The Ghost Of Pumpkin Trotsky

Two weekends ago thousands of New England college students converged on Keene, New Hampshire. The annual Pumpkin Festival ended in a riot. My nephew attended the celebration of the Jack O'Lantern. Eric told his father that he had left before the disturbances flared into violence. Paddy and I looked at each other. We had been young once.

In 1965 three friends and I had vandalized an abandoned missile base on a hill south of Boston. That skein of destruction had nothing to do with politics. We trashed the missile silos, offices, bunkers with a Hun's delight and that same spirit ruled the blooding running through the veins of Pumpkin Fest rioters.

The euphemism for this outlaw behavior is 'blowing off steam' and William Osterweil of Alzaara.com pointed out this week that "the white college kids in Keene flipped cars and threw bottles at cops for the fun of it, the media called them rowdy booze-filled revelers and all sorts of other euphemisms. By contrast, when Ferguson protesters aggressively confronted the police, the media framed the actions in terms of rioting, thuggery, destruction of their own community and other harsh verdicts. The two incidents offered an object lesson in the media’s racial bias."

I was not there.

I was not at Ferguson.

But I condone any resistance to the will of the police.

Ferguson or Keene. TO READ AL JAZEERA'S ARTICLE ON KEENE, PLEASE GO TO THIS URL.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/ferguson-keene-pumpkinfestpartyriotspoliceviolence.html

Whose streets?

Cowgirl In The Sand

Nothing says premature E-Jack-O-Lantern better than a cowgirl in the sand outfit at Ralph's Hardware Shop on a Sunday morning.

Strangely everyone in the 'hood thought my attire was too conservative.

"Maybe you should wear some pink," suggested Irene the young portress. "It works for me."

Pretty in pink?

To hear Neil Young's COWGIRL IN THE SAND, please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fAXl97-RFg

BULLITT 1968

Last night I returned from dinner. AP was in the TV room. His children were asleep. I poked my head into the room to say hello. AP motioned for me to sit down.

"BULLITT. It just started."

I needed no further encouragement.

No man had been cooler than Steve McQueen in 1968 and I joined AP on the couch. We put our feet up on the settee.

We were two men in paradise.

Widescreen TV.

A puff of marijuana.

Within seconds the terse movie directed by Peter Yates transported us to San Francisco of 1967. This was not the City of Love. Bullitt dealt with hard-nosed cops and killer crooks. He drove a muscle car and hung out with hip people, not hippies.

A young Jacqueline Bisset was Bullitt's girlfriend.

Cathy: "What will happen to us in time?"

Bullitt: "Time starts now."

Steve McQueen was always cool.

There were no special effects or gun ballets in his movies.

Just a stunning car chase with a "Highland Green" 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 CID Fastback versus a "Tuxedo Black" 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum at speeds up to 110 on the streets of San Francisco plus a great bike laydown by the legendary motorcycle racer Bud Ekins.

BULLITT won Academy Award for Film Editing.

Last evening I sat through this film without looking at the time. I doubted young people could do the same. Maybe, but what does an old man know about the young other than what they tell him.

I was 16 in 1968.

We all wanted to be McQueen.

And lay in bed with Jacqueline Bisset.

To see the car chase go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy5oyr4DRZ0

Very Seriously Cool

Jacquiline Bisset

Steve McQueen.

BULLITT

Steve had his hands full.

Steve McQueen How Cool

Steve McQueen was the coolest movie star ever.

Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood are living icons, but Steve was the champion of cool.

Dead or alive.

As a child my brothers, sisters, and I attended Our Lady of the Foothills south of Boston. The parochial grammar school heavily tressed the Four Rs of reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and religion to repress any possibility of independent thought. Once a year Mother Superior picked a film to show the eight grades. We sat throughTHE SOUND OF MUSIC, HEAVEN KNOWS MR. ALLISON, and THE NUN STORY my first three years at the yellow brick school. The nuns hated anything that didn't have to with God, but in 1964 Sister Mary Josef announced over the loudspeaker that this year's movie would be THE GREAT ESCAPE.

My best friend, Chuckie Manzi and I looked at each other with puzzlement. We had seen THE GREAT ESCAPE four times at the Mattapan Oriental. The plot of hundreds of British POWs breaking out of the German stalag was devoid of any mention of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, or the Pope. Mother Superior's choice of blockbuster hit had nothing to do with celebrating the freedom of the human spirit.

None of us had free will, if we didn't believe in God.

We discussed the rationale behind her choice for days. Not even the upper class kids could decipher the harridan principal's decision and on the day of THE GREAT ESCAPE's screening we filed into the assembly hall with trepidation. Something was not right. The movie began with the Luftwaffe commander telling the British officers, "There will be no escapes."

Instantly every student in the hall realized that we were the prisoners and the black-clad nuns were the Nazis. Stalag Luft III was constructed to hold the worst of the worst; thieves, counterfeiters, tunnelers and more, but when Steven McQueen aka Captain Virgil Hilts entered the movie, we applauded 'the Cooler King' as if he were the Messiah. Even more shocking was that the nuns refrained from restraining our enthusiasm.

I looked over my shoulder. The sixteen nuns were standing together and their eyes swam with adoration. The brides of Jesus had lost their hearts to Steve McQueen.

He was that cool.

