Pete Seeger

Sometime in the late ’50s Pete Seeger appeared at Kaufman Union at the University of Minnesota, raising money for his defense against HCUA. I suppose someone could find the exact date, but I think I must have been four or five. It was packed–sardine room only.  The organizers hadn’t expected that sort of turnout. Between sets, a few of  us kids were brought up to sit on the grand piano off to the side near the “stage” to create a little breathing room. Seeger came out for his second set; I remember he had his banjo, which pleased me, because I always liked that better than when he played his 12-string.  As he opened his mouth, I yelled out, “Hiya, Pete!” because it was so good to see an old friend–at least, I thought of him as an old friend because I’d been listening to his music all of my short life.  Didn’t that make us friends?  The whole room cracked up, and he turned and looked at me and grinned.  I truly believe that was the origin of the joy I get in performing, in being the center of attention, in making a room laugh.

He was a Stalinist, and it showed more and more as time went on.  You could see it in the way he did songs that carefully explained everything and drew their morals out plain as if the audience couldn’t be trusted to understand; you could see it in the way that, especially after his involvement with the Civil Rights movement, he would gladly hop onto any cause the pseudo-left embraced, the more middle-class the better.  It is sadly appropriate that the two of his obituaries I’ve read so far entirely omit the word “union,” even though union songs (The Almanac Singers, also featuring Woody) were really what launched him, and were a huge part of his body of  work.

I kind of don’t care about any of that. It wasn’t until I started playing banjo myself that I realized what an artist he was with the instrument.  Like another of my formative musicians, Merle Travis, the instrumental work was always understated; it was support for the song. He wanted you to enjoy the song, not think about how great a musician he was.  This is an approach to art that has become vital to me.  And while we’re speaking of underestimating, don’t forget the Weavers.  For many, they were the introduction to folk music.  Then, over time, you’d discover other “authentic” folk artists and start kind of mentally poo-pooing the Weavers with terms like, “Folk Pasteurizers.”  And then, one day, years and years later, you’d happen to pick up an old Weavers album, put it on, and go, “Holy fuck! I had no idea how good these guys were!”

He was 94 years old.  In his 94 years, he made many people happy. I was one of them.

Bye, Pete.

Emergency Guitar Chord Request

Does anyone know the guitar chords for “Cheer Up Hamlet?”  For those who don’t know, it is the theme song for season 1 of “Slings and Arrows” and can be found here.  I find that it has become necessary for the future of the world that I learn that song.  It’s a piano song, so it may well be that, even if I found guitar chords, I wouldn’t be able to play them; but I have to at least try.

 

Anthem of the SFWA-Fascists

We’re the SFWA-fascists, all of us agree
On every single subject as long as it’s PC.
We follow every liberal fad.
But we aren’t ALPHA, which makes us sad.
We are the SFWA-fascists within the SF world.

We control all publications as you can plainly see.
We won’t let you speak if we think you disagree.
All SFWA officers are in cahoots,
Goosestepping in rainbow striped jackboots.
We are the SFWA-fascists within the SF world.

We get special treatment from each publisher in town,
And if you don’t agree with us, why, we will shut you down.
Sign our petition for your royalty checks;
Mystery and romance will be next.
The evil SFWA-fascists who run the SF world.

Mainstream publishing we will redesign;
To write we have to see your name on the dotted line.
Our liberal agenda will leave you awed.
We even ignore the voice of God.
Concieted SFWA-fascists who run the SF world.

We’ll shut down all the flirting, but that is just the start.
If you talk to anyone we’ll move you two apart.
No mercy no quarter and no truce
Till the human race can’t reproduce.
That’s how the SFWA-fascists will rule the SF world.

The SFWAs were created for the straight white males.
We must hound them to oblivion until publishing fails.
Gould and Swirsky head the lists
With all those other socialists.
We are the SFWA-fascists who are the SF world.

