 We
Salute
 ALISON
KRAUSE JEFFREY
MILLER
 SANDRA
SCHEUER WILLIAM
SCHROEDER
&
The 9 Students Injured
May
4, 1970
Killed
by bullets fired from The National Gaurd ,during a peaceful protest of
the Viet Nam War
Rebecca
V. Howe: an undergraduate student at Kent State University in 1970,
Rebecca V. Howe discusses her memories of May 3 and 4, 1970. She
describes the tanks and army personnel that she saw lining a pathway up
to her dormitory, Lake Hall. She recalls chatting with National
Guardsmen, seeing searchlights, and hearing the sounds of helicopters.
She describes returning to her dorm after lunch on Monday, May 4,
seeing a trail of blood, and helping a wounded student get to the
health center. She also describes her experiences leaving campus that
day after it had been closed due to the shootings.
Listen
to eyewitness accounts of the shootings. The Kent State Shootings Oral
Histories collection contains audio files of 69 oral histories
including many eyewitness accounts of the event and its aftermath,
contributed by people who were students, faculty members, and City of
Kent residents at the time, as well as an account by an Ohio National
Guardsman. The oral histories are now freely available online as part
of the OhioLINK Digital Media Center’s Historic
& Archival Digital Media database.
Resting
on a 2 1/2-acre wooded site overlooking Kent State
University's commons, the May 4 Memorial commemorates the events of May
4, 1970, when four
students were killed and nine
were wounded during an anti-war protest on the Kent Campus.
The
memorial provides visitors a retreat for interpretation and
reflection. Its environmental design by Chicago architect Bruno Ast was
developed from a concept submitted by Mr. Ast to the University's
National Design Competition in 1986.
Constructed
of carnelian granite, a stone associated with strength
and time, the memorial is surrounded by 58,175
daffodils, the number of the country's losses in Vietnam.
A
plaza measuring 70 feet wide is bound by a granite walkway that
merges with the sidewalk winding from residence halls to the heart of
the academic campus.
The
plaza extends onto the hillside some 22 feet, ending in a
jagged, abstract border symbolic of disruptions and the conflict of
ideas. Its fractured edge suggests the tearing of the fabric of
society.
A
granite wall built along the entry defines the plaza as a
significant gathering area. The wall is representative of both shelter
and conflict.
Engraved
in the plaza's stone threshold are the words "Inquire,
Learn, Reflect." The inscription, agreed upon by the
designer and Kent State University, affirms the intent that the
memorial
site provide visitors an opportunity to inquire into the many reasons
and purposes of the events, to encourage a learning process, and to
reflect on how differences may be resolved peacefully.
A
progression of four polished black granite disks embedded in the
earth lead from the plaza to four free-standing pylons aligned on the
hill. The disks reflect our own image as we stand on them; the pylons
stand as mute sentinels to the force of violence and the memory of the
four students killed.
A
fifth disk placed to the south acknowledges the many victims of
the event. It implies a much wider impact, one that stretched far
beyond
the Kent Campus.
A 48-foot bench along the
granite walkway provides visitors a place
to rest and to view the memorial
|
Additional May 4, 1970 links :
Timelines and interesting interviews.
Kent State, May 4, 1970: America Kills Its
Children
OhioLINK Digital Media Center’s Historic
& Archival Digital Media
List of May 4 Memorials
Moments Before...This is a photo story.
Kent State shootings - Wikipedia
News,and links for researching the shootings
KENT STATE 1970: May 1 through May 4
What Kent State's Memorial Lacks
Clark address draft re: Kent State Memorial
Service
RESOURCES: PEOPLE: Allison Krause
SPEECH: Kendra Lee Hicks Pacifico speech
about Allison, 1997
SPEECH: Barry Lavine speech from 2000 about
Allison
POEM: Flowers & Bullets, by Yevgeny
Yevtushenko
Remember our Kent State 1970 martyrs
PHOTOS: Howard Ruffner remembers Allison at
a 1969 protest in downtown Kent, Ohio.
Find-a-grave.com listing for Allison Krause
Wikipedia listing for Allison Krause
Jeffrey Miller - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
May 4 Archive - Jeffrey Miller
Sandra Scheuer - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Find-a-grave.com listing for Sandra Scheuer
Sandra Scheuer - Biography of Sandra Scheuer
William Knox Schroeder - Wikipedia
Find-a-grave.com listing for William Knox
Schroeder
May 4 Archive - Bill Schroeder
Mary Ann Vecchio | Photos that Changed the
World
Mary Ann Vecchio - Wikipedia
Mary Ann Vecchio - Biography Research Guide
May 4 Archive - Mary Ann Vecchio meets John
Filo
|
return to index
|
Cheney
and Rumsfeld
pressured CIA to mislead Congress in the 1970s, Too
By Margie Burns
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 27, 2009
The first
time Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld pressured the CIA to mislead
Congress was in 1975 and 1976, when Cheney was chief of staff to
President Gerald Ford and Rumsfeld was Fords secretary of defense.
Cheney,
having held a series of positions alongside Rumsfeld -- starting under
him in the Nixon administration -- also became campaign manager for
Fords reelection campaign. George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA,
appointed by Jerry Ford when Ford switched Rumsfeld from White House
chief of staff to secretary of defense.
The mission
of the three men was to protect the Ford presidency and some elements
in the CIA from the Church Committee. According to researcher Lamar
Waldron, they succeeded.
Waldron is
co-author, with Thomas Hartmann, of Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow
of the JFK Assassination, an exhaustively documented 800 pages
compiling more than three decades of research into the assassinations
of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. In
two recent interviews of more than an hour each, Waldron discussed how
much some things haven�t changed since before Watergate.
