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COLUMN EIGHTY-EIGHT, APRIL 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)

'A COMPLETE FUCKING WANKER'

Subject: Re: Fw: WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR LEFT?
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 20:08:41 -0000
From: "Andrew Hill" <ah2002@blueyonder.co.uk>
To: "al aronowitz" <info@blacklistedjournalist.com>

Yes, Blair is a grave disappointment. I was just washing my dishes & wondering how he sleeps at night. It sickens me when I read about Straw & his far left past, he was president of the national union of students when
he was younger & a real agitator by all accounts. But these people---with their high falutin' values & ideologies, are no different from the most craven capitalist individualists who are at least honest about looking after number one. I think I wrote you an e-mail a few years ago explaining how I felt that politics couldn't be improved a great deal because of the type of ugly, egotistical people it inevitably attracts.

You (or someone in the latest edition) write of Dubya's smirk when he gives foreign policy statements these days---well thats nothing to Blair's hideous performances of late. Horrible sanctimonious platitudes about his belief that we are 'doing the right thing'. He is a complete fucking wanker (I hope you are familiar with that quaint British expression). I think there is every possibility of further demos. I cannot understand how Blair could leave himself so exposed by getting into bed with dubya, maybe he thinks he'll get concessions on stuff like carbon emissions later on but I doubt it. I can't think what the pay off for so much domestic unpopularity could possibly be.

All the best,
Andrew

* * *

NEW YORK APPEARANCES FOR CANDY ZAPPA AND NIGEY LENNON

Subject: on an entirely different matter
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 14:07:17 -0800
From: "Lionel Rolfe" <calclass@earthlink.net>
To: Al Aronowitz <info@blacklistedjournalist.com>

California Classics authors and musicians Candy Zappa and Nigey Lennon will be making several appearances in the New York City area at the beginning of April, 2003. The appearances coincide with the joint publication of Zappa's new book, MY BROTHER WAS A MOTHER: A ZAPPA FAMILY ALBUM and the new edition of Lennon's book BEING FRANK: MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA.

The appearances that have been confirmed at press time (mid-March 2003) are as follows. Please contact California Classics for updates nearer to the actual appearance dates.

Friday, April 5: Candy Zappa and Nigey Lennon guest with Project/Object at B.B. King's Blues Club, 237 West 42 Street, New York; (212) 997-4144. www.bbkingblues.com . Two sets, beginning at 8 p.m; standing room only. 

Thursday, April 10: Candy Zappa and Nigey Lennon sign copies of their books at 6:30 p.m. at the 'original' (1873) Barnes and Noble Bookstore, 105 Fifth Avenue (at 18th Street), New York; (212) 807-0099.

Sunday, April 13: Candy Zappa, Nigey Lennon and John Tabacco guest host the Zappathon radio program, WUSB Stony Brook, New York, 90.1 FM; netcast at www.wusb.org. All day pogram devoted to the music of Frank Zappa. Rare and unreleased tracks will be played. Zappa and Lennon will discuss their books and
music. Also featured will be Greg Russo, author of the Frank Zappa reference book COSMIK DEBRIS: THE COLLECTED HISTORY AND IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA. 

For review copies or to schedule author interviews, contact the publisher at (323) 906-0262 or
calclass@earthlink.net  ##

* * *

IT'S DEFINITELY WORTH THE WAIT!

Subject: driver's ed...
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 05:27:44 퍍
From: "G Evans" <bryte2@hotmail.com>
To: bigmagic.com

takes a while to load but worth the wait ;)

http://www.swot.ru 

* * *

A MORNING HYMN

Subject: Life is a Church!
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 02:56:26 -0800
From: Anita Sands Hernandez <astrology@earthlink.net>
Organization: StarPower Map of the Month
To: anita <astrology@earthlink.net>

Good morning. Life is a church and here we are in our church pew, of the holy PC and it's time for morning hymns. (Sung to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands")
----------------------------------
If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets hurt your Mama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are Saudi
And the bank takes back your Audi
And the TV shows are bawdy, Bomb Iraq.

If the corporate scandals growin', bomb Iraq.
And your ties to them are showin', bomb Iraq.
If the smoking gun ain't smokin'
We don't care, and we're not jokin'.
That Saddam will soon be croakin', Bomb Iraq.

Even if we have no allies, bomb Iraq.
From the sand dunes to the valleys, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections;
Let's look tough for elections,
Close your mind and take directions, Bomb Iraq.

While the globe is slowly warming, bomb Iraq.
Yay! the clouds of war are storming, bomb Iraq.
If the ozone hole is growing,
Some things we prefer not knowing.
(Though our ignorance is showing),
Bomb Iraq.

Here's one for dear Bush daddy, bomb Iraq,
From his favorite little laddy, bomb Iraq.
Saying "no" would look like treason.
It's the Hussein hunting season.
Even if we have no reason, Bomb Iraq.

^*^*^*^
Hey you. Quiet one. It bothers you to sing this hymn that the Gov has mandated you to sing in this our church? In the  wealthiest country in the world yet where we are as insecure as baby carriages in a gangbanger shoot- out therefore as a nation, we  have to put twenty trillion bombs on their sandy hovel homes, blasting them to gangrene so we can steal their oil? THAT BOTHERS YOU? Well Gee! That's the reality of it. You know, it's No wonder the Hindus say that the LORD OF all THIS DOMAIN is not GOD, it's KAL, the demon GOD and there is nothing spiritual on this earth. FERGETABOUTIT! OK, not a problem As long as we can tune
into a higher dimension where KAL is NOT LORD, we should do alright.Ok. So here's how. SEDITION IN YOUR PC! SHORTCIRCUITING THE CONTROL OF KAL! An online MANUAL "How to connect with YOUR HIGHER SELF" if you disagree with our present reality, want change Tune in to
http://home.earthlink.net/~astrology/highself.htm

* * *

WHEN WAS KRIS ON MACDOUGAL STREET?

