Joni Mitchell In Concert 1970

Joni Mitchell on the "BBC In Concert" programme in 1970 at the peak of her singer songwriter period. Her voice is perfection and her playing is effortless and peerless, showcasing her unique guitar style and piano playing. She even plays a dulcimer on the song "California". Is there anything Joni can't do?

The show was recorded on the 9th March 1970 and aired on 10 September of the same year. The In Concert series also featured performances by most of the singer song writers of the day including, Neil Young, James Taylor, Carole King, Cat Stevens and Elton John.

"We Fall Into Love and We Fall Out Of Love" by A. Monaghan

In moments...
I remember falling in love.
Watching you walk across a room
from a distance for the first time.
Seeing you in shadow, outlined by the sun,
a hand on your hip,
a dark blue strap,
slipping from your pale shoulder.
Watching you swim and
kissing your dark wet hair.
In moments...
I remember loving you.
Holidays, laughter, reading books out loud together,
wedding rings, markets, moving houses, adopting a cat,
buying a bed...the bed where we made love and babies.
Holding your head in the pains off labour,
with a child, our child!
Watching that new life
spilling from your heavy body.
In moments...
I remember love losing it's way
in uncertainty, confusion and dread.
You still look so young, I feel so old and we fade.
Shared photos become pictures off strangers,
and we wake and find nothing between us,
no love, no laughter, no more life.
A love, once clear becomes blurred and glassy.
Silence replaces words, we become two
different things, and in the end,
it's not the loss that is hardest to bear,
but the slow creep off change,
that gradually tears the heart into a million shreds.
The night arrives, the last night at home,
and then the first night alone,
then nothing.

"The Family Goat" by A. Monaghan

“I step across the little brook to feed the family goat,
And, am grateful this small waterway, does not require a boat.

I often sit and contemplate him standing in his field,
And marvel at the produce that this little goat can yield.

He must be very happy in his little bit of pasture,
For, the milk & cheese he has offered up, is twice as much as last year.”

Written in tribute to and in the the style off William McConagall.

*William Topaz McGonagall (10 March 1825 – 29 September 1902)
Scottish weaver and amateur poet and actor. He won notoriety as a singularly bad poet who exhibited no recognition or concern of his peers’ opinions of his work. He wrote some 200 poems, including the infamous “Tay Bridge Disaster”, which are widely regarded as some of the worst in British history. His influence has been sighted by Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Billy Connolly, among others.

"Clean Up This God Damn Room Already". by A.M. Monaghan

An earplug

Tissues

Crumbs (toast)

Sleeping Pills

Paper

A crack pipe

Clock radio

Empty wine bottles

Pain killers

Red numbers

Posters

A reading lamp (that reminds me of you)

A bed too big

Striped pajamas

Odd socks

Tortured sheets

Blood

Hot pillows

A dark blue blanket

Yellow fly swat

Heat

Chipped tea cup

Chocolate wrappers

A French water glass

Dust

Two novels

A notebook

Cobwebs

Head noises

Pens

A roach

Blue cigarette lighter

Notes

Skin

Newspaper clippings

Scissors

Glue

Ash

Tears

Is it any wonder I can't sleep with all this noise going on around me!

"Nobody But You" by Charles Bukowski

nobody can save you but
 yourself.

you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
 situations.

they will attempt again and again

through subterfuge, guise and

force
to make you submit, quit and /or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but

yourself

and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.

listen to them.
do you want to be like that?

a faceless, mindless, heartless

being?

do you want to experience

death before death?

nobody can save you but

yourself

and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

your spiritual self.

your gut self.

your singing magical self and

your beautiful self.

save it.

don’t join the dead-in-spirit.

maintain your self

with humor and grace

and finally

if necessary

wager your self as you struggle,

damn the odds, damn

the price.

only you can save your
self.

do it! do it!

then you’ll know exactly what
I am talking about.

September 11th/12th 2001

If my calculations and the time difference is right, the attacks on The World Trade Centre that occurred on September 11th 2001 actually occurred on 12th September in my part of the world, Wellington, New Zealand.