——————————————————————

Tune: Lily Marlane/D-Day Dodgers

Lyrics: Steven Brust

All Right, Yeah, I’m a Conservative

I really am.  Those who know me well already know that, but for the rest of you, let me explain.

There is what one believes, and then there are one’s natural inclinations.  And all of my inclinations are suspicious of change. Not against change; suspicious of it.  I scowl when new words are coined, and demand that they justify themselves.  In music, I grimace and tap my foot impatiently at drum machines and atonality.

In Texas Hold ’em, I still call the fourth community card “fourth street” and the fifth one “fifth street” instead of “the turn” and the “the river” respectively. Why? Because I do, that’s why.

In politics, yeah, I’m a Red, but I’m an old-school Red: an orthodox Trotskyist, a traditional Marxist. I believe that the proletariat is the revolutionary class, that the falling rate of profit causes market crashes, that history is best understood as the struggle to wrest human wants from nature, that the materialist dialectic is the best general explanation we have for matter in motion, and that explanations for social phenomena that don’t start with the class struggle are liable to be vacuous. I disliked the New Left when it was New; and I still dislike it now that it’s no longer Left.  Post-modernism and identity politics I find easy to hate, because both my inclination and my reasoned beliefs line up (as opposed to language and music, where, really, I wish I were more comfortable with change).

And in fiction, I am quite fine with both reading and telling stories. I feel like all fiction ought be stories. I do not believe that; I believe that there is room  for all sorts of experimenting and wild, weird stuff. But what I want are stories. I want to write them and then see them published in books.  You know, the kind people hold, and turn the pages, and read? And I want them sold in book stores where people browse; and I want them in libraries where people can pull them off the shelves and consider checking them out; and I want them in used book stores where people who can’t afford new books can try new authors without going broke.

I approve of the new stuff, of e-books, of certain alternate publishing strategies. I think, long-term, they will probably have a positive effect on the quality of stories; but I’m not comfortable with them.

Because, at heart, however much I wish I weren’t, I’m a conservative.

 

By request, the song mentioned in the previous post

Not terribly proud of this one, but here it is.  I think the formatting is a bit screwy, so the changes don’t actually go where they appear to.

Never Trust A Bureaucrat

E                A
Negotiations broke down over benefits and pay.
B7                 E
We put it to a vote and went out the sixth of May.
F#
On the ninth our union president presented his advice:
B7                      E
He stood before the local, said, “Why can’t you guys be nice?
C#m                G#m
I understand your grevances, I sympathize and all,
A                     B7
But keep your tempers down and we’ll negotiate next fall.”
E              F#
I turned to my buddy, and said, “I smell a rat,”
B7                 E
He said, “It’s the same old story: Never trust a bureaucrat.”

All through the long hot summer we walked the picket line
The company got injunctions, they threatened us with fines.
They brought in scabs and thugs, called in the guard and then,
Our president said, “Have no fear I’ll write my congressman.”
We said we’d fight it out right here until we took the prize,
That’s when we got the news that said, “Your strike’s not authorized.”
The minute we began to fight, that’s when they dumped us flat.
We learned our lesson well: never trust a bureaucrat.

They sell out the boys at Boise, just like they did P9.
They call us wildcatters and kiss management’s behind
In Northern Minnesota, at Greyhound or the mines,
You know we’ve been through all of this a hundred thousand times,
The rank and file want to fight, the leadership says nix,
Kind of makes you think that they’re a bunch of lousy people.
Every chance they get they’re going to stab you in the back,
Well, the lesson’s pretty simple: never trust a bureaucrat.

They got me so confused I don’t know who to hate
The boss wants war in the Middle-East, the bureaucrats say Great.
When it seems like our lives are on a slow boat to Hell,
All they try to tell us is, “Please vote DFL.”
But an injury to one is still an injury to all,
The trumpet is still sounding, and we still hear the call.
They’re wretched, sneaking little mice, and we are all the cats;
The power’s in our hands, we don’t need the bureaucrats.

18-Nov-90