Written by: Greenbaum
Produced by: Erik Jacobsen
Released: Feb. ‘70 on Reprise
Charts: 15 weeks
Top spot: No. 3

Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” was unusual at the time for its crunchy guitar sound, which came when a friend built a small fuzz box right into the body of Greenbaum’s Fender Telecaster, as well as for its subject matter: Jesus and death. “I’m just some Jewish musician who really dug gospel music,” Greenbaum said. “I decided there was a larger Jesus gospel market out there than a Jehovah one.”

A lot of the record’s power comes from its distinctive sound – fuzz guitar snarling and purring all through the song, like a spirit voice Greenbaum’s raised up for accompaniment. The real voices accompanying him are barely less spectral, their final notes – “in the skyyy”; “when I diiiie” – hanging spookily in the fuzz along with the rattlesnake brushes and echoing stabs of lead guitar. Jesus figures heavily in the song, but only as a useful connection who knows the world beyond better than you do: Greenbaum was not a Christian, and this is not Christian rock.

June 13, 1969.  Camp Evans, Vietnam.

Dearest Rita,

Once again there was no work formation tonight, so I’m all cleaned up and done with my shower and sweating again.  It’s real cool the way you start sweating before the water stops.

I had guard duty last night and am really tired tonight.  I got to sleep this morning, but in this heat it doesn’t help much.  Another reason is that I have KP tomorrow.  Just thinking about it wears me out.

I really don’t have much to say tonight — not much has been going on.  All our ships have had their periodic inspections and haven’t had much maintenance to pull last couple of days.  A couple or ships of come back with bullet holes, but nothing serious.

No one has fallen off any bunkers or gone to the hospital for any reason lately.  Oh, I guess Bill L. isn’t home yet; he’s still on a hospital ship over here, but will be going home soon.  It’s a gastric ulcer and mono.  He will be getting a medical discharge though, from what I hear.

I’m having the same problem several other guys are complaining about — not a thing to write.  Everything around here is getting old and boring.  It hasn’t been too bad so far, but I have a feeling things are going to start to drag before too long.

I suppose I could tell you that Kim is trying to teach me to play the guitar.  In fact, if I can’t think of something more interesting to say pretty quick I’ll just quit and practice for a while.

Saturday evening.

I just finished a day of KP and I’m not even tired!  Mainly it’s because I let everything slide and didn’t work any more or any harder than I had to.  I don’t usually like to do things that way but I’ve just about decided that the way to get along in the Army.  You don’t get any more or less whether you work hard or not, so why work up a sweat in the first place?

Okay, enough reflections on the trials and tribulations of Army Life.  On to something more important.  I received a long letter (11 pages) from you today and will now endeavor to answer it.

First of all you’d best tell the Knutson girls that I enjoyed their letters and tell them all hi for me.  Hope that will keep them happy.  I imagine they’ve been bugging you for a reply, right?

So — you went over the weight limit, huh?  Well, I love you anyway honey.  Popped any more pins lately?  If you’re having trouble keeping down there now, imagine what will be like in a couple of years.  I wish though, that rather than the semi-starvation diet you always go on, you would get on [one] that’s medically approved.  It would probably help you lose faster and keep it off without suffering from hunger pains all the time.

My concentration has been shattered by Pete (Kim) hauling out the guitar and distracting me.  He started an impromptu sing-along — he and I.  Everyone else is gone.  So if this doesn’t get finished tonight you can blame him.

This is Sunday now and as you can tell I didn’t make it back to this letter last night.  Maybe I can get it done today.

You mentioned china in your letter, and I’ve been looking around to see what is available.  You’re supposed to be able to order it through all PX’s over here, but you must remember that we are kind of out in the sticks, and the PX facilities we have aren’t quite up to par.  But I’ve got nine months left so I’ll do my best.  I’ll try to get a hold of a brochure to send to you and let you pick your own pattern.  Just to be on the safe side.

No, I don’t think I can find a Vietnam map over here.  We have plenty of maps around, but just area maps used for flying.  I haven’t seen a map of the whole country since I got here.  Wouldn’t you be able to find one at the bookstore or maybe Madsen’s?  Well, maybe not.  Anyway, I’ll keep my eyes open, but don’t count on it.

Have you been to any more of those waiting wives things yet?  You haven’t mentioned them for a while so I was wondering.

So you don’t see much of Bob, huh?  Well, I don’t even hear from him anymore.  The last letter was a month and a half ago.  So next time you do see him kick him in the rear end for me and tell him to get busy.

The year that has gone by since I gave you your diamond has sure gone by fast, hasn’t it?  I still remember how I felt — both excited and nervous — the night you got it, even if I was 1500 miles away.  You realize that if I had come over here when I left Eustis we would be looking forward to our wedding day in a couple months and wouldn’t have to worry about a long separation?  But think of what we’ve already had together.  Just remembering that and looking forward to it again will help the next nine months go by fast.

I know what you mean by that first date feeling.  That’s the way I always feel too, but in a more relaxed way.  Maybe that’s because we’ve never had to try to impress each other, even on our first dates.  I’m so impressed and proud of you the way you really are that anything else wouldn’t do it all.  I love you Rita, and always will.  Remember that when a year seems so long.  I love you!

Your Husband,

Jeff

After the Mustang Forest… we got the Mustang Ranch, and it can be yours for $700.000 (well if it ain’t sold already that is).

It’s a shame to see such a collection of fine cars rot away, anyway here’s the story on how it was discovered by a reader of Jalopnik:

“I have just returned from a vacation somewhere tropical. On the way back form a day excursion I chose an alternate way back to the highway. Ok, I made wrong turn somewhere and rolled with it. This "scenic route" brought us upon what was recorded by these images. It was my wife who first saw them. "Oh look, Mustangs!" I turned my head in time to see a metric shitload of vintage ponies. I immediately turned around and pulled into the driveway. There was a gentleman in the yard who turned out to be the caretaker for the owner of the house/treasure trove. It turns out that the guy who collected all these cars recently succumbed to cancer and his wife wants all these pretty ponies sold en masse for what is by local standards the princely sum of $700 large (I think there plenty of room for negotiation here).”

More images on Jalopnik.

Well, tomorrow morning, like millions of others here in the U.S., the Texas Gal and I – joined by my mother – will head off for Thanksgiving. In our case, we’ll be going to my sister’s home in the Twin Cities suburb of Maple Grove for turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Our contribution will be a plate of deviled eggs, a dish that’s become a holiday tradition for us since the Texas Gal first brought them along in 2000.

We missed Thanksgiving at my sister’s last year due to some health issues. And the plan to return there got me thinking about the various places I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving over the years.

For years – until I was out of  college, I think – we gathered at my grandparents’ home, first on their farm outside the small town of Lamberton, Minnesota, and then at their home in Lamberton itself. Sometime in the mid-1970s, after Grandma passed on, the Thanksgiving celebration shifted to my parents’ home here in St. Cloud. And after about twenty years there, the annual feast shifted venues again, and my sister and brother-in-law have hosted Thanksgiving since then.

Besides last year’s celebration, I can recall two other Thanksgivings that have found me in different places. In 1980, I think it was, the woman who was then my wife had the idea of hosting Thanksgiving in a restored 1860s cabin owned by friends of hers. We prepared the food in our own home and then moved the entire feast about two miles to the cabin. The food was fine, but the cabin was uncomfortably cold despite the presence of a fireplace. It was an interesting experiment, but I’d rather flip it: I’d be interested in using Nineteenth Century recipes and work from a modern kitchen.

