WeWriWa—In loving memory of John

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. In honor of John Lennon’s 39th Jahrzeit (death anniversary), I’m taking a detour from my holiday-themed snippets.

This excerpt comes from Chapter 25, “Ernestine and Girl Are Beatlemaniacs,” of Little Ragdoll. It’s set over 9 February 1964, the day The Beatles first played Ed Sullivan. This is the first time young Ernestine Troy or her friends the Ryans (whose disinterested parents called them simply Girl, Boy, Baby, and Infant) have ever watched television.

The Ryans eventually take the names Deirdre, David, Fiona, and Aoife (EE-fa).

Ernestine thinks it’s pretty rude how the majority of the girls in the studio audience are screaming. Even if one really likes a band and is excited to see them perform, that’s no excuse for screaming nonstop. They’re probably making it hard for the band to hear themselves play, and are missing the entire show because all they’re doing is screaming.

During the next song, a cover of what Mrs. van Niftrik says is a Broadway tune, “Till There Was You,” there are closeups of each bandmember, providing each one’s name. Ernestine rolls her eyes when a caption appears under John’s name, saying, “Sorry girls, he’s married.” As though any of the girls in the audience or watching at home stand a chance of marrying someone that much older and that famous. She and Girl both think he’s the handsomest, married or not. The others are cute, but John has a more mature face, like a handsome adult man, not carrying the look of a cute, soft-faced boy into early adulthood. Girl also feels a special energy coming from him, an aura she has a very good feeling about.

Happy 50th birthday to The Monkees Present!

Image used solely to illustrate subject for the purposes of an album review, and consistent with Fair Use Doctrine

Released 1 October 1969, The Monkees Present was the band’s eighth studio album, and their last with Nez until 1996’s Justus. Peter had already left in late ’68. This album was their final attempt to regain popularity and commercial viability after the cancellation of their TV show.

Despite heavy promotion, the album only reached #100, and the two singles didn’t even make the Top 50. Shortly after release, Nez announced his plans to form a new band. Due to unfair stigma about The Monkees’ origins and poppier style of music, many people didn’t take Nez seriously, and The First National Band only lasted two years.

Originally, the plan was to release a double LP, with one side for each bandmember. After Peter left, that idea was no longer possible. The band’s plummeting popularity also compelled them into making a normal single LP.

Track listing, with stars by the bonus tracks:

“Little Girl” (Micky)
“Good Clean Fun” (Nez) (#83 in the U.S.; #26 in Australia)
“If I Knew” (Davy and Bill Chadwick)
“Bye Bye Baby Bye Bye” (Micky and Ric Klein)
“Never Tell a Woman Yes” (Nez)
“Looking for the Good Times” (written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart; sung by Davy)
“Ladies Aid Society” (written by Boyce and Hart; sung by Davy)
“Listen to the Band” (Nez) (#63 in the U.S.; #15 in Australia)
“French Song” (written by Bill Chadwick; sung by Davy)
“Mommy and Daddy” (Micky)
“Oklahoma Backroom Dancer” (written by Michael Martin Murphey; sung by Nez)
“Pillow Time” (written by Janelle Scott and Matt Willis; sung by Micky)
“Calico Girlfriend Samba” (Nez)*
“The Good Earth” (short poem written by Ben Nisbet and delivered by Davy)*
“Listen to the Band” (alternate take)*
“Mommy and Daddy” (alternate take)*
Radio promo for the album (delivered by unknown person)

In 2013, the wonderful Rhino released a deluxe three-CD set with lots of bonus tracks, in addition to a vinyl 45 with two songs.

My favourite tracks are “Mommy and Daddy” (one of Micky’s most criminally underrated songs!), “Listen to the Band” (one of The Monkees’ signature songs), and “Ladies Aid Society.”

I really like this album. It’s my favourite of their two 1969 records, and shows yet again they were capable of so much more than easily-disposable teenypop. The Monkees evolved into a very mature, stylish sound, and produced some incredible records after their peak of popularity.

Happy 50th birthday, Abbey Road!

Image used solely to illustrate the subject for an album review, and consistent with Fair Use Doctrine

Released 26 September 1969, Abbey Road was The Beatles’ last studio album in terms of when it was recorded. Though the painfully spotty Let It Be was released in May 1970, the bulk of it was recorded before AR.

This would’ve been the perfect swan song to go out on. The album is absolutely brilliant, lightyears away from LIB. Though some people complain about all the song snippets on Side Two, they work perfectly in the musical context. Without all these miniature songs blending in and out of one another, it wouldn’t be the same album.