I remember my wife at the time waking me up with the radio playing, to say something about a plane crashing into The World Trade Centre in New York. The news had little effect on me. I was waking up to another day as a nurse aide at Wellington hospital, general ward 14.

As we didn't have a television, we weren't privy to the visceral images of the planes plunging into the buildings against that clear blue sky the buildings collapsing or the ghostly looking people coated in fine dust or the plumes of wreckage pouring down the New York streets and avenues, so the news that came over the radio was tame compared to what was being witnessed all around the globe.

I was on an early shift, 8AM to 3.30PM. I got up, showered, ate breakfast and went to work. Once there it was straight into the never ending list of things to be done. As per usual there were nurses busy changing shift, meetings, briefings, patient reports, laundry, new admissions, releases, beds to be stripped and made, breakfast to hand out, tea and coffee to be made, shit to clean up.

Slowly the news would filter through in snippets. What started as an occasional remark built, as the day progressed and more and more became thee topic of the day. Still, it had little effect on me, I barely gave it a second thought, something else bad was happening in another part of the world, I had work to do, always too much work to do.

My lasting memories of the talk during that normal working day are two separate statements made by people who had seen the news footage and were following the updates on the television situated in the visitor room. I remember an English nurse describing it as "a work of art" which left me bemused, and a patient saying that "They (presumably the American people) had it coming".

I finished work, tired as usual, but by now the talk was off little else. Thousands dead, buildings collapsing, the Pentagon bombed, America under attack from the air, all kinds of rumour and speculation. I signed my time sheet and left work, not once thinking about the fact that I had spent the day on the top floor of the highest building in Wellington Hospital.

When I got home, my wife asked me if I had heard any more news and I probably said something along the lines of yes, but thinking no. I imagine we talked about it. I hadn't seen any footage so it's impact on me was lessened than that of the millions watching from around the globe.

I tuned into The World Service and the talk was off what had unfolded. I was shocked to discover that yes, it had been an deliberate terrorist attack, and that another hijacked plane had crashed in a field and that the bombing off The Pentagon was in fact yet another hijacked plane, but soon I grew weary of the barrage of opinion and rhetoric, and turned the radio off, turned on some music, ate, read and went to sleep without thinking much more about it. That was September 12th. 2001, Wellington, New Zealand.

I had been in New York only two years earlier. Had seen the 'twin towers' from all angles, but they had left no lasting impression on me, unlike say, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler building, the Guggenheim or the Dakota Buildings where John Lennon had been murdered...no, the twin towers didn't really fit with my overall memory of that great city, not until much later. Not in fact until I saw the space left from where they once stood, the void remaining. It was the lack of them that made more of an impression than the buildings themselves.

The next day I bought a paper, a "commemorative" issue of The Wellington Post, and I thought about other commemoratives, and I imagine these things came to mind...the 1977 Queen's Silver Jubilee, the Northern Ireland hunger strikers, the first space shuttle blast off, the storming of the Iranian Embassy in London, the Hillsborough disaster, the Enniskillen remembrance Sunday bombing. On reading, the enormity of what had occurred on that day started to sink in. "Would the world ever be the same again"? "New York's Pearl Harbour", the headlines read.

Some time later I found a tourist map of Manhattan, a keep sake from my time in New York, and there on the cover, shot from an amateurish angle were those huge towers. Looking at a photograph of me and my wife taken on the Brooklyn bridge, there they were again. A shot from the Staten Island ferry and they're dead centre. In movies and documentaries with scenes shot in New York, they always featuerd.

I've watched only two related documentaries since that time. Jules Naudet's film "9/11", shot by him and his brother who by chance, happened to be making a documentary at the time about a New York Firehouse...what ogreish serendipity. The other was a poetic film by Henry Singer and Richard Numeroff called "The Falling Man" about the identity of a man who jumped or fell from one of the towers, caught in a series off still images by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew. That for me was enough. I have no need to see any associated images or footage again. They are seared into my memory.

What happened in the aftermath is history. The invasion of Iraq, the overthrow and demise of Saddam Hussein, the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan and of course most recently the killing of the man widely blamed as the mastermind and financial backer of the attacks ten years ago, Osama Bin Laden.