See ON ANY SUNDAY. The 1971 Bruce Brown film features Steve McQueen with Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl_6aeIRmGs

This movie along with BULLITT, THE GETAWAY, and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN cemented his status as the cool one for all eternity.

Brad Pitt is good, but he'll never be Steve McQueen.

Last time I was in England, I told the hair stylist in the small town, "Cut my hair like Steve McQueen."

And she did her best.

I always wanted a hair cut like his.

Also see PAPILLION. His acting steamrollered over Dustin Hoffman.

In THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN he was told by the producers that he couldn’t stand before Yul Brenner. McQueen accepted that edict, but in every scene he’s the only one moving while Yul Brenner talks.

Several years back his Persol sunglasses sold at auction for $70,000.

The glasses came from THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.

Super Cool.

McQueen was always cool enough to admit his friend Bud Ekins leapt over the barbed wire in THE GREAT ESCAPE.

Cool people are cool enough to share in their coolness.

Steve McQueen - the king of cool.

Steve McQueen Wanted Dead Or Alive

Steve McQueen achieved national recognition for his role as Josh Randall in the TV western WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE. The King of Cool parlayed his anti-hero persona in this series to win a lead in THE GREAT ESCAPE, which catapulted his name into the bright lights of Hollywood.

His portrayal of a rebel sold well to the youth of America, however McQueen was a staunch republican, who strongly supported the war in Vietnam.

His conservative politics clashed with his riotous behavior leading to a 1972 arrest for driving while intoxicated in Anchorage, Alaska. McQueen was supposedly drinking on 4th Avenue, the city's toughest neighborhood and decided to do donuts in his rented Oldsmobile for the crowd of drunks, miners, hunters, and whores. The police stopped his antics and he responded to their request for a sobriety test by somersaulting down the street.

His audience applauded his exploits. They booed the police for arresting the entertainment. McQueen spent the night in jail.

It took a lot of get arrested for DWI back in 1972.

In the morning he paid bail and flew to California.

An arrest for Steve McQueen remained open until his death.

The star of BULLITT was a happy arrestee and flashed the peace sign for his mug shot, proving once more the veracity of Tom Wolfe's quote.

"A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested."

How true. How true.

DRUNK DRIVING HOUR by Peter Nolan Smith

During the early 1970s my college comrades and I drank at the Hi-hat Lounge in Brighton. The girls were young, the drinks were cheap, and we sold 'ludes and mescaline at the bar. Neither of them were the best available in Boston, but we were always in supply, so the bands playing on Commonwealth Avenue visited us before and after gigs. I even sold LSD to AeroSmith and they invited us to their show. They weren't big yet, but the band attracted co-eds from every university within 25 miles.

That night my friends and I crammed into my VW Bug.

"Can you drive?" Peter Gore asked from the passenger seat. We had hitchhiked across America in 1971. A carload of drunks had begged me to drive their Riviera from Reno to San Francisco. Peter had sat in the back. We drank warm whiskey through the Sierras. He hadn't trusted me behind the wheel since.

"Of course I can drive." I had only dropped a 'lude and guzzled several whiskey cokes. Something about his question bothered me and I said I was going to run every red light to Kenmore Square.

"Don't do that." Peter buckled up his seat belt. No one in 1971 wore one. We had all seen too many films where the passengers burn in their cars, thanks to a defective seat belt. The other passengers were more enthusiastic, then again they weren't in the suicide seat.

I blew the light at the first BU dorms and then another by the Boston Club, however we were approaching the Charles River Bridge. This was a much busier intersection with cars coming all directions.

"Don't."

Everyone cried out with good reason and I braked too late to avoid slamming into the back of a Mustang.

"Asshole." Peter was pissed.

"Anyone you hurt?" I pulled over to the curb..

"No."

Everyone was fine.

"Sorry, I was an asshole." I got out of the car to examine the damage to both vehicles.

My front fender was slightly bent.

My friend at a body shop in Dorcester could fix it for maybe $200, but the Mustang bore a major dent.

Maybe $1000, which was a lot of money.

Cars were swerving around the Mustang. The driver was puking out the open door. I walked up to him and he wiped his mouth, saying, "Sorry, for running that light. Are you okay?"

"I'm good."

"I'm really sorry."

The drunken fool thought the crash was his fault.

"Don't worry about it." I was lucky.

"How much you want to fix your car?" He pulled out a wad of cash.

"Nothing." Peter pushed me back toward my car.

"Nothing isn't going to fix my fender." Five $20 bills seemed fair.

"Thanks." The Mustang driver got back in his car and drove off toward Cambridge.

Later at the Aerosmith show we laughed, when, Peter calling me, "Boston's worst driver."

"But I met my match with Mr. Mustang."

Drunk driving hour was a weekend ritual in the last century, but several years ago the Palm County police had a world-class violator in their sights. The driver refused to stop for the officers in pursuit. He ran red lights, crashed into another car, a fence, fled the scene, and when they finally stopped him, the cops cited the offender with 50 tickets.

One was not wearing a seat belt.

All sounds too familiar.

I wonder if Peter Gore wherever he is thought the same thing.

"Asshole."

I don't drive anymore.

I drink no less.

Best for everyone if I walk and I'm sure that Peter Gore feels the same way too.