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Beatles Get Back to Mono Vinyl (& The Lost Tribal Ritual of Reading Liner Notes)

9/10/2014

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BEATLES GET BACK TO MONO VINYL by Alan L. Chrisman

In honor of the recent re-release of the original Beatles on Mono LP’S set, I thought I’d write some reflections of all the changes that have happened, in how we listen to music.

It’s kind of ironic, because, there has been a real return to vinyl, even among whole new generations, let alone people like the baby Boomers who grew up with it.  Many people now get their music directly through downloading (and don’t even think of paying for it and helping support the artists who make it), so it’s actually become harder than ever for musicians to make a living.

“ Has the McDonaldization of music , with its constant accessibility, taken something away from the music itself”

I wrote the above words back in 1989, for an Ottawa, Canada Carleton University newspaper, when CD’s were supposed to be the new format, which would sound better and last forever.  And just today, I heard that Ottawa’s CD Warehouse (nominated once as the best music store in Canada) is closing their doors after 24 years.  Of course, as with the DVD video format, people have changed the way they consume music and film.  And “consume” is perhaps the fitting word.  Like fast food restaurants we, a lot of us anyway, want to just gobble it down 24/7.

But some of us still remembe, how we would, after saving up our money as kids, finally be able to afford the latest LP.  The Beatles’ especially, seem to have a new album out about every 6 months or so (groups today are lucky to get one out every few years).  Every Beatles’ record was a quantum leap from the previous one- from Rubber Soul to Revolver to Sgt. Peppers’ to The White Album to Abbey Road.  And the other leaders in rock at the time, like Dylan and the Stones, did the same thing, and we as fans had to make the jumps too.

But it was then a whole ritual we went through. You couldn’t wait to rush home, after waiting so long to finally have a copy and tear off the plastic wrapping, like it was Xmas, and gaze at the a cover.  For there was a real art to designing covers then,  especially after Sgt. Peppers’ psychedelic one, and as with the music inside, musicians were constantly trying to outdo each other artistically, but in a friendly rivals way, which made us all grow, artists and audience alike.  Then we would pop it on the turntable and play it for the first time.  But at the same time, we’d read  over the back cover and the often printed lyrics and liner notes, noting who’s singing what song  and who’s playing what instrument and which musicians are guesting on it, etc.  Albums were albums then, each one had a certain "flow" or feel to it; artists and producers worked hard to position each song for variety, etc. and sometimes with even an overall concept behind it.  Kids these days download songs separately and thus it doesn't have the same impact.  Instead of a three-minute statement, an artist had a  whole side or two of an LP to explore his or her expressions.  I think that's why so many of those albums still stand up.

I know it probably sounds strange to some people who didn’t grow up with it this way, like some fancy chef going on and on about the proper way to savor a fine wine or meal.  But that is what it was like for so many of us back then.  It was a ritual and rituals are important.  There is something to be said, even for having to wait for things in life, in the same way, which children still appreciate, after anticipating a present, getting up early Xmas morning, and finally getting it.  There’s just something about having to work and earning its reward.  Getting a new album, felt like that to us.  

I wrote those above words about the taking for granting our music, 25 years ago now.  And perhaps, we did lose something in the process, in this fast paced world of the internet and social media, where everything, for good and bad, is available to us all, anytime.  

Times change, and that’s just life too.  But as Marshall Mcluhan told us, each media also changes the message. There were first, Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders, 78 rpm’s, 33’s, 45 singles, LP’s, 8- tracks , cassettes, CD’s and now MP3’s, downloading, streaming-each for its time.   Analog vinyl, which several musicians like Neil Young have long maintained (Young has recently announced his own process), most experts now agree, has a “warmer” sound than digital (and these are the first re-releases that went back to the original mono analog masters).  Steve Berkowitz, one of engineers on the new project states, “the intention of these records is only realized in analog, because they made them in analog. People will feel it differently. There are sounds and feelings and spaces that the human animal reacts to, whether you know it or not. It's innate in us in as animals."

Generations since then may not be aware of these differences, because they haven’t actually heard them, especially using the portable devices of today.  The Beatles themselves actually took part in the mixing of the original mono versions, whereas, the later stereo versions were usually mixed by engineers only. So this is the way the Beatles originally intended them to be heard.

People laughed at me when I wrote those words and when I even predicted a comeback for vinyl one day.  At the time, I was running a vinyl store called Get Back! Records (a take-off on both The Beatles and my hope that vinyl would come back one day).  I ran vinyl stores for 30 years, opening perhaps the first used one in Ottawa, Canada in 1972.  The owner of the Ottawa CD store that just announced its closing, said that vinyl sales have actually been increasing by two or three times every year, these past few years.  It’s still admittedly, a relatively small minority market, but many bands, both new and old (including McCartney’s latest), are now also available on vinyl.   The Beatles box set of 14 LP’s is $375 (and doesn’t contain Abbey Road, Let It Be or Yellow Submarine, because they were recorded in stereo) and is mainly for collectors (individual albums can also purchased though). 

All I can say is, I can still remember first hearing, The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today album , which Capitol Records complied from the British LP’s  and called it (and later withdrew the legendary, rare “Butcher Cover”),  growing up in the States in 1966.  And it was the original mono version (which I still have, amazingly) with “Day Tripper” coming out of my speakers in Mono and feeling like The Beatles were right there in my university room.  There’s something to be said, as I say, for these often tribal youth rituals which human beings still seem to need, and the somewhat surprising return to vinyl by many young people too, these past several years.  They remind us, that despite all the changes, some things are timeless.  Get Back to MONO!  Read Alan Chrisman’s other recent blog on his meeting several people from the Beatles Beginnings:  Meeting Beatles People from the Mono Days         www.beatlely.wordpress.com

OTTAWA CITIZEN ARTICLE on ALAN CHRISMAN’S “GET BACK! RECORDS” VINYL STORE, 1999:

 

 

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE:  NUDE PHOTOS & POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

9/6/2014

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE:  NUDE SELFIES & POLITICAL CORRECTNESS by Alan L. Chrisman


The recent leak of Jennifer Lawrence’s and other celebrities’ nude photos by a hacker has raised some interesting questions.  It seems to me, to be mainly a generational thing.  The younger generations, who’ve grown up with social media their whole lives, have a whole different definition and practice of “privacy”, than those who haven’t. 

Many young people think nothing of revealing anything and everything about themselves on the internet.  And that includes sexting, nude, and explicit photos.  Supposedly, one in four of them has sent them and 40% have received them.   One half of 18-24 year olds, according to one survey, send them.  If these are to be believed, and I’m not saying they aren’t.   Remember back in 1998 (which seems like a century ago now), when Bill Clinton argued that oral sex wasn’t really sex.  This new generation, evidently, agrees.   How far we’ve gone since then.

It’s amazing how fast our social mores have changed.  It started perhaps, with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, reality shows, people famous for being famous, celebrity sex tapes, selfies, sexting, etc.  I guess it was just a matter of time until the non-famous would want to be in on the act (no pun intended)  too.  So now you can be your own porn star and share it with friends and family.

This younger generation will, no doubt, say “what’s the big deal?” Get with the times, Man!  Every generation thinks the previous ones are out of date.  That’s a necessary part of being young, since time began.

And we live in politically-correct times (have for a while now).  The Baby Boomers, more than any other generation perhaps, will do anything- not to get old.  Youth is the magic elixir. If you have enough money of course, to buy the health supplements and organic food and get our hair dyed and tattoos, to show we’re still hip.  We line up for the latest social media device.  Everyone’s a writer.  Everyone’s a musician.  Everyone’s a poet.  Everyone’s an artist.  Everyone has a blog (including me!).  Everyone can express themselves.  Of course, few can make a living at these things anymore , because we also don’t  want to have to pay for it.

But hey, this is the perfect democratic set-up, right?

Sex was once the taboo subject, but not anymore.  Sex is everywhere; it’s out of the closet.  My female bank tellers are wearing low-cut tops as part of their business attire and I have to try and keep my eyes on my bank deposits and not get accused of leering.   Middle-aged women want to look like their daughters.  Their daughters want to go TV Idol shows and imitate famous people who can’t sing.  College students are too often regressing to a rape culture, despite all the sex-equality education.  And there’s little subtlety left about anything anymore.  

But it’s dangerous and unpopular and politically incorrect to say these things, because we live in a “liberal” society.  Nobody wants to be labeled a prude or intolerant.  Racists don’t even consider themselves racists .  Remember Donald Sterling?  If you even question some of these things, some people will say,” You against Sex or something?”  The worst crime is to be uncool.

No, we’re all so liberated.   It seems to me that morals and politics is always about, really one thing-thinking the other guy is not as “open “as we are.  Conservatives think liberals are too open and liberals think conservatives are not “open” enough.  Comedian Mort Sahl said, “Liberals feel guilty about everything and conservatives think they have the right to own everything”.  If we listened to our mainstream media, we’d think the news is just about scandals and what’s the latest video that’s gone viral.  At one time only the tabloids specialized in those things.

I recently read a novel by Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story, set in the perhaps, not too distant future.  America has a one party government and China owns most of its economy.  Everyone has a Credit Ranking and your social standing and any chance for advancement is based on that Ranking.  Poor people have a low Ranking and are basically disposable.  Also everyone has a personal device called an apparat, which allows everyone to find out anyone else’s Ranking (as well as their sex lives) and whether it’s worth associating with them or marrying them.  So in this future, everyone knows everything about everyone else.  Of course, the book is a sort of 1984-like Sci. Fi. satire.   Shteyngart has also, in 2014, released his painful, but uproariously funny memoir, Little Failure, about coming to America as a Russian immigrant and trying to adopt to his new land and  how he finally found his true calling as a writer.  In the previous Super Sad True Love Story, his character, Lenny, is a collector of “printed, bound media artifacts(aka) books.

Some people say that a world of more and more social media and is even desirable and less and less privacy is inevitable. We learn more everyday just how much governments and corporations know about us and everyday there is another mass breach of our privacy.  Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA wanted to have eavesdropping abilities secretly put on every device sold to the public (and almost got away with it).