But that's not what this is about. September 11th. 2001 will forever be a, "where were you when you heard" day, this is simply my memory and my experience of that day. Run of the mill, unremarkable, mundane, tiring, work a day, ordinary and safe, in my own part off the world and my own place in the world.

"The First Time That Ever I Saw Your Face"

Instrumental version of the famous Ewan Maccoll tune, father of the English folk revival, during the 1960's. The song was adapted by Bert Jansch. My guitar is tuned to DADGAD. Played on a nylon string acoustic for a softer feel and sound. While Bert's reinterpretation strays from the original tune, it's a fitting tribute. My version is more or less a copy of Bert's.

"Untitled" by A.M. Monaghan

What a life this is,
what a dream,
what an awakening,
what tears of joy,
what laughter.

From our first breathe to our last,
man, woman and child.
And with what pain, anger and beauty
we enter this world, dumb, innocent and blameless,
no reason, but to be.

How similar we are, and how different,
together and alone we live
and with great sadness we die,
all our expectations turned to the wind
and to dust,

and to time,

and to eternity.

"Midnight Dance of the Silverfish"

Short, original, fingerpicking guitar instrumental inspired by John Fahey, Bert jansch, Nick Drake etc..

John Fante – American Author

From "Ask the Dust" by John Fante

"The good days, the fat days, page upon page of manuscript; prosperous days, something to say...and the pages mounted up. Fabulous days, the rent paid, still fifty dollars in my wallet, nothing to do all day and night but write and think of writing: ah such sweet days, to see it grow, to worry for it, myself, my book, my words, maybe important, maybe timeless, but mine nevertheless, the indomitable Arturo Bandini, already deep into his first novel.
So an evening comes and what to do with it, my soul so cool from the bath of words, my feet so solid upon the Earth, and what are the others doing, the rest of the people of the world?"

John Fante was born in Denver, Colorado in 1909. He attended various Catholic schools in and around Boulder Colorado, before enrolling at the University of Colorado. He dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to focus on his writing. He began writing in 1929 and published his first short story, "Altar Boy" in 1932, in the literary magazine, The American Mercury.

His first novel "Wait Until Spring" was published in 1938, and was to become the first in his  Arturo Bandini series of novels, the others being, "The Road to Los Angeles",  "AskThe Dust" and "Dreams From Bunker Hill".

Arturo Bandini served as Fante's alter ego, his novels being largely biographical and made up of his own life experiences. The main themes in Fante's work are poverty, love, the common man, everyday life and it's trials, Catholicism, family life, American identity, sports, and the writing life itself.

His most famous novel by far is "Ask The Dust" (originally titled "Ask The Dust on The Road"). It has been described as a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth – century American Novel. It tells the story of a young struggling author, living in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and his doomed love for Mexican waitress Camilla Lopez. As he tirelessly works his trade, skirting poverty, his writing career starts to take off with the publication of a number of short stories and finally his first novel. Eventually Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears into the Mojave desert after pursuing her true love, ex waiter Sam. In the end Bandini loses Camilla and rejects the writers life he had fought so hard to attain.

Fante's writing has been described as having a clear voice, vivid characters, shoot-from-the-hip style, and painful, emotional honesty blended with humor and scrupulous self-criticism.

Fante was diagnosed with diabetes in 1955 eventually leading to blindness in 1978 and the amputation of both legs within the next two years. He continued to write however, dictating his work to his wife Joyce, publishing his final novel "Dreams From Bunker Hill" in 1982. He died on May 8, 1983, at the age of seventy four.

Fante's literary admirers included Charles Bukowski who was quoted as saying "Fante was my God", and openly admitted borrowing Fante's style and voice for his own writing style. The two writers became friends shortly before Fante's death. Bukowski went on to write the poem "Fante" in honour of his literary hero.

John Fante 1909 – 1983

"Two Rosellas in a Silver Birch Tree" by A. Monaghan

A fat grey house cat

with sharp golden eyes.
Sitting dumb, behind a window pane,
his face reflected in the glass
furiously watching...

A pair of Eastern Rosellas,
noisy, riotous, rude and overflowing
with colour.
Bold and brazen,
bouncing among the branches
off an adjacent Silver Birch tree,
out of the cat's reach.