The other Thanksgiving that found me in another place was during the time I spent in Denmark. The Danes don’t celebrate the holiday, of course, but my ladyfriend – another American – and I decided to cook a traditional American Thanksgiving meal for my Danish family and a few other students, both American and Danish.

There was no turkey for sale in Fredericia, so we made do with a couple of chickens. Potatoes were easy enough, as was flour for the gravy. Green beans amandine went well enough after a tussle with the Danish language. Not knowing where the nutcracker was, I looked up the word in my Danish/English dictionary and called my Danish mother at her office. Danish uses some sounds that are, well, foreign to English, so it took some time before she understood that I was trying to say nøddeknækker.

Beyond the linguistic difficulties, the main challenge of the day was the pumpkin pie. We could find neither canned pumpkin nor a fresh pumpkin in Fredericia. Luckily, my ladyfriend had made pumpkin pie from scratch with her mother, and she assured me that an orange winter squash would meet our needs. We cleaned it, cut it up and cooked it with the appropriate seasonings and then baked it in a homemade shell. As dinner came to a close that evening, our Danish guests were a bit puzzled by the pie, but our American guests marveled at how close we’d come to the Thanksgiving dessert they’d all had for years.

That may have been my most memorable Thanksgiving ever. Does that mean it was the best? Well, no. As the fourth Thursday of November comes along year after year, each Thanksgiving somehow seems better than the one before it . . . as long as I share that table with my loved ones, especially the Texas Gal.

A Six-Pack of Thanks
“Now Be Thankful” by Fairport Convention, Island WIP 6089 [1970]
“Thank You” by Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin II [1969]
“I Thank You” by Mongo Santamaria from All Strung Out [1969]
“Thank You For The Promises” by Gordon Lightfoot from Shadows [1982]
“Thanks to You” by Jesse Winchester from Humour Me [1988]
“Be Thankful for What You Got (Pt. 1)” by William DeVaughn, Roxbury 0236 [1974]

Of these six, only the Fairport Convention tune really seems to fully address the sentiments of the holiday. The others generally work with only their titles; their content has at best only a glancing connection to the day. But that’s good enough for me.

The Texas Gal and I wish you a joyful Thanksgiving. May you all have many reasons to be thankful.

In Bollywood movies, when boy first sees a girl, he would sing a teasing song addressed to her. She would take exception, naturally, but later on, she would fall in love with him and then they would sing a duet, running round trees.

The teasing song is mostly sung when both of them are walking on the road. The girl is walking ahead, and the boy, in roadside Romeo style, would follow her and sing his teasing song.

Here is a very upmarket teasing song. Here both boy and the girl are driving on their own cars, and that too expensive imported convertibles. Now one would expect a “stylish” hero (Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand etc) and a “stylish” heroine (Madhubala, Shakila etc) to figure in a song like this. But just take a close look. The duo are as unstylish as they come. The hero is Ashok Kumar, and the heroine is Nirupa Roy !

The movie is “Daakaa” (1959), which is as obscure a movie as any movie could ever be. The song is sung by Hemant Kumar. There were two lyricists in this movie, viz Majrooh Sultanpuri and Prem Dhawan. One of them has written this cute song. Chitragupta is the music director.

This song is a rare song, and I must say it is a song of great historical importance as it shows Ashok Kumar, and more importantly Nirupa Roy, in roles that few people today could imagine them performing.

Even otherwise, this is a gem of a song.

song-Aasmaan aasmaan tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan(Daakaa)(1959) Singer-Hemant Kumar, Lyrics-Majrooh Sultanpuri/Prem Dhawan, MD-Chitragupta

Lyrics

aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan

tere aanchal mein jitne hain taare
hain mere hi wo armaan saare
tere aanchal mein jitne hain taare
hain mere hi wo armaan saare
ek chhote se dil mein hamaare
jagmagaataa hai saaraa jahaan
aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan

ye nazaare ye ghadiyaan suhaani
kab akele kate zindagaani
ye nazaare ye ghadiyaan suhaani
kab akele kate zindagaani
le gayi dil udaakar hawaayen
kar gaya mast pyaara samaa
aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan

aarzoo kab se hai dil ko mere
koi aa jaaye zulfe bikhere
aarzoo kab se hai dil ko mere
koi aa jaaye zulfe bikhere
haath mein thaam kar haath uska
haal apna main kar loon bayaan
aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan aasmaan
tu kyaa jaane mere dil ki daastaan
aasmaan

Conversation Piece (1969 demo).
Conversation Piece (1970 b-side).
Conversation Piece (2000 remake).

[The poor man] feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind take no notice of him. He rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market, at a play, at an execution, or coronation: he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or cellar. He is not disapproved, censured or reproached; he is only not seen.

John Adams, Discourses on Davila.

I get lonesome right in the middle of a crowd.

Elvis Presley.

There have been few songs written about academics, whether tenured or failed. All that comes to mind are REM’s “Sad Professor” and this one, and “Conversation Piece” may not be about an academic at all. An independent scholar, let’s say—a shabby young man with an old man’s habits, who lives above an Austrian grocer: his rug is scattered with the pages of unpublished essays, and he spends his time wandering the streets begrudging life. He may throw himself off a bridge at song’s end.

“Conversation Piece” was Bowie’s most recent composition when he made a demo tape in April 1969 (John Hutchinson calls it “a new one” and Bowie has to prompt him with the opening guitar chords (“G-D-G”).) It’s unlike most of the songs written in this period, which are either love ballads or self-mythical explorations, as it hearkens back to the oddball character sketches of the first Bowie LP, like “Little Bombardier” or “She’s Got Medals.” (That said, some, like Bowie’s manager Ken Pitt, have said the song is fairly autobiographical, a sketch of the frustrated composer and failed pop singer Bowie of 1968.)

Most of all, it captures well the curse of urban anonymity—its title is a cruel joke, the “conversation” only going on in the singer’s head. Once during a hard spell while living in NYC I spent a weekend almost entirely out of doors, going from shop to cafe to library, and realized at some point during it that I had talked to absolutely no one, except maybe to mutter thanks to a ticket-taker or cashier. The sense of moving among a great mass of people and feeling utterly invisible and isolated from them is almost addicting at first, and then it can just sink your soul.

It’s a fairly simple song—three meandering verses, three tight eight-bar choruses (half lyric, half wordless). For the final verse, Bowie uses a standard trick and changes key, bumping all the chords up one step (so while the third line of the verse—for example, “he often calls me down to eat“—has been C/G, it’s now D/A (“and they walk in twos and threes or more“), and so forth). To further the sense that the singer is breaking down, the last verse extends into a faster-paced section with shorter sung phrases until collapsing into the final chorus.

The studio take, recorded during the Space Oddity sessions ca. July-September 1969, was eventually released as the B-side to “The Prettiest Star” in March 1970. It’s unclear why “Conversation Piece” was left off the Space Oddity LP, as it’s stronger than most of the other cuts, and if LP time was an issue, they could’ve shaved at least three minutes off “Memory of a Free Festival” and no one would’ve wept. Over the years, it’s become many people’s favorite Bowie obscurity (Stuart Murdoch seems to have lived in this song at some point).