It’s true that new generations don’t seem too concerned with these things and also many of the older generation seem to just accept this “progress”.  Perhaps, Shteyngart’s future society, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, may not be far off.  But maybe we should at least question where this is leading us all.  And maybe we should remember where we came from and not be so afraid of being accused of not being “with it”.

 

 

“HUMAN REALITY”                    Lyrics by Alan Chrisman c. 2013


1.There is no perfection                                Chorus:

Not everything is connected                 Everybody lies

There is no excuse                                   Everybody cries

There is no simple truth                         Everybody dies

                                                                    Not everybody flies

2.There is no black                                               

There is no white                              4. There is no smart addict             

There’s only wrong                            There is no escape    

There’s only right                               There’s only ourselves to blame

                                                               There’s only human joy and pain

                                                                        

3.There’s not always a reason            5.  The Spirit is overrated                 

Things are never simple                      Our ego’s are inflated

They are always complex                    Most have already made up their minds

It’s always a changing season             Few will take the necessary time

 

6.Doesn’t matter how much we say

Only what we do

Whether we deliver

And come through

We are not the same

 

7.We are not equal

We are not the same

We are all different

In more than a name

 

8.Only you can grow

Only you can know

And not be a slave

And can yourself save

 

 Hear " HUMAN REALITY" By Al & THE G-Men under Songs and CD's Heading.

 

 



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"BABY BLUE" & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND

9/4/2014

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”BABY BLUE” & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND by Alan L. Chrisman

Badfinger has always been one of my favorite bands. Badfinger was a Beatles-produced band in the early 70’ who had 4 albums  and 4 top singles on the Beatles’ label, Apple Records. Amazingly, one of my favorite songs by them “Baby Blue” had a resurgence in 2013, as it was chosen for the final episode of the popular Breaking Bad TV show, and it ended up back in the charts at no. 14.  Some people may not know they also wrote the song, ”Without You” which Harry Nilsson had a number one hit with in 1972 and Mariah Carey in ’94.

Originally called The Iveys, they were the first non-Beatles band signed to their new Apple label in 1968.  They changed their name to “Badfinger” after an incident when John Lennon had hurt his finger playing what was later to be the Beatles’ song, “With A Little Help from My Friends”. Paul McCartney wrote and produced their first big hit, “Come And Get It”, which was on their first Badfinger album, the soundtrack to the Peter Sellers movie Magic Christian Music, produced by Tony Visconti, later David Bowie’s producer.  Their next album, “No Dice” had the afore-mentioned “Without You” and “No Matter What” hits released in 1970.  Their 3rd Apple release was the solid “Straight Up” LP with “Baby Blue” produced by Todd Rundgren and “Day After Day”, produced by George Harrison.

The four members of the band were originally from Wales and  Liverpool ( Pete Ham, guitar, Tom Evans, bass and Mike Gibbons, drums, Joey Molland guitar).  Molland even looked similar to McCartney. They all four wrote songs so catchy that people often took them for the Beatles and their harmonies. They also played on several Beatles’ solo albums like Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Ringo’s single,”It Don’t Come Easy”. And they played at Harrison’s Bangladesh Benefit Concert in ’71 and Ham with Harrison for his “Here Comes The Sun” duet.

But then fate was to turn on this storied band, for the Beatles broke up in 1970, just at the height of Badfinger’s success, with their record label in lawsuits and Badfinger’s money too tied up for years afterward. They released their final album for Apple, Ass, in 1973, with their goodbye song ” Apple of My Eye”. Afterwards, they got a deal with Warners Bros label, and released two decent albums Badfinger and Wish You Were Here in 1974. But they also met an unscrupulous new manager and he disappeared with the advance money the record company had given them and that put them on the financial hook for his actions and wouldn’t publicize their albums or release any future ones. .  They went back in Apple’s studio one last time to record Head First, but it wasn’t released until 2000.  And it was only the beginning of their troubles, for their main songwriter, Pete Ham, was found hanged in April, 1975.  The remaining members tried to carry on in various bands and solo projects for the next several years.   Molland and Evans recorded a “comeback” album Back on The Airways for Electra in ’79.  It’s actually, one of their best, I think, besides their Apple releases, with several quite good songs on it like the title rocker and the Beatlely ballad single, “Love Is Gonna Come at Last”; I recommend it if you can find it.

I actually met the remaining members and got their autographs when they played Ottawa, Canada’s Barrymore’s Hall in the early 80’s.  They released another decent album “Say No More” in ’81.  But soon they fell apart again and at one time, there were two rival touring bands, one led by Evans, one by Molland, both claiming to be Badfinger.  This led to more lawsuits and money woes and tragically, in Nov. ’83, Tom Evans also committed suicide, still evidently despondent over his earlier bandmate, Pete Ham’s, death eight years before.

Thus Badfinger’s story became more known for its tragedy than its music often, unfortunately. All the members had recorded various solo projects that were finally released over the years: Pete Ham’s 7 Park Avenue (’97) and Golder’s Green (’99); Tom Evan’s Over You: The Final Tracks(’95) and Molland has 4 albums After The Pearl (’85), The Pilgrim(’92),This Way Up(2001) and Return To Memphis (2013). Badfinger fans are advised to check them out for they all contain some well-written songs.  I met member, Joey Molland, again at the Connecticut Beatles’ Convention in’94 and he signed my beloved original Apple album Staight Up.  Goldmine collector’s magazine said that Straight Up was the most requested out-of- print album in 1988 their subscribers wanted released again.  Under pressure, Apple Records did re-release their Badfinger albums on CD , as Come And Get It: The Best Of Badfinger in 1995 and the Very Best Of Badfinger in 2000.

Finally in 2013, the surviving member of Badfinger, Molland, (drummer Gibbons died in Florida in 2005) and the other members’ families got their royalty payments settled in court.  Pete Ham’s song “Without You” alone was worth over a half million dollars for his in ’94, when Mariah Carey had hit again with it.  With Breaking Bad’s re-hit of “Baby Blue, 42 years after its first release, there would be no doubt more to come. 

So the amazing story of Badfinger was to be fated both good (produced by and played with The Beatles) and bad.  Dan Matovina’s book, Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger was written in 1998 and re-issued in 200O.

But to me, what’s important is their great music, that’s stood the test of time and I was lucky to get to meet them and hear them play their songs.  Badfinger remains one of my favorite bands and their songs have proven to last.   One of the bands I managed, played “ Baby Blue” , especially for me,  at the Ottawa Beatles’ Conventions I organized.   For You, Baby Blue.

 

 

 

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May 08th, 2014

8/26/2014

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Lewinsky,The Clintons, Donald Sterling & Political Correctness

An Essay about Our Times by Alan L. Chrisman, 2014

Monika Lewinsky says in the June issue of Vanity Fair that she is still being vilified over the Clinton affair.  And it’s created quite a reaction. How dare she drudge up this scandal again!  Media panelists’ have complained that she just move on with her life.  But she maintains she has tried, but has been unable to find jobs (despite going to the London School of Economics).  One female pundit said she could have volunteered to aid in Africa (like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates’ foundation) or changed her name, etc.   Male P.R. consultants said she should have just re-created a new public “narrative” as ex-President Clinton has done.  America just loves a comeback story.

I always thought it strange that it was, ironically, the female feminists who most criticized her but forgave Bill Clinton, the womanizer.  Of course they were mainly Democrats and consider themselves and him progressive, so it could be excused.  And there is a whole history of ‘progressives’ like the Kennedy’s being womanizers and it being dismissed.  Of course, they can’t wait for Hillary to run for President in 2016.  I recommend you read Roger Morris’s “Partners in Power”: The Clintons and their America, to get another view.   CNN host, Don Lemmon, said Lewinsky should have been more mature, as he was when her age he hinted, than to have an affair with a married man.   Lewinsky was an intern at the White House but only in her early 20’s when she became involved with the most powerful “boss” on earth.  But we have long had a double standard for males and male politicians.  At the worse, they became jokes like Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer or right-wing fundamentalists, caught with their pants down.  But as Lewinsky argues, we continue to blame the women.  I was surprised myself, when my own mother had said at the time of the Clinton scandal, that it was Lewinsky’s fault.

We live, and have for a while now, in a time of political correctness.  People outside the U.S .(as in Canada, where I now live) often have this view of America as a very religious, conservative place.  Canadians see themselves as more liberal and nice and less violent (despite their love of hockey fights).  But almost all the U.S. media is owned by big and ‘liberal’ corporations on the East and West coasts.  And of course, Hollywood wants to have a social conscious with its overpaid actors and executives.
The recent Donald Sterling incident, the L.A. Clippers owner, when he was      
caught making racist remarks, is also revealing.  He has evidently had these views for years and the NBA knew it and allowed it all this time.  It’s interesting:  he actually grew up in one of the poorest and mixed-race neighborhoods in L.A., as did his supposed girlfriend (she went to the same high school 50 years later), V. Stiviano or “Visor” woman as she has become known in the media.  And they both had created a new “narrative” in the American way: he changed his Jewish name to Sterling and she her’s too and has had plastic surgery, to hide her ethnic background.

So I think he’s genuinely surprised with all the controversy.  Afterall, he made the mistake of just saying out loud what he’s probably thought all along and those around him have dismissed ( even Stiviano says he’s not a racist).  Again, he’s just lived the American Dream and become a capitalist and escaped from the ghetto, like the rappers, and couldn’t understand why his girlfriend would want to dredge up the past by hanging around with a black athlete (even though the majority of NBA players are).  He’s just an old man who has racist views, but like a lot of us, nobody wants to admit we’re not as unprejudiced in all kinds of things, as we think we are.  
 

As I said in my own book, “It’s  A Long Way Home”, (see 'memoir/book' heading), after living both in the U.S. and Canada, I believe politics is really about both liberals and conservatives each thinking that the other has less morals than they do.  Liberals think conservatives are not “open” enough and conservatives think liberals are too “open”.  But to me, there seems a lot of hypocrisy on both sides and in both the Clinton affair and the Sterling incident. 

And the media is also guilty of its own.  