I laugh at the cat's frustration, and walk on.
"Mister tigger", I say,

"you aint the king of the jungle today"!

"Surprise Partie" Paris, 12-31-68 French T.V. Special

"Surprise Partie" was a French T.V. special, recorded on New Years Eve 1968 in Paris. The full line up was as follows...Davy Jones, Marie Laforet, The Troggs, Jacques Dutronc, Joe Cocker, Françoise Hardy, Aphrodite's Child, Antoine, Johnny Hallyday, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Hugues Auffray, The Small Faces, Herbert Leonard, P.P. Arnold, Booker T & The MGs, Eric Charden, Freddy, Nicoletta, The Irresistibles, The Equals, and Les Variations. Quite a surprise party indeed. Hopefully it's available out there on DVD somewhere...Below are some of the clips available on YouTube, but there may be more out there.

The Who – "I Can See For Miles"



Fleetwood Mac – "Homework"





Fleetwood Mac – "Dust My Broom"



Joe Cocker and The Grease Band – "I shall Be Released" & "With a Little Help From My Friends".



The Small Faces – "Song of a Baker"


The Equals – "Equality"



P.P. Arnold – "If You Think You're Groovy"



Hugues Auffray – "Et si moi je ne veux pas"

It seems that Fleetwood Mac, The Equals (featuring a very young Eddie Grant, complete with dyed blonde hair!), Joe Cocker & The Grease Band and Hugues Auffray were the only performers that played live (it's hard to tell as it's all a bit chaotic), the rest either lip synched (The Small Faces barely!) or like P.P. Arnold, sang over a backing tape.

I'm not sure why the Joe Cocker clips are in a different room, but as far as I can tell they were recorded on the same night, at the same event, but maybe not. Still I thought it worth including for the intimate and powerful rendition of "With a Little Help From My Friends".

Hugues Auffray does well to tame a very merry Keith Moon and Pete Towhshend who also pop up as last minute roadies for the slightly worse for wear Stevie Marriott.

The footage is a great document of the times...and what a backstage party there must've been afterward, and what a start to 1969!! Enjoy responsibly.

"The Black Cat Davy" by A. M. Monaghan

"The Black Cat Davy"

I am the black cat Davy... and I am crime!
An inky, murky shadow on the sleeping cities grime.
I'm the feline midnight stalker, the terror off the streets,
I steal the breath from babies as their nursing mothers sleep.

A coal black, steel eyed rambler, a glimpse of flashing claw,
As the governor of the underworld I live outside the law.
I creep in open windows, exit boldly on the street,
I jump the highest rooftops always landing on my feet.

I am the black cat Davy... and I am crime!
My midnight, full-moon screech will send a shiver up your spine.
Lock up your precious puss-kin, when Davy is in town,
Your little kitty's honour is at risk when I'm around.

I rule the midnight underworld, I'm the dusk to dawn crime chief,
If something goes down on my watch, I always get my piece.
And if you ever cross me on a dark and moonless night,
You better have your claws out, and be ready for the fight!

I am the black cat Davy...and I am crime!
This shrouded , shady criminal has mischief on his mind.
And if your mangy carcass stops, or wanders through my patch,
You'd best beware, I'll carve you up, with more than just a scratch.

But...when the night is closing and the dawn is coming on
You'll find the black cat Davy like a puff off smoke is gone.
I jump and run and leap and dash, to my masters cozy den,
And the sinful, fiendish Davy becomes a pussy cat again.

Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller Tribute by Bob Stanley

Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

Bob Stanley pays tribute:
The Abbey Road medley is often cited as the perfect career closer: “And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take” sums up the warmth, generosity and unbroken circle of the Beatles’ story. Mind you, a pair of furrow-browed, smirking, razor-sharp writers called Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller might have raised an eyebrow at the notion – “Yeah, yeah” they’d sneer, proving there is such a thing as a double positive: “So you haven’t you heard Is That All There Is?”

