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“They say that half the lies he tells you are not true….” – “Glorious Fool”

And now, as of Thursday, John Martyn is gone. And the bottle’s practically down to the lees.

Too many of you reading this won’t know who he was. That makes me mad and very sad. Probably more of the latter than the former, but who cares? John was just one of those quietly brilliant songwriters you never hear enough about, like Elliott Murphy or Duncan Browne or Peter Hammill, who can pull on your heart strings with the delicacy of a weaver.

Even with friends like Phil Collins and Eric Clapton helping out on his albums and covering his tunes, people still don’t know the name. They don’t know tunes like “Solid Air,” the quiet elegy he wrote for Nick Drake, or “Grace and Danger,” or “Glorious Fool” (his backhanded tribute to Ronald Reagan) and his scintillant rendition of the old folk song “Spencer the Rover,” just him on acoustic guitar and vocals and the great Danny Thompson on acoustic bass. They also don’t know his playful side, his cover of “Big Muff” and “the man who taught you how to dance,” aka the “Perfect Hustler.”

It had been known for years that John wasn’t well. You know, being on the road and the toll that exacts. Having to have a leg removed a few years back didn’t help either. Once I heard that, I knew there was no chance of him ever playing in the US and thus virtually no chance I’d ever see him perform live. Another regret to add to the list.

Well, maybe more people will hear him now. That’s the real bitch about being in this business: you’ll probably be more popular after you kick off. Just ask Van Gogh or Bill Hicks or Jimi Hendrix about that. At least his kids and Beverly will see some money from any future sales of his albums. I think they call that saving grace.

Oh, by the way he wrote a song about John Wayne. Maybe some radio station somewhere could throw that on. Maybe even one here in Californa, if the irony in his voice isn’t too much to take.

God bless ye, John. "Sit you down, father, rest you...."

Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009)

            Patrick McGoohan taught me how to think. He taught me how to question. He taught me there are no easy answers. He taught me that defiance married to intelligence, while it might not always win out, was far, far better than conformity married to ignorance. And the most amazing thing is that he did it through a TV show.

            When The Prisoner debuted on American television in 1968, as a summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show, I can only imagine the stunned reactions of viewers, especially when confronted with the two-part series finale, which offered no pat answers and no wrap-ups of any loose threads. It was a Chinese puzzle-box, complete with pop culture images and Beatles music, whose depths--soaked in allegory and metaphor--could never be fully plumbed.

            One of my earliest memories is of this show: a vague, shadowy image of the menacing watchdog of The Village, known as Rover, as it corners and smothers a victim. I remember having nightmares afterwards and, many years later, seeing the show as an adult, having a chill run down my spin every time Rover appeared on screen. It was the embodiment of George Washington’s famous quote about government: “(It) is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

            As with my other TV hero, Bugs Bunny, I pepper my thoughts and essays with quotes from this most wonderful and influential show: “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered!” “My life is my own.” And, of course, the most famous one from the show’s opening credits: “I AM NOT A NUMBER! I AM A FREE MAN!”

            As far back as the 1960’s, McGoohan saw how multi-dimensional man was becoming, in Herbert Marcuse’s apt title, one-dimensional man. A point on a graph. A datum on a spreadsheet. A face in the crowd. No more important or meaningful than a grain of sand, and perhaps less. In making THE PRISONER, McGoohan, to quote a famous World War II general, said “Nuts!”  God love him for it. And yes, God love Sir Lew Grade for putting up the money even though he didn’t understand the show’s premise. Would that more studio heads had such faith in creators...

            So, we say Goodbye to Patrick McGoohan. I personally will raise a glass to him and wish, in the words of the old Irish blessing, that he be in Heaven half-an-hour before the Devil knows he’s dead. God rest ye, sir.

A rock god is dead, but you can still hear the echoes from his amp. Ron Asheton died last weekend at his home in Ann Arbor. So far, all that is being said is that death was apparently due to that boilerplate term "natural causes," although there is speculation that it was a heart attack. Whatever the cause, radio stations all over the world are playing Stooges music. Practically every Stooges video on YouTube has noted Ron's passing.

Unless you know the history of punk rock, you can't know how important The Stooges were. In an era of hippies and flowers and free love, Iggy, Ron, Scott Asheton and Dave Alexander were snarling, sullen, smartass punks who had their amps as loud as possible and songs about unhappiness, anger and other teenage emotions not buried under pot or acid. The Stooges didn't want to hear about the new world—they knew it wasn't there, that it was much a sham as the straight world. They wanted liberation—on their terms.