Reacting to
public outrage over a series of abuses -- including domestic
surveillance -- exposed during Watergate, the Nixon impeachment and the
winding down of the Vietnam War, in 1975 Congress authorized a special
senate committee chaired by Democrat Frank Church of Idaho to look into
abuses of the intelligence agencies, primarily the CIA and FBI. The
Church Committee was convened, getting off to a slow start and under
steady CIA-friendly media fire from the beginning; Ford appointed
George H. W. Bush as head of the CIA and Donald Rumsfeld as secretary
of defense in October 1975.
As Waldron
points out, we now know from thousands of documents declassified since
the 1970s that a massive amount of vital information was withheld by
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush from the Senates Church Committee. The White
House and top echelon of the CIA withheld from the committee
information about the CIA�s manipulation of the news media; domestic
spying; and material about Cuba, including JFKs plan to topple Fidel
Castro on December 1, 1963, the Mafias infiltration of the anti-Castro
plan, and the CIAs unauthorized continuation of agency plotting to use
the Mafia to assassinate Castro. Waldron and Hartmann document in
Legacy of Secrecy that then-CIA official Richard Helms withheld the
unauthorized extension of the mob-linked anti-Castro plots from JFK
himself, and from President Lyndon Johnson and from the Warren
Commission afterward -- and even from JFKs own CIA Director.
The legacy
of secrecy -- often for political or career reasons, depending on the
individual, or for bureaucratic self-protection -- continued throughout
the sixties and seventies to the Church investigation. Some
particularly flashy and sensational material on the larger issues was
shared with the committee, garnering headlines. Elements of the Castro
assassination plots like those exploding cigars to be given to
Fidel,
for example, were divulged by the CIA to Church and were exposed with
much fanfare. But the deeper concern of intensive Mafia participation
in the anti-Castro plots was never fully investigated -- not even by
the later House Select Committee on Assassinations, and certainly not
by the Church committee.
The back
story is that from 1960 to 1963 Mafia participation in plots to
assassinate Castro became, tragically for the United States, a powerful
Mafia participation in plots to assassinate President Kennedy. The CIA
picked up too lethal a tool in choosing the Mob to carry out its plans
to remove Castro.
To this day,
the general public -- which never bought the lone nut theory
that the
manipulated Lee Harvey Oswald, a beginning-level marksman,
singlehandedly brought off the miracle shot of the assassination --
still has not been permitted to know the full extent of the powerful
arsenal of resources trained against President Kennedy by the
wealthiest Mafia families in the U.S. Coordinated by Carlos Marcello,
head of the oldest Mafia family in the U.S. (dating from the 19th
century) and Gulf Coast kingpin in control of Louisiana and Texas, they
had planned since 1962 to take out the Kennedy brothers -- either
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, aggressively pursuing the Mob, or,
more effectively, the brother in the White House who had appointed him
as AG. When John Kennedy came down South -- as they had previously
threatened -- they took him out, having tried twice before in November
1963 to get JFK, once in Tampa and once in Chicago. The helpless Oswald
-- seen drinking a Coke in the Texas Book Depository two minutes after
Kennedys murder -- was then taken out himself, by heavily
mob-connected nightclub owner (actually, mob gnome) Jack Ruby,
given
basically full run of the Dallas police station. The general public has
also not been permitted to know the full extent of Rubys Mafia
involvement, despite hundreds of pages of information detailing his mob
connections.
One
continuing consequence is the effect on U.S. relations with Cuba to
this day, something Waldron and Hartmann deplore. As Waldron says, no
national security reason justifies hiding the JFK assassination
archives in the year 2009. Congress intended them to be revealed years
ago; the Cuban official implicated in the anti-Castro plots -- Almeida
-- has long since been outed and forgiven; and both the United States
and Cuba would benefit from expanded trade and other relationships.
Releasing
more millions of pages of documents already declassified would
illuminate more history of the twentieth century, including one of its
defining tragic events. Waldron says, in the wake of current
controversy, that he would like very much to see Cheney testify under
oath about the material withheld from the Church Committee. After all,
there is no legitimate security concern to justify keeping the material
hidden. There is no argument, however specious, that releasing it would
somehow endanger our troops.
There is not
even an argument, in regard to those anti-Castro plots,
that they
worked. As Waldron says, Nobody thought Castro would be in
office
this long. Of course, as he also remarks, nobody thought during the
1970s that Cheney and Rumsfeld and George H. W. Bush would be back in
government again, either, much less that they would return as vice
president and secretary of defense in a bloody war and president,
respectively. If we dont learn from the past, we are condemned to
relive it, with a vengeance. (The late Mary McGrory wrote about the
return to government of so many Nixon retreads in her columns; very few
other established Washington journalists did so, at least in newspapers
and television news.)
In these
changing times, one reason it would have been good to see the luminous
Caroline Kennedy in the Senate is that she would be an excellent
resource in support of warmer relations with Cuba. Few individuals
would be better qualified to represent -- just by her presence -- U.S.
awareness of our need to reach out to the islands near us, including
Cuba, in a favorable, beneficial and practical way.
|
New
swine flu feared to be
weaponized strain
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
According to
two mainstream media journalists, one in Mexico City and the other in
Jakarta, who spoke to WMR on background, they are convinced that the
current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts
of the United States is the result of the introduction of a
human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global
pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and
international travel and commerce.
The
journalists have been told by top officials of the United Nations and
the World Health Organization (WHO) about the grave dangers posed by
the new and deadly swine flu strain, known as A-H1N1. This flu, never
before seen by scientists, has already killed up to 68 people in Mexico
and has forced the cancellation of public events, including sports
matches and concerts, and the closure of schools, libraries, and
museums. Eight cases have been reported in Texas and California.
Doctors are examining several students at a Queens high school in New
York who displayed symptoms similar to those experienced by swine flu
patients in Mexico.