Leiber and Stoller wrote songs that were as indebted to Vaudeville as they were to their beloved R&B, and in the process they created a catalogue that nailed the recklessness, teendom and irreverent giddy joy of classic Rock’n'Roll. They were born just six weeks apart in 1933, grew up on the east coast, and finally met in 1950 when both their families relocated almost simultaneously to LA. It was fate. They were soulmates, they clicked, and began writing songs together immediately. But they were quite different people. While Mike Stoller was a beatnik, very laid back, with a penchant for classical music (the strings on the Drifters’ game-changing There Goes My Baby were his idea), Jerry Leiber was a motormouth. He wasn’t interested in any music that you couldn’t dance to. He had wild red hair and, like David Bowie, he had one brown eye and one blue: his passport listed his eye colour as “assorted”.

Doing deliveries for his mum’s grocery store in Baltimore, he had come across blues and boogie woogie on black customers’ radios, “music I never heard anywhere else”. In LA he developed a taste for “jazz and pigs’ feet and dark meat, if you know what I mean.” He and Mike “used to argue which one of us was the blackest.” Who won the arguments? “*We* did!” They would write five songs a day and, by the time Big Mama Thornton cut their Hound Dog in 1952, had their schtick down pat. Nothing was taken too seriously; their songs were skits – Love Potion No.9, Yakety Yak, Smokey Joe’s Cafe – that were smart and funny and snorted at sentimentality. They were a blast.

Leiber/Stoller were maybe the first names I noticed cropping up over and over in brackets under the titles of songs I loved, on Elvis’s 40 Greatest and The Very Best Of The Drifters. They started the Brill Building pop machine almost singlehandedly, moving there in 1958 when it was still the province of Irving Berlin and pre-rock publishers. They became godfathers of the scene, the hugest inspiration to Goffin and King, Mann and Weil, and especially Greenwich and Barry. As a team Laura Barton compared them in the Guardian to Morecambe and Wise, but I see them more like Statler and Waldorf, cynical birds bouncing one-liners off each other who would sniff at ‘pop’ acts one minute, then be drawn in and end up writing a classic for them: this is how they ended writing such unlikely but great songs as Tommy Roe’s The Gunfighter and Jackson for Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood.

Elvis was the ultimate case in point. Once Hound Dog had made them rich Jerry and Mike were asked to write something new for him. They didn’t like what he’d done to Hound Dog, thought it too fast and nervy sounding, so they came up with the (in their eyes) mewling, sarcastic Love Me. Of course, Elvis turned it into a sensual classic – listen to what he does with “I would beg and steal, just to feel, your heart beating close to mine” – that Leiber and Stoller had never thought possible. After that, with new-found respect, they gave him the valley-deep Don’t and large chunks of the King Creole and Jailhouse Rock soundtracks: Leiber/Stoller/Presley, the perfect R&R combination. Unsurprisingly, they stand up as Elvis’s best movies.

They knew how to make records, but never quite worked out how to sell them. Hooking up with inveterate gambler but proven record company stalwart George Goldner in 1964, they formed Red Bird records and its more soulful subsidiary Blue Cat. Straight away they scored a number one with the Dixie Cups’ Chapel Of Love: “I hated the fucking record!” sulked Jerry. Red Bird put out a higher percentage of mindsnappers than maybe any label before or since, but Jerry Leiber stayed in the back room most of the time. Once in a while he chipped in with a floorfiller like the Shangri La’s’ Bull Dog. When Red Bird folded, under the weight of Goldner’s personal debts in 1966, Leiber and Stoller pretty much bowed out of pop. They loved Rock’n'Roll, pure and dirty and true, and they weren’t built for the solemnity of the psychedelic era. When Peggy Lee cut Is That All There Is in 1969, it was the perfect curtain to fall on their career: death, destruction, busted
marriages… so what?! It won them a Grammy. It’s also the perfect funeral song.

Leiber and Stoller were inseparable – they wrote together, produced together, even had three marriages each. And apparently they were writing a biography together – I can’t think of another joint autobiography that isn’t by a married couple. Let’s hope Mike Stoller can finish it on his own.

