Just a few bits and pieces off the top of my head, until (and if) longitudes resumes more substantial essays:
I finished a good book entitled Up From the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times, by Aaron Sachs. It’s a sort of combined mini-biography of both authors that draws parallels between them, as well as the turbulent times in which they lived. If you’re interested, I recently reviewed it on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59149225-up-from-the-depths.
Speaking of dark times, the phenomenon (disease) known as Donald Trump shows no sign of abating. As I see it, the problem is twofold: (1) an electorate loaded to capacity with birdbrains, and (2) a political party (Republican) that has completely abdicated its role as a gatekeeper of democracy. Even if Trump were to magically disappear, Republicans would just replace him with another bombastic demagogue, and one with a well-fermented base of willing acolytes. It’s not the individual; it’s an entire ideology and subculture.
I uploaded a couple new YouTube videos since my November post, covering my two nonfiction books (Evergreen Dreaming and Bluejackets in the Blubber Room), located here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgZUrVuzK88YUan7hBqCHWw. Occasionally I think I like being in front of a camera, but most of the time it makes me squirm. Think I’ll stick with the written word over audiovisual.
I began training for another marathon and was up to 16-mile runs, then felt a minor twinge in my knee that progressively worsened, so the April marathon that I so looked forward to is now in jeopardy. I’ve been resting and icing the knee. But considering what certain friends have had to undergo this past year (some of whom have left the planet), I don’t have a right to complain.
My wife has given tacit approval for me to attempt a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail in spring 2025. At least, she’s agreed to me hiking California. I figure if I can make the southern boundary of Oregon, maybe I can talk her into my doing the remainder. Whatever transpires, it’s good to have fun things on the horizon to strive for. What do we do given life? We move around (Stephen Stills).
I’d like to start another book, but a proper subject eludes me. I’ve thought of a third entry in my Nick Montaigne detective series, if only to complete a hat trick, but I’ve also thought of doing a biography, or perhaps attempting literary fiction. The Shades Dripped Red has sort of stalled, sales-wise. Not to sound bitter, but today’s publishing world seems to be predominately female: women writers, readers, editors, literary agents. There are probably a number of reasons for this. Want my opinion? Great, here it is! While it’s good that white males no longer monopolize the literary sphere (and many other spheres), I’m worried that identity has now become the key criterion…not quality. That doesn’t mean there aren’t great books by women writers. There are. But when I see publishing houses bragging about their “diversity,” and editors respond to my queries with “it’s quite tough to sell male-driven (italics are mine) crime novels,” and they suggest I make “a female voice central to the narrative,” I know it’s not my imagination. Assuming I’m right, this trend doesn’t bode well for our culture/society.
Sadly, if a male-centric novel like Moby-Dick or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were to be written today, it would have a tough time ever seeing the light of day. I’ve thought about doing a book where the central character is a black lesbian midget. But that might be outside my “wheelhouse,” as sportscasters like to say. (What the hell’s a wheelhouse, anyway?)
And I’ll close with that odd or end. A big “hello” to Neil, Mike, Holly, Frank, Leah, Phil, Robert, Robin, Dave, Tad, Jennie, Mary Kaye, David, Dean, Stephen King, and everyone else who has read or commented on longitudes for so many years…have a great 1924, and see you over the next wave! (And please ignore the fucked-up ad pollution that WordPress jams in here.)
A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read—Mark Twain
Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian—Herman Melville
First off, a cheerful note: HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE! (Even to those of you whose whose country doesn’t have holidays related to imperialism and ethnic cleansing.)
Now for something completely different: negative reader ratings and reviews of my books. Maybe it’s my warped personality, but as much as I love my books to receive four- and five-star thingies on Amazon and Goodreads (and thank heaven for those), it is the hateful and venomous ratings and reviews that really intrigue me. What could be going through these individuals’ heads? How could they so often be so wrong?
To that end, I recently recited, on YouTube, some harsh reviews of my hiking memoir, Evergreen Dreaming: Trail Tales of an Aging Hiker, by two anonymous ships sailing through my section of the inky cyberspace. It also afforded me the opportunity to defend myself…without using four-letter words.