Bowie revived “Conversation Piece” in 2000 for his scotched LP Toy, and eventually released it on a bonus disc for his 2002 Heathen album. He sings it in a lower register and without much emotion. The flailing scholar of the original recording at least had energy in his desperation; here, all is resigned, empty despair.

Top: Pascal Grob, “Paris, 1969.”

That’s it until after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving. For non-U.S. readers, happy Thursday.

June 11, 1969.  Camp Evans, Vietnam.

Dear Rita,

It’s noon now and I decided I’d start that long letter I promised you.  Don’t know what I’m going to say to make it long, but…

I’m on sandbagging detail today.  We’re making sure we don’t work too hard though.  We laid three rows of bags all morning (about a half hours job).

Honey, I’m all out of tapes, so if you want to get any more you’ll have to send one first.  I can’t get a hold of any more over here.

I know what you mean about that carnival.  I remember how big it seemed when I was a kid.  Now it’s hard to see why I bothered to go.  Maybe before too many years we’ll be taking our own kids to it.  Then it should be a blast.

I’m glad you finally got your glasses.  I hope they help your eyes so you don’t have any more problems like you did with your old ones.  And I hope you wear them when you’re supposed to.  Don’t forget to send me a picture (négligée picture too!).

I was surprised to hear about Les K. extending over here.  I thought he was in a hurry to get back stateside.  But an early out does look good.  There is talk about a nine-month early out now, and if that goes through I may extend for a month to get it.  But no more than that.

This is six o’clock now.  I’ve heard rumors that we aren’t going to have a work formation tonight, but I don’t know whether or not to believe it.  It’s too good to be true.

I got a letter from you which was mailed before the one I got last night.  It’s the first time that has happened.  Anyway, I’ve got two to answer now.

One question I guess I’d better answer right off is about our food.  Well, I could describe it very vividly, but I won’t.  Suffice to say keeps me alive.  My biggest gripe is the iced tea — I hate iced tea.  And that’s all they have, so I stick to water.  Goes great with the meals.  I think I have lost a little weight, but nothing serious.

Thanks for the Times, and yes I would like to get them regularly.  Any current news is hard to get over here, and Time does a darn good job of presenting it.

That bit about Jeannie & Virgil — I kind of expected it, and I’m real glad.  For awhile I thought it was all over with them.  Wish I could be there for their wedding.

Why bug your mom about getting bulbs for the camera?  Couldn’t you pick some up?  Or is that just an excuse for not taking the picture?  If it is I’ll cut you off — whoops, guess I can’t do that, can I?

A picture of me with my mustache would look just like the same as a picture without one.  It’s too light to show up.  However, I started another one and when it gets long enough I’ll darken it with a grease pencil and have a picture taken, okay?

Well, Reet, it’s 6:30 now and no work formation yet.  So I’m going to take a shower and change close now.  I’m going to put on some civilian clothes! That will be different.  Be back shortly.

Okay, this is shortly.  I didn’t get all dressed up like I was going to because it’s too hot yet, even though it’s raining.  Instead I’m keeping cool by sitting around in my underwear.

I hope it was just a trim job your mom did on your hair.  I know what you call a “trim.”  But that’s another reason I want some pictures.  Got to keep tabs on my wife’s hair.

He said you saw Gene C. — where has he been?  I thought he was over here somewhere, but he couldn’t have completed his year yet.  And if he’s coming over at all he won’t really have too long.  He’s only got about nine months left in the Marines.

You know something Reet?  It’s too bad we didn’t get you pregnant before I came over.  Then he could have the doc say there complications and I could get a 30 day emergency leave.  Maybe that’s not so bright after all — I’d go back just as horny, wouldn’t I?  Oh well, it was a thought.

Seriously, I wish we could have children right away, but I guess there’s plenty of time for that.  First there’s a million things I want to do with just you.  And they start out with just being with you, forever.

I love you Rita.

All My Love,

Jeff

I was reminded, whilst watching this year’s (rather lacklustre) Le Mans 24 Hours review on DVD, that it has been 40 years now since the more traditional style start to the blue riband event was abolished.

Up until 1969, drivers would line up opposite their cars on the starting grid, and as the flag was dropped to signify the start of the race, they would run across the track to their vehicles, climb in and get it started as quickly as possible to pull away from the grid.

In their haste to make a speedy getaway, many of the drivers would often neglect to belt themselves in correctly until they were often along the Hunaudieres straight pulling speeds of around 160mph, resulting in frequent crashes and, as 1969 would show, tragedy.

John Woolfe, an amateur British driver who had qualified 21st in his private Porsche 917, crashed into a barrier at Maison Blanche and, due to the fact he had not taken the effort to strap himself in securely, was flung from his vehicle and subsequently died.

This would then set off a chain of events as the fuel tank from Woolfe’s car became dislodged and eventually collided with Chris Amon’s Ferrari 312P, causing it to explode underneath his car, resulting in his retirement and forcing the race to stop for two hours before eventually restarting.

In contrast, a 24-year-old Jack Ickx had demonstrated his displeasure against the starting procedure by slowly walking over to his Ford GT40, deliberately making the effort to strap himself in properly and securely, and as a result, emerged voluntarily at the back of the field.

Yet in a dramatic race, which some consider as being the best in the history of the endurance event, Ickx eventually won after beating rival Hans Hermann by just 100m after 24 hours of fierce driving and winning Le Mans for the first time in his brilliant career.

The following year the traditional Le Mans-style start was then replaced by a variant in which the drivers already sat in their cars, strapped in safely by their mechanics and then entered the track simultaneously, before the advent of the rolling start we now know was adopted in 1971.

But a legacy to this bygone era still remains, as to this very day, Porsche continues to place the ignition to the left of the steering column on its cars. This placement was chosen to enable the driver to start the car with his left hand and put it into gear with his right. Old habits die hard.

SEM DATA

Rádio Voz da Liberdade, FPLN.

Eleições no Sindicato Têxtil de Delães, lista da oposição ligada ao PCP  (197?).

Movimento estudantil (de Coimbra?), cópia de um original de Maio 1968.

“Tulipa Vermelha”, organização holandesa de solidariedade com Portugal, de “ajuda aos presos políticos”.

Movimento estudantil (ligado ao PCP).

“Por um Ensino ao Serviço do Povo”, Porto, 1973?

Distribuído no Congresso da Oposição em Aveiro (1973)?

Movimentos de juventude ligados ao PCP.

1969

Oposição, comemorativo do 31 de Janeiro (distribuído no Porto).

1971

Movimento estudantil de Coimbra.

1073

Festival Mundial da Juventude e dos Estudantes, Berlim, 1973. Distribuído pela UEC.

The lovely and talented Claudia Jennings was Playboy’s Miss November 1969, and Playmate of the Year in 1970. Her birth name was Mary Eileen Chesterton. If it was me, I’d've changed my name too — but I would have just switched my first name to Chesty. Can you dig it? “Hi, I’m Chesty. Chesty Chesterton.” That is a name you can take straight to the mother effing bank!

Photographed by Pompeo Posar

Her father was a sales manager and her mother was a college professor. She was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later moved to Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated from high school in 1968. Later that year, she joined the Hull House theater company in Chicago and got a job as a receptionist at the offices of Playboy magazine (the wiki).