   







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THE BEATLES:  WHY THEY STILL MEAN SO MUCH

8/17/2014

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 “THE BEATLES EFFECT”:  WHY THEY STILL MEAN SO MUCH

 by Alan L. Chrisman

I just re-read Chris O’Dell’s book, Miss O’Dell:  My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, & The Women They Loved, about working for many of rock’s greatest artists.  It’s been out a few years now, but you know how sometimes you don’t always fully get an album or book the first time.  But as Patti Boyd, says on the cover, “It’s a riveting, honest, brave account and I couldn’t put the book down”.  She would know because she was George Harrison’s first wife and O’Dell became one of her best friends.

Miss O’Dell, a girl from small-town Oklahoma, through a chance meeting with Derek Taylor, one of their close associates, gets a job possibility to come to London and work for the Beatles’   new company, Apple Corps., 1968.   Just the right amount of smarts and assertiveness leads her to become one of their most trusted inner-circle.  She stays at their homes and becomes good friends with their wives.  She does many things, especially, for George and Patti, including  the typing of George’s lyrics for his break-through solo album, All Things Must Pass and he writes a song for her,” Pisces Apple Lady”.  She attends Beatles’ recording session (something that even Beatle wives weren’t supposed to do, until Yoko) and sings behind “Hey Jude”.  She also meets many of their rock star friends like Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and was briefly intimate with them as well as Ringo, even, at one point.  For she becomes their confidante, as well, something that rock idols seemed to need, as they have to live in often isolated worlds.

She tells these amazing inside stories and gives us a glimpse at what these larger than life personalities were really like and is especially good at capturing the complexities of each.  Miss O’Dell shows us what it’s like to be Rock Royalty.  We think their lives are so glamorous and they are, and they can indulge their excesses-drink, drugs, and egos more because they have the power and money to do so.  But it seems it’s just one less thing to worry about perhaps, for as human beings, there’s always something else wanted.  So each Beatle tried to find his own peace, in different ways.  At one point, George tells Miss O’Dell, that she’s “the lucky one”, a less complicated life perhaps and without all the increased expectations.  Many of them would also pay a price for their fast lives in the 60’s, as a list of their relatively-early deaths, at the end of her book reveals.

But when The Beatles fall apart and she has to find another job, she misses being in on the action, and becomes increasingly involved in heavier drugs herself.  She then becomes the tour manager for some of the top other rock acts, Stones, Dylan, CSNY, and many others.  Her organizational skills and abilities at satisfying rock star’s demands and egos come in handy.  It’s no wonder she later went back to school and became a Professional Personal and Abuse Counselor.  She remained friends with The Beatles and their wives and ex-wives and many others she knew closely.  So, Miss O’Dell is a fascinating and rare inside story of The Beatles and her own life.

You Never Give Me Your Money & The Beatles After the Break-up by Peter Doggett

Reviewed by A. Chrisman

I’ve always been most fascinated with two periods of The Beatles, especially, their beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg and in their later years 1968-70, before their break-up.  The irony is that I think they made some of their most interesting music at those times.  Besides many of us being affected by them, The Beatles Story is, I think so intriguing, because it really encompasses a bit of everything-from rags to riches beginnings, youthful ideals, artistic success, love, later in-fighting, and perhaps even, eventually a kind of  redemption.  In other words, all the things, that all of us, as human beings probably go through in our own relationships and lives.  But their journey happens at a much higher profile and speeded-up rate.  After all, they as a group, The Beatles, only lasted about 10 years.   It’s hard to believe because so much happened in that time.  It truly was at a special time in history, “The Sixties: The Decade That Changed the World’, as some have called it.

They were a big part of that, for they revolutionized not only pop music and culture, but so much more.  I think that is why The Beatles continue to fascinate us, not only the Baby boomers who grew up with them, but also generations to come.

Peter Doggett points out in his book, You Never Give Me Your Money & The Beatles After the Break-up that their own company, Apple Corps. began in 1968 originally as a way, suggested by their financial advisors, to protect their money from the British tax system.  But The Beatles, being artists and not businessmen, saw it also as a way to help other up-and-coming artists. They never forgot how they themselves had been pretty well ignored by the music industry, until a little-respected branch of Britain’s EMI record label and a potential-seeing producer, George Martin, finally gave them a chance. 

They had this idealistic and youthful 60’s ideal that they could perhaps offer that chance to others at the same time.  But pretty soon, as with the excesses of the sixties, a lot of freeloaders started taking advantage of them and Apple.  And it was fast becoming a financial mess.  On top of that, The Beatles were going in different directions themselves, personally and creatively.   Always before they had, despite the differences between members, especially John and Paul, the creative-opposites and main songwriters on which they revolved, been able to come together.  There was always a bit of rivalry between John and Paul, as anyone who’s has had an older sibling can understand, and they needed the others’ approval, and it made for a balance in their song writing.  But now George too, was coming into his own as a songwriter, and felt unrecognized by the other two.  They were also, at the same time, fighting just to keep control of their song publishing, for which they had had to made deals in the beginning.  They had left all the business decisions to their manager, Brian Epstein, but he was no longer there to protect them and the businessmen and lawyers saw their chance.  So it was the perfect storm.  Soon The Beatles were divided into different camps.  There was street-wise, Allan Klein, that John & Yoko admired (and George and Ringo went along with) on one side and McCartney and his wife, Linda Eastman’s more refined lawyer family on the other.  Doggett documents, step by step, the long drawn out battle.   The interesting thing though is, it seemed nobody really did totally want to end their fruitful partnership, but like in a torn marriage, no one also wants to admit they’re wrong.  And the divorce proceeds.

So it comes to an end, tellingly, at the same time as the 60’s decade ends.  The split, especially in such acrimony, sends shockwaves throughout the pop culture.  For, as I say, The Beatles had become more than just a pop band.  They represented the hope of the Woodstock generation that we could all get along on just love and peace.  Then John Lennon, in one of his first Beatles-split solo albums sang, “ The dream is over” and that he didn’t believe in Beatles as well as all the other icons we had looked up to.   He said he just believed in “Yoko and me and that’s reality”.  He was no longer the Elvis-inspired, teenage wannabe rocker that had gotten him to start The Beatles.

Many fans still hoped, for years after, that somehow they (or our idealized vision of them) would somehow hold time at a standstill and re-unite.  But it was not to be. Times had changed and so had they. They had grown up and so would we. They continued in their solo albums and lives, Paul with Linda and Wings, John with Yoko, George fulfilled his acceptance as a songwriter, and Ringo just being himself.  But The Beatles were always more than the sum of their individual parts, as became apparent.  Ironically, they were still to compete with each other throughout their solo careers (and secretly meet with each other) and even came close a couple times to, possibly, re-forming.  By 1973, Klein was replaced as head of Apple by their long time loyal Liverpool assistant and got it back on track, Neil Aspinall (whom my Russ/Cdn. friend, Yury Pelyushonok, got to know a bit when they were discussing possibly publishing his book about the Beatles’ effect on the Soviet Union and he described Aspinall as their “guardian angel”).   But then John was assassinated by a fan and later George was stabbed by another mentally ill fan and then died of cancer.

So The Beatles’ Story, took on almost Shakespearian proportions.  As I said, it had everything-innocence, great achievement, even sadly, tragedy.  It also paralleled our own lives and journeys as many of us also went through our own innocence, loves and perhaps relationship break-ups.  But of course, there are the magnificent songs that have remained timeless.   True artists articulate a society’s and people’s feelings, often in advance, and perhaps when we hear or see them, we see our own reflections. The Beatles were able in their songs, more than any other group, perhaps, to capture a range of emotions with which a wide cross-section of us could identify. The energy, hope and innocence of their early “Yeah Yeah” songs to the experimental albums and songs of Rubber Soul, Revolver, Peppers, White Album, to the bittersweet/ break-up Let it Be and yet they were somehow to end with the beautiful harmonies of Abbey Road.  And their solo albums also reflected their and our more coming to grips with our maturity.  The Beatles were always able to affect people on many different levels at the same time.   “ I am he as you are he and we are all together”, as John Lennon sang on, “I Am The Walrus”.   “Imagine” is played every New Year’s Eve in Times Square and John Lennon is respected for his ideals and music and Harrison for his songs and his spirituality.  The Beatles finally released the documentary & The Anthologies in the mid-90’s, which Neil Aspinall had first conceived and had been compiling since 1970 and it sold 30 million copies and were the top selling albums in the world those years and showed their longevity.  50 years later and counting, Paul and Ringo are still performing and able to bask in their well–earned legacy.  And there’s even a kind of redemption in that.

I ‘m still amazed myself, how new generations are still affected by them, all these years later, a  half-century later now since their North American Invasion.  I was at a family get-together, recently, and a grand- nephew of mine came up to me to introduce his high school girlfriend to me.  Evidently he had told her that I knew some things about The Beatles.  She was all ga-ga (and not for Lady Ga-Ga evidently), but for The Beatles.  So I told her a couple of my own Beatles’ experiences and gave her a copy of my book, “It’s A Long Way Home” (& How Beatles’ Music Saved My Life).   I noticed that she was like those young awe-struck first Beatles’ fans or like we were when we first saw them on the Ed Sullivan show.  She could relate just as much to them, even all these decades later.  Somehow their songs were able to still capture all those moments in time and the emotions.  And it wasn’t just the Babyboomers, like me who had grown up with them, but for new generations to come too, it seemed.  The girl insisted on giving me a hug after, and I knew some things would always feel the same.  “Yeah Yeah Yeah”

 

 


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DIANE KEATON("ANNIE HALL") HAS STILL GOT IT!

8/5/2014

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DIANE KEATON (“ANNIE HALL”) HAS STILL GOT IT!

By Alan L. Chrisman

Like many men, I’ve long had a crush on Diane Keaton, especially since her defining role of Annie Hall in Woody Allen’s classic film of the same name in 1977.  But even before that, she stood out in his previous films, Play It Again, Sam (’72) Sleeper (’73) and Love and Death (‘75).

The accomplished actress has also been a director, producer, and photographer and writer.  She just released her 2nd memoir/ book, Let’s Just Say, It Wasn’t Pretty, after her previous one, Then Again.