When you put something out there for people to buy, you have to expect criticism, I realize. But it doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the criticisms.
I’m not sure where the star thingy thing began. I’m guessing it started with now-disgraced publishing-and-rock-music-hall-of-fame kingpin Jann Wenner and his magazine, Rolling Stone. Way back in the 1970s, Wenner evidently seemed to think that his publication wielded enough power to make or break a record album, and maybe even the artist behind it. He created a monster with his magazine’s ratings and lists, and now everyone from a dyslexic eight-year-old to a grandmother with vascular dementia has the ability to influence the success or failure of products in the marketplace.
Of course, critical reviews really took off with the internet. Before then, reviews of products like books were done by seasoned professionals with knowledge and experience, who knew what differentiated good writing from bad. (Okay, they too sometimes got it wrong, but at least they could back up their opinions.) While the internet has helped democratize things, and there are some non-professionals who do a pretty good job, there are also a whole lotta birdbrains. And if you don’t agree, just read some of the one- and two-star Goodreads reviews of Shakespeare’s plays.
But here we are, and we have to live with it, so might as well have fun with it.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy my latest YouTube video. And feel free to leave comments or, uh…thumbs up or thumbs down (ouch) thingies.
Hey WordPress Friends…I’m now solidly in marketing mode for my latest book, a true-crime-inspired murder mystery called THE SHADES DRIPPED RED: A NICK MONTAIGNE MYSTERY. (Click this hyperlink or this hyperlink) To that end, I’ve created a YouTube station called Peter Kurtz, Author, where I explain things in more detail, and a Facebook page, also called Peter Kurtz, Author.
The idea behind all this is to create “buzz” and get my work into the right hands…those hands being folks who like to read (which means all of you here on WordPress); and more specifically, who read mysteries, detective stories, crime fiction, and thrillers.
Good ratings and reviews on places like Amazon and Goodreads help immensely. (Not much I can do about the bad ones.) So if you read Shades and believe it’s a good book, please spread the word with a short review, or maybe an extended line of star thingies. I would be very grateful.
That’s about it. Hope to maybe see you on YouTube. You’re allowed to laugh. And please ignore the ad bullshit WordPress puts here. (I need to pay for another upgrade.)
Lastly, thanks to those of you who have already joined Nick and Vern to help solve this heinous crime in Springbrook, Ohio!
Based on an unsolved true crime in my hometown, my latest book, The Shades Dripped Red: A Nick Montaigne Mystery is now available for purchase! (Click preceding hyperlink for paperback or Kindle).
I thought it would be fun to assign my two gumshoes to wrap up a vicious unsolved homicide case that the “Springbrook” cops started but couldn’t finish. Nick Montaigne and Vern Wister probably hate that I dispatched them during COVID from downtown Atlanta to a corn town in Ohio that thinks Eisenhower is still president.
But I’m the writer, and they had no say in the matter.
As the book cover hints at, “Shades” deals with a violent crime in a suburban home. Espionage, China, and the military-industrial complex also play a part…in addition to sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, politics, religion, life, death, the universe, and movies that nobody watches anymore.
Anyway, thank you for checking out my latest effort, thank you for supporting indie publishing, and thank you for not informing my hometown about this book, or I’ll get sued for libel!
On April 15, 1995 a middle-aged, middle-class couple was gunned down execution-style on a Saturday night in a small northern Ohio town. The wife was shot once in the back of the head in the dining room. The husband was shot similarly in the den in front of his computer.
There was no apparent motive. The couple had no enemies. Neighbors claim they heard no gunshots. No evidence was left behind. Nothing was stolen. There were no witnesses…except one: the couple’s dog, Sarah.
***
This unsolved crime happened on the street where I lived as a child. I only learned about it ten years ago while visiting my mom and jogging past my old house and striking up a conversation with a homeowner. It fascinated me. Why would someone murder a perfectly harmless married couple living a quiet life in a peaceful Midwestern suburb?
To “get it out of my system” I decided to write about it. I chose to assign the case to my fictional private detective, Nick Montaigne. In my forthcoming book, The Shades Dripped Red, Montaigne and partner Vern Wister travel from Atlanta to Ohio and immerse themselves in the case.