Claudia feels it’s necessary for her, at this point in her career, to move to one coast or the other, for the Windy City’s theatrical opportunities are limited. “Every actress has her particular skills and drawbacks,” says Claudia. “It’s a show-business axiom that if you really want to overcome your limitations, you go to New York, but if you’re satisfied with your skills, then you’re ready for Hollywood. The reasoning is that with a stage play, you get to work with the same material over a longer period of time than you do with a film, so you have more of a chance to improve.” (“Acting Playmate,” Playboy, November 1969.)

Five years later she was unemployed, single, and depressed; ten years later, she was dead. If you ask me, she chose the wrong coast. I think her sadly short life took a left turn at Albuquerque when she left Chicago and went to that shithole Los Angeles. In Hollywood, she appeared on an episode of The Brady Bunch in 1973 and lived with songwriter Bobby Hart (actual birth name Robert Luke Harshman; do you suppose they called each other by their real names when they were at home, or went with the show biz handles? oh, I fervently hope he called her Chesty…) from 1970-1975. He was the less handsome half of the almost-kinda-famous songwriting duo Boyce and Hart.

I assume the boyfriend got her the part on The Brady Bunch because the Monkees and the Brady Bunch appeared in each other’s shit a lot and Boyce and Hart wrote (and sometimes performed) most of the tunes for the Monkees — please tell me it is not news to you that the Monkees were a sham act developed to be a sort of made-for-tv-Beatles — including “Last Train to Clarksville” and the show’s theme (“Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees,” etc). They also penned such hits as “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” and “Come a Little Bit Closer.” Hart broke up with her in ‘75 and, living alone in much smaller quarters than she had been accustomed to, she got super-depressed, turned to a party crowd, and started regularly doing heroin and coke.

On the career side, throughout the 70’s, Claudia appeared in films, mainly just drive-in horror movie flicks. The wiki claimed they called her Queen of the B’s but I’m a huge B-movie guy and I have never heard this. I mean, I recognized her, but I didn’t think of her particularly as the queen. And the wiki has it somewhat wrong: I wouldn’t really call them B movies, because I associate that with an earlier genre of film, a la Ed Wood.

The types of 1970’s movies that Claudia was in are more like cult classics, thinly veiled excuses for weirdo softcore porn. Think of it as early skinemax, or very lite spatterporn. Personal favorites are Unholy Rollers about the motherfucking all-girl ROLLER DERBY (sorry, I get excited, cause, you know … sk8 or die), Deathsport, which takes place in the year 3000, and Gator Bait, which I believe needs no explanation.

In ‘79, she auditioned to replace Kate Jackson on Charlie’s Angels but good old Aaron Spelling and company were not fans of her Playboy credit and gave the job to Shelley Hack instead. (Hack’s turn as Tiffany Welles almost sank the show and she was fired in 1980 anyways, so whatever.)

On October 3, 1979, almost a decade to the day after her Playboy pictorial hit the newsstands, Claudia was driving to the home of her on-again, off-again boyfriend Stan Herman in Malibu to pick up her shit cause they had broken up again when her Volkswagen Beetle was hit by a van and she was killed. She was thirty years old.

I was having trouble accessing the Seattle Public Library database this week, so I wasn’t able to find the original clipping of this Vincent Canby review, but you can read it online here:

The Passion of Anna (1970)

The Times’ website requires registration (free), but here’s a small excerpt:

“The Passion of Anna is one of Bergman’s most beautiful films (it is his second in color), all tawny, wintry grays and browns, deep blacks, and dark greens, highlighted occasionally by splashes of red, sometimes blood. It is also, on the surface, one of his most lucid, if a film that tries to dramatize spiritual exhaustion can be ever said to be really lucid. However, like all of Bergman’s recent films, it does seem designed more for the indefatigable Bergman cryptologists (of which I am not one) than for interested, but uncommitted filmgoers.”

See all you “indefatigable Bergman cryptologists” this week!
The Passion of Anna plays November 20-25 daily at 7pm.

From/De: EA

Need for Speed SHIFT Revs up with All-New Team Racing Mode and Legendary Cars

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced an all-new Team Racing pack for the critically-acclaimedNeed for Speed SHIFT™. The content pack takes online racing to the next level with an action-packed new race mode and five renowned racing cars – all for free (Need for Speed SHIFT and Xbox LIVE® or PlayStation®Network account required). The Team Racing pack is the first downloadable content for Need for Speed SHIFT and will be available worldwide on December 1^st on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system. The pack will be released for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system on December 3^rd in Europe and on December 10^th in North America.

The Team Racing mode brings a fresh new challenge to SHIFT by completely redefining online racing. In this mode, two teams of up to six racers will battle against each other for online supremacy. Individual driving strategy and playing it safe won’t work as team tactics and 200 mph split-second decisions are required to push your team to the podium.

As part of the new content, players will also get access to these legendary racers:

• 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427
• 1967 Shelby GT-500
• 1969 Dodge Charger R/T
• 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T
• 1998 Toyota Supra Mark IV

The Team Racing content pack is custom-made for Need for Speed SHIFT, a spectacular racing game originally released in September 2009. The game introduces a brutal first-person crash dynamic and a signature cockpit view that delivers a true driver’s experience. The game further personalizes the experience through the all-new driver profile — a unique persona based on the driving skill and style of each player. With a perfect ‘10’ score from GameSpy.com and G4TV.com, and 90+ scores from IGN.com, Official Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Team Xbox.com, Game Daily.com, Gametrailers.com and more, Need for Speed SHIFT is the highest rated Need for Speed game in years.

Need for Speed SHIFT is now available on the PlayStation3, Xbox 360, PC, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, mobile and coming soon on the iPhone™. More information can be found at www.needforspeed.com or follow us on Twitter at NeedforSpeed.

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About Electronic Arts

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Love Song.
Life Is a Circus.

After he and Hermione Farthingale broke up, Bowie reduced Feathers, their former folk trio with John Hutchinson, to a duo, writing songs with two-part harmonies. He and Hutch became a Simon-and-Garfunkel double act: Hutch singing low and playing the straight man; Bowie offering a new character—a chatty, fey persona able to crack up the audience between numbers.

Among Feathers’ concert repertoire at the time (February-April 1969) were Bowie compositions like “When I’m Five,” “Space Oddity,” “Sell Me a Coat” and “Ching-a-Ling,” along with a number of covers, including Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam” and “Au Suivant,” Leonard Cohen’s “Lady Midnight” (likely a Hutch suggestion, as he was up on Canadian folk) and even Victor Young’s standard “A Hundred Years From Today.”

When Hutchinson and Bowie made their demo tape (which eventually sold Bowie to Philips/Mercury) in April, they mainly concentrated on newer Bowie compositions like “Janine” that would later wind up on Space Oddity. There were a few covers done for the session, however, suggesting that Bowie was considering them for possible inclusion (Bowie would soon make it a habit of having at least one cover per LP). They were:

“Love Song” was written by Lesley Duncan and later covered by Elton John on his 1970 LP Tumbleweed Connection. Duncan had a similar trajectory to Bowie—she cut a string of failed singles throughout the ’60s until finally breaking through at decade’s end (when John covered “Love Song”). Hutchinson has the lead vocal.

