ten for Two - The John Sinclair Benefit (pt. 1)
Ten for Two - The John Sinclair Benefit (pt. 2)

"Massive Resistance" in Chicago's Marquette Park (1966)

One of the dark, ugly sides of the civil rights era - and largely ignored or forgotten in the popular history of that time - was the "massive resistance" of many whites throughout the North to even modest attempts to address pervasive racial inequality, particularly when it came to housing. This massive resistance often equaled or exceded the more well-known episodes of white racist violence in the South during this period. A stunning example of this came in 1966 when Dr. King led a group of non-violent open housing advocates through a nasty gauntlet of thousands of screaming white residents in the Marquette Park neighborhood of Chicago. Throughout that summer, civil rights activists had marched through predominately white communities like Gage Park on the Southwest Side and Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side to press local officials to enact an ordinance barring discrimination in the sale or rental of property. At each site the peaceful demonstrators were reminded of the bitter opposition to racial integration that thrived across the city and the nation. The level of hate in Marquette Park was particularly dazzling. White on-lookers hurled obscenities, firecrackers, sticks, rocks and debris. To the tune of the Oscar Meyer hot-dog song, choruses of, “I wish I were an Alabama trooper/This is what I would truly love to be/Because if I were an Alabama trooper/Then I could kill the niggers legally,” filled the air. A rock the size of a fist struck King in the face, knocking him to the ground in a daze. A knife, hurled by another counter-demonstrator, missed the minister, but lodged in the neck of a white marcher. One march organizer said of the white counter-demonstrators, "They were looking at a people of color and rejecting them at face value.” Afterward, a clearly rattled King told the media, “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen---even in Mississippi and Alabama---mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago. I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.” And Chicago was not an isolated incident... overall that summer, 43 American cities were roiled by racial violence. The next year, in Milwaukee, an estimated 10,000 angry white residents poured into the streets to again oppose peaceful open housing marchers. There, they threw rocks, cherry-bombs, sticks, and even human feces. They held white power signs with hateful slogans and attacked demonstrators with their fists.

Why is this history not as well known as the stories of Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery and other southern locales? What are the implications of not telling these stories? What are the lessons and legacies of these northern stories of white massive resistance? And, in a broader sense, how do the narratives we create of the past affect the way we understand our present and where we need to go in the future?

As a society, we have yet to come to terms with this nasty aspect of our collective past, even though today our nation remains deeply segregated. At the dawn of the 21st century, it remains true that an influx of more than a couple black families in a white neighborhood more often than not prompts an exodus of white residents. Black residents in white neighborhoods continue to consistently report general hostility by white neighbors in the form of slights, racial slurs and, in some cases, acts of vandalism and even violence. To be sure, the system has "refined" white privilege by shrouding it in discriminatory loan and real estate practices, in institutional mechanisms that are often "invisible," at least to many white people. But, the general problem of segregation and white resistance to integrated housing remains.


...take a look at this brief documentary footage of the 1966 open housing marches in Gage Park Chicago, including remarks by Dr. King.

Here are a few good sources on this history:
• Meyer, As Long As They Don't Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods

• Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s

• Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

• Ralph, Northern Protest: Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement

Strawberry Fields Forever

This is one of my very favorite Beatles tunes. Always makes me feel a wispy kind of positivity about the universe. Perfect for a contemplative Sunday morning.

The Beatles classic version:


Ben Harper cover on Jay Leno:

A New War Strategy?

Perhaps the folks from the Sixties have something to teach us, after all...?

Robert F. Kennedy for President, 1968

"Across The Universe"

We went and saw Julie Taymor's 60s-fantasia, "Across the Universe," last night and really dug it. In case you haven't heard of it, the film uses 31 Beatles tunes as the connective tissue in a generational story about the 60s, a la "Moulin Rouge." You have to allow yourself to be open to the film (I suspect many will cynically dismiss it as cheesy), but if you are, it is hard not to fall in love with it. Taymor's creative vision is intoxicating in many spots. In addition to music, she uses animation and puppetry to great effect to touch on youth culture, Vietnam, anti-war activism, civil rights, LSD, music, radicalism, repression, etc. Bono makes a fun appearance as "Dr Robert" - actually, he is playing Ken Kesey! - and sings "I Am the Walrus" after everyone drinks LSD-laced kool-aid at a party. Really trippy... Selma Hayek, Joe Cocker and others make guest appearances, as well.

Here's the trailer:

Like my mom, Drea can fall asleep in the best film... shortly after the opening credits. As an indication of how interesting and groovy this film is when viewed in the right frame of mind, Drea actually stayed riveted for the entire 2:05!

Here is the NYTimes review, which I think is fair-minded:
Stephen Holden, "Lovers in the 60s Take Magical Mystery Tour"

As the reviewer wrote,

"Somewhere around its midpoint, 'Across the Universe' captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled."

He goes on,

"Most of the historical events are lightly fictionalized in a movie that maintains only the fuzziest of timelines. Its 33 Beatles songs (two without words) have been re-recorded and sung by the actors. Yet “Across the Universe” feels emotionally true both to the Beatles, whose music today seems to exist outside of time, and to the decade it remembers. Smart, uncluttered musical arrangements help reposition the songs to address the situation at hand. As a result, music that has congealed in collective memory — especially the clever, breezy early Beatles songs — emerges refreshed."

Check it out! If you've seen it, what did YOU think?

LeRoy Grannis, "Big Waves"

I've been hitting politics hard recently, so I feel moved to head in a different direction...

I am teaching my "America in the 60s" course this semester, so have been poking around in a variety of sources and came across these amazing surfing photos by LeRoy Grannis. Just like the hippies, the surf scene was another interesting laguna of youth culture in the 60s. These photos are drawn from the M+B Gallery website and here is what those folks have to say about the artist:

A surfer since 1931, LeRoy Grannis was born in Hermosa Beach, California in 1917 and began shooting surf-culture images on 22nd Street in Hermosa in 1960 as a hobby at the suggestion of a family doctor. His work immediately appeared in the important surf culture magazines of the time including Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated. He quickly became one of the sport's most important documentarians, voted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame as the number one lensman in 1966 and in 2002 was awarded SIMA's Lifetime Achievement Award. Grannis was the subject of The Surfers Journal's first ode to the master photographers in 1998 with Photo: Grannis; his work was featured in Stacy Peralta's 2002 award-winning documentary of the sport, Riding Giants; and most recently, LeRoy Grannis: Birth of a Culture was published as a limited-edition, signed collector's edition monograph by TASCHEN. The artist, who will turn ninety this year, continues to photograph the sport from his home near San Diego.

Well, dag. I'd sure like to meet that guy, wouldn't you? Here are a few of his beautiful photos (click any photo to enlarge):










When I saw these, it reminded of me of Tom Wolfe's "The Pump House Gang," which focuses on California surf culture during this period (thanks to my friend TJ for turning me on to that one back in graduate school). Here is an interesting recent article from San Diego Magazine on "The Pump House Gang" 40 years later:

"Forgiving Tom Wolfe: Four decades after publication of The Pump House Gang, the work is still a point of contention for members of the local surf culture whose lives it chronicled"

To find out more about the whole book, click here:
Tom Wolfe, "The Pump House Gang"

To check out the entire exhibition by LeRoy Grannis at the M+B Gallery website, click here:
LeRoy Grannis, "Big Waves"