Those familiar with my debut Montaigne novel, Black Jackknife, can expect more of the same mix of intrigue, psychology, sex, and humor. This time, however, Montaigne-Wister have to deal with small-town provincialism and the military-industrial complex. They encounter a host of colorful characters who, shall we say, make solving the “Moore murders” seem like a rollercoaster ride.
The manuscript is now in the proofing stage, and publication should happen in late-summer or early fall. I hope you’ll join me, Nick, and Vern in solving this cold case. Keep an eye on this blog for publication details.
Will Nick fall in lust again? Can Vern stay away from the bottle? Will “Sarah” be able to help the investigators? We’ll see. And I promise: my book will have no obnoxious ads like the garbage WordPress has put here.
Since “vacating the premises” last year, I’ve been busy with the second novel in my Nick Montaigne detective series. The new one is called THE SHADES DRIPPED RED. It’s based on an unsolved hit man-styled double homicide that happened in my old hometown—in a house right across the street from where I once lived. I’m about three-fourths done with writing and hope to publish later this year. With this one I’m trying some advance marketing—which is why I dropped back in for coffee with y’all!
Those who enjoyed the first Montaigne book, Black Jackknife (see Amazon link on this page), can expect much of the same: intrigue, style, humor, sex, and (what I hope is) a higher literary quality than most books in this genre. Oh yeah—humorous ex-cop Vern Wister seemed to strike a chord, so he’s back to help Nick with a bigger role than before.
Also—whereas Jackknife occurred mainly in Atlanta and on the Appalachian Trail—the setting for Shades is a small, suburban Ohio town. And instead of hiking and collegiate tennis, the backdrop is COVID-era international espionage and the military-industrial complex.
I’ll post again once I publish this bad boy…publication being either on Longitudes Press or with a traditional publisher. And as those Bartles and Jaymes guys used to say: “Thanks for your support!”
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of my first longitudes post. It also precedes my wife and me migrating to a warmer clime for six months, where I won’t have access to a (real) computer. Therefore, I’ve decided to go on indefinite hiatus.
I’ve truly enjoyed writing these 240 or so essays and am grateful to all who take time to read. I’ve tried to keep a mix of lighthearted and serious—life, after all, is both. With the lighthearted, I hope I’ve provoked a smile or laugh. With the serious, maybe I’ve encouraged (in my amateurish way) some considerations.
In that light, here are some of my favorite lighthearted and serious quotes. And to get one last lick in, I encourage all to watch a new documentary on the late George Carlin, entitled George Carlin’s American Dream.
While most of my heroes are musicians, comedian Carlin is one of the exceptions. He was not only damn funny, he had guts and integrity and was unafraid to butcher sacred cows. He remade himself several times, getting better with each remake. And it goes without saying we agree on a lot of things. I could easily list a hundred Carlin quotes, but in the interest of variety, I’m limiting myself to four.
We need you now more than ever, George.
Peace.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups—George Carlin
Political correctness is America’s newest form of intolerance, and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance—George Carlin
Rights are an idea. They’re just imaginary. They’re a cute idea. Cute…Rights aren’t rights if someone can take ’em away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of TEMPORARY privileges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list gets shorter, and shorter, and shorter—George Carlin
When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts—George Carlin
George Carlin being arrested in Milwaukee in 1972 after exercising his temporary privileges
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses—Lenny Bruce
The Jefferson and Lincoln memorials are stunning but you look at the dome of the Capitol and remember the mob that stormed it in the name of a miserable lie that is being repeated this election year and how do you explain this? The mob went to the same schools we did, learned about Jefferson and Lincoln, and yet they are fascinated by fascism and long for a dictator—Garrison Keillor
I went to church Sunday morning, which I need to do if I want to know whether I’m a believer still or if it’s just nostalgia—Garrison Keillor
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire—Winston Churchill
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself—Mark Twain
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect—Mark Twain
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind—Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library—Frank Zappa
The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced—Frank Zappa
Republicans stand for raw unbridled evil, and greed, and ignorance, smothered in balloons and ribbons—Frank Zappa
Liberals can understand everything but people who don’t understand them—Lenny Bruce
I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr. stamp – just think about all those white bigots licking the backside of a black man—Dick Gregory
Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war, for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I’d say we deserve ours more—John Lennon
Agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation—Oscar Wilde
All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised—Oscar Wilde
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel—Samuel Johnson
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing—Socrates
Modern Christianity is an encyclopedia of traditional superstition—Gore Vidal
Are we a dream in the mind of a deity, or is each of us a separate dreamer, evoking his own reality?—Gore Vidal
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country…and we haven’t seen them since—Gore Vidal
This is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
John F. Kennedy, during a 1962 Nobel Prize dinner
The title above is a biography by John B. Boles that I just finished. Normally I’d do a book review, but the subject himself is so fascinating I’d rather just riff on Jefferson than critique the book. Buckle your seat belts.