And “Life Is a Circus” was by the obscure folk group Djinn (so obscure that they’re often listed in Bowie references as an “American folk group,” though they were apparently Brits, led by the late Roger Bunn, a sort of ‘fifth business’ character in early ’70s London).

Having a wife and child to support, Hutchinson soon realized he couldn’t survive playing the occasional meagerly-attended folk gig. So he left Bowie and went to work as a draughtsman. It wouldn’t be the end of Bowie’s association with Hutch, one of the more sympathetic figures in Bowie’s life, however, as he would later return at the end of the Spiders from Mars era.

Both are available on bootlegs like The Beckenham Oddity.

Top: Gilbert and George perform Singing Sculpture, Cable Street, London, 1969 (Tate).

Nella primavera del 1969 l’ennesima azione terroristica all’Università di Padova fa partire una nuova indagine. A coordinarla è un commissario di polizia, Pasquale Juliano, il capo della squadra mobile, che arriva a individuare un nucleo di estremisti neri che traffica in armi ed esplosivi. Ma i neofascisti gli preparano una trappola: Juliano si vedrà così scippare l’inchiesta, che verrà insabbiata, e finirà sotto processo accusato di aver costruito le prove contro i terroristi. Gli occorreranno dieci anni per dimostrare la sua innocenza, ma nel 1979, quando sarà assolto da tutti i capi d’imputazione, la stagione delle bombe avrà quasi concluso il suo tragico corso.

Nella primavera del 1969 l’ennesima azione terroristica all’Università di Padova fa partire una nuova indagine. A coordinarla è un commissario di polizia, Pasquale Juliano, il capo della squadra mobile, che arriva a individuare un nucleo di estremisti neri che traffica in armi ed esplosivi. Ma i neofascisti gli preparano una trappola: Juliano si vedrà così scippare l’inchiesta, che verrà insabbiata, e finirà sotto processo accusato di aver costruito le prove contro i terroristi. Gli occorreranno dieci anni per dimostrare la sua innocenza, ma nel 1979, quando sarà assolto da tutti i capi d’imputazione, la stagione delle bombe avrà quasi concluso il suo tragico corso.

Casting about for a topic for this post, I thought about famous birthdays. Gordon Lightfoot’s birthday was Tuesday, and I have plenty of Lightfoot tunes in the stacks and in the folders. But another day would be better for that, as there is a tale connected that I’m not yet prepared to tell.

I thought about writing about the books on my reading table, as I do occasionally. But I started a book yesterday that’s fascinating, and I want to finish it before I write about it. So that will have to wait.

We’ve had an odd November: sunny and warmer than one would expect. But I wrote about my fascination with autumn not that many days ago, and a post about the weather itself should wait until we have some truly remarkable meteorological happening.

I glanced at the front page of the Minneapolis paper: Budget cuts, a fatal bus crash, health care advisories and so on. Nothing there I care to write about.

It’s just one of those days. So here’s an appropriate selection of titles.

A Six-Pack of Nothing
“There’s Nothing Between Us Now” by Grady Tate from After the Long Drive Home [1970]
“Ain’t Nothing Gonna Change Me” by Betty LaVette from Child of the Seventies [1973]
“Nothing But A Heartache” by the Flirtations, Deram 85038 [1969]
“Nothing Against You” by the Robert Cray Band from Sweet Potato Pie [1997]
“Nothing But Time” by Jackson Browne from Running On Empty [1977]
“Nothing Will Take Your Place” by Boz Scaggs from Boz Scaggs & Band [1971]

One of the things I love about the world of music blogs is finding great tunes by folks who I’ve never heard about before. It turns out that Grady Tate, according to All-Music Guide, is a well-regarded session drummer who’s done some good vocal work as well. I’d never heard of the man until I somehow found myself exploring the very nice blog, My Jazz World. The brief description of Tate’s album After the Long Drive Home and the accompanying scan of the album cover drew me in, and I’ve spent quite a few quiet moments since then digging into Tate’s reflective and sometimes stoic album.

I’ve tagged Betty LaVette’s gritty piece of southern soul, “Ain’t Nothing Gonna Change Me,” as coming from 1973, as that’s when it was recorded. But the story is more complex than that. LaVette recorded the album, Child of the Seventies, for Atco in Muscle Shoals. But AMG notes that after a single from the sessions, “Your Turn to Cry” didn’t do well, the label shelved the entire project. It took until 2006 and a release on the Rhino Handmade label for the album itself to hit the shelves. The CD comes with bonus tracks that include LaVette’s cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” which was also released as a single. (My thanks to Caesar Tjalbo.)

A listener without the record label to examine would be excused from thinking that the Flirtation’s driving “Nothing But A Heartache” came from Detroit. The bass line, the drums and the punchy horns all proclaim “Motown,” but this nifty piece of R&B came out of England on the Deram label. The Flirtations, however, had their roots elsewhere: Sisters Shirley and Earnestine Pearce came from South Carolina and Viola Billups hailed from Alabama, so the record’s soul sound is legit, and it sounded pretty good coming out of a little radio speaker, too. The record spent two weeks in the Top 40 during the late spring of 1969, peaking at No. 34.

For Sweet Potato Pie, Robert Cray and his band made their way to Memphis and pulled together an album of blues-based soul. The combination of the Memphis Horns, Cray’s always-sharp guitar work and a good set of songs made the album, to my ears, one of Cray’s best. “Nothing Against You” is a good example of the album’s attractions.

“Nothing But Time” comes from Running On Empty, one of the more interesting live albums of the 1970s: All of the songs were new material, with some of them being recorded backstage, in hotel rooms or on the tour bus instead of in concert. As it happened, the album’s hits – “Running On Empty” and “Stay” – were concert recordings. But I’ve thought for a while that the recordings from the more intimate spaces – “Nothing But Time” was recorded on the tour bus as it rolled through New Jersey (you can hear the hum of the engine in the background) – might have aged a little better. That thought could stem from weariness after hearing the two hits over and over on the radio over the years; I do still like some of the other concert recordings from the album.

To my ears, Boz Scaggs’ slow-building and echoey “Nothing Will Take Your Place,” carries hints of the sound that would propel him to the top of the charts in 1976 with Silk Degrees. I guess it just took the mass audience – including me – a while to catch up with him.

Janine (demo).
Janine (studio).

George Tremlett, a freelance British music journalist, interviewed Bowie in late 1969 and wrote that while Bowie was effusive about most of the tracks on his recently-released LP, he avoided mentioning one song entirely—”Janine”—leading Tremlett to speculate that Bowie considered the song a dud and had regretted putting it on the album.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, as Bowie actually mooted “Janine” as a follow-up single to “Space Oddity” and played it during some 1970 BBC sessions, but true enough, “Janine” has been mainly forgotten in the forty years since. Which is a shame, as it’s one of the few fun songs on a rather serious, dour album. Tony Visconti liked it best of all the Space Oddity tracks, and you can hear why—it’s much like the type of hippie glam that Marc Bolan had begun writing (the first key Bolan single, “King of the Rumbling Spires,” had come out in the summer of ‘69).

As opposed to the winsome, unattainable “Hermione” figure of Bowie’s recent songs, “Janine” sounds like a much better time. “You’re fey, Janine, a trooper to the last,” Bowie sings, with some admiration. “Take your glasses off and don’t act so sincere.” Of course, this being Bowie, the center of the love song winds up being its singer, who’s more concerned with protecting his true self than sharing it.