Subject: Kris Kristofferson
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:34:03 -0500
From: <lshan@bcn.net>
To: <Address:info@blacklistedjournalist.com>

I have read some of your pieces on the internet and I am trying to figure out when Kris Kristofferson may have had a gig on Macdougal Street.

I knew Kristofferson slightly when we were both at Pomona College. I graduated in 1957, Kris in 1958. His roommate during the 56-57 year was Colin Herman, who was a fellow distance runner with me on the track team. Kris was a very important campus figure, known for his intensity in both studies and athletics. He was also in the "jock" fraternity. He played football and rugby. Actually, he was probably one of the founders of what was a very good rugby team that presented stiff competition to USC and UCLA. He also won two national writing awards from the Atlantic monthly. His father being a general, Kris was, of course, in ROTC. Between his junior and senior year, during the 6-week ROTC summer camp at Ft. Lewis, Washington, Kris was selected as the outstanding cadet (?). During the next year, he won the Rhodes Scholarship.

For several years in the 70s I lived at 79-81 Macdougal. Sometime in the early 70s I ran into Kris on Macdougal street. It was between 3rd street and Bleecker, but closer to 3rd on the east side of the street. It was during the day, and I believe that Kris was either going into or coming out of a nightclub; I assume it was the Gaslight. Maybe he was setting things up or doing some business-related activity. I'm not even sure that I knew he was a musician until I started talking with him. (Although while he was at Oxford, I had seen an
article in Newsweek or Time magazine about his attempt to become a rock musician.) We asked each other what we were doing. I told him that I was in the Socialist Workers Party and had been active in the antiwar and civil rights movement. He laughed and said "a commie, huh." I was very active politically and very poor and didn't even consider going to one of his gigs. Or I may have felt diffident about trading in on what was only a casual college connection and sucking up to a world in which I had no part. 

As he became famous, articles began to appear about him and his past. I particularly remember that they showed that it took some time for him to become an anti-establishment figure. He tried to become a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, but he was sent him to teach English at West Point, etc. Later I believed that he participated in some kind of prowar (Vietnam war, of course) musical event in Texas that was promoted by Johnny Cash. Somewhere along the line he changed his views, as did most of our generation, although Kristofferson was a little later than many. Perhaps it was because so many of his musical associates at the time were associated with country music. Surely his father being a general would also have affected him.

In any case, I am now collecting material for a possible memoir of my own life. I was an activist at Berkeley in the 1960s, went south in the summer of 1964, covered the French Revolt of 68 as a photographer, etc. I hope to include some material on Pomona College�a very conservative place even for its time, but with some outstanding individuals (among them another Rhodes scholar, the actor Richard Chamberlain, movie script writer Robert Towne, memoirist Ved Mehta, celebrated west coast artist James Strombotne. So I would appreciate any help you can give me in getting a fix on my Macdougal street encounter. ##

* * *

UPDATE ON JACK MICHELINE STREET

Subject: Fw: Re: UPDATE ON NAMING STREET AFTER THE LATE JACK MICHELINE
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 09:31:52 -0800
From: allan winans <ad1936@juno.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com

Poor Ben "still" sees it as "us" against "them." You either side with the war with the "right" or you're a "commie" or "worse" who better watch their back side. 

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Ben L Hiatt" <bensays@cdepot.net>
To: "allan winans" <ad1936@juno.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 03:47:00 -0800
Subject: Re: UPDATE ON NAMING STREET AFTER THE LATE JACK MICHELINE

I've been doing this Poetry thing now, man and boy, for more than forty years. In all that time few things have given me more pleasure than yesterday when my good friend Gordon Kirkwood-Yates fell by with a
freshly written poem. The poem is below: 

American Poets

We are poets
who are frycooks and cowboys
mothers who take their children to
church
mechanics
carpenters and loggers
people who work
who know busted knuckles and
broken boots
We are soldiers and doctors
and firemen and cops
whose poetry are monuments of
service
We are poets
who have never written a poem
who wouldn' t know poetry from
plumbing
and couldn' t care less
whose lives are poetic fare
succulent and sad and humble and
happy
salted with sweat and peppered by
pain
We are poets
bussing tables
checking groceries
washing windows at skyscraper
heights
digging coal far beneath fallen
leaves
We are poets swabbing toilets
painting houses
trimming trees
poets handling big rigs on
switchback roads
picking migrant fruit
not twiddling with vacuous verse
while peeing Perrier
We are not
the Apocalyptic pissants penning
life
as they imagine it beyond the
academic cocoon
but Americans
living the real thing
All-Americans
who feel the chill ripples on our
ribs
whose hearts begin to swell
with the first strains of The Star
Spangled
Banner
whose eyes soften
at the sound of Taps

We are Bush Country
not Berkeley
and we are
The Majority

Gordon Kirkwood-Yates
February 2003

Those folks who have lined up in their awesome numbers at poetsagainstthewar.org should be watching their backtrail. Because everything a man does leaves a set of tracks and there will be folks coming along who can
read sign. When this thing shakes out I know I won't be ashamed of the tracks I've left behind.

When I decided to open up a website called POETS FOR AMERICA it was to leave a set of tracks. There are now twenty of us who have stood to be counted as Americans who will speak for their country and their
country men and women. Today when I read Gordon's poem and glanced over there at those lemmings at
poetsagainstthewar, I figured we just about got those folks surrounded.

--Ben L. Hiatt
3-2-2003

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