Suffice to say, Boles’s book is a good one-volume treatment of Jefferson. It’s easy to read and well-sourced. Fairly comprehensive. Maybe a bit too adulatory, but at least honest.
Before discussing Jefferson, I have to say I was somewhat surprised by what I learned about several other “Founders,” or sub-Founders. Although popular today because of that Broadway play, I had no idea that Federalist and Jefferson nemesis Alexander Hamilton was such an outright bastard. His poisonous lies and relentless invective make Trump look like a Cub Scout. (Okay, maybe not.)
I also had no idea that the man who killed Hamilton in a duel, Aaron Burr (Jefferson’s first-term vice-president), was such a self-centered, scheming treasonist.
And I especially didn’t know that Jefferson hated fellow Virginian Patrick Henry. Although a great orator (“Give me Liberty or give me Death!”), Henry evidently didn’t read books and wasn’t very smart. He actually proposed imposing a dictatorship when the American Revolution began going badly. For years, Jefferson ridiculed him mercilessly at the dinner table.
Aaron Burr (left) and Alexander Hamilton (right)
But back to the dinner topic at hand…there are some things most of us know, or should know, about Thomas Jefferson. He was the third American president and a Founding Father chosen to author the United StatesDeclaration of Independence, the iconic written diatribe against King George III detailing why American colonists chose to break from England to form their own country, and which was signed by 55 other congressional delegates from the 13 colonies.
More than any other Founder, Jefferson exalted the ideas of democracy and individual conscience. Along with fellow Democrat-Republican and protégé James Madison, he conceived the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and which separates religion from all levels of government. (Government-imposed religion was an absolute given in the Old Country.) He modeled it after the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he’d also authored three years earlier as Governor of that colony.
As for his own religion, although considering himself a Christian, Jefferson was a deist who felt the Christian faith had become corrupted by disciples after Jesus’s death. Jefferson was a leading light of the Age of Enlightenment, an admirer of philosophers John Locke and Thomas Paine (Common Sense, The Age of Reason). Throughout his life he was fascinated by science and adhered to reason and rationality over superstition. He considered Jesus the most moral philosopher the world has known, but did not believe in his divinity. He created his own Jefferson Bible by excising everything supernatural from the New Testament. (Printings of his bible are available at a bookstore near you.)
Jefferson lived at a plantation he called Monticello, which he carved out of a mountain outside Charlottesville, Virginia using slave labor. He developed it over a period of 40 years. (Monticello is pictured on the U.S. nickel, the flip side of Jefferson’s profile.) Here, he established a 1,000-foot-long terraced vegetable garden that grew 330 varieties of vegetables and 170 varieties of fruits. As a politician he championed the small farmer, was a pioneer of sustainable agriculture, and was one of the country’s great epicures.
As president, Jefferson doubled the size of America by overseeing the purchase of the western Louisiana territory from Napoleon Bonaparte of France. It cost the U.S. all of four cents an acre. He then organized a successful exploration of the unknown lands by his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, exponentially increasing America’s knowledge of Western geography, archaeology, flora, fauna, and Indian tribes.
Meriwether Lewis
After the Library of Congress was burnt by invading British during the War of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal collection of 6,487 volumes to restart the library. They replaced the collection that Jefferson had earlier recommended the library acquire.