Our Mexico
City source said a top scientist for the United Nations, who has
examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as
HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain
transmission vectors that suggest that the new flu strain has
been
genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon. The
UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine
flu virus are biological warfare agents.
Past swine
flu outbreaks have been spread from pigs to humans, who then passed the
flu on to other humans. However, with A-H1N1, there have been no
reported infections of pigs. In fact, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), A-H1N1 has gene segments from
North American swine, bird and human flu strains and a segment from
Eurasian swine flu. Costa Rica, Brazil, and Peru have issued alerts to
check all incoming passengers from Mexico at border crossings,
airports, and seaports for symptoms of the swine flu.
WHO is
convening an emergency session of its top medical experts in Geneva and
is set to declare H1N1 a public health event of international
concern. It is reported that WHO will recommend travel restrictions to
and from areas where the flu has been reported, including Mexico City
and the states of Mexico, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca.
Our Jakarta
source said WHO officials are afraid that the presence of gene segments
from dreaded H5N1 bird flu in the A-H1N1 swine flu strain could mean
that the new swine flu strain was engineered to jump species.
WMR has been
informed that the CDC and U.S. Army dug up the body of an Inuit woman
who died in 1918 in Brevig Mission, Alaska from an outbreak of Spanish
flu. The influenza pandemic that year killed up to 100 million people
worldwide in an 18-month period. Brevig Mission saw 72 of its 80
residents die within five days, the worst case recorded anywhere in the
world. WMR has been told the genetic material recovered by the U.S.
government from the corpse of the Inuit woman provided the basis for
the development of the H5N1, or bird (avian), flu strain at the U.S.
Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) laboratory at
Fort Detrick, Maryland, the point of origin for the Ames strain of
anthrax used in the 2001 bio-war attacks against the U.S. Congress and
the media.
The fear in
Asia is that if the A-H1N1 pandemic spreads to the United States,
travel to and from the country will be all but shut down.
The
following are the symptoms associated with A-H1N1: cough, fever, sore
throat, shortness of breath, & muscle and joint pain. The drugs
Tamiflu and Relenza are seen as the most effective against A-H1N1
|
The Warning: Five Authors. One Warning. American democracy in crisis.
Terrorism.
Cronyism. Surveillance. The suspension of basic Constitutional
protections. The Patriot Act. Pre-emptive War. Bad intelligence.
Torture. Corporate power. Mercenaries. Occupation. The Unitary
Executive. Neo-Cons. A never-ending war against "terror."
More
Info HERE
A
Playlist Fit for a Dick: Songs for Cheney to Chill Out To
by David Wild ~ TV Writer, Rolling Stone
Contributing Editor and author of "He Is . . . I Say
Posted on The
Huffington Post
"TWO YEARS OF TORTURE' -
Ray Charles
"BEFORE
YOU ACCUSE ME" -- Bo Diddley
"DIRTY
LITTLE SECRET" -- All American Rejects
"NO
MORE MR. NICE GUY" -- Alice Cooper
"HAPPINESS
IS A WARM GUN" -- The Beatles
"DAUGHTER
OF DARKNESS" -- Tom Jones
(for
Liz Cheney)
"BEAUTIFUL
LOSER" - Bob Seger
"DON'T
YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME) -- Simple Minds
"HANDS
CLEAN" -- Alanis Morissette
"IDIOT
WIND" --Bob Dylan
"COULD
YOU BE LOVED" --Bob Marley
(for
Lynne Cheney)
TORTURE
ME - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"ONLY
THE GOOD DIE YOUNG" -- Billy Joel
"DON'T
GO AWAY, MAD (JUST GO AWAY)" -- Motley Crue
Let’s
Nominate Pete Seeger for a Nobel Peace Prize!
Pete
Seeger has been an ambassador for Peace and Social Justice over the
course of his lifetime. As an artist and activist, his music and
performance have worked to engage people in causes to end war, ban
nuclear weapons, work for international solidarity and environmental
responsibility.
Pete's
most popular songs - among them - If I Had a Hammer, We Shall Overcome,
Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and The Big Muddy, all anti war
anthems, served as beacons for an entire generation.
Pete
knit the world together with songs from China, the Soviet Union,
Israel, Cuba, South Africa, Nicaragua, and Republican Spain. We learned
about the history of this country from his singing of songs from the
Revolutionary war, the Farmer-Labor party, anti-slavery movements, IWW,
CIO organizing, and the Civil Rights Movement.
Let’s
urge the American Friends Service Committee to nominate Pete Seeger for
the Nobel Peace Prize!
Sign
the online petition at www.nobelprize4pete.org
E-mail
or write the American Friends Service Committee
peace@afsc.org
American
Friends Service Committee
Nobel
Peace Prize Nominating Committee
1501
Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102
Pete
Seeger meets The American Friends Service Committee Nobel Peace Prize
Nominating Criteria:
1. The
candidate’s commitment to nonviolent methods.
2. The
quality of the candidate as a person of integrity and sustained
contribution to peace.
3. The
candidate’s body of work on issues of peace, justice, human dignity,
and the ecology of the environment.
4. The
candidate’s expression of a worldview and global impact overriding a
parochial concern.
Committee to
Nominate Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize
2951
Derby St., #140, Berkeley, CA
94705
info@nobelprize4pete.org
phone 510-848-6397 |
|
return to index
Sweet, Sweet Connie:
Rock 'n' Roll Groupie
Here’s
one for all you hard rocking classic rock fans.
Classic rock bands
sustain. So do the woman who love them. Consider
Sweet, Sweet Connie (Connie Hamzy),
a groupie whose name hit the mainstream back in 1973, when Grand Funk
released the title song from their album,
“We're
an American Band *
MP3
here
Performed by Don Brewer, it’s an autobiographical depiction about life
on the road. Sky-rocketing straight to number one before the
album was even released, the hit catapulted Grand Funk into such world
wide fame that they sold out arenas and toppled charts with record
sales of more than 25 million.