The list of their achievements could (and hopefully will) fill a book, but just for starters… Stand By Me, King Creole, I Who Have Nothing, Searchin’, There Goes My Baby, Poison Ivy, Lucky Lips, Where’s The Girl, Some Other Guy, Drip Drop, Spanish Harlem, Bossa Nova Baby, Kansas City, Trouble, Tricky Dicky… I feel a party coming on. It’s the best way to pay tribute to Jerry Leiber.

He’s gone, but don’t be a blue cat.

Jerry Leiber, 1933 – 2011

"Danny" by Anthony Monaghan

Tune I wrote for my son. Influenced by John Fahey, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake etc...

Onan – Patron Saint of Masturbation

The story of Onan as illustrated by Robert Crumb

Onanism: noun formal,
1. masturbation.
2. coitus interruptus.
The story of Onan is one of those dark, and often forgotten biblical side roads which deserves illumination.
While his story may not be as heroic as say that off John the Baptist and Salome, it's impact on teenage boys and grown up teenage boys has long been felt down the ages, no pun or double entendre intended.

So, who was Onan? Well, according to the Book of Genesis, Chapter 38, he was the second son of Judah, and the brother of Er. Now Er upset the God's and was sentenced to death by Yahweh for the sin of wickedness. After Er's death, Judah asked Onan to fulfill his duty as a brother-in-law to Tamar, Er's widow. As was the custom of the time, the brother of the deceased would provide offspring to the childless widow to preserve the family line.


Well, Onan had a bit of problem with this. He didn't like the idea of a child being born that would not legally be his heir, so he committed the mortal sin of spilling his seed (shooting his load, spitting his mustard etc) onto the ground. Now, Onan obviously had the hots for Tamar because he did this a number of times, but his fate had been sealed and like his brother before him he was sentenced to death by Yaweh for his wickedness. As time went by, the sin of 'wasting one's seed' became known as Onan's curse, although I would see it more of a blessing myself, but not for poor Onan.


Onan's curse developed into a widespread fear of masturbation, primarily in the 1700s and 1800s. At times it was believed by doctors of theology and medicine (who of course never once tickled their own trouser snake) to lead to mental and general health illnesses, vomiting, nausea, indigestion (that must explain the cause of my never ending acid reflux problem), epilepsy, pimples, blindness and even insanity, not to mention hairs growing on the palms of your hands,"But wouldn't they just get rubbed off again doctor"?


I'll leave the last word to Author Christopher Moore, and a quote from his book 'Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal'.

""The sin of Onan. Spilling the old seed on the ground. Cuffing the camel. Dusting the donkey. Flogging the Pharisee. Onanism, a sin that requires hundreds of hours of practice to get right, or at least that's what I told myself."

Charles Bukowski – "If You are Going to Try..."

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

Charles 'Hank' Bukowski. August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994

Dalton Trumbo – American Iconoclast

In April 1970, Dalton Trumbo was awarded the Laurel Award from The Writers Guild of America. During his acceptance speech he spoke of the 277 members of the guild who went to War during the 1940's. He spoke of a number who lost there lives and then went on to mention that a mere 6 years later, 43 of these writers would be denounced, stripped of their names and have their passports confiscated. Dalton Trumbo was one of those 43.

Trumbo's ambition after leaving the University of Colorado was to become a writer, and by the early 1930s his articles and stories appeared in Saturday Evening Post, McCall's Magazine, Vanity Fair and the film magazine, the Hollywood Spectator. In 1935 Trumbo published his first novel, Eclipse, a satire about a self-made businessman. Trumbo's most popular novel, Johnny Got His Gun, an anti war novel about a disfigured British officer in the First World War, won a National Book Award in 1939. However, the book was withdrawn during the Second World War. Republished in 1971, it gained a large following amongst the generation being sent to fight in Vietnam. After the war, Trumbo had moved on to writing screen plays and by 1945 was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood.

In 1947 House of Un-American Activities Committee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry, and in particular it's screen writers. McCarthy seemed obsessed with exposing and spotlighting "subversive elements". The HUAC interviewed 41 people working in Hollywood. These people became known as "friendly witnesses", and during their interviews they named several people who they accused of holding left-wing views. Trumbo was one of those named. When asked to attend the hearings and answer questions about his political affiliations, Trumbo, sighting the first amendment to The Constitution, refused to confirm or deny that he had ever been a member of the Communist party. Of course he had been a member like a lot of artists and intellectuals of the time. Many joined as a direct result of the rise of fascism throughout Europe. He believed that a man's political convictions were a private matter and "nobody's bloody business".