Just before his death in 1826, Jefferson conceived, founded, was principal architect for, and chose the curriculum and faculty for one of America’s most respected public universities, the University of Virginia. He was “convinced that the people (white males) are the sole depositories of their own liberty, & that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree.” (I tried to gain entrance to UVA in 1977 but was rejected. In 2005 I visited Monticello, and revisited the campus while our daughter was touring colleges. Everyone at both places politely referred to him as “Mister Jefferson,” as if he was still alive.)
Along with designing the university, Jefferson also oversaw the layout for the nation’s new capitol grounds at Washington D.C., and his neoclassical architectural designs set the precedent for future U.S. federal structures.
Jefferson was probably the most intelligent and worldly of all the Founding Fathers. (Benjamin Franklin is up there, too.) Although ambitious, his patience, even-temperedness, humility, and knowledge were renowned amongst his political peers, including George Washington, who made him Secretary of State and often consulted him. Like so many in the 18th and 19th centuries, he experienced profound death and tragedy, losing his wife Martha at a young age, along with children and grandchildren.
Jefferson lived 83 years, dying the same day as his onetime rival but beloved friend, second President John Adams. It was 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He wrote his own epitaph. It was simple and reflected his humble public persona, stipulating what he was most proud of: Author of the Declaration of Independence (and) of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia. Of his being president for two terms and his presidential accomplishments…nothing.
Monticello
As exceptional a human being as Jefferson was, his enlightenment was tempered by his place and time. Even during his lifetime rumors swirled of a slave concubine (in today’s parlance, “sex toy”) known as “Black Sal” or “Dusky Sally.”
For 200 years historians have grappled with whether slaveholder Jefferson fathered children with a quadroon “servant” named Sally Hemings. A DNA study in 1998 concluded there was a high probability he was the father of at least one of Hemings’s six children. However, that study also said Jefferson “can neither be definitely excluded nor solely implicated…”
Presently, most Jefferson scholars and historians, including the Thomas Jefferson Foundation—through combining the DNA findings with written evidence—conclude he did father children by her (not surprisingly, Hemings descendants do as well). Biographer Boles goes further to suggest their “relationship” was “founded on shared tenderness and love” and that “the sexual attraction between Jefferson and Hemings was likely mutual…”
I find Boles’s suggestion of romantic love between master and slave plausible, but unnerving, and it’s one of the few criticisms I have of his book [in addition to some qualified language such as “Jefferson rarely (sold slaves),” “he made an effort (not to separate mothers from their children),” he “(only sold his slaves) out of economic necessity,” and “Jefferson’s theoretical opposition to (whipping)”].
It was in Paris between 1787 and 1789 while Jefferson was American minister to France that their (probable) intimacies probably began. Hemings was a teenager who was acting as companion to Jefferson’s younger daughter, Maria. By several contemporary accounts, Hemings was extremely beautiful, with “very light skin; long, straight black hair.”
Slavery had been illegal in France since Louis X in 1315. Was Hemings technically free while on French soil despite being owned by an American? If so, did Jefferson think this mitigated a middle-aged widower like himself having sex with a young, uneducated, recent ex-slave? Did love blossom either before or after she agreed to return to the states with him? Can love even exist between a master and servant/slave, or is it always rape?
Soap opera aside, bottom line is Jefferson owned people. Any additional moral crimes stem from that original sin.
Sally Hemings was born in 1773. Her white father, John Wayles, was Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law. She died in 1835 and there are no photos or drawings of her. This is a detail from a Monticello “Farm Book,” displaying her four children: Harriet, Madison, Eston, and Beverley. Notably, all were named after friends or relatives of Jefferson (Madison after James Madison).
In his meager defense, Jefferson successfully banned American importation of Africans. And despite unenlightened views on racial equality/inequality, he opposed slavery throughout his life and, at least at the start of his political career, tried to abolish it through state and federal legislation. Of course, his efforts were fruitless, primarily due to violently intransigent southern politicians who, two generations later, would finally have their apocalypse. Of the roughly 200 slaves owned by Jefferson during his life, he freed only two. He freed five more in his will. Three more left Monticello with Jefferson’s consent. All except two were domestic help and part of the Hemings family.
As I expected, while Boles justifiably devotes extensive print to slavery and Jefferson’s immersion in it, his coverage of Jefferson’s American Indian policies and affairs, including their removal, is woefully inadequate. So I’ll offer a few paragraphs on that subject.