I’ve always wondered though, how much she was really like her screen persona (or was she more of a Woody Allen-created character?).  She says in her new book that Woody Allen made Diane Keaton, the actress (her real name was Diane Hall).  He also had a relationship with her and its clear his Annie Hall film and character was partly based on their real relationship, which is why I think it rings so true still.

She made films and had relationships with Al Pacino (The Godfather ’72), Warren Beatty (Reds ’81) and Jack Nicholson (with whom she later made Something’s Gotta Give, 2003).  But these men were at the time, certainly, not the settling-down type of guys.  Although, as with Allen, who she says is still one of her best friends, she has remained good friends with them too.

But she has remained unmarried.  A large part of “Pretty” is about her present life as a single mother with her two adopted teen-aged children, Dexter and Duke.

So what is she really like?  She reveals in the book, she likes to buy and renovate houses (her dad was a real estate agent and engineer).  Her mother was a homemaker and creative and inspired her to pursue an artistic profession.  She has portraits on her wall of some of her favorite men’s faces: Abraham Lincoln, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Sam Shepard, (which may say something about her ideal of men, or perhaps, is reminiscent of her late father).

She’s 68 now and still wearing the thick belts, wide brimmed hats, etc. which she made fashionable in the 70’s.  She has a new film And So It Goes out now with another “silver fox”, as she calls him, Michael Douglas.  She’s resisted plastic surgery as so many other actresses her age haven’t; she says young people mix her up with everyone from Jane Fonda to Katy Perry!

In the book she even quotes some of the funny dialogue from two of my other favorite Woody Allen films with Keaton in them, Sleeper and Love and Death. There’s a scene in Sleeper, set in the future, where they’ve escaping from the bad guys and they’re hungry so Woody (Miles) finds these giant vegetables and fruit growing and he drags this gigantic banana for them to munch on, and Keaton (Luna), playing a spoiled woman of the future, says is that the best you can do?  In Love and Death, Russian Sonja (Keaton) wants to get Boris (Allen) to join in a plot to assassinate Napoleon; he just wants to have sex with her and says he might not be up to a performance, although he wouldn’t mind “rehearsing”.  In Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex, Allen playing a jester, finds a wife wearing a metal chastity belt and tries to break through it at her crotch using a large lance, as he says something like, “Yes, I shall try and openeth thy box with thy trusty shaft”.   In all these, Allen shows the lengths men (sometimes foolishly) will go for a beautiful woman like Keaton.  In Annie Hall, one of its many great scenes, is when Allen and Keaton are in a park just observing people go by and Woody asks people what makes relationships work- everyone has a different answer.  Soon they see a super-handsome couple, like out a Hollywood poster, and the couple says,” We’re both superficial and shallow”.   Allen, when at his best, has no equal when it comes to expressing both the pain and joy in relationships and yet making us laugh, hilariously, at the same time.

Is Diane Keaton really like Annie Hall?  From her books and interviews on late night TV shows, she sure seems to be a lot like her-that same unique, quirky, but lovable character of a woman.  It’s easy to see why Allen and so many others of we men have fallen for her.

LA-DI-DA!  Diane Keaton still has It!

I had my own sort of “Annie Hall” moments in a relationship.  This is a short excerpt from my own recent memoir, “ It’s A Long Way Home”:  CHAPTER 19: LADY IN RED pt. 2 (“Annie Hall”)

I had over the past two years, since I’d first noticed that “LADY IN RED” walking down the street, seen her around my neighborhood.  A couple of times, I saw her with a cute little girl.  I figured she must be a single mom.  I was still very curious about her, but had been trying to make my marriage work.  Finally, one day, when I was divorced and separated again, I saw her walk by my store.   I just ran up to her on the street.  I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled, believing somewhat in astrology, the worst pick-up line, ”When’s your birthday?’  She replied, ”Why it’s tomorrow!”  I had guessed someone’s sign again.  I mentioned that I had a little record shop in the neighborhood and maybe she would like to drop by sometime (thinking I had probably blown it).

But the very next week, to my immense surprise, she did come in.  And she was wonderful-very intelligent, warm, had a great laugh, and was beautiful (my ideal).  We hit it off from the first time.  She said her name was Anne and that she was a photographer.  She continued coming in on a regular basis.  We didn’t always agree, but she was always stimulating.  I started buying her lunches from a take-out pita place next door when she would drop in, as well as our usual tea.  It was good to have someone to treat once in a while. Like I said, she was full of surprises.  It was nearing Christmas and I asked her what I could get her and she asked for a certain book.

I now called her Annie, the same as one of my favorite Woody Allen characters, played by Diane Keaton in “ANNIE HALL”.

But sometimes the pressures would build up and we’d argue over books, movies, music, anything, and she’d withdraw for a while.  Once, early on, she hadn’t talked to me for several weeks.  I saw her go by my store and next door to the pita place.  I had been rehearsing a joke in case I did run into her, from a Woody Allen movie:  “A man goes into a bar, and he notices a guy with carrots in his ears.  The man asks the bartender, “Why?”   The bartender says, “Why don’t you ask him when he comes in tomorrow at 5 p.m.?”  Next evening, sure enough, the guy comes in, but this time the guy has bananas in his ears.  So the man asks the guy, “Why the bananas in your ears?”  The guy replies, ”Because I ran out of carrots”.  

Woody Allen said that relationships are like that; they often don’t make any sense, but we need them.  So I tell her the joke while she waits for her pita.  And she laughs.  It works!  And she drops by my store right after and we talk.

Another time, she cuts off me for 6 months!  It’s the worse winter in years; record snowfalls.  She won’t even talk to me, but each pay check, I leave a little gift in her mailbox-a book, DVD movie, music, etc.  Finally, one time I leave a note.  She angrily calls me back and says never to leave a note again.  But I asked her if I could still leave gifts, and she said, ”OK”.  I knew she was keeping the door open a little.  Soon after, I ran into her in a parking lot.  I had changed cars, I didn’t think she recognized me, so I rolled down the window and said,  ”You know you could call me sometime”.  The next morning, she calls me and we discuss it very briefly.   And she always did it this way; she puts the phone down and then calls right back.  I ask her if she’d like to go for lunch.   We meet and it’s soon forgotten and we’re back on track again.  So it was never dull.  People outside, even friends, can try to judge, but nobody can really understand anybody else’s relationships.  Sometimes even the people inside them don’t even know how they work or don’t.  The old carrot and banana joke again.

 

 “Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge.       Others only gargle”.      Woody Allen.

 

 

 

 

 

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HOW BEATLES HELPED BRING DOWN COMMUNISM!

4/28/2014

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ABOVE: YURY PELYUSHONOK'S CD OF SONGS "YOU CAN"T WHISPER ROCK'N' ROLL" TO ACCOMPANY HIS BOOK:  BELOW BBC DIRECTOR  LESLIE WOODHEAD VISITS YURY IN OTTAWA AND TO VIDEO "YEAH YEAH VIRUS" FOR HIS FILM "HOW THE BEATLES ROCKED THE KREMLIN", 2009:
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LINK TO YURY PELYUSHONOK'S CD:  www.cdbaby.com/cd/yurypelyushonok  &  "YEAH YEAH VIRUS" VIDEO:  vimeo.com/7446336
“YEAH YEAH VIRUS”

“While in the West the Beatles stepped on all the rules

The 60’s beat was echoing through all the Soviet schools.

Every Russian schoolboy wants to be a star

Playing Beatles’ music, making a guitar.

 

Teachers looked upon this as if it were a sin,

We were building Communism but the Beatles butted in.

‘Nyet’ to Beatles music.  ‘Da’ the students said.

Even Comrade Brezhnev sadly shook his head…” (1)

 

 



  1. “Yeah Yeah Virus”, Yury Pelyushonok-Olga Sansom, c. PLY Publishing 2000.

     

     
CHAPTER 26 (“IT’S A LONG WAY HOME”):                                   A BRIEF ALTERNATIVE  HISTORY OF ROCK                   

Rock music has only been around for only about 60 years now.  But it has become such a part of our culture that we may have forgotten that.  When it started in the 1950’s, it was considered only for teenagers and adults didn’t take it seriously.  Its early pioneers Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard,  Buddy Holly, etc. were just trying to make as, boy genius/ producer, Phil Spector said, ”little symphonies for the kids” but only of 2-3 minutes duration.

Its early founders almost all came from the southern U.S.  There are reasons for this, because early rock n’ roll was basically a combination of two forms, rhythm- blues and country (which some have called white man’s blues, like Hank Williams’), which at the time could only have been heard in the South.  Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn., said if he could find a white man who could sing with the soul of a black, which he did with Elvis, he could have cross-over hits.  And he was also to do that with rest of the million-dollar quartette, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.  These white artists called this new music they created “rockabilly”.

Where a performer came from had a lot to do with the kind of music they created.  Rock is a hybrid  and rock comes from the cities.  Black blues musicians may have originally come from rural areas (again the South), but it wasn’t until such as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker moved north for jobs after the war, that blues turned  closer into electric rock and became the Chicago Blues and Detroit Motown.  Texas is interesting, for example, because so many artists came out of it: Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison, Del Shannon, Janis Joplin, Willie Nelson, Bob Wills, for it had not only the two prerequisite forms but swing and Tex-Mex too.  Other cities became centers that became known for certain sounds or styles, Nashville (country), New Orleans (Jazz, Acadian, R&B; Prof. Longhair, Fats Domino), Memphis Soul and later in the 60’s, San Francisco(psychedelic) and L.A.    Even folk (although rural  originally) wasn’t popular until it moved into the clubs of New York City and Boston.   Liverpool was a seaport, as was Hamburg, Germany, where The Beatles got exposure to American records.   Bob Marley came out of Kingston, Jamaica and helped combine ska and American Soul to form reggae.  Chuck Berry, probably more influential than Elvis, was from St. Louis, half way between the North and South and wrote perfect little vignettes using black music to reach white kids.  In other words, it required a cross-current of cultures and styles to reach a greater (but, ironically, more accessible) synthesis.   As Charlie Gillett’s classic book’s title says, rock is truly the “Sound of the City” (1970).  Rhythm from black music combined with more melodic white music and made a new form- rock, which helped lead to a wider racial intergration of society even. 