Ron was critical to the band's sound. On the first two albums, THE STOOGES and FUNHOUSE, his guitar is raw and menacing--the perfect complement to Iggy's lyrics. It demands your attention; you can't be in the same room with that sound and ignore it. When RAW POWER was being recorded, Ron ceded guitar duties to the equally talented James Williamson and switched to bass. In the process, he and his brother Scott (aka Rock Action) became one of the most powerful rhythm sections in rock. If Iggy was having an off night, Ron and Scott could push him into a frenzy, a Dionysian state in which he might cut himself, contort himself, throw himself into the audience—anything to express the energy inside.

The Stooges imploded after that album, due to internal strife and burnout on Iggy's part. When they reunited in early 2003, the energy was still there, waiting to be tapped. Finally, people like me who missed the Stooges the first time around found out what the excitement was all about. I was lucky enough to see them play at a daylong festival in New York City in 2004, with Mike Watt on bass and Steve MacKay on saxophone. I remember people seemed to be saving their energy for the Stooges, knowing they'd need every erg of it. I remember this guy—he was about 4 feet tall—dancing madly, and me with him, thrusting our bodies in crazy directions, whirling like dervishes. It was an hour I wouldn't trade for anything in Paradise.

I'm happier than words that Ron lived to be part of that reunion, lived to receive his due as a true punk pioneer. Anytime a guitarist plugs a fuzzbox into his amp and turns the gain to full, Ron will be there in spirit. Even now, I can feel the feedback raising the hair on my arms, tingling in my fingers. What the mind perceives, the body channels into motion, into passion, into—no other words will suffice—rock action.

*Answers come to them more readily than to real cops—much too easily.

*Their smugness sets my teeth on edge.  They're so sure they're right, unlike real cops, who are full of doubts: Did I get the right perp? Or was I in such a rush to judgment that I overlooked evidence that might disprove my conclusion (i.e., selective inattention)? I wish TV detectives were more like Petrovitch in Crime and Punishment or O'Rourke in Henry Miller's Rosy Crucifixion trilogy and much, much less smug.  To paraphrase Colin Wilson, "I wish I was as sure of anything as (fill in the blank) is about everything."

*Attitude towards perps is uniformly (pun intended) superior and condescending. (Well, it seems they got that right.)

*We rarely get to see them as human beings, mostly as tools of the state. (One of the things I loved about Homicide: Life on the Streets was how real the characters were:  full of doubts, sometimes tormented by guilt, willing to be right even if it cost them—emotionally and/or professionally. I especially treasured the bar scenes, where you really got to hear their thoughts and feelings with less editing.)

*In an increasingly fascistic society--and even under Obama that won't change much, at least not soon--deifying police is especially dangerous. As Orson Welles wrote in his script for Touch of Evil, "A policeman's job is only easy in a police state." That is as it should be. (Please note that that line was spoken by later-NRA spokesman and Second Amendment defender Charlton Heston. Heston, as an A-list star, could have used his influence with the studio to soften or eliminate that line. He didn't.)

*There are too damn many of them. Also, there are too damn many doctor shows (although at least some of them show real doctors dealing with real patients.)

*I think—based on my experience and research—that most cops are either on the take, ex-jocks/military with an itch to beat on those less fortunate, or just in it for the money and benefits. Too few Serpicos, too damn many fill-in-the-blanks. 

The good news is that the images of cops solving crimes and protecting citizens on TV are being countered with numerous, widely-circulated vids of cops attacking and shooting unarmed suspects, dogs and anyone else they don't like.  In other words, lots of folks ain't going for the okey-doke anymore. They're echoing the words of NWA: "FUCK. DA. PO. LICE."

            One of the things that's always disturbed me about Christian doctrine is its continual references to humans as sheep or slaves ("Ye were bought at a price," "shepherd tending his flock," etc.).  Humans may not be the brightest creatures on the planet or the universe, but we're not as dim as sheep and—as one of the Pythons once remarked—"sheep are very dim." It would seem that God is, amongst other things rather patronizing, a flaw that would reduce his impact amongst potential believers. You'd think he would know better how to appeal to Humankind's better nature than to call us stupid or slavish.

            I was puzzling over this while watching Craig Ferguson's show and hearing his nth reference to his audience as "my cheeky monkeys." That set a train of thought off on my mental tracks: humans and chimpanzees have 98-99 percent of their DNA in common; it would be much more apt to compare humans to monkeys than to sheep; ergo, Craig Ferguson is God. We are his cheeky monkeys, and he is a loving God who only wants us to laugh, love and—if we choose—smoke herbal cigarettes. Q.E.D.

Go in peace, my friends. And Craig bless you.

This has to be shared:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EctJr-6G9UQ