“Janine” is a rocker hidden within a folk song (the acoustic demo has some energy, and even goes into the “Hey Jude” chorus at one point, but it’s hobbled by its staid rhythm) and the studio cut, which attempts to liberate it, winds up being a bit of a hash. (A successful transition? Dylan’s “Baby Let Me Follow You Down”: folk, 1961; rock, 1966.) The band Visconti used for the Space Oddity sessions—Junior’s Eyes—isn’t up to snuff, as the beat’s weak and diffuse and the track is crying out for a simple, solid riff to keep it together, rather than the noodling electric guitar bits that crop up in the verses, played by either Tim Renwick (later of Pink Floyd) or Keith Christmas. It’s a shame that Bowie didn’t turn Mick Ronson loose on this song a couple years later, as it finally could’ve become the swaggering beast it had potential to be.

Inspirational verse: “If you took an axe to me/you’d kill another man not me at all.” Or even better, “Like a Polish wanderer I travel ever onwards to your land.”

Demo recorded ca. mid-April 1969 with John Hutchinson (Bowie’s introduction claims that the song’s about the girlfriend of George Underwood “who does very nice album covers”); studio version cut ca. July-September 1969 for Space Oddity.

Top: Diana Rigg, doomed newlywed, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

di Marco Pitzen

Esattamente quaranta anni fa, il 19 novembre 1969, si svolgeva in tutta Italia lo sciopero generale per la casa, frutto di una catena di lotte partite da Milano. Ricordiamo quella esperienza con un articolo di Marco Pitzen, del Sicet Milano, che ricollega tra le altre cose il passato all’oggi tracciando un quadro dell’ancora più drammatica situazione attuale dell’emergenza abitativa.

Era l’anno 1969. In quel tardo e caldo autunno, il 19 novembre, si svolge in Italia il primo e finora unico, sciopero generale per la casa. In quel periodo le lotte nelle fabbriche e nelle scuole investono le città dove risiedono ormai quasi il 50% degli italiani e la  popolazione nelle aree metropolitane passa in poco meno di un decennio da 19  a 25 milioni di abitanti. Le città assumono un ruolo economico sempre più rilevante  diventando  poli attrattori delle grandi migrazioni interne sviluppando accelerati processi di urbanizzazione prevalentemente delle aree periferiche che generano una ulteriore esasperazione degli squilibri sociali. Non bisogna scordarsi che il cosiddetto miracolo economico italiano era fondato su un accentuato sfruttamento della forza lavoro con i salari più bassi e le giornate lavorative più lunghe d’Europa.

Proprio nel ‘69 si genera un movimento di massa sulla questione abitativa e si diffondono lotte urbane sempre più articolate sia nei contenuti che negli obiettivi. Le lotte per il diritto alla casa si inseriscono nel più generale processo di risveglio civile che scuote la società nazionale. Il movimento femminista, il movimento studentesco con il movimento operaio intrecciano e combattono le battaglie per il lavoro, la scuola, i diritti delle donne inserendo il tema dell’abitare, elevando il livello di scontro ed aprendo una nuova stagione rivendicativa senza eguali.

Dal quartiere periferico di Quarto Oggiaro parte il primo sciopero degli affitti che coinvolgerà oltre la metà degli abitanti organizzati dalla neo costituita Unione Inquilini, la quale adotterà forme di lotta, comprese le occupazioni di massa di alloggi sfitti, che si diffonderanno presto in tutto il paese. Emerge in quell’anno, su quella spinta, una visione completamente nuova della questione urbana e delle  lotte sociali, cominciano ad elaborarsi teorie sull’estensione del dominio del capitale sulle aree urbane e l’affermarsi della coscienza dello sfruttamento anche fuori dalle fabbriche, ed è dunque nel novembre del 1969 che viene proclamato dai sindacati lo storico sciopero generale sulla casa. Alla mobilitazione partecipano centinaia di migliaia di lavoratori.

Il sindacato richiede maggiori investimenti  nell’edilizia pubblica, l’istituzione di un sistema di equo canone per gli affitti e garanzie di lavoro per gli occupati nel settore edilizio. Proprio però la grande manifestazione dei sindacati con la sempre maggior attenzione che tra i lavoratori avevano conquistato i temi dell’abitare ed il movimento montante che rivendica organizzandosi il diritto alla casa producono una forte preoccupazione dei poteri forti più o meno occulti. Gli interessi economici legati alla rendita, ben rappresentati politicamente, sono enormi e per la prima volta nel nostro paese i sindacati, che stanno acquistando nel periodo una forza straordinaria, unitariamente trascinano la classe lavoratrice all’impegno diretto nella lotta per la casa. Un mese dopo il riuscito sciopero per la casa, il 12 dicembre, scoppia la bomba a Piazza Fontana a Milano che oltre ad avviare la strategia della tensione, ha quale immediato risultato quello di distrarre l’opinione pubblica dalla questione abitativa e non permette di produrre le riforme richieste dal movimento per il diritto alla casa.

In quarant’anni l’emergenza abitativa si è fatta ancora più drammatica; si sono consumati i processi di deregolamentazione urbanistici con uno sfruttamento selvaggio del territorio, la svendita del patrimonio pubblico, e la liberalizzazione del mercato delle locazioni. Si è assistito ad un forte impoverimento dello stock di abitazioni in locazione, legato ai processi di dismissione del patrimonio immobiliare dello stato, degli enti previdenziali pubblici, dei comuni, delle compagnie assicurative, degli istituti di credito e dei fondi pensione che è andato erodendo proprio quella parte di abitazioni che in tutti questi anni avevano contribuito a calmierare il mercato ed a soddisfare una parte importante della domanda abitativa. Mentre gli esigui programmi di intervento nell’edilizia pubblica di comuni e regioni non sono stati minimamente in grado di rispondere ai gravi problemi di disagio abitativo e hanno delineato una volontà politica dell’istituzione pubblica di disimpegno da questo settore e in molti casi di snaturamento della stessa funzione sociale dell’edilizia popolare. Un patrimonio pubblico che è andato accumulando  rilevanti problemi di degrado che sono aumentati esponenzialmente con la costante diminuzione del flusso dei finanziamenti pubblici.

In tutto il paese il tasso di soddisfacimento del bisogna abitativo si è attestato su una percentuale mediamente ben al di sotto del 5% del totale dei richiedenti aventi diritto ad accedere al patrimonio pubblico, con oltre 650mila domande inevase ai comuni per una casa popolare in affitto. In questi quattro decenni il patrimonio in affitto si è eroso a tal punto da diventare quasi una quota residuale dove meno del 20% della popolazione italiana vive in locazione. Ma le politiche di svendita del patrimonio pubblico e di incentivazione all’acquisto della prima casa stanno ora provocando in una fase di crisi economica una ulteriore emergenza sociale con un enorme indebitamento delle famiglie ed un incremento esponenziale dei pignoramenti dovuti all’impossibilità di pagare i mutui contratti. Il tutto ha portato all’allargamento dell’area della precarietà alloggiativa ed a un impoverimento di strati sempre più ampi di popolazione. Tanto che in Italia ora versano in fortissima difficoltà  4 milioni e mezzo di famiglie che vivono in affitto che faticano, e spesso non ce la fanno, a pagare canoni talmente elevati che incidono, su molte di loro, per il 50 % sui redditi.