Since
then, that little song about a sweet girl backstage, has been performed
by countless bands, decade after decade, in venue after venue.
As
it lives on, Sweet, Sweet Connie keeps on rocking. It’s
utterly
amazing the way two little lines of lyrical poetry have seemingly
immortalized her:
Last night in Little Rock, put me in a haze / Sweet, Sweet Connie-was
doing her act / She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact. The
song rolls on...
We’re an American Band / We’re coming to your town / We’ll help you
party down. / We’re an American Band.
“I was so
surprised when I heard it for the first time,” Connie Hamzy said.
“My mother always wanted me to be a nurse, but I saw the girls
backstage in those wild clothes and I wanted to be one of
them. I
was too young then, but it didn’t keep me from trying.”
The infamous rock and roll groupie, who has done interviews with
the likes of Spin Magazine, Penthouse, VH1, Joan Rivers, Jenny Jones,
Sallie Jesse, Lisa Gibbons, MTV, Cosmopolitan and so many more, looks
like the rock star she is.
Hamzy,
infamous for her relationships with groups such as Grand Funk, Van
Halen, Bad Company, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and so many more, is
stunning.
She’s
not arrogant or ashamed of the escapades which have rightly
earned her a place among a small, elite group of rock goddess groupies
like Pamela Des Barres (Miller), Morgana Welch, and Patti Boyd, who had
highly publicized relations with George Harrison, John Lennon and The
USA's favorite frequent foreign friend Eric Clapton.
There’s also Bebe Buell, famous for her relationship with the Rolling
Stones and Steven Tyler, who wrote the book, Rebel Heart: An American
Rock n Roll Journey and let’s not forget Lori Maddox, either.
While most of these ladies settled down, Hamzy has not. “I’m
still in it. We don’t have a regular promoter around these
parts,
but there’s a lot going on in other areas.”
Although Hamzy was recently engaged, it ended quickly. “He lied,” she
says, while showing me her ring. “A friend of mine goggled him and we
found out that he wasn’t what he said he was.”
It
seems even Hamzy has to be careful these days. Still, she
didn’t consider the loss of her beau for too long--as her heart belongs
to a member of Van Halen and probably always will.
“You know, Edward spent a ton of money trying to prove cigarettes do
not cause cancer,” Hamzy, who has never smoked a cigarette, said. “He’s
mad at me at the moment and I’m hoping he gets over it soon. Our
relationship goes way back.”
Hamzy calls me up on the phone every once in a while and we chat about
these things. Interestingly enough, I even received a call
from
her the morning after the David Cook concert in Tulsa. When I
told her that I ran into him after the show, she giggled and asked….
“No,
nothing like that happened,” I say, laughing. “You should have been
here with me.”
Sadly, my rock and roll memento box is nothing compared to the
countless photos that Hamzy has hanging around her house, where there
is probably enough memorabilia to fill a museum.
Not
only does she have photos, there’s a ton of backstage passes pinned to
the wall and an impressive collection of drum sticks.
 The drum sticks were all gifts.
“My favorite is a Ludwig that I got from a female drummer,” Hamzy said.
“It’s
difficult for women in this business as they tend to get
the shaft. Everyone seems to be of the mentality that they
should
keep women barefoot and pregnant. Male drummers get all kinds
of
endorsements, but women rarely do.”
She continues, “The rock and roll industry is getting harder and
harder. Record companies have all but gone away. The internet
is
never going to be as much fun as the good old days.”
Hamzy,
who refuses to get a computer, is surprised by the information posted
about her on the web.
“One misconception is that I have a book. I had bad
management
and the book was never published,” she said. "People [on the Internet]
report a memoir in 1995 with the title Rock Groupie: The Intimate
Adventures of “Sweet Connie” from Little Rock (The title ISBN
9781561713615 was never printed.) You can't get a copy of it," Hamzy
said.
Fellow groupie Pamela Des
Barres has published some books, I'm
with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie , Let's
Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and
Supergroupies
and Take
Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up and also
Rock
Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon .
If there’s a
message that she’d like to put in print it’s one about stereotypes and
preconceived notions.
“Don’t
judge me,” she says, “It’s important to keep an open mind. A lot of
people would kill to be where I am.”
Throughout
the years, it is true that several people have tried to steal her
identity. “They usually don’t get very far,” she
said. “The
people who matter know who I am.”
Regardless
of her age, and she is quick to point out how old she is, she’s still
envied. When it comes to getting older, she states proudly,
“I’m
still doing
what I enjoy. I’ve slowed down a little, but not
much.”
Despite varying accounts on the Internet, Connie Hamzy was born in Jan.
of 1955. She receives an occassional birthday card from
Pamela
Des Barres.
She
continues, “You just have to take remarks about aging to the chin.
Sammy Hagar taught me that.”
Along
with her impressive rock and roll resume, Hamzy is also revered for a
highly publicized meeting with Bill Clinton.
In
1991, it's reported that Hamzy was approached by an Arkansas state
trooper on behalf of Bill Clinton, when he was still governor in 1984.
Hamzy
is reported to have claimed that she and Clinton looked for “a place
where they could have some privacy for an assignation, but couldn’t
find one.”
George Stephanopoulos denied her account of things on behalf of the
President. When asked further, Clinton told media that Hamzy
approached him in a hotel lobby, flipped down her bikini top, and asked
him, “What do you think of these?”
Stephanopoulos secured affidavits from three people to validate
Clinton's claims. Although various news outlets such as CNN
reported on the issue when it first hit the media, no one pursued it
further after the initial accounts.