But there have also been, I think, several myths about rock.  There seems to be this idea that the closer an artist is to its roots, the more authentic he or she is.  There has been this concept that somehow the more pure it’s form the better, such as blues-based or acoustic folk.  The whole history of rock is in some ways the ‘borrowing’ of black music by whites, as jazz also came from black culture.  But too many white rock artists, I think, have tried to sound too much like black singers in their voices.  Rock has been mainly for white audiences, until fairly recently.  Still the myth has persisted.  The same with folk music;  Bob Dylan realized he had to compete with The Beatles by moving to electric despite the purist’s boos and Jimi Hendrix showed how the electric guitar could express more than acoustic.  Bands like the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin , because of their closer blues influences , have been considered by some critics more “legitimate” and rock.   Whereas, The Beatles were considered more of a pop band, because they came from that background too.  The elitists always looked down on popular culture, because it was popular.   In the 60’s, fans were often split between the two; The Beatles being the “good guys” and the Stones the “bad boys”.   When in fact, it was more because of marketing images created by their managements.  They were actually friends and the Beatles had written the Stones’ first hit for them and had helped them get their record contract.  Often the Stones would follow The Beatles in their directions and even album names and covers (Sgt. Pepper, Satanic Majesties’ Request; White Album then Beggars Banquet’s, Let it Be, Let it Bleed).  The Beatles were the artistic revolutionaries and the other groups almost always followed in their lead.  Someone said The Beatles moved from being pop stars to becoming artists (rare) and Dylan moved from underground folk to pop acceptance.  And of course rock always had that rebel persona.  It seemed if an artist lived fast and died young (Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain all died at age 27), it could only help your legacy.

Another myth was that rock has to be “working class”.   Interestingly, white blues guitarists like Eric Clapton would dress-down in blue jeans while many black originators like B.B. King, would dress-up in 3-piece suits.    Bob Dylan, although he was a Jewish upper middle-class kid from Minnesota , fabricated a whole Woody Guthrie 30’s dustbowl image.   Later Rolling Stone Magazine would try to cast Bruce Springsteen as the new working-class Dylan.  But most of the 60’s rock artists, like most of the “hippies” came from affluent backgrounds.  Even The Beatles (although working –class by North American standards), except for Ringo, came from lower middle class homes.  Mick Jagger’s father taught at The London School of Economics.  Madonna was a Catholic girl from conservative Michigan before she became the Material Girl and professed Woman power.  Michael Jackson sang ‘safe’ black music for white audiences and middle class blacks mainly, and thus claimed to be the King of Pop, not Rock.   Punk, although it may have been working class originally in England with the Sex Pistols, by the time it reached North America, became embraced by performers and kids from the suburbs.  And Andy Warhol- influenced  ”decadent/art” rockers like Velvet Underground and David Bowie were actually bourgeois.   So there’s always been a bit of a shell game in rock.

As I said, where people come from determines the type of music they make.  Canada is more known for its folk singers, like Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen.   Again it was a mainly rural environment.  Its best and few rockers, the Guess Who and Neil Young, both came from tough city Winnipeg.  The Band were part-American and learned from Ronnie Hawkins from Arkansas.  Alanis Morrissette would follow Madonna in her female middle-class angst.  And as Ottawa’s best 60’s-70’s rock bands, The Staccatos and Five Man Electrical Band,  leader Les Emmerson said, Ottawa “always had the harmonies”,  reflecting its government town homogeneousness.  Reading Ottawa born Paul Anka’s recent autobiography shows just how rock n’ roll has changed.

Before Elvis came in the mid-50’s, pop music was pretty sterile.  And again right before The Beatles in the 60’s, it had become mainly manufactured teen idols or “Bobby Bobby’s” as Jerry Lee Lewis called them, mainly from white northern immigrant backgrounds    But The Beatles changed all that and wrote their own songs.  Even Elvis didn’t write his own songs.  Adults and critics didn’t take pop music seriously until The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper’s.  And suddenly it became art as well.  At its best it could be “poetry in motion”.

It seemed whenever rock music became too predictable and pretentious, a reaction would develop and try and shake it up.  But by the 80’s and 90’s it had become too bloated.  Record companies had become too big and radio stations were owned by conglomerates with set play lists.   Rock always had its theatrical side (Chuck Berry’s duck walk or Jerry Lee Lewis’ and Little Richard’s jumping on the piano), but with MTV, video became more important than the songs.  Rap and Hip Hop which had come from the black ghetto began to take over, but, like disco in the 70’s, it consisted of mainly repetitive beats with little melody and words that seemed made up on the spot.  And pop music for the most part seemed to regress to all the facility of a commercial.  The Baby boomers, the first generation to carry their music on into their maturity, found their own beloved songs used nostalgically to try and sell them cars and consumer products.

 Pop music seems to have reverted back to the manufactured pop and teen American Idols like the early 50’s and early 60’s eras.   But there are likely to be no more Elvis or Beatles to rescue it, because they were unique to their times.   And technology also changed everything.   Music became available 24 hours a day and is perhaps taken more for granted by a new generation that can just download it for free (and not have to pay the artist).  There are few record companies so artists have to be their own and yet compete with everyone who thinks they are a musician and can be a celebrity, posting their own videos and hoping they will go viral on Youtube overnight(often only the most superficial) .   Every performer calls themselves an artist even though a whole committee may write their songs and it all has begun to take itself too seriously.   Pop music has become ubiquitous , but it seems to have lost a lot of its charm.  As I say, rock often has gone through these periods before and been rescued.  But it’s been years now since anyone has really shaken it up.  And with all the technological and cultural changes, it’s unlikely to happen again unless a truly revolutionary, unforeseen, artist or artists would somehow emerge in the future. 

Long Live Rock n’ Roll!
 NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES?                              By Alan L. Chrisman

                                          Book review of Chuck Klosterman’s ”I Wear The Black Hat”(2013).                                                                    

This is a subject that has long interested me, having run a record store for thirty years and having been influenced even longer by pop music and culture.  Why do we like or dislike the things we do or don’t?  It’s always fascinated me why customers (and myself) were drawn to certain artists or certain kinds of music.  Of course, this also applies to movies, books, art of all kinds, sports, even politics, etc.  Why do certain people like certain things and not others?

The cliché is that there’s no accounting for tastes?  Well, there must be.  I’d often ask my customers who was their favorite recording artist or style of music, the first time they came into my store, just to know how I could direct them to what they might like.  Often initially,  they  wouldn’t seem to know or express it.  But usually if I could get them to open up a little, they would finally tell me their preferences.  And sometimes, after dealing with the public after several years of doing it, I developed an almost sixth sense about guessing in what they might be interested.  Probably over all this time, even in my modest establishment, and in my various locations, I would have interacted with perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands, of people, even.

And this made me also wonder, what made me like or dislike certain cultural things too.  So I’ve always been curious why human beings  ”indentify” with certain cultural objects and how we actually make our choices.

We live in a modern time in which pop culture has dominated our lives and in an increasingly media- influenced era.  In fact, it is so pervasive, especially in this social media age, many of us, especially a younger generation, probably don’t even think about it.  Maybe most of us never consciously did.  But as Marshall McLuhan pointed out, perhaps because a lot of it is unconscious, it has an even more powerful effect on us.

We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, but several brain studies have shown that we almost always make our decisions emotionally first and then we rationalize them.  Even if we say it comes from our “heart’, it’s actually taking place in certain brain centers.  Also a lot of pop culture’s appeal is primarily emotional as well as visual and aural.  And we attach a lot of meaning to these cultural objects.

But again why do we each personally like certain things and may even be turned off by others?

I guess anyway, it would have to have something to do with what we’ve been exposed to and at what age.  What and whom we grew up with.  We’re supposed to be more susceptible to things at earlier ages.  And it was often when we were teen-agers when we were most exposed and influenced by the pop culture of the time.  There are of course racial and ethnic differences and gender ones too.

And this raises the even more controversial question of what is art and what is it not?  When does a pop culture item become art and why?  Does something become art just because over time it becomes recognized as such?  Otherwise, perhaps, anything could be considered art.  Remember though, there’s that old caveat that it’s the conquerors who write the history books. And what is “good” and what is “ bad” pop culture or art?

Two contemporary pop culture authors who’ve written especially on this are Carl Wilson and Chuck Klosterman.  Wilson wrote for the Toronto Globe and Mail and in his 2007 book, ”Let’s Talk About Love: Journey To The End of Taste”, he examines the mainly disdainful attitudes of critics like himself towards the popular Canadian songstress, Celine Dion, and her often, what some would call “over the top “ music.   He sites class differences and gender differences, between her audience and the critics, but admits to even his initial biases that force a re-examination of his own.

And Chuck Klosterman, a writer for Spin, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, etc., has written several books on pop culture and its effect on us.  I first ran across him with his first book, “Fargo Rock City”, about the influence of heavy metal music on him growing up.  What got me about him was his always interesting writing, often about music or sports or TV shows or movies that I didn’t grow up with, but that I could still understand why he was influenced.  And then he followed up that book with his 2003 classic book,”Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs”.  For example a passage in it explains, why Johnny Cash’s song “Folsom Prison Blues” was so authentic to even hard-core inmates.  He describes in the song how the prisoner can hear the trains nearby and dreams of the passengers just having a cup of coffee, and not necessarily of a new lawyer or freedom first.  Klosterman often really writes about other things than what he appears to on the surface.  A quote from the introduction of that book, I think sums it up: “In and of itself”, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever “in and of itself”.

So he first helped me realize some of my own prejudices and attitudes when it came to pop culture.  Most of us,I think, like to think of ourselves, as being open to things.  But are we really?  And with the advent of the internet and social media, I think it’s probably made us, ironically, only more polarized.  People only tend to go to websites, which reinforce their own interests.  Users mainly communicate with Facebook friends who like the same things they do.  And these days we get almost all our information through some form of media, entertainment and news both.  Human beings are social animals and have been since the cave man days.  Now we have the whole world we can communicate with, but most of us just get in touch with those we probably already agree with.