Altri dati drammatici arrivano dagli sfratti. Nel 2008  sono state 140mila le richieste, 53mila le sentenze e 25mila le esecuzioni in continuo incremento. Si calcola che siano oltre un milione e cinquecento mila le famiglie che in Italia hanno subito uno sfratto negli ultimi vent’anni. Questa secondarietà del mercato dell’affitto diventato quasi residuale ha avuto come conseguenza visibile la marginalizzazione sociale e politica del disagio. Si è ritenuto in questi anni che la questione abitativa potesse trovare una sua soluzione taumaturgica all’interno dei gangli e degli equilibri del mercato immobiliare o tramite la perfetta concorrenza nel mercato dei fitti corretto con qualche aiuto assistenziale a favore della parte più debole dell’inquilinato e nefasta è stata la legge 431/98 sulla liberalizzazione dei fitti varata dal governo di centro sinistra. La disomogeneità di questa fascia di popolazione rimasta abbandonata, strozzata e impoverita dalla forza speculativa del settore immobiliare e la sua frammentazione sul territorio non ha permesso più di sviluppare una forza organizzata che potesse dispiegarsi in maniera conflittuale. Il mercato immobiliare ha prosperato, ma ha anche penalizzato e escluso una buona fetta di ceto medio, impoverito dalla precarizzazione del lavoro, lasciandolo cadere nel gorgo dell’emergenza abitativa in una fase di massimo disimpegno politico sull’argomento da parte delle forze politiche.

Ma proprio l’attuale depressione del mercato edilizio con la prospettiva di una crisi di rendita hanno indotto il Governo a varare il nuovo “piano casa” che mira ad una ristrutturazione del comparto con una prospettiva delle politiche pubbliche per la casa di tipo recessivo non solo dal lato della spesa sociale, ma anche dal lato delle tutele e delle garanzie di accesso ai servizi che non potrà che avere delle pesanti ripercussioni in tutti quartieri popolari. In questo contesto che si profila il tentativo di riposizionare le politiche pubbliche per la casa sul comparto del cosiddetto “social housing” abbandonando del tutto l’intervento diretto sovvenzionato e puntando a realizzare attraverso un “parternariato pubblico-privato” offerte abitative la cui connotazione sociale risiede solamente nel fatto di proporre una qualsiasi edilizia residenziale sottomercato: a canone moderato, sostenibile, convenzionale  e solo in minima parte a canone sociale. Ciò implica la dissipazione delle residuali risorse pubbliche fondiarie e finanziarie, comprese quelle immobilizzate nel patrimonio abitativo sociale esistente, tramite la sua ulteriore dismissione con un travisamento delle finalità di garanzia dell’accesso al sistema abitativo pubblico per gli strati di domanda in condizioni di maggior disagio.

Anche le correlate teorie falso progressiste del “mix sociale” si basano ancora sull’assunto che il lavoro sia il principale meccanismo di integrazione. Mentre oggi chi è fuori dal mercato del lavoro difficilmente ci potrà rientrare impedendogli di accedere ai diritti di cittadinanza. Progetti dunque dove la qualità dell’abitare si fonda sulla discriminazione e l’estraniazione del più debole diventa invece la variabile da eludere. La crisi finanziaria globale in atto, e la sua messa in discussione dell’ordine neoliberale, dovrebbero invece permettere di elaborare una strategia politica che ridefinisca su scala nazionale livelli essenziali delle prestazioni di welfare e attuare una riforma dell’edilizia residenziale pubblica la quale sancisca in maniera insindacabile la finalità sociale del patrimonio. Infine, sul fronte rivendicativo, importante è che a quarant’anni da quella grande mobilitazione del 1969 i sindacati uniti tornano a indire una manifestazione per garantire a tutti il diritto ad un alloggio dignitoso. La CGIL, la CISL e la UIL con i tre sindacati inquilini SUNIA, UNIAT e SICET ritrovano una intesa per richiedere politiche che affrontino l’emergenza e l’esclusione abitativa, che riducano il prezzo degli affitti e aumentino l’offerta di case popolari. Sabato 28 novembre 2009 a Milano si riprende a lottare per il diritto alla casa e alla città.

Marco Pitzen (componente del direttivo Sicet Milano)

19-11-09

Bibliografia:

AA.VV, “Città e conflitto sociale”, Feltrinelli 1972

F. Di Ciaccia , “La condizione urbana”, Feltrinelli 1974

AA.VV, “Lotte urbane e crisi della società industriale”, Savelli 1981

P. Ginsborg, “Storia d’Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi”, Einaudi 1989

M. Pitzen, “Casa, merce, diritto, bene comune”,  Ed. Punto Rosso 2007

O P.S.1 inaugura a temporada de outono com três novas exposições:

Robert Bergman: Selcted Portraits: 24 retratos de pessoas comuns em tamanho natural fotografados pelo artista durante suas viagens pelos Estados Unidos.

1969: A arte produzida no ano marcado por revoluções e tumultos sócio-políticos.

Between Spaces: 11 artistas  transforman objetos banais em obras de arte.

Confira o vídeo.

“É apenas uma questão de vir para a percepção de que tudo é agora. Respirando, e expirando. Eu tenho o mundo inteiro respirando e expirando. E eu estive por cem milhões de anos fazendo isso. Essa é a minha vontade, e eu sou Deus. E não me importa que você não goste disso, ou não acredite nisso. Não importa. Eu poderia deixar cair esse corpo aqui e seguir em frente, e ser mil estrelas.

-Charles Manson”

Charles Milles Manson nasceu em 11 de novembro de 1934, há 75 anos. Filho de Ada Kathleen Maddox e William Manson. Afirma-se freqüentemente que Manson nasceu como “Sem Nome Maddox”. Isso é absolutamente falso, não existe nenhum documento que cite “Sem Nome Maddox”. Charles Manson nasceu com o nome “Charles Milles Maddox”.

A Família Maddox

“Eu sou um hillbilly. Eu vivo nas montanhas. Eu faço moonshine. Eu tenho uma longa espingarda, e eu atiro bem longe. Eu sou Deus nos vales. Eu deixo as mulheres irem para a igreja – dá a elas algo para fazer. Mas eu sei quem Deus é, e eu sei quem Jesus é, e eu sei quem o Diabo é, e eu realmente não preciso de nada na planície porque a montanha mantém a luz. Mas quando as montanhas estão morrendo, então eu tenho que descer para a planície, e eu tenho que balancear a situação – impedir que elas sejam destruídas pela mineração, ou que derrubem as árvores até que nada exista mais. Então é por isso que eu estou pagando pelos últimos 40 anos, onde o meu tio Jess me enviou.

-Charles Manson”

“Eu passei a visitar a minha mãe na prisão quando eu ainda estava começando a andar. Quando ela saiu, ela veio e me pegou em um lar adotivo, e me colocou em uma escola para meninos. Assim, eu fui educado pelos militares.

-Charles Manson”

“Meu avô disse à minha avó que na Primeira Guerra Mundial ele estava em pé sobre um corpo, e ele viu uma Bíblia no bolso do rapaz que ele havia matado. Ele estendeu a mão, pegou e começou a ler a Bíblia. Lá estava uma foto daquele homem com sua esposa e seus filhos, dois, três filhos, você entende? E ele tinha uma corrente com uma cruz. E ele olhou para a cruz, e ele olhou para baixo, e ele viu a si mesmo. Ele disse: ‘O que eu estou fazendo aqui lutando contra o meu irmão?’ Ele voltou e disse à minha avó: ‘Eu estava lutando meus irmãos, e eu nem sei por quê’.