Alongside Trumbo, nine other screen writers followed the same course and they collectively became known as "The Hollywood Ten". Trumbo believed this to be a fundamental freedom of speech issue (this explains why he cited the first amendment, "The right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference", rather than the fifth amendment, "The right not to be incriminated"). After the hearings, at a meeting at The Waldorf Hotel, Eric Johnston, the President of The Motion Pictures Association of America went on to say that although the MPAA didn't believe in black listing the Hollywood Ten, they would not employ anyone who had anything to do with communism and no compensation would be payed to the writers. The Hollywood Ten were out of work, banned and banished from Hollywood. On leaving the hearings Trumbo was famously heard to say, "This is the beginning of an American concentration camp for writers", he would later be proved right.

In 1950, two of the ten, Jack Lawson and Trumbo himself were tried and found guilty of contempt of Congress and all ten were sentenced to ten months in prison. During their incarceration, the "Emergency Detention Act" was passed. Camps that had been used as internment centres for Japanese Americans during WW2 were turned into concentration camps for American radicals. On there release from jail in 1951, Trumbo and four friends, Ring Lardner Jr., Hugo Butler and Ian Hunter decided the only course of action was to go on the run and resettle in Mexico, taking with them what little belongings they had left and their families.

For the first year in Mexico, Trumbo and his fellow writers soaked up the Mexican culture, drank a lot and did little work. What work they did do across the border in the U.S.A. they rarely got payed for. By their second year,  and after a failed attempt at breaking into the Mexican film industry as screen writers, Trumbo and his family were completely broke and were forced to move back North. Trumbo was torn with regret and failure and realized the only thing he could do was start all over again, from the bottom, writing screen plays and scripts under assumed names. At the time he described himself has, "Broke as a bankrupts bastard". In the first 18 months since his return he wrote 12 scripts working himself to the bone, but still found himself having to borrow from friends and family to support his family.

The effect on Trumbo's family was that it unified them into a tightly bonded unit, however, wherever they went trouble dogged them. Even his children were vilified by teachers and PTA parents alike, being forced to move from one school to another.

At this time, The House of Un-American Activities gave people in the movie industry the choice of working if they agreed to name the names of those involved with Communist party. Many like Elia Kazan and Walt disney did just this, but Dalton Trumbo refused, instead continuing to work under assumed names. In 1957, Trumbo wrote the screen play for the film "The Brave One" using the name of a friend called Robert Rich. The film won an oscar for best screen play but in the meantime Robert Rich had died, so people naturally wanted to know who this 'Robert Rich' was. The oscar went unclaimed, but speculation was rife and Trumbo was interviewed and asked if he was the rightful winner. He neither admitted nor denied it, but it became obvious that he had written the screen play. This, in a way was the beginning of the end of the Hollywood blacklist.

In 1960, Kirk Douglas asked Dalton Trumbo to write the screen play for the Stanley Kubrick film "Spartacus". The famous scene where the slaves are offered their freedom so long as Spartacus reveals himself, seems now an allegory for those dark times of McCarthyism and black listings.

In 1971, Dalton Trumbo directed his only motion picture, his version of his novel "Johnny Got His Gun", featuring Jason Robards and Sam Bottoms, and two years later he wrote "Executive Action", which dealt with an alleged conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy.

When asked about the blacklist after receiving his Laurel Award, Trumbo was quoted as saying, "The blacklist was a time of evil...no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil...(Looking) back on this time...it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims."
Dalton Trumbo. 5th December, 1905 – 10th September, 1976.

Robert Crumb Arena Documentary

I just discovered viddler...full length high quality documentaries and movies. A new obsession looming, starting with this great appraisal of Robert Crumbs life and work and deep dark fantasies...

"Springtime Birdsong"

A tune I wrote to celebrate the springtime birdsong, though it was recorded in autumn...