Also we have this idea, that we live in a somewhat conservative society, but we don’t ,I maintain.  We live, in the West anyway, in a liberal one and in even a politically-correct one.  Most of us want to be popular and liked.  We want to be part of the crowd (although again we tell ourselves we’re individuals).  After all, it’s called “popular” culture.  But why should it matter who’s popular and No. 1?  All our cultural choices are constantly being ranked in orders and lists.  A lot of people would deny this, (and some would even pride themselves that they are above all that), but an examination of our culture would, I think, prove that’s so.

Critics, often look down on artists when they become popular, as if they are more qualified than the masses.  After all they often get access to new artists and their works before the public, but because they see and hear so much as part of their job, they also can become somewhat jaded and tend to look for something that is “different”.   And, I’ve noticed too, they themselves have their own hierarchy within their ranks, and tend, with few exceptions, to follow their own crowd.  They have power because again, it’s usually the way most of us hear about new works and they are part of the media.  And they often do have a tendency to be elitist.  So a lot of us who are interested in pop culture are often torn between what the critics might say and the masses.

But, many of us would just reply, “Well, I make up my own mind; I think for myself.” “I know what I like.”  But again, just how free are we to make our own conscious decisions.  And what are they really based upon?

As I say, I’ve examined this many years in many others and in myself.  I’ve observed in myself for example, how I seem to make my own decisions about cultural objects.  Some of this is no doubt due to what I was exposed to at an early age, where and when I grew up, my culture, and my personality, etc.  I‘ve often disagreed with the mainstream and even with critics over the years.  What I’ve learned is that often my first reaction to music, movies, books, art is in fact visceral.  It’s only later that that I probably intellectualize it.  Often it”moves”me or it doesn’t.  So clearly that’s an emotional reaction first.  Someone said the worst thing “bad” art can do is not cause any reaction or bore us, put us to sleep even.  And I think that’s true.  I’ve lived long enough now, I think, to come to perhaps certain conclusions, about myself, anyway.    Sometimes things will grow on me, over time or with re-examination, and often those become my longest lasting favorites.  And sometimes I will even “test” myself  by exposing myself to something I don’t think I will like and when I’m surprised I do like it, it bowls me away despite myself.  But that is rare.  I often read several critics first (some of my friends, refuse to read critics, as they think it might influence their decisions and they think they can make up their own mind).  But I realize even a critics opinion is in the end his own anyway and have usually been reading them enough to know where they’re coming from and take that into account.  When I read a book review, for example, I see who the reviewer is and what he’s done himself.  So I weigh all this with my own experience with the work later.  But again, with few exceptions, I seem to usually return to my initial reaction.  I realize most people don’t probably go through such a complex and conscious journey to get there.  And maybe I’m just fooling myself too.  But this is what I try to do anyway.  But it’s likely again that most of us are just “identifying” with the object in some form.  A lot of us, it seems in the end, just want a mirror of ourselves and our views, if we are being honest.  People have always fascinated me.  I always saw my shops and interacting with people as somewhat sociological experiments.  And even now I’m often more interested in how the media cover and the public in turn react to entertainment and news events.

I never cared much for most sports, partly no doubt in reaction to where I grew up, where it was almost like a religion.  And the same now that I’m living in Canada, people here seem just as obsessed with hockey (and its violence).  I understand how people want to feel a part of a team, but the whole flag waving, nationalistic part of it I’ve been uncomfortable with; even the Olympics, pits nation against nation, despite its lofty ideals.  We make excuses for doped athletes because we think everyone is doing it.

And politics is in many ways just trying to do the same thing.  What politics is really about is making its supporters feel they are better than the other side.  And despite politicians’ speeches to bring us together, it’s usually to make us feel superior.  But of course it’s more important than sports because governments directly affect our lives.  And because I majored in Political Science and History in university, it still interests me.  But like popular culture, it’s a bit of a shell game too.  “Liberals” forgive leaders like the Clintons and the Kennedys for their sleazy transgressions because people like to see themselves as not being prudes.  Chuck Klosterman examines this phenomenon in one of the essays in his latest book, “I Wear The Black Hat”, about how we secretly admire bad guys and gals, especially if they’re handsome or beautiful.  And amazingly, even feminist women forgive these womanizers.  The most popular TV shows , even on cable, are lovable criminals(Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men).  Of course, the conservatives are just as corrupt but they usually aren’t so adept at hiding it.  Why because, like with pop culture, we like to think of ourselves as more “open”(when most of us probably aren’t).  But who wants to think of themselves as not progressive and thus being politically correct has become a big part of our culture. We feel guilty about our less fortunate and how certain minorities and racial groups have been treated and still are.  So we compensate by sometimes trying to bend over backwards, and it makes for some strange contortions.  For guilt is a big part of our affluent cultures and our religions.  And that’s also reflected in our arts and media.

So who is really wagging the tail in our choices and lives?  And what can we do about it and become more aware and conscious?  Do most people really even want to?  We like to be

comfortable in our cocoons, don’t we?   And as I said, we seem perhaps, increasingly so in our modern media age.  Perhaps we first have to realize that things aren’t always what they appear.

And we have to really want to shake up our worlds and not just give lip service to it.  Most of us are just too busy running around trying to keep up and pay the bills.  We’ve got to have the latest device and consume more things.  Most of us have the necessities now so, as Klosterman points out, it’s now about trying to fill our desires and escapes.  We didn’t achieve it in our previous generations and I doubt if many of the new generations are either.  They and most of the developing world want what this new technology is supposed to give.  Youtube and the internet is as Kosterman says, not even about content anymore.  It’s the perfect capitalist tool; it’s now about who can rack up the most followers and customers (it’s interesting that term “followers”, not leaders or individual thinkers). Everybody thinks they can be an artist, a celebrity and, be ”liked”.  It’s no coincidence they’re called Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, I-Pads,I-Tunes, and now we even have “Selfies”.  It’s all about “Us” and “ME, ME, MINE”, it seems.   We’ve reverted back to amateur pop Idols and divas whom compete to be the most superficially outrageous.  Most of our popular movies are based more on fantasy and special effects and with our innocent childhood comic book heroes, their dark sides are being emphasized.  It’s hard to value even our true artists and their works when we can download them for free 24/7 (with the artist not getting compensated).  Perhaps this is just human nature and always has been, but as McLuhan said, technology changes us, good and bad, in profound ways.  The more we become conscious of how, the better we have a chance to use it and not it us, and that goes for both pop culture and politics.   

What I like about Klosterman’s writing and books, is how he’s able to uncover our true motivations as humans and how we react to art and popular culture and it’s often unseen influences on us.
   DREAMS, THE BRAIN, ART, AND HAPPY ENDINGS 

                                       Essay  by Alan L. Chrisman (2014)

I’ve always been fascinated with dreams.  Since my childhood I’ve had them where I’m usually lost or I’m up somewhere high (I’m afraid of heights) and can’t find my way down.  Sometimes I just wake up in horror (I call those nightmares-negative) and am just relieved I’m still alive.  Other times I somehow find my way back to earth (I call them dreams-postive) in sometimes quite unexpected ways ( like sliding down an unseen ladder) with a sense of relief and peace.  I also have learned that these can give me creative ideas.

I’ve read that supposedly what the human brain does in sleep, is try to put all the various stimulations( a lot of it unconscious: sights, sounds, smells, emotions, etc.), we’ve had over the day into some kind of sense or order.  We used to believe that by the time we reached maturity our brains basically didn’t grow much more.  But we now know that our brains are much more “elastic” than we realized and can grow our whole lives, if we exercise them.  And that teen-ager’s brains especially, are susceptible to this.  That basically what the brain is doing is pruning down to the connections that we most want and need.  We build neurons, depending on-to what we’re exposed.  The more we’re exposed to something, the stronger those connections.  Now this can be both good and bad.  That’s how we can learn and retain tasks, like leaning to play an instrument or anything else.  But it’s also how people become addicts; they begin to focus on only their drug.  So the brain has to find some way to filter through all this information.  And this is the work the brain does at night.  Also the brain has to make some logic of it.  We file away things and remember things in reference to other connections, including emotional ones.

So the brain has a natural tendacy to put things in order.  Things seem to “fit” together and that way of classifying information has a profound effect on us as humans.  And perhaps our dreams help us to sort through things unconsciously.  That’s why, except to the dreamer, when we tell them to others they don’t seem to make sense, although at the time it seems somewhat logical to us, even though there may be all kinds of time and space contradictions.  They sometimes may even tell us things about ourselves.  

So humans seem to like stories.   And Art was created possibly to try and help explain things.  It’s a way for us to escape into a man-created world (somewhat like dreams), where we can experience things and yet still come back down to earth.   Director Roger Corman, talking about horror films, for example, says they allow us to live through our insecurities in a dark theatre, but yet still be safe at the end, perhaps harking back to our dark but warm womb. So these are primeval emotions and needs.  And art helps us explore various scenarios and our imaginations.   So with each art form, film ( tells stories), music ( random notes and tones which we make harmonize), painting( visual pictures and textures) etc., they help us see or hear or feel.  Much like the human brain makes us perceive all our stimuli.  We don’t actually see all the spectrum colours of light or hear all the range of sounds.  Some species see and hear the world different than us.  Our world and our reality is but a reflection of our human brain and ways of looking at things.  And we like things to have answers.  We like beginings and middles and endings.   It has to be rational.  And have a purpose.  We like Happy Endings.  And that’s why we also developed religions.  We want to believe there’s a spiritual part that carries on, a Heaven, a Paradise even.  

We like to organize things in groups.  And we are a social animal.  We like to be with others (most of the time).  We cheer for certain sports teams, wave flags, join political parties.   Again this can be both good and bad.  We can form groups and organize civilization.  But it can also be used to for ‘us and them’ mentalities, so anyone who is different can be perceived as a threat.  Or we can want to just follow the crowd.   We’ve even built our digital computers and our machines, out of a reflection of our minds, to work by making connections with other bits of information.  And most of us mostly use only sites or make connections with others like us and those who usually are interested in the same things we are.  But we make most of our decisions and what we like or don’t like, often based first on the often unconscious more primitive parts of our brains, or past experiences and leaned behaviors.  And then we rationalize them later.  And that goes for our preferences for art and everything else too.  So we may not be as “open” to things as we like to think we are perhaps.  All of us, humans.  But art has the ability to reach us in different, not always only just intellectual and logical but emotional ways, much like dreams.   So there are connections between  dreams, the brain, art and our desire for happy endings.