Jefferson the amateur anthropologist admired Indians and believed they were superior to blacks physically, intellectually, and culturally, and also that they might eventually become ingratiated into white agrarian society as equals. But even here there was a great hypocrisy. He stipulated to Meriwether Lewis that the Corps of Discovery restrain from any acts of hostility toward Indians they might encounter…but he also hungered for the land they inhabited.
In an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, who was then the territorial governor of Indiana, President Jefferson outlined a devious policy of using government trading posts to drive Indians into debt so they would more easily “lop (the debts) off by a cession of lands.”
And when a patronizing Jefferson addressed a delegation of Shawnee and other Indian tribes in 1809, hoping to win them over from the British, he threatened that “the tribe which shall begin an unprovoked war against us, we will extirpate (exterminate) from the earth or drive to such a distance as they shall never again be able to strike us.”
Then, as now, enlightenment only goes so far.
Indian Head nickel and Jefferson nickel: opposing views of Liberty
Originally, I ended my post with the pithy statement above. Then I thought, who am I? Thomas Jefferson deserves better. After rereading the Introduction in Boles’s book, I landed on this excellent paragraph, which perfectly summarizes how I feel. Anyway…thanks for taking time to read all of this. Peace.
We should not expect (Jefferson) to have embraced the values of a cosmopolitan, progressive person of the twenty-first century. How could he have possibly done so? Instead, we should try to understand the constraints—legal, financial, personal, intellectual—under which he lived. To understand certainly does not mean to approve or even forgive; rather, it means to comprehend why Jefferson made the kinds of decisions he made and saw the world as he did. He was a gentle, well-educated, idealistic man who sought—by his lights—to do right. Yet at times he acted in ways we now find abhorrent. Appreciating how this can be so is the task of the Jefferson scholar, the student of history, and perhaps every American citizen.
The Wall Street Journal not only honored Jack Kerouac’s 100th birthday (see my last post), but the same issue had an article entitled “Why Millennials Want Their Parents’ Vinyl Records.” The sub-title was “Sales of LPs soared during the pandemic as younger listeners discovered their nostalgic and sensory appeal.”
For years I’ve tried to get my millennial son to understand this. Maybe it’s finally kicking in.
On that note, when I was even younger than Nick is now, I made the discovery of music appreciation books, guides, and encyclopedias. They assisted me when, as a teenager, I began compiling my (now massive) record collection that I hope to one day bestow on Nick. They helped me peel back layers to reveal all sorts of juicy musical fruit under the outer skin.
Paul Gambaccini
Just recently I revisited an old book that I’d once pored over while wasting time in Walden Books at the local mall. It’s called Rock Critics’ Choice: The Top 200 Albums. It was compiled way back in 1978 during the Pleistocene Age, when the publication of rock music books began catching up with magazines like New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, and Creem. The compiler was a venerable BBC presenter named Paul Gambaccini (an interesting man, in more ways than one).
Rock critics you say? Someone once called them frustrated rock musicians. Musician Lou Reed was more succinct. He called them “scum.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but as with everything, there are good ones and bad ones. In their defense, rock critics provide potential purchasers with insights into music that circumvent “record company advertising (and) the squeals of the loudest fans.” It’s nice to have a temperate and unbiased guide before one contributes one’s hard-earned cash to Artie Fufkin of Polymer Records.
Most rock fans, especially in the U.S., get their music from the radio or television. But deejays and “veejays” have always been at the mercy of their employer, or corporate wankers like Fufkin.
Rock critics cut through the hype (sometimes) and were helpful when I became a serious listener in the 1970s. Rock Critics’ Choice in particular introduced me to artists I might otherwise never have heard. The other book so beneficial to me over the years has been The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, compiled by Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden of New Musical Express.
(Last month, during one of my late-night vinyl appreciation sessions, I joyously re-listened to Edgar Broughton Band’s album Oora, which Illustrated Encyclopedia had led me to. Talk about a great unknown record.)