Recording began 22 February 1969, with producer George Martin agreeing to work with the band again on strict condition they let him produce it “the way we used to do it.” They also had to promise to adhere to a reasonable measure of discipline and behave themselves properly.

It seemed an impossible proposition after the acrimonious mood during the recording of their previous two albums, but in spite of continuing interpersonal tensions, it was a much more enjoyable experience all around.

The resulting album was a compromise between two schools of style. John wanted a traditional album with distinct, unrelated songs, while Paul and George Martin wanted a running theme like they’d done on the most overrated album of all time. Side One follows John’s style, while Side Two famously adheres to the latter vision.

John, never one to mince words, wasn’t exactly fond of the resulting product. He would’ve preferred his songs on one side and Paul’s on the other, and lit into Paul’s lightweight “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” as granny music. As for Side Two, John thought the medleys were “junk…just bits of songs thrown together.”

The band did little to promote AR, though it shot to #1 regardless, in the U.K., the U.S., Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and West Germany. Over the last fifty years, critics have by and large highly praised it. It’s in my own Top 5 of fave Beatles’ albums.

Track listing:

“Come Together” (#1 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.)
“Something” (#1 in the U.S., Australia, West Germany, Canada, and New Zealand; #2 in Norway; #3 in Ireland; #4 in the U.K.; #5 in Sweden; #11 in Austria)
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”
“Oh! Darling”
“Octopus’s Garden”
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” (recorded the last time all four Beatles were in the studio together, and a forerunner to doom metal)
“Here Comes the Sun”
“Because” (Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata played backwards)
“You Never Give Me Your Money” (first of the mini-songs)
“Sun King”
“Mean Mr. Mustard”
“Polythene Pam”
“She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
“Golden Slumbers” (a poem from Thomas Dekker’s play Patient Grissel, written 1599 and published 1603)
“Carry That Weight”
“The End”
“Your Majesty” (an ultra-short snippet after fourteen seconds of silence)

My fave tracks are “I Want You” (which wasn’t so popular originally), “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “The End.” I love the emotionally expectant mood of the final few songs (not counting hidden track “Your Majesty”), this tension building and building till the most perfect, bittersweet swan song ever.

Writing about the Vietnam draft lottery

Because today would be my Vietnam War draftee character Ricky Carson’s 67th birthday, I decided to discuss the subject of the draft lottery in the U.S. Until I got to Part IV of Little Ragdoll, I had a lot of embarrassing misconceptions about this aspect of the Vietnam War and U.S history.

The draft lottery only started in December 1969. Prior, guys were drafted by local boards. Notices were sent to guys aged 18–26, though deferments were granted for reasons including being a full-time university student, having certain kinds of jobs, having a lot of dependents, not being in good physical shape, and being a clergyman.

Local drafting ended due in part to accusations of favoring certain members of a community for deferment, exemption, and never being drafted at all, like the son of local bigwigs or a popular college football player.

On 1 December 1969, a national, blind draft was instituted for guys born from 1 January 1944–31 December 1950. There were 366 blue plastic capsules, each with a birthdate. The first number drawn was 14 September, so it was assigned the number one. Capsules continued to be drawn till each birthdate had gotten a number.

The draft lottery continued till 12 March 1975, though the final year draftees were sent to Vietnam was 1972. The final draft call was 7 December 1972. Authority to induct expired 30 June 1973.

After the first year of the lottery, numbers were only drawn for one year of birth. Guys born in 1951 were called in 1971, and guys born in 1952 were called in 1972; i.e., during the year they turned twenty.

Guys with the same birthdate were chosen in order of their last, first, and middle names’ drawing; e.g., James Peter Breiner had 25 for B, 1 for J, and 10 for P.

In my youthful ignorance, I thought guys of all ages were randomly drafted. Two of my characters born in 1930, in my Atlantic City books, escape to Canada when they’re drafted in 1967, though I now know that needs major revamping. It’s an important plot point that they be there for as long as they are, but there needs to be another reason they leave and stay so long.

From the time I thought up the story of Little Ragdoll at age thirteen in 1993, till the time I got to Part IV in very early 2011, Ricky was always Adicia’s age, born in 1954. For the longest time, the vast majority of my couples were in the same graduating year. In my youthful naïveté, I thought even a year of difference was scandalous!