                      
          
       ALSO FICTION by ALAN L. CHRISMAN:
          

            "STRAYS"              A Short Story by Alan L. Chrisman (2014)

I had run out of food late one night for my cat, Ninja.  It was one of those bitter cold Canadian winter nights (-30c with wind chill), but Ninja had to have her food.

And I knew there was a discount store in my neighborhood that should still be open, so I drove there.  Sure enough, they were still there.  But when I got to the catfood shelf, her favorite kind, Meow’s Pal, was sold out.  Now Ninja’s a pretty smart feline, the smartest I’d ever had, even though I’d found her as a stray as a kitten.  So what was I to do?

But then I remembered a trick I‘d seen in an old Elliot Gould movie, where he’d been in a similar situation with his cat.  So like him, I had to buy the other brand left on the shelf.  And Gould just opened the other brand and put it in an empty can of his cat’s favorite kind, disguising it for his cat.  It worked for him and maybe it would for Ninja too. 

But as I was at the counter, getting ready to pay, there was a pretty woman lined up in front of me.  And I couldn’t help but notice her.  She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and looked a bit like the actress, Scarlett Johansson.  But there was also a tinge of sadness about her too.   A Paul McCartney song, ”Another Day” came into my head for some reason, when I saw her.  And I couldn’t help notice the few items she was purchasing- pasta, sauce, crackers, dark chocolate and cat food.  She paid for her items and walked out the door.  My car was parked in the same direction as the bus stop she was heading towards.  As I said, it was a bad night out and I knew there wouldn’t be a bus very often in these conditions. I walked up slowly to her and said, “I see you had to buy cat food too, even in this weather!”   She fortunately smiled and said, “Yes, my cat only likes a certain brand but they were sold out, so I had to get what was left”.   So I quickly told her my little trick.  She laughed and seemed friendly. I offered her a ride back in my car and with the weather and another smile, she shyly accepted.  It turned out she only lived a few blocks from me.

On the way back we talked of our cats.   I asked her if she liked music.  She said “Yes”.  And I asked what kind and she said she liked The Beatles and especially George Harrison’s.   Now I was a big Beatles fan too, so we seemed to have that in common too as well as cats.  I told her I played guitar a bit and wrote my own songs.  I happened to have one of my CD’s in the car and gave her one. Sometimes I would just give them to people and they usually accepted, but you never knew if they really even listened to them.  But I noticed she did seem genuinely interested and was already looking at the liner notes as we talked.  She said she worked as a clerk at a local store, but she liked to “escape” by reading and music too.  Soon we were at her apartment building and as she got out she said, “Thanks for the ride and the cat tip.  And maybe we’re run into each other again”.  I said, “I hope so; that’d be nice”.   As I drove away, I realized that I’d forgotten to get her name and I hadn’t given her my name either.  But at least she had mine on my CD. I didn’t always remember names, but I usually didn’t forget faces and I’m sure I wouldn’t her beautiful face, even though I had just seen it briefly.

I went home and tried the cat trick on Ninja and she was so hungry it worked.  So I shared with Ninja, my running into this fascinating Catwoman I’d just met.  Later Ninja, who was a good judge of humans, seemed to purr her approval as I described her.  There was just something haunting about her, besides her beauty and smile, and I just couldn’t get her out of my head.

I was a bit of a stray myself.  My parents had been killed in a car accident when I was little and I had been raised by my grandparents.  So when I was old enough to enlist in the army, I had joined.  I was sent to Afganistan.  At first it was alright.  We had been told we were fighting the Talban and for democracy for the people.  But like in Iraq, it soon became not so clear.  We spent most of the time, stuck in our compound in Kabul, with only occasional search and destroy missions out into the countryside which could be very dangerous indeed with hidden IED’s.  Some of my fellow troop members were killed and you never knew if you might be next.

But after a couple years there, I began to wonder if it was worth it.  And the farmers whom we were supposed to be helping could make more money on their crops of poppy plants (made into opiate drugs) than on the other crops we tried to get them to switch to, so who could blame them for resisting our “civilizing” efforts?  But Canadians did build schools and females could attend for the first time in years and we were able to do some good.  But after a while it felt like having to hold back a leaky dam.  The Afgan government was corrupt and would only put in power members of their own tribe.  And much like Iraq, it might well end  up in a protracted civil war, once we left.  So when my tour was finally up,  I was ready to come home.  And I was lucky to have returned in one piece, when so many of my buddies hadn’t.  But still it wasn’t easy adjusting to civilian life.  I had suffered from PTSD.  I had gone to counseling and was a lot better, but still had nightmares about it.  I had drifted from job to job.  And I had lived alone for awhile now, except for Ninja.  So I could often sense strays.

But luckily, I had gotten a job as a caretaker for the apartment building where I lived and had a small apartment in exchange.  It was a small building and the tenants seemed to like me and I’d do small repairs for them and clean and rent it out.  So it wasn’t so bad. I was more or less my own boss, which I liked and it still gave me time to pursue my other interests like music and reading.  I’d write, as I say, my own songs and record them at home on my computer.  Nothing fancy, but it was soothing for me.

I kept hoping I’d see her again as I was curious about her.  And finally one day a few weeks later, as Spring was finally coming through, I did.  I ran into her on the street and again she was very friendly.  She said, she had listened to the CD and liked it.  I told her that I would be performing some of my songs at an “Open Stage” soon.  She seemed interested and she said, “By the way, my name is Jan.  I think I forgot to tell you before.  And you’re Don, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes, glad you liked the music and you might like to see me perform sometime”.   So I gave her the upcoming date (not expecting her to come).   And I was glad to finally have a name to match her pretty  face.

After I went home and told Ninja about our second chance meeting with the Catwoman.  Ninja purred again her approval.  After supper I sat down to write a song about this captivating woman.  I called it, “Jannie With the Light Blonde Hair”, a bit of a take-off of Stephen Foster’s tune, “ Jennie With The Long Brown Hair”, a song I’d liked as a kid.  The words came to me easily, describing both her beauty and her mystery.  I practiced it for the next two weeks and planned to perform it for the first time at the upcoming next “Open Stage”.

That Saturday, I arrived at the small coffeehouse where performers could get up and perform a couple of their own songs.  When my time came I was nervous but prepared.  I sang my first song and it went fine, and then it was time to do my new “Jannie” song.  Just as I started out it, but who do I notice but Jannie herself come in and sit at the back of the coffeehouse.  Then I was really nervous, embarrassed somewhat that she was in attendance, as I sang it live in front of her.  But somehow I got through it and everybody seemed to like it.  And she had a big smile on her face too, knowing it was about her.  She came up and congratulated me and said she was touched.

After, I walked her home on that beautiful Spring evening.  And she came back to my apartment and met Ninja who again purred her approval as she sat on Jannie’s lap.  And we were like three strays who had somehow found each other.
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          ABOVE: CD by " AL & THE G-Men":  Hear under 'SONGS and CD's' page headings.
       " NO STRINGS ATTACHED"   A FILM NOIR STORY 

                                  By Alan L. Chrisman (2013)

It was a cold wintery night when I first saw her.  She was standing by the roadside trying to catch a ride.  I was just coming off my night shift, driving cab.  It had been a long day, with the storm and all and I just wanted to get home and into my warm bed.  There were hardly any cars on the street.  Outside it was not fit for man nor beast, let alone a woman.

I pulled over and offered her a ride.  She got in, lowered her parka and brushed the snow from her hair.  She had long dark hair with a touch of gray.  I asked where she was going and it happened to be just a few blocks from where I lived.  She said she had just gotten off work as a hostess at a local bar/restaurant but had missed the last bus home that night in the storm.  It was only a short ride but it would have been a long cold walk if I hadn’t come along, so she said she really appreciated it.

I noticed immediately there was just something special about her.  She was perhaps in her 40’s, but didn’t look it.  Some women are just ageless, like Sophia Loren.  And she was like that.  Her premature gray only made her even more beautiful.  And she had a killer smile and laugh and seemed quite intelligent.  There seemed to be an innocence about her, but with a sexiness underneath.

Soon we arrived at her house and she took out some money to pay me for the ride, but I refused.  I told her I was on my way home and my taxi was off duty anyway.  She thanked me heartily and said her name was Shelly.  I told her my name was Bill.  And for some reason I blurted out,  “If you ever get stuck again, don’t hesitate to call”, and gave her my number.  But thinking I’d probably never be so lucky to see her again.

I couldn’t get her out of my mind that night.  I tossed and turned, in and out of dreams of her.  But early the next morning, I was awakened by a call: it was as if I was still in a dream.  “Hello, this is Shelly, the lady you were so kind to give a lift home last night”.  I wanted to thank you again.  If I’m not imposing, I am kind of stuck again.  My daughter is sick and I have to take her to a clinic and get her

some medicine and the busses aren’t running with all the snow.  So I wondered if you could give us a ride?  Of course, I’ll pay you extra.”

As I said I never thought I was likely to see her again.  But I said, “Fine”. I was very curious about her.  And it was my day off.  I dug out my car and stopped by her address.  She and a little girl got in my cab.  Shelly introduced her daughter, “Mary, this is the nice man I told you about who gave me a ride home last night in that terrible storm.”  Mary looked thin, but a smaller version of her mom.  I brought them to the clinic and waited while they saw the doctor.  Mary was able to get some medicine there.  After the ride back, Shelly insisted on paying me and added in a nice tip as well.  But I said, “Maybe if you really want to thank me, we could go for a coffee sometime.”  She smiled that enticing smile again and said, “Yes, I’ve got you’re number and I will call soon.”  But she didn’t give me hers.