-Charles Manson”

Charles Manson é neto de Charles Milles Maddox, maquinista da B&O Railroad, e Loraine Nancy Ingram Maddox, uma devota cristã Nazarena, ambos de Morehead, em Kentucky. Manson nasceu durante os tempos difíceis da Grande Depressão. Sua mãe foi para a prisão por furto quando ele ainda era uma criança, então boa parte dos seus primeiros anos foi passado com os seus avôs, em Kentucky, e seu tio e tia, na Virgínia Ocidental.

A Família Manson

“Eu não estou entregando a minha alma. Eu não estou rendendo o meu pai. Eu não estou desistindo do meu pai. Meu pai bebe uísque escocês e toca gaita – faz o que quer fazer, você sabe. Eu não vou entregar isso. E eles me dizem: ‘Seu pai está morto’. Meu pai nunca morre, cara. Não existe tal coisa como a morte.

-Charles Manson”

Manson é um sobrenome escocês de origem viking, a versão inglesa do sobrenome escandinavo Magnusson, que significa filho de Magnus. Magnus era um nome comum entre a aristocracia escandinava. Magnus, que significa “grande” ou “magnífico” em latim, se tornou um nome mais comum durante a Idade Média, quando várias nações européias, e suas casas reais, introduziram-no por terem se convertido ao cristianismo católico, cuja língua oficial é o latim. Esse foi especialmente o caso da realeza e nobreza escandinava. Como um nome próprio escandinavo, ele foi inspirado pelo governante dos francos, Carlos Magno, cujo nome em latim era “Carolus Magnus”, e era entendido em nórdico antigo como “magn-hús”, ou “casa da força”. A palavra “magnus” está enraizada no termo indo-europeu “Mag”, que é de onde palavras como mágica, magia, magos, magnitude, magistrado, entre outras, derivam.

O Clã Gunn

“Tenho crianças na escuridão onde os highlanders caminham, tenho cavaleiros nas batalhas das sombras da minha alma.

-Charles Manson”

O sangue de Manson é escocês e irlandês. Ele é do clã Gunn, vindos do nordeste da Escócia, das regiões de Caithness, Sutherland e das Ilhas Orkney. As origens do clã Gunn são traçadas na Noruega, descendentes do lendário Sweyn Asleifsson, conhecido como o “Último Viking” e progenitor do clã. Do seu neto, Gunni, é de onde o nome Gunn foi escolhido para batizar o clã.

No 11º dia do 11º mês

“Eu sou um filho dos militares. Todos os aposentados de todas as guerras me criaram. A farda é meu pai. Então, eu acreditava que eu tinha direitos em um tribunal, e que tudo o que eu tinha que fazer era levar os meus problemas ao juiz e ele iria corrigi-los. Porque eu senti que o juiz era a autoridade, era Deus, era o nosso pai, era o militar, era o país.

-Charles Manson”

O dia 11 de novembro é Dia dos Veteranos nos Estados Unidos (e Dia do Armistício em muitas partes do mundo). Nossos pais, avós e demais antepassados morreram em batalhas para construir e preservar os nossos direitos de hoje. O pai de Charles Manson morreu no campo de batalha para proteger e preservar os direitos dele, que foram roubados quando Manson teve o seu direito da 14ª Emenda Constitucional, de representar a si mesmo em um tribunal, anulado no caso Povo da Califórnia contra Manson, em 1970.

Os Direitos de Charles Manson

“Você entra em um cemitério e olha para todos os mártires do coração, todos os homens que deram as suas vidas a Deus e ao país, e então você vem e diz: ‘Onde Charlie errou?’ Será que Charlie errou? Ou foi o oceano do movimento espiritual no mundo para trazer mudança para esse planeta? Será que isso começou antes de Charlie nascer, e todo mundo estava errado?

O presidente dos Estados Unidos é supostamente o líder de nós [americanos]. Bom, vocês não podem me escolher como líder da sua família e depois dar imunidade a Nixon. Ele matou muito mais gente do que o Charlie.

-Charles Manson”

Charles Manson, que seus antepassados e membros da família estão no registro de combates na Revolução Americana de Independência, na Guerra Civil Americana, Primeira Guerra Mundial, Segunda Guerra Mundial e Guerra da Coréia, foi negado o seu direito constitucional de se defender em um tribunal de justiça e recebeu a pena de morte por crimes que ele não cometeu e nunca foi acusado de ter cometido. A pena de morte no estado da Califórnia foi anulada, e Manson foi condenado à prisão perpétua, com possibilidade de liberdade condicional.

Charles Manson esteve injustamente preso pelos últimos 40 anos. Antes da sua última libertação da prisão, no Equinócio da Primavera de 1967, Manson já havia cumprido 22 anos trancado atrás das grades desde que ele colocou fogo em sua escola aos 9 anos de idade. Ele foi criado por veteranos da Primeira Guerra Mundial e da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Aos 13 anos de idade, ele foi colocado na escola Gibault para meninos, e continuou a ser colocado em várias instituições do governo ao longo da década de 1940 e início dos anos 1950 por furto e roubo de carros. Ele fugiu da maioria das instituições em que foi colocado. Alguns dos lugares onde Manson viveu durante esses tempos foram o Natural Bridge Honor Camp, National Training School for Boys, em Washington DC, Federal Reformatory, Petersburg Federal Reformatory e Chillicothe Federal Reformatory. Manson foi criado principalmente por veteranos aposentados, que trabalhavam nessas instituições. O presidente Nixon, que declarou Manson culpado “direta ou indiretamente” pelos assassinatos de agosto de 1969, foi um advogado e sabia que o que ele estava fazendo era ilegal – ele condenou Manson antes do julgamento acontecer.

Charles Manson no Mundo

Manson tem servido um total de mais de 62 anos em prisões e instituições do governo dos Estados Unidos. Mais tempo do que qualquer cidadão americano vivo hoje. Ele passou toda a sua vida com rebeldes, revolucionários, veteranos, guerreiros, juízes e guardas.

Ele suportou o inferno, teve os seus direitos negados, seus filhos levados, sua música roubada e destruída, seu rancho queimado, suas cartas destruídas, seus amigos proibidos de vê-lo. Manson foi envenenado, queimado com produtos químicos, espancado, teve costelas e dentes quebrados, passou dias amarrado, foi torturado, incendiado, usado pelo sensacionalismo dos meios de comunicação há 40 anos e amaldiçoado pelos astros de Hollywood. Mas Charles Manson sobreviveu, em pé, para o fogo da eternidade. Ele é o irmão universal de todos os homens que deram as suas vidas no serviço à verdade, honra e justiça.

Esse mês de novembro, ele completou 75 anos de pura vida. Devemos honrar Charles Willis Milles Maddox Mac Manson pelo seu sacrifício, combate, dedicação, coragem, inspiração e amor.

Agradecimentos ao irmão Hay Hay pelo artigo original. Esse artigo é fruto da dedicação dele.

Leia sobre. Entenda a verdade. Não deixe o SEU fogo apagar.

© 2009 ATWA Brasil