Anyway, back to Rock Critics’ Choice…compiler Gambaccini queried about 50 of his print and radio colleagues, asking them to list what they consider the ten greatest rock albums, in order of greatness. He defined “greatness” as whatever criteria the particular critic wanted to use. He permitted “Best Of” and “Greatest Hits” collections. (Not sure I’d allow that.) For fair and diverse representation, he consulted critics who were male, female, young, old, white, black, American, British, Canadian, French, Jamaican, and Eskimo.
He then tallied the results and assigned points to each album. (I assume an album in the first position got 10 points, and tenth position got one point.)
Unlike those ubiquitous Rolling Stone lists, quoted everywhere and which are heavy on mainstream rock and dripping with set-in-stone conceit, Gambaccini’s book is looser and more democratic. It permits diversity (both critic and music) and honors both rock establishment (i.e. classic rock) as well as cult artists.
I found his ultimate Top 200 list predictable in some ways, but surprising in others.
Predictably, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones dominated the top positions. Also predictably, older critics leaned toward early rock ‘n’ roll (Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the like). There were a lot of soul records, ala Otis Redding, the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, etc. Some choices teetered over the boundaries of rock (Huey “Piano” Smith, B.B. King, Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew).
The book also had some truly oddball choices. For example, a minor South African actress named Genevieve Waїte (note deliberate umlaut over the “i”) made one and only one album in 1975 called Romance Is On The Rise. It made two critics’ lists, clocking in overall at number 98. It’s actually more of a John Phillips (Mamas and Papas) album with his then-wife doing the singing. She sounds like a disco version of Cyndi Lauper trying to imitate Billie Holiday. I concluded Genevieve must have been a flavor of the moment.
Michael Nesmith, who got off to a dubious musical start with the Monkees, actually had talent. One critic, however—as his number one greatest album of all time—selected Nesmith’s solo country-rock effort And The Hits Just Keep On Comin‘. Though I’ve yet to hear it, this offbeat choice also raised my incredulous eyebrow.
Another critic chose as his list topper a collection by the R&B group The “5” Royales (note deliberate quotation marks around the numeral). I appreciate certain fifties music from a historical perspective, but this elicited more head scratching. My guess is that the Royales’ song “Dedicated to the One I Love” might have been playing in this particular critic’s Buick Roadmaster the first time he got laid.
One cheeky rebel without a cause listed a bootleg album, by Bob Dylan and the Band.
The book’s lone Canadian critic, for both his number one and number three picks, listed Supertramp albums. Yes, you heard right. Respectfully, sir, I have to take issue with your thinking.
Another critic, the late Robert Shelton, had no less than three Bob Dylan albums in his top ten. But considering Shelton virtually launched Dylan’s career in 1961 with his New York Times review of a performance at Gerdes Folk City—and considering it’s Bob Dylan, not Supertramp—I can forgive Shelton’s zeal.
Rock Critics’ Choice is an enjoyable little book—great bathroom reading—and like I said, when it came out in 1978 it prodded me to explore music I wouldn’t otherwise have explored. The book’s only negative is its vintage. Although punk bands like the Clash and Ramones are represented, it was published before new wave, alternative, indie, thrash, grunge, rap, hip-hop, and other assorted popular flavors of rock.
But if you’re a baby boomer like me whose era was the late fifties through the mid-seventies, this book provides pleasurable non-think entertainment, and spurs one to make one’s own list. My own top 10 “greatest” list had five albums that made the top 20 of Rock Critics’ Choice: Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan (ranked number 3 in RCC), Rubber Soul by The Beatles (number 5), Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys (number 12), The Velvet Underground And Nico by the Velvet Underground (number 14), and Forever Changes by Love (number 16).
My champion pick, The Velvet Underground And Nico, was listed by many of Gambaccini’s cohorts and made number 14, but only one picked it to top her list: New York critic Lisa Robinson. Lou Reed and I like her.
Of course, the term “greatest” is entirely subjective (excepting Muhammad Ali, who truly was The Greatest). But if you have a pre-1979 rock album or albums you consider deserving of this descriptor, and wish to share them here, leave a comment and I’ll see where they rank in Rock Critics’ Choice.
Babysitting my granddaughters the other day, my eye caught a headline in my son-in-law’s The Wall Street Journal, which lay on the marble kitchen countertop of their suburban home. It concerned long-deceased writer Jack Kerouac. His 100th birthday was March 12.