I ask Hamzy about the buzz surrounding the Clinton affair. "Look, I met
up with Clinton in a hotel lobby. The two of us went into
something of an utility closet. We were about to do some
things
and a police officer walked in on us," she said. "I might be
a
whore, but I don't lie. I took three lie detector tests that
were
administered by a police officer and I passed each one.
There's
no way you can lie on those things."
Her
brief encounter with Clinton did lead to a 1992 tell-all article and
contract with Penthouse, worth a stunning $20,000.
Following
that, Hamzy also attempted a run for office, but never made the final
ballot.
While
attention to her political affairs were front and center for quite some
time, it's her love of rock and roll that earned her world wide
noterity.
I
ask how she ever got started in this business and she responds, "My
mother didn't like to drive in traffic."
For
that reason, Hamzy's mom would take her daughter and her friends to
concerts hours before the shows were scheduled to start. "We were just
hanging around outside one day, when a promoter approached me and my
friend and asked if we wanted to meet the band."
The
two girls, who were only in the ninth grade at the time, drove off with
the promoter in his limousine. The rest as the say, is rock and roll
history.
It’s
been nearly five decades since little Connie Hamzy was out at the lake,
listening to a radio as the announcer introduced the new Grand Funk
song that made her so famous. She remembers the way she
started
yelling and jumping up and down. “I was so happy,” she said.
Even
though the band’s producer had telephoned a few weeks before the
release to say the group had written something about her, she had no
idea at that time, what it was.
“I
fell in love with the song the instant I heard it,” Hamzy said.
|
More Groupies ...
Pamela
Ann Des Barres (Miller)
 Pamela Ann
Miller was born in Kentucky. During elementary school, her father moved
the family to southern California.Her mother was a housewife and her
father worked for Anheuser-Busch and occasionally worked as a gold
miner. She idolized The Beatles and Elvis Presley as a child, and
fantasized about meeting and dating her favorite Beatle, Paul
McCartney. Later, upon discovering the Rolling Stones, she daydreamed
of Mick Jagger, while growing up in Los Angeles in the early 1960s.
On
October 29, 1977, she married Michael Des Barres who had been lead
singer for Detective (the first band signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song
Records label), Silverhead, and, briefly, for Power Station. They have
a son, Nicholas Dean Des Barres ,who was born on September 30, 1978.
The couple divorced in the summer of 1991, due to Michael Des Barres'
alleged infidelities.
Once
in high school art class her assignment was to visualize an object that
showed both texture and color. Having fantisized about Mick Jagger's
male genitalia, it was the subject of her painting, which earned her an
"A" grade for the assignment. A high school acquaintance introduced Des
Barres to Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, a musician
and friend of Frank Zappa.
After
securing a position as the babysitter for Zappa, she at last found
herself a few years later finally finding multiple opportunities to
compare the drawing with the real object. She famously paired up as a
friend Jim Morrison, and future sexual targets Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page,
Keith Moon, Nick St. Nicholas, Noel Redding, Chris Hillman, Gram
Parsons, and actors Brandon de Wilde, Michael Richards and Don Johnson.
She
was also a member of The GTOs, an all-girl singing group formed by
Zappa. The group started out as the Laurel Canyon Ballet Company, and
began performing as an opening act for Zappa and the Mothers of
Invention. The group's act was performance art, a mix of music and
spoken word, since none of its members could sing or play an
instrument. They released an album, Permanent Damage, in 1969, backed
by Zappa and Jeff Beck. The group dissolved a month after the album's
release because some of its members were arrested for drug possession,
and the GTOs were still something of an enigma, rather than true
musicians, as she wrote in her diary.
In
the 1970s Des Barres decided to pursue a career as an actress, and
acted in a few movies, including Zappa's 200 Motels, commercials, and a
year acting on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow in 1974. She
continued to work as a nanny/babysitter for Zappa, who urged her to
continue to keep up with the ongoing diary she had begun in high
school, in which she had faithfully recorded the important details of
her life. When her acting career stalled, she continued to work for the
Zappa family as a nanny for Zappa's children, Dweezil and Moon
Unit.Thus in that sense, she still considers Frank Zappa an important
mentor in her life.
Des
Barres currently writes articles for online and print publications and
teaches in Los Angeles. Her students have become known as "Pamela's
Girls," and have achieved their own notoriety in the music industry.
She has also become an ordained minister and performs weddings. She is
a breast cancer survivor and yoga devotee.
Pamela
has a website HERE and Pamela Des
Barres has published some books, I'm
with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie , Let's
Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and
Supergroupies
and Take
Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up and also
Rock
Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon .
Morgana Welch
 Morgana Welch was born on March 24th, 1956, and
she's a writer. She was linked to John Paul Jones on 1971, when she was
around 15, and with Robert Plant a year later.
Morgana had her first contact with a rock star in an annual battle of
rock bands celebrated on the “Hollywood Palladium”, when she was a
secundary student in Beverly Hills. "It was a place where the girls
could look at rock stars, and rock stars look at the girls. That was my
begining as a groupie", she said.
Morgana Welch knew, when the Beatles hit the USA in the 1960s, exactly
where her path would lead-straight to the universe of rock and roll.
Growing up in Beverly Hills, the lure of the Sunset Strip and denizen
musicians was only blocks away.
Morgana was the leader of a group of groupies called "LA Queens", she
was typical of the very young groupies who cruised the Sunset Strip in
the early '70s and made the Rainbow Bar and Grill and the Continental
Hyatt House (a.k.a. the "Riot House") their second homes. Though only
sixteen, she was soon cavorting with Led Zeppelin, "There was a power
in being able to provide fulfillment of fantasies of these men [who]
were older than me."