Then I realized I had to make Ricky two years older than Adicia for the big plot twist with the draft to work and be historically accurate. Ricky, born 15 July 1952, has lottery number 88, and loses his student deferment when he withdraws from Columbia to enter a convenience marriage with Adicia and run away to Hudson Falls.

Ricky’s draft notice was mailed in early 1972, when he still lived in Syracuse, but he doesn’t receive it till July, after it’s first been forwarded to New York City and then brought over by his outraged parents after they return from a week-long Hamptons holiday and discover what happened in their absence.

To avoid risking any further trouble for ignoring the notice so long, Ricky goes right to the local draft board and is inducted into the Air Force. By the summer of ’72, there weren’t that many troops left in Vietnam, let alone from the Army. In December ’72, Ricky is involved in the horrific Operation Linebacker II, one of the last major campaigns of the war.

Adicia’s brother Allen, born on D-Day, gets number 110, and enrolls in the Borough of Manhattan Community College to study business. He and his wife Lenore have just welcomed their second child, and Allen is the sole support of their family and his sisters’ substitute father. He needs that draft deferment for many reasons.

Happy 50th birthday to Tommy, Part III (What it means to me)

Tommy was my first Who album, bought at the original location of Mystery Train Records in Amherst, Massachusetts on 7 September 2000. At the time, I had no idea that was Keith Moon’s 22nd Jahrzeit. It was truly one of those times where I knew, even before I knew.

I became interested in The Who at age thirteen, in ’93, and liked them from the time I was fourteen. At age twenty, in early 2000, I finally began graduating to serious fandom. Long story short, I chickened out on buying an album several times before deciding it was now or never.

That was the only Who CD in stock, though they had a bunch of their LPs. For almost all my succeeding trips to the various music stores in Amherst, this was my default modus operandi. I bought the sole CD, or sometimes two CDs, available. As I got more albums, I had to buy the one(s) I didn’t have yet.

I’d been so reticent about taking the plunge already because I was afraid of not liking an entire album of unfamiliar songs. I only knew the massively overplayed “Pinball Wizard” and “See Me, Feel Me.”

I played the first three songs on 8 September, but didn’t have the time to play it all the way through till 9 September, a Saturday night. Until pretty far into my junior year, I obediently went home to Pittsfield every weekend instead of staying on campus like a normal person. Learnt helplessness, but I digress.

I didn’t know what to do with this album at first. It was so unlike The Beatles’ albums which I was so familiar with. At one point, I almost thought about returning it, since this kind of music was so different.

The more I listened to it, the more it grew on me, though I didn’t understand what all was going on for awhile. Some things definitely aren’t directly stated in the songs, but the listener can fill in the blanks based on context clues and one’s own imagination.

As Charles Chaplin said, “While watching a silent picture, each individual supplies the unspoken words according to his own understanding of the action. The dullard sees the story in his own way as does the intelligent, the wise, and so on–each one, as I said before, supplying his own understanding, and everyone is pleased…”

At this early stage of the game, I didn’t even know who was whom, except Roger, the only blonde and lead singer. I correctly guessed straightaway Pete was the one with the higher-pitched voice, and John had the thicker, lower voice. It was obvious which one Keith was. Then I learnt to distinguish the three dark-haired ones.

As a child, I had a character named Carmel Allison Jaywalker, who loses all her senses on the eve of her third birthday. In my juvenile mind, the culprit was “the killer pimples,” giant pimples growing over her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, and skin as she slept. Tommy’s surname is Walker. It’s another of those uncanny experiences of knowing, even before one knows.

From an early age, I’ve been fascinated by the blind-deaf. What must it be like to be cut off from the two most major senses, living so deeply in one’s own mind, processing everything through sensations, communicating without speech or sign language? I did a paper on the blind-deaf in a class I took on special education in 2005. Someday I’d like to resurrect Carmel.

It’s such a powerful, intense journey, both for the character of Tommy and one’s own emotional feelings listening to the story. Every time feels like the first time all over again. Tommy isn’t what I’d personally recommend as an ideal first album for a new fan, but it was my first Who album, and as such is so, so, so special to me.

Once I began understanding it and was firmly in love, there was no turning back. My amazing journey had begun, and I’ve never regretted it. This band has had my heart, soul, and mind since I was twenty years old. All these years, they’ve never been unseated as my #1.

And it all started with the story of a blind-deaf-mute boy which saved The Who from bankruptcy and breakup. If Tommy hadn’t succeeded, they might never have gone on to become such legends, and I never would’ve fallen so deeply in love with them and been interested in buying any of their albums.