I thought it ironic that this birthday was recognized by a publication like The Wall Street Journal. Kerouac’s lifestyle and philosophies seemed a conscious rejection of everything which that newspaper represents.
I also thought it ironic that he was born only a few months before my dad. The two of them couldn’t have been more unlike (and I’m forever thankful of that).
No American writer has experienced such a mixture of worship, mockery, and vilification than Kerouac. My belief is that most who hate him have read little if any of his novels or poetry. Some undoubtedly bring their political or cultural prejudices to the table. His early critics were literary and social conventionalists. After the 1960s, his critics, most of them older than 30, saw him as dated and trite.
A few surprising facts to shake up the myths: Kerouac was plagued his entire life by guilt inflicted by the Catholic Church, as well as the early death of his older brother, Gerard, whom he worshipped; he had a deep understanding of classic world literature; he pioneered “spontaneous prose” but continually reworked what he spontaneously wrote; he hated being labeled the “King of the Beat Generation” and almost sued the producers of the exploitative TV show Route66; unlike friend and fellow beat Allen Ginsberg, he was baffled by the hippie counterculture that both writers had inadvertently spawned; he (reputedly) watched TV airings of HUAC hearings while simultaneously smoking marijuana and cheering for Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
A less surprising fact: he wrote the Great American Novel. Maybe the most American.
Like many, I read On the Road while in college. (I discovered it on my own; no university English professor would dare assign that book.) And like all who read it, it kindled a brush fire under my ass, flinging me behind the wheel of my car to travel across America…twice…loving everything and everybody along the way.
On the Road got under my skin like no other book ever has.
Flash forward forty years, and I’m astonished at how and why I fell under Kerouac’s spell. In 1979, when I first tentatively read Road (I’ve read it five times total, and several other Kerouac books), the author had been dead ten years. Road had been in print for 22 years. Kerouac’s (Sal Paradise’s) first car trip with Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty) was ten years before that.
How could someone’s experiences from just two years after the end of World War II have such a visceral effect on a starry-eyed kid who, in two years, would be scratching his head over the popularity of a corporate phenomenon called MTV? From Charlie Parker to Haircut100? Are you fucking serious? The times, indeed, had a-changed.
Today, wrapped in the “forlorn rags of growing old,” I cringe when recalling some of the dangerous behaviors on my own road trip, in direct emulation of my hero. (“Did I really do that?”) But I was young, and young people play-act and do dumb things. Thankfully, I didn’t get shot, or catch hepatitis or HIV…or end up a morose alcoholic, living with his mother, dead in central Florida at age 47. Significantly, neither am I the poet Kerouac was.
I probably took the emulation bit somewhat farther than most—I kept my paperback copy of Road in the glovebox of my ’79 Chevy Impala as motel rooms store copies of the Holy Bible—but that doesn’t negate the fact that I had a fantastic time trying to emulate him, and would never trade in that naivety.
I have flashes of that old sensation: anticipating leaving home to plunge into the red-orange glow of the West when I was 23. It was the openness of possibility and discovery, of being young and unencumbered, of experiencing freedom in America for the first time.
I haven’t done research, but I wonder how many college kids or grown-up kids today read On the Road. I’m afraid to find out. I don’t think it matters. That book has made a permanent imprint.
They look and talk differently today, but young people still have Kerouac in their veins, cell technology notwithstanding, and even if they don’t know it and can’t verbalize their motivations. I met them last year while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. They’re willing to, at least for a while, reject Dow Jones & Company, Inc. They’re old enough yet bold enough to chance a great adventure and love everybody and everything along the way. Crazy enough to dirt-bag one of America’s trails, or start a rock band, or follow a band around the country, or suspend time while suspending themselves by rope against a rock face.
In six weeks, at the A.T. trailhead at Wind Gap, Pennsylvania, I’ll join them again. (I defy the golf course and fishing rod.) It won’t be the same as when I was 23, but I can still capture shards of that fading feeling. I’ve got God on my side, and “don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear?”
Those of us in the know are still with you, Jack. Belated Happy 23rd Birthday.
Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac (photo by Carolyn Cassady)
longitudes 
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