Nowadays
Morgana
Welch lives in Arizona and wrote a book about her experiences,
entittled "Hollywood
Diaries ", the true,
intimate,
and sometimes
disturbing diaries of Morgana Welch. The diaries begin in 1971 and mark
the beginning of a young girl's search for reality and sense of self in
a section of society that was anything but normal.
|
Hippies
young and old have groovy time at Greynolds Park Love-In
Long-haired
hippies, hula-hoop dancers, ball jugglers and rock-'n'-roll music --
this was the scene last weekend at the Greynolds Park Love-In.
The
annual festival harkened back to the time when the Northeast Miami-Dade
park was a counter-culture hangout.
Douglas
Dixon, from Pembroke Pines, watches the show from atop the hill at
Greynolds Park during their Sixth Annual Love-In. Attendees enjoyed
live music, food, games, and contests in a 1960s atmosphere. |
It
was Hippieville, USA -- nothing but Frisbees all over the place, said
David Hurd, 53, who said he would come to Greynolds to not only throw
Frisbees, but ``be one with nature.
Hurd hasn't missed a Greynolds Park Love-In since its inception six
years ago. The event is a nod to the love-ins held in the park to
protest the Vietnam War.
Hippies would have impromptu concerts and protest the war here, said
Edith Torres, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation
Department. We decided to have a concert and relive that.
Since so many people turned out for the first event in 2004, Torres
said the county decided to keep it an annual event.
The May 17 Love-In included 1960s costume contests and vintage-car
exhibits.
We just kind of relive some of the history the park lived, because the
park actually lived it on its own, Torres said.
County Commissioner Sally Heyman, who represents the area including
Greynolds Park, said the event brings back memories of her teenage
years -- when she used to jam in the park and play music, too.
This was something different that defined this area in the '60s and
'70s, Heyman said.
It was an expression of music and camaraderie and it was time to bring
it back.
Like Heyman, many people who attended the event had been coming to the
park since they were teenagers.
Stacy Kolod, 47, considered herself to be a hippie when she started
coming to the park in 1975.
In North Miami when I was growing up this was the main place to come
for us, said Kolod, who came with her husband, Dennis Kolod, 57.
He, too, used come to Greynolds in its heyday.
The main attraction for the Love-In was the music. There were five
bands that covered classic rock songs, with Mitch Ryder and The Detroit
Wheels headlining.
Frontman Mitch Ryder said the festival attracted all generations, not
just the people who lived during the '60s revolution.
It's basically a bunch of older people that are nostalgic for a certain
period in history, and there is another big bunch of younger people
that are curious about what all the nostalgia is about, Ryder said.
Exposing a new generation to the music of their parents is a good
thing, he said.
Music gets passed down and young people get a chance to be informed
about it as an alternative to what they're being offered in their
generation, Ryder said. It's also good for the people that miss it to
reconnect to it because it has a special meaning in their lives.
Asked if he himself had been a hippie, Ryder would not comment, saying
only: I grew my hair down to the middle of my back.
source MiamiHerald.com
And...Speaking
of Mitch Ryder
Rick McGrath : In my June 17,
1970, music column in the Georgia Straight, I noted:
"Mitch
Ryder and his Detroit buddies were in town last Monday night. Mitch had
just finished a gig in Kelowna and was staying at the Holiday Inn
before departing to Oregon. He's looking great, and his new band,
tentatively called Detroit, seems to get it on together. There's a slim
chance that Mitch will make it for the second day of The Party [a
benefit to create a park in downtown Vancouver], but nothing definite.
Apparently his act is one which must be seen to be believed. Anyways,
he's an articulate, concerned brother and we hope to get a conversation
on tape for publication."
This
interview begins with the original published introduction...
A
short time ago our town was visited by Detroit, a high-energy rock 'n'
roll band featuring Mitch Ryder, late of the Detroit Wheels. As you
read this, the group will be on their way back to do their first album
together at RCA Studios in Chicago. If the music and spirit they
displayed here are any indication, it should be a great record. This
tape was made one afternoon at the Holiday Inn in a smoky room on the
6th floor...
Mitch Ryder: There's
some more here.
Rick McGrath: What
do you wanna buy some more for?
Mitch Ryder: Oh,
people have been laying it on us. We really smoke a lot. We've been
here four days and we haven't had to worry about it at all.
Rick: Yeah, Mitch
was saying that they almost got kicked outta here... five cops showed
up.
Mitch: Oh, it was
just ridiculous. Worst that you can imagine, man. Here's some people
going down the hall with their little kid and shit, just checking in
early in the morning, looking forward to some sleep, and some fucking
long-haired, red-headed motherfucker was walking down the hall with his
prick hanging out... walks by and says "Hi", like nothing was going on,
right? And 10 minutes later some chick's running down the end of the
hall -- she's being raped by two guys -- and they forcibly drag her
back in. There's all kinds of screams and noise, pot odours flooding
the hall, you know, musical instruments playing, naked chicks out there
(points to the balcony), one of the guys shit, pit it in a bag and
threw it out into the street. The Bible's been tossed out already...
every sacreligious move that could be made has been made. And the
topper was last night. We were hungry, man, so Harry went down and made
me a sandwich, and he picked himself a breakfast in the kitchen after
it was closed. Went down the back way and cased it out.. figured out
how... you almost didn't get caught, didja?
Harry Phillips:
Yeah, but when I was trucking I was getting a blueberry pie outta the
... you know, where the counters and shit are, and the, you know, the
dude that walks around with the clock and shit?
Rick: The watchman...
Harry: Yeah, he
come truckin up there, man, and we seen him and we split. It was pretty
crazy. He got all uptight over four chicken salad sandwiches to be
exact, and a couple of eggs, piece of toast...
Mitch: I don't think
it weas a matter of not being able to pay. There was just no food. He
didn't understand.
Al Sorenson: It
said it the paper today that only 300 people have seen you in the last
three days...