I had been driving a cab for a while now.  I’d done many jobs before-short order cook, janitor, construction, working in a warehouse, etc.  But for the last few years, I had been driving a taxi.  And basically I liked it.  I enjoyed being my own boss.  There weren’t many jobs left anymore where you could really be that.  Oh sure, even the taxi business was different now.  When I started you could own your own car and set your own hours, but that was changing with almost all the cars being licensed by the big companies and with all the new technology from cell phones to computers on board and GPS.  But I still owned my own cab and had my own schedule, the late-night shift usually.  I was one of the few white guys still doing it, with it mainly being taken over by immigrants, with its long hours and relatively little pay.

I spent so many hours in my car, it felt almost like my second home. And every day was different.  You just never knew whom you might pick up.  I’d given rides to all kinds:  businessmen, people going on holidays, and way too many drunks, of course.  But most of the time, it was just regular people going to and fro.  Sometimes people would talk, sometimes not.  But I used to play a little game with myself, trying to figure out who they were.  I could come pretty close on most people, just by their dress, accent, their body language even.  Later they might say where they had come from or been or what they did, and if I was right in my” hunch”, I’d smile to myself.  But occasionally, I’d meet someone whom I couldn’t figure out and this only made me more curious.  I liked a little mystery too, to keep me on my toes.  And Shelly struck me as being a bit mysterious too.

When I’d gotten back from the war (and I was one of the lucky ones who’d come back in one piece, as so many others hadn’t), I’d had many jobs and drifted around many places, for a long time, before having settled here finally.  For the war had taken its toll on all of us, even the ones who’d survived-some with missing limbs, some with PTSD, but it had changed us all.  It seemed to be hard to stay focused on any one thing, to stay in one place long, on one job, to be committed to a relationship.  And I had turned to drinking heavily to try and escape the bad memories.  It was even partly to blame, perhaps for my marriage failure, even though my ex-wife and I had remained on good terms and we didn’t have any children.  I had finally gone to rehab and had been sober these past five years.

I guess driving a cab, constantly moving in my car and meeting strangers all the time, allowed me to fill up part of my restlessness, while maintaining the illusion of having a home and settling down.  I had a bachelor apartment that was small but was warm and comfy.  And I had my books and music, for my days off.  I went to the library often and found it amazing I could order almost any book, movie or Cd and borrow it for free.  I especially liked reading and seeing 40’s detective books and films (perhaps I identified with their anti-heroes and I was fascinated by their femme fatales, with their innocence outside, but sexiness inside). I even wrote my own little stories about some of my customers, and the characters I would meet.  Money had never been a big drive for me and I had always lived simply.  I still suffered from recurring nightmares and flashbacks from the war.  And I did get lonely sometimes.  I’d get depressed. But it was it seemed, always a matter of somehow keeping things in perspective.  But I had become a loner and preferred to fly alone, with no strings attached.

The week after I had taken Shelly and her daughter to the clinic, she did call me and she agreed to meet me for coffee at a quiet little neighborhood bistro.  It wasn’t long before we were in an interesting conversation that just seemed to flow between us.  She said she’d had a somewhat rough life.  Her daughter had a rare illness that required constant medication, but she seemed to be stable now.  Shelly had gone through a divorce and had gotten the hostess job at night, so she could go back to university during the day.  She was working on a librarian degree.  So we had our love of books in common.  And we happened to have the same basic schedule and days off.  I offered to give her and her daughter rides anytime.  She said that could really help and, in fact, we made an appointment to do so on our mutual next day off.  She just seemed like a nice single mom, trying to get back on her feet.

Shelly still didn’t give me her number and asked that I not come by her job (I guess she liked to keep her life private from her work), but she said she would call me whenever she needed me.  Soon I was taking her around often, doing her shopping and taking her daughter to doctor’s appointments.  Well, maybe my luck was changing finally, I thought.  I hadn’t met anyone for a long time (and never anyone quite like her).  I liked her and she seemed to like me, although she hadn’t come right out and said it.  But one night she called and asked if she could come over to my place.  It was her first time there and she seemed upset.  We talked late into the night and then she asked me to hold her.  I did and she spent the night (her daughter would often stay with a neighbor friend).  We ended up in bed and it was even better than I had dreamed.  We started spending more and more time together and making love often.  I was falling head over head in love with her.  And she seemed to be with me too.  She was my new addiction.

But one day, out of the blue, she said to me, “Actually, I’m kind of in a sort of relationship”.  I was shocked, having never seen her with another man and she hadn’t mentioned anything before.  But she continued, “Before you, I had met a much older man at the bar where I worked.  He seemed nice and friendly.  As I said, since my marriage had fallen apart, it’d been quite a struggle, with my daughter’s expensive medications, and paying the bills on my own and all.  My ex-husband had defaulted on his support payments and he had just disappeared.  So I was in a vulnerable position.  And this gentleman, whom evidently was a very successful businessman, heard my plight, and offered me a big ”loan”.  I was able to finally get a nice apartment and pay for my school too.  But as I was soon to learn, there were strings attached.  And then he wanted certain favors, in return.  At first, it seemed perhaps workable, because he wasn’t often in town, and I and my daughter had the apartment to ourselves and again he had seemed like a decent guy at first.  But as time went on, he became more and more jealous and thought he owned me.  Now I’m stuck.  I don’t have the money to pay him back and lately he’s become abusive even.  Sometimes I wish I could just make him disappear too. I even have thoughts of him maybe having an “accident”.  She also said he told her that if he ever found out anybody else in her life, he had the connections to do something about both of them.  I guess my instincts had been right about this woman; she did have a secret side.

I was surprised with all these revelations, but I liked her.  I liked her a lot.  She was a survivor and I couldn’t blame her for that.  She was soft on the outside and tough underneath, like I had learned to have to be.  I hadn’t really spoken to anybody in years about my war experiences.  But somehow I felt comfortable with her.  As I say, it changed us all.  When you’re in the jungle fighting, it also becomes a case of survival.  It’s them or you.  Kill or be killed.   And I had witnessed and done many things, I had tried to repress in my drinking, but that still came back to haunt me in my nightmares.  Of course, they said it was for king and country.  But gone were the days of clear cut wars and many had declared that that one especially, had been an immoral one even.  I had discovered sides of humanity that civilization shunned, but usually didn’t have to confront.  And in myself I had found I had a dark side too.  Perhaps everyone did.  Maybe even Shelly.  She did have that killer smile.  But how could I help her with her situation?  Ass I said, money had never been important to me.  I had enough to get by myself, but certainly not enough, a considerable sum, to get him off her back.  And even if we could come up with it, would he still not want revenge on us?  She said he had a dark side too and would use it to get her back.  So what to do?  Could I trust her even?  Was she telling the whole truth? Was she really as helpless as she appeared?  I had been fooled by people before, despite my instincts.  Was she just a femme fatale, for which I had an admitted weakness?  I didn’t know.  All I knew is that I wanted her and I was hooked on her.  My dark side and dark thoughts that I thought had gone away began to resurface again.  I had done it before in the jungle.  Could I possibly do it again?  Perhaps it becomes easier each time.  My dreams and nightmares now turned to scenarios about how to “remove” him.  There seemed to be no choice now.  I had done it before in the war and the jungle.  Was it so different in civilization, just because we glossed it over?  It was just survival in the end, wasn’t it?  Us verses Him.

Shelly and I started meeting at my place often, making love and after, planning his “accident”.  When he was away, he’d let he ruse his car sometimes, so we could make a copy of his keys.  If I could get access, I could work on the brakes.  We would do it in winter, which was now here again, when accidents were common, when it wouldn’t be so suspicious.  This was our plan: the next time he was in town, he would come to the bar where she worked.  Her job was to get him to drink( which he did anyway), and then get him to drive home early by himself to sleep it off, and to tell him she’d have to stay late and help clean up and that she’d take the bus home as usual.  While he was inside still, I’d mess with his brakes in the dark, where no one could see me.  They had never met me at her work.  And he would have an “accident” on his way home on the wintry roads.  We went over the scenario many times; we couldn’t fail, we thought and with no strings attached.

So over the holidays (which is the highest accident time), he was in town.  A big ice storm had arrived and we put our plan into action.  He willingly went to her bar as was his custom.  I waited in my car, with my lights off around the corner.  She kept him occupied while I “fixed” his brakes.  Later, he came out and drove away, on the slippery road.  He wouldn’t get far before he’d crash and hit a telephone pole.  The storm meant there’d be few other cars out that night to see anything.

That night after work, she came over to my place; we celebrated and made love.  We were finally free, and there would be no strings attached!

And sure enough, the news announced the next day that he had been in an accident, and had been killed alone.  They had found alcohol on his breath.  We decided it best not to see each other for a while, just in case.  His insurance company accepted the accident.  So we thought we were free.  We had planned everything well.

But a few weeks later, we found out the bar’s insurance company was also being sued for allowing their customer to drive home after drinking and they investigated the accident too.  And they discovered that the man had helped pay for Shelly’s apartment and her schooling with his big ”loan” to her.  Also unknown to us, the man had had before that put in new brakes in a different city, so they were suspicious.

They referred it to the police.  And the police found out about our connection too.  Both Shelly and I were called in for question, but separately.  Shelly went first, and under pressure, she had finally admitted our involvement.  But she said it had been my idea all along.  And in exchange for turning prosecution evidence, she would only get probation.

For the next few months, there was my trial for murder.  The main witness against me was Shelly.  And the jury believed her story.  After all, she had been a nice innocent-looking single mom, with a sick daughter (despite her killer smile).  And I had been the lone drifter and alcoholic who had been trained to kill in war.

So I’m writing this now from my prison cell.  I got 20 years.  I lost everything-my freedom, my cab, her.  Oh I could blame it on the war, my dark side, femme fatales, even Shelly.  All I have left now is some books and my little stories of my life and some of the characters I’ve met, and the nightmares.   But at least I’ve learned that in real life--there’s never no strings attached!

  

  

  

              
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    Alan Chrisman went to Purdue U. and U. of Ill.(International Relations), came to Canada, was influenced by The Beatles, and became involved in many aspects of music and writing.

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