Mitch: Yeah, but
last night was a pretty choice crowd, so that kind of made up for it.
Transient assholes. "Hi, man, what do you do... Oh, I'm with the...
eh... Melancholy Float Fuck, you know, we're from Cuba"... or
something. You know these people in off the boat. I got some honey,
though, man.
Al: It also said
that your manager expects to lose something like $10,000...
Mitch: It's
possible, yeah. That would be the best in a long time.
Al: What's he
losing it on? The hall or the band?
Mitch: Both.
Rick: It wasn't
advertised worth a shit.
Mitch: All I can
see is the potential of that fucking place, as far as it becoming a
ballroom, you know? Do you have to be only 19 to drink there?
Rick: Yeah.
Mitch: Wow. That
place would go nuts, man.
Al: You're going to
be recording an album soon.
Mitch: In Chicago,
at RCA.
Al: What sort of
material are you going to be doing?
Mitch: A lot of
it's original. We've been working on the album here... but... we've
worked up three tunes so far and they're all original. And then there's
the fourth one, that Lou Reed song, Rock N' Roll.
Al: He said he's
written a new one called Nobody Loves You When You're Old & Gay.
Mitch: Old and
gay... just wondering how long it would take for that song to get out
of the mind. I'm sure it's contemplated many times.
Al: Did you ever
meet him?
Mitch: Yeah, and he
was very thrilled about me doing the song.
Al: I've read he's
living at home with his parents.
Mitch: I don't know
about that, but I know he's not working with the Velvet Underground and
they're doing a tour.
Al: Tell us about
your recording of CC Rider and Little Latin Lupe Lu.
Mitch: Well, cutting
them was 1965, but the first hit was like in 1966, 1967 and early 1968.
But after that we broke the chain and were no more.
Al: Did you put out
any other records?
Mitch: All kinds of
records, all the time. My own producer just managed this
"right-together-some-more-bullshit-junk" out of this big catalogue and
put out another album. That's like "the greatest of what we almost
threw away, but kept just in case we needed it".
Rick: Oh, shit...
Al: Little Latin
Lupe Lu was live, wasn't it?
Mitch: Well, Jenny,
Take a Ride was live, as live as it could be. Sang and played at the
same time, recorded it in stereo and mixed it on a two-track. Little
Latin Lupe Lu was... well, there were people there... they were live
because of the energy that went into them at the time. Whoever was in
the studio was always included and like that. They had a unique sound,
yeah, and I think the band is responsible for that.
Al: Is your new band
in the same space?
Mitch: No, they're
not. But they carry the same spirit.
Al: Who wrote them?
Mitch: The songs?
Mostly Johnny (the drummer) and me.
Al: What about the
album you recorded for Stax?
Mitch: It was
interesting. I'll always like it and I'll always appreciate having done
it. And I'll always wish it could be done again under better
circumstances some day. I don't get to pick my producer -- they assign
one to me. That's the only one I found acceptable. They had all kings
of weird people... they wanted Jeff Berry to do me, and Steed, you
know? I was down there basically because I had faith in Booker T, not
because I was there to make an album or because I was supposed to make
an album, and I should have treated it like that.
Al: How did the
album do?
Mitch: It didn't do
well for a number of reasons. I thought it wasn't mixed properly, and I
thought Steve Cropper and myself didn't take the time for the album
that we should have taken. Every time I listen to it I'd find out what
was wrong with it in my mind. You see, we sat down with all their
writers and that's the way we would do the songs. They were written at
the moment, most of them. The whole thing was just incredible and I got
to see The Stax, you know, Machine. We visualized the album as being
like... I wanted it to come off more like an Otis Redding kind of
thing, you know, with those tunes, and they wanted it to come off...
God knows how, because they had respect for me as a musician, as an
artist, so they were willing to work with me. It's just... the album
itself is just out there somewhere. I don't think you can really tell
what went wrong with it... can't describe it. I've tried and it doesn't
mean anything. I'll always treasure it, OK?
Al: OK. So, how are
things in Detroit?
Mitch: Pretty
funky, probably. We sure wish we were back there. This is the longest
we've been out in a long time, or will be.
Rick: How long is
that?
Mitch: Another month.
Al: Your manager
has to put up with your wives.
Mitch: With our
wives? Oh yeah. I guess in his mind its not even putting up. It's just,
you know, allowing it to happen and try not to get too involved.
W.R. Cooke: Fuck! I
wish he would tell me where mine was.
Mitch: I think
there's a message for you to call her at my place.
WR: Oh yeah?
Mitch: Yeah.
Steve Hunter: Hey,
you got a smoke, Billy?
Mitch: Yeah. I don't
have any american cigarettes. Are you burning hash on my american
cigarettes?
Rick: You can buy
Kool filters in Vancouver.
(Toke, toke)
Harry: Get in there!
(cough,
cough)
Mitch: Maybe we
should get Bee's pipe, man.
WR: Oh, fuck... I
dropped that piece.
Al: Is this a
switchblade?
WR: No.
Al: Chopsticks?
Portable chopsticks?
WR: No, it's a
knife. Here, I'll show you. (Click, click) Here, I'm a little high... I
can't do it right now.
Al: Wow, just what I
need. A blade.
WR: I'll tell you
why, man... I had a guy pull a fucking straight razor on me and my old
lady once...
Mitch: Would you
hand me that jacket right there? Billy, you just dropped the hash,
right?
Al: He dropped
everything.
Rick: Most groups
that come to Vancouver usually... well, remark how much of a good time
they had.
Mitch: It's got a
nice image, you know. Like even in the States no matter where we go
they say when we're going to Vancouver, "Oh man, it's so beautiful up
there".
Bret Tuggle: People
here are really strange. Only because they seem a little bit more
inward than outward... even the freaks. Maybe that's just the way
things are here. Kinda quiet and like... but when they get down to some
music... they're not cold or anything. Maybe just suspicious. Maybe
it's because we're Americans or maybe it's our group image. Like, I've
gotten harassed least of all here than anywheres else, man. Like you
can go down any major city, well, especially a small city, but like a
major city where most of the people have already been through this
trip. It seems that they would get used to it... that there's freaks in
the world, man, and that they're gonna be there and that they got their
own culture... they're gonna be there for a long time, and that they're
gonna build it into a lasting culture... so like when you walk down the
street there's still people freaking out... "Oh, look at that
longhair...ugh... animal".
Mitch: They're
probably thinking about their own children.
WR: Yeah, they
probably are. Probably paranoid.
Al: What about John
Sinclair. You know him?
Mitch: I met John. I
know his family more than I know him.
Al: Skip Taube?
Mitch: Yeah, I know
Skip and I know Pun (Plamondon, fugitive) and I know Pun's old lady,
Jean.
Al: He's the guy
that took off...
Mitch: All of them
took off. Skip's in jail now...
WR: You guys from
the city?
Rick: Yeah... we're
from the Georgia Straight.
WR: Oh, right. How
long has that paper been in effect?
Rick: Three years
now.
WR: It's really doin
good from what I've heard. Got a couple of issues a week.
Rick: Yeah, right.
WR: Fuck, that's
bomber, man... couldn't ask for... that's killer, man... ain't no
magazines in the world...
Mitch: What's this
fixation you have with John Sinclair?
Al: I met him once
in Seattle, and I saw MC5 play...
Mitch: Had you
corresponded with him?
(Fuzz Wuzz)
Rick: Jesus, this is
not going to be picking up at all...
Harry: Shoot away.
Whatever you wanna know, man, about Billy or what... I'll tell you
about him.
Mitch: You don't
need to spill no beans like that. Let's find out if these guys are
commie perverts first.
Al: We did a
benefit for John Sinclair.
Mitch: Oh, you did.
We've done four or five.
The
published interview ends here, but I remember we babbled on for some
time... I finally got bored and went home, leaving Al to fend for
himself.
|
The Georgia
Straight is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper
published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the Vancouver Free Press
Publishing Corp.
The name Georgia Straight is a pun, as Vancouver adjoins the Georgia
Strait, as the "Strait of Georgia" was called on some maps until the
mapmakers decided to avoid association with the newspaper. The joke is
that "straight" referred to people who were not hip.
The paper was founded as an anti-establishment alternative underground
newspaper in May 1967 by Pierre Coupey, Milton Acorn, Dan McLeod, Stan
Persky, and others, and originally it operated as a collective. The
paper was raided and fined by the Vancouver Police for publishing
obscenities, and was often banned from distribution for its criticism
of the local police and politicians, especially Mayor Tom Campbell.
Those controversies ended in the 1970s, as the paper moved to become a
more conventional news and entertainment weekly
The Straight carries feature articles, ranging from social topics, such
as drug use, to in-depth looks at cultural newsmakers like the writer
Salman Rushdie. Writer Charlie Smith has a record of covering women's
movement issues as well. There are also many advertiser-related
articles and listings on lifestyle and entertainment,commenting on
restaurants, new wines, new gadgets, designer clothes, and the latest
in music, theatre and movies. Rounding out the regular features are the
well known American advice columnist Dan Savage with his Savage Love,
cartoons, and a local astrology column.
Special editions of The Straight include: The Best of Vancouver is a
well known feature with whimsical notions of the best place for outdoor
sex mixed in with more conventional awards such as Best Dining, Best
Bar & Club and Best Radio Station.
The Straight has been criticised for publishing cigarette and other
tobacco advertising when most publications in Canada have declined to
do so for moral and ethical reasons. And of promoting local events that
had tobacco industry sponsorship, such as the formerly Benson and
Hedges-sponsored Symphony of Fire. The Straight has long been condemned
for this practice by the major health groups and, more recently, by
Vancouver businessman and political candidate Dale Jackaman in a series
of Google attack ads.
sources : Wikipedia,
Bohemian
rhapsody
Hippie
fashion makes a comeback
In
Mexico the style of sandals that became popular were called huaraches.
These Mexican Sandals were based on traditional footwear designs of the
original Native Americans who lived throughout Latin America. With the
invention of the automobile, resourceful Mexicans clad traditional
sandal designs on readily available recycled tires. The classic tire
tread sandal became the norm with the start of surf culture on the West
coast of the United States. The Beach Boys sang about huarache sandals
and baggy shorts. In the sixties, Mexican sandals became synonymous
with hippie culture as many of the baby boomers started to wear the
iconic footwear. Today, huaraches are found across America and are part
of the popular culture. You can find them at the local swapmeet or
fleemarket, the large retailer or catalog shop, and even sneakers as
Nike has come out with a stellar line of Nike Air Huaraches shoes.
If you're a baby boomer with any counterculture history, you'll recall
that huaraches were the ugliest and most uncomfortable shoe back in the
day, at least until you broke them in, which you did by wearing them in
water and then letting them dry to fit your feet. They were cheap,
though, and lasted forever, and were as close as a hippie ever came to
a loafer.
Fast forward to 2009, and the new-age version of the traditional
Mexican peasant sandal, originally made with woven leather strapping on
a sole of recycled tires, are now on tap at shoe stores in an elegant
colourful incarnation called Spalla, the tires replaced by a lighter
rubber sole and the basic brown by shades of purple, mustard and silver.
|
|
return to index
|
,
Directed by Sean Penn 
that's due
out June 9
as well as a six-CD Woodstock boxed set that's being released August 18.
REDNECKS
exit
to RedneckEnuff